No longer I who live

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

Today is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord but it also happens to be the anniversary of my sacerdotal ordination. Now, the anniversary of our ordination is usually a pretty big thing for us priests, even bigger than our birthdays. For this reason, the Missal allows us to celebrate a special liturgy for the occasion. But given that this feast is a big thing for the Church, I’ve always had to swallow my pride and take a back seat. It’s the festival of lights and the spotlight should be on Christ, the Light of the World.

But this year, I’ve decided to speak about the priestly and religious life. It would be absolutely self-serving if I chose this theme purely on the basis that it has to do with me. Since 1997, this feast has also been celebrated as the World Day for Consecrated Life, as Saint John Paul II explained when he instituted it: "The Virgin Mother who carries Jesus to the temple so that he can be offered to the Father expresses very well the figure of the Church who continues to offer her sons and daughters to the heavenly Father, associating them with the one oblation of Christ, cause and model of all consecration in the Church.”

During a brain-storming session last year with some of the leaders of this parish, one of the items we wished to highlight for this year, being a special Jubilee year for our parish, is the promotion of vocations to the priesthood and the religious life. In our centennial long existence, we have only produced one priest! If that is not a travesty, it should be a tragedy. Perhaps, the lack of vocations to the priesthood and religious life in this parish may have to do with the ability to sacrifice, or the lack of it, to consecrate to God what belongs to Him.

The link between family life and consecrated life is essential. For it is in the family that young people have their first experience of Gospel values and of the love which gives itself to God and to others, which is at the heart of the act of consecration. It is the family, that children should learn the value of service, of sacrifice, of giving our best to God instead of just keeping the best for ourselves and leaving the scraps for God.

The spirit of sacrifice, of giving, of rendering to God our best and our most treasured possession is what we witness in the gospel. St Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary undertook their sacred duty to present their child Jesus to God in an act of consecration. But here is the paradox of this scene. Our Lord has no need of consecration, because He is the Divine Word in the flesh, and yet allows His earthly parents to make this act of consecration to His Heavenly Father. They perform in external ritual what Jesus already is in reality, the Only Begotten Son of God. And our Lord Jesus then consecrates His earthly parents and the whole world to His Heavenly Father by mystically uniting them with His life, death and resurrection. They are saints because of Him.

The heart of the scene is certainly the Lord Himself. All attention, affection, expectation, and wonder are focused on the Light of the World. But the ones who surround Him all have in common a total gift of self. They have given everything to be there, both their past and future. St Joseph gave up his expectations for a normal married life. Mary gave up her autonomy to assume the great responsibility of bearing the Saviour of the World. Both Simeon and Anna gave up their youth in long years of waiting for the Messiah. Our Lady and St Joseph, Simeon and Anna, show us that Jesus is the One worth living for, the One worth all of our love, the only One whose claim on our hearts can bring to fulfillment the Love that has been promised us when He first invited us to “Follow Him”.

In each of these figures, we see a call to imitate Jesus, the Light of the World, who gave Himself wholly to do the Father’s will and in accordance to the Father’s will, gave up His life in atonement for our sins and to reconcile the world to the Father. In each of them, we come face-to-face with a vocation that demands all the human heart can give. Not only are we called to give each passing moment to God, but also to accept in advance whatever His will might bring in the future, whether it be a great blessing or sword.

Twenty two years ago, I was presented to the Church for ordination as a priest. In the theological language of the Church, I was configured to Christ. Something changed, a profound and radical change which is invisible to the eye. Sure, my quirks are still there. Sure, I get occasionally testy and snappy and impatient with those around me. Sure, I get tired and frustrated. But something objectively changed. It was more than a change of title or job, or a costume change, with me exchanging my lay civilian clothes for a religious uniform, but this fundamental change which I underwent is what we call an ontological change, a change of my entire being. As St Paul beautifully explains the experience of such change in Gal 2:20, “It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me.”

As we priests experience an ontological change at our ordination, baptism also brings about an ontological change in each of the faithful. In baptism, we are made children of God, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people set apart for the worship of God. In baptism, we become a new creation. The old has been put to death on the cross. In Holy Orders, the priest is configured to Christ at his ordination, in a way calling for a permanent and lasting commitment, through a share in Christ’s eternal priesthood. The priest does not just emulate Christ. He is not just a substitute or a stand-in for Christ. Through ordination, the priest becomes Christ. That is the audacity of God. He takes an ordinary man with all his limitations and even sinfulness, and changes him into something else, not just a mere representative or ambassador, but to stand in the person of Christ Himself - in persona Christi.

Yes, the holy priesthood is a grace to the Church and to the world, but it is also a work of grace. What a priest is and what he accomplishes come from divine grace. In an era of personality cults, this is a humbling realisation for any priest, a realisation that leads to St Paul’s conclusion: “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13). The efficacy of our priesthood is derived from its true source, Christ. In order that a priest remains faithful to his priestly ministry, it is so essential that he remains in the Perfect High Priest Himself. Now, does this mean that you would see a “Fr Michael” incapable of making mistakes? Ordination isn’t Canonisation! Priests like everyone else remain sinners. But just like everyone else, he is called to holiness and through the sacrament of holy orders, he is called to configure himself to Christ. The weakness and sinfulness of a priest does not take away the efficacy of God’s grace but rather accentuates the truth that all is graced and that nothing can be accomplished without the grace and power of God.

So, my dear friends, on this great Festival of Light, even as the spotlight is centered on Christ, who as Simeon prophecies is “a light to enlighten the pagans and the glory of your people Israel,” spare a prayer for me, His humble servant. The Light of Christ illuminates those around Him, even if sometimes we choose to remain in semi-darkness. Pray for me … not for good health, or good wealth, not for greater wisdom or more pizzaz in my delivery. Pray only that I remain faithful to Christ whom I have been consecrated to. Pray as St Paul did, that “It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me.” And that is the only thing which matters!