To Be A Priest: To Be Placed With The Son

May 2005

When I was about to begin the retreat prior to my priestly ordination, I had a feeling that it was going to be a different retreat. I was just less than 60 days away from the moment when Bishop Claver would lay his hand on my head and anoint my palms with the sacred chrism, making me a priest forever. Each day I came closer to my ordination, my desire for the priesthood burnt ever more ardently, as I felt myself drawn more and more closely to a mystery much bigger and greater than myself. And I thought that this retreat will prepare me for what Thomas Merton called “the perfect meeting with God’s inscrutable will.”

I started the retreat praying, although without much feeling at the moment, Ignatius’ prayer to Our Lady, “Place me with your Son.” This, according to Fr. Arevalo, our professor in Holy Orders course and veteran director of pre-ordination retreats, is the priestly prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola. He says that it is, and must be the prayer of every ordinand, for to be a priest is to be placed with the Son. When I did the contemplations which were to be concluded with the triple colloquys: to Our Lady, to Christ and to the Father, I started to mean what I was saying. But it was not until I prayed over the Baptism of Jesus that I understood what I was asking for.

In the Baptism of Jesus, of course, as the Spirit hovered over Jesus in the form of a dove, a voice from the heavens was heard declaring, “This is my Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Jesus asked to be baptized in obedience to the Father’s will and in solidarity with sinners. When Jesus approached to receive John’s baptism of repentance, the latter protested saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?" Jesus said to him in reply, "Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness" (Mt. 3:14-15). Thus is He proclaimed by the Father as His beloved Son and given the fullness of the Spirit. In His obedience and solidarity, Jesus is claimed by the Father as His Son, the Son of God. Similarly, in Marks’s gospel, Jesus is fully revealed as the Son of God in the statement by the Roman centurion as He hung dead on the cross - in obedience to the Father’s will and in solidarity with sinners.

If, for the New Testament, Christ is the one and only priest, then His priesthood consists in these two elements: obedience to the Father’s will and solidarity with sinners (Heb. 4:14-15; 5:8). His obedience to the Father is the manifestation of His total union with the Him. Thus He says, “I came not seeking my own will but the will of Him who sent me.” And it is because He is in total union with the Father that He is in full solidarity with sinners. If a priest is to be configured to Christ by his ordination, then he must grow in this intimate union with the Father and in solidarity with humanity. If priesthood is to be placed with the Son, it is to be placed with the Son who is totally united to the Father and fully united with each human being.

This was how my pre-ordination retreat prepared me to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders. It gave me a clearer understanding of a priestly prayer that I often mumbled without fully realizing what I was begging the Lord for. It also deepened my desire to cultivate a more intimate relationship with God, the source of my identity as a priest placed with the Son, and a desire to develop a more personal relationship with the people I am tasked to minister to. I bring to my priesthood a deep conviction that these two elements are the essentials of a priesthood that reflects the ministry of Jesus, the Son, the Good Shepherd.

It has been three months now since my ordination, I have presided over eighty Eucharistic celebrations, baptized more a hundred of babies, heard many confessions and anointed a couple of sick people, and officiated in four weddings. However, I could not claim that I have become totally united to God and have attained full solidarity with humanity after a couple of months as priest. But this much I can say: that the opportunity, or perhaps more precisely, the privilege, of being able to mediate the Lord’s forgiving and healing love, and to gather His people around the table of His nourishing real presence, increases my desire to be that worthy channel of His grace to His people.

I still find myself struggling with the same temptations besetting me prior to my ordination. The attraction to capitulate to these temptations remain just as strong. It is as if the evil spirit has doubled its efforts to win me over and that he has devised more devious and subtle strategies to cause me to fall into the trap. Perhaps it makes sense to think that while the Lord Jesus was hanging on the cross, the temptation to give up and give in to easy way out of the cross was even stonger, more than ever. Yet precisely because He chose to submit to the unfathomable will of the Father that He overcame the temptation. Thus was He acknowledged as the Son of God.

Similarly, I suppose, in a priest’s life, when he finds himself torn between the appetites of his lower nature and the desires of his higher calling, and he chooses to obey as Jesus did, then the priests experiences real union with Christ and is acknowledged also as a son of God. But I believe, too, that even if a priest fails and falls, the Father will still accept him as his son, for the Father is the merciful father in the Luke’s parable of the father and his two sons. Let this experience of his sinfulness even in his priesthood be an entry point to a deeper solidarity with his fellow human beings, fellow sinners. Hence, it is with sincere humility and gratitude that I pronounce the following words from the Eucharistic prayer: “We thank you for counting us worthy to stand in your presence and serve you.”

Let me not forget to say that Ignatius’ prayer was made not to the Father, but to the Blessed Mother. Of course, it is the Father who ultimately granted Ignatius’s prayer as in that landmark vision in the small chapel of La Storta on his way to Rome. But it was through the intercession of the Blessed Mother that his desire was fulfilled. I have heard many times over that the Blessed Mother plays a significant role in the lives of priests, especially in the months before ordination. But I did not appreciate this claim until I myself experienced it in my pre-ordination retreat and yes, even until now, already a couple of months into my priesthood.

Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, for making me your priest. Thank you, Blessed Mother, for placing me with your Son.