Silver Jubilee of Ordination
As for so many boys, my own childhood image of the priest was of the
one who elevated the consecrated host.
I used to lock myself in the kitchen and dress
myself in my mother’s best tablecloths as a chasuble. I cut out a circle of bread from our Scottish “plain loaf”
– that was the host. I found some kind of strawberry ade as the “wine.” That was how I “celebrated”
my childhood “masses”!
But that childhood intuition contains a great
truth.
The ordained priesthood was born from the Heart
of Jesus at the same moment as the Eucharist: “Do this in memory of me.”
Priesthood is the “do”; Eucharist
is the “this”; and both find their meaning as being “in memory of Jesus.”
Priesthood and Eucharist are twins.
The priest is like a living monstrance. The purpose
of his life is to confect, to show forth and to feed the Eucharist to those happy ones called to its table.
All that a priest learns by way of skill or knowledge,
all that he does by way of leading and teaching, has genuine priestly meaning only to the degree that it proceeds from and
leads to the Eucharist, that it is done in memory of Jesus.
For, in the end, the Eucharist alone contains
the sum total of all truth to be taught, of all authority to lead, of all holiness to sanctify.
Plans, programs, commissions and committees can
only be effective to the degree they have the Eucharist as their source, mainstay and goal.
And why is that?
Surely, it is simply because the Eucharist is
Christ. Not a symbol of Christ, not a memento, not a social activity of Christians, not a tool of togetherness, not entertainment,
however sacred, not an exercise in feelings; no, none of these, but only the living memory of the living Christ, the glorified
Lord of creation, of salvation, of life and of death, of eternal love and communion.
To the Eucharist thus understood, the priest is
conformed in the very structure of his soul.
He is an alter
Christus so that he may be an altera Eucharistia.
Eucharist is the fundamental way of being of the priest, before it is something he does.
For the priest, the Liturgy is not only a rite
which symbolically encapsulates the life, death and resurrection of the Lord.
The re-enactment, the re-presentation of the mighty
deeds of the Savior is not one more administrative act of the priest. It is the very
core of who he is; in it he sees objectively and vividly the meaning of his own person, his own heart and soul, his life
and ministry.
If people seek out the priest for advice and solace,
if they sense something special in his presence, if they look to him for inspiration and leadership, it is ultimately because
they believe that the power of Christ the Priest, the power of Christ the Eucharist dwells within and shapes the contours
of his being.
They intuit that twin-identity in him of priesthood
and Eucharist, and they long to receive from him that same love, that same forgiveness and that same self-surrender which
brought Jesus to give birth to both on the night before he died.
In the last 25 years, the Lord has given me many
things to do in many different places of this beautiful world.
He has shown me the splendor of his church on
the ebbing and flowing of many shores, not so much in buildings or organization, but on the anointed faces of the baptized
beaming with the light and joy of his love, or darkened by the ravages of sin, suffering and weakness.
As many of my brother priests here today, I am
sure, I have said Mass on street-corners, in wooden shacks, in humble homes and in great cathedrals.
I have had the grace to minister to people of
every rank imaginable, and of none.
I have had a few close encounters with death at
the hands of obscure forces.
I have had my share of honors and humiliations,
of rewards and abuse, of joys and sufferings, physical and spiritual.
But when I ask myself honestly what it has all
meant, I cannot avoid concluding that Christ has taken seriously my yes to priesthood.
My earnest hope is that he has done so because
that yes I gave twenty-five years ago surrendered to his Heart the deepest truth of my being.
The devil sometimes has a way of trying to convince
you that you “did not really mean it” when you said yes. “You were too young, too immature,” he likes
to suggest.
In hindsight, that was probably true. But the
value of a yes to such a commitment lies precisely in sustaining it when the unknown future turns out to be tough.
I thought I knew everything when I was ordained;
once I got over my later amazement that there was in fact an unknown, my choice had to be either to reaffirm my yes or to
deny the unknown by opting out.
Despite my immaturity and ignorance, that original
yes time and again found a new depth, a new transcendence, a new life-giving power.
I felt the Lord fan each time a little more into
a flame the gift of ordination.
The variety of experiences, the alternations of
light and darkness, suffering and joy, success and failure were nothing other than his providential hand refining, reshaping
and relaunching me ever more deeply into priesthood, into Eucharist, into himself.
At this “silver junction”, I think,
perhaps, I have at last caught fire.
But I will quickly add that I know I have sinned
more than I care to remember. To my great shame, pain and sorrow, I have spurned the covenant, wasted grace and wasted hearts,
not least my own.
But, despite its self-important claims, not sin,
but the merciful Heart of the Redeemer has prevailed.
The Potter is far from finished in shaping this
particular clay-pot.
The Hound of Heaven is close on my heels; and
one of these days, whether from good sense or the sheer lack of breath, I will stop running.
I have a habit of only letting him love me when
I give him permission; my megalomania has yet to surrender to the reality of his all-powerful love.
And something deep inside me tells me with inexorable
insistence that I will eventually capitulate and let him consume me.
Like a psychotic version of the beloved in the
Song of Songs, I run searching for the one my soul loves when, all the time, he is within me, “peering in through the
lattice” of my soul.
Life can be seen as the process of converting
from having what you want to wanting what you have, what you have been given.
From the prayerful simplicity of my mother, to
the stubborn fidelity of my father,
from the graces of the altar-boy to those of the
papal diplomat,
from the astounding gift of baptism to the ineffable
consecration of ordination,
from the kindly encouragement of the elderly parishioner
to the providential discernment of the spiritual director,
from the heart-breaking desolation of anxiety
to the heart-inflaming consolation of the Spirit’s touch:
all of these graces, without number and, it seems,
without end, have fired and forged the treasure of my soul. And not one of them is the result of anything I have done or merited.
All of it, except my sin, has been grace upon
grace upon grace. And all of it has been in view of one thing only: of bringing to you, the people beloved by Christ, the inestimable treasure of the Holy Eucharist.
I have no other purpose in life, nor do I want
any.
What I do want, is so to be configured to Christ
the priest, that in seeing me you will see the Eucharist, you will remember the One who said, “Do this in memory of
me”: I will be a living, walking memory of the Last Supper.
Twenty-five years have taught me that the priesthood
does not belong to me, but I to it.
Priesthood is not about being worthy, but about
surrendering to the Lamb who alone is worthy.
The only reason I have managed, however haltingly,
to be faithful is because Christ’s fidelity is stronger than my infidelity.
Even if I wanted to, I could not destroy what
He has done in me, because He never revokes his gifts or his choices.
Not that I presume, for I know that I am capable
of great evil: rather, I beg and beseech him to take that capability and transform it for his greater glory.
I know I can never belong to anyone else.
I know he has won; he has conquered me.
I know I can only be at peace serving him and
letting him serve you through me.
I know my very flesh belongs to Jesus the Priest,
my mind and my will are branded “property of the Great High Priest.”
He who called me, and he alone, has done this.
Pray for me that I will let him sanctify and consume
me as his Heart desires.
ACT OF RENEWAL
OF PRIESTLY COMMITMENT
Lord Jesus Christ, High Priest of the new and everlasting
Covenant, by your own power and for your own kind purposes, you have called this sinful servant to share in the grace of holy
orders.
I give you praise and glory on this day that you
have kept me faithful for these twenty-five years.
I extol you for all the good that you have done
for souls through my humble ministry.
I beg your mercy to make good the ill my lack
of fidelity has caused.
I renew before your holy altar and in the presence
of your holy people my heartfelt commitment to serve you unfailingly in all the duties of the presbyteral order according
to the Latin Rite of Holy Church.
I can do all things in your strength which comforts
me.
Grant me to pour out my life and energies until
my dying breath for the greater glory of your most Holy Name and for the salvation of your people.
Send the Paraclete to make good what I resolve
this day; and send the Mother of Fairest Love to protect me with her unfailing guidance and intercession.
May SS. Peter, Ambrose, Augustine and Teresa of
Avila, my celestial friends, help me always with their prayers. Amen.
Msgr. Peter Magee
Trinity Sunday, June 11th,
2006
Annunciation Parish, Washington
DC
