Transcript

We'll continue with the series of the sermons on the sacraments, and today we will be reviewing the Sacrament of Holy Orders, so we'll do a review from last time.

Sanctifying grace is the single most important thing in this life because it is absolutely necessary for our salvation.

Without sanctifying grace, we cannot live a supernatural life here on Earth, and if we die without it, we cannot get into heaven.

The seven sacraments are the channels that God has chosen to pour sanctifying grace into our souls and to give us the supernatural power to get to heaven.

St. Victor writes that, In the days of Hunericus, the emperor who persecuted the Church, the faithful of co- of Carthage were among those who s- suffered most at his hands.

The clergy especially were the object of his relentless hatred.

He forced all of them, who numbered of about 500, to be scourged, beaten with rods, and finally banished to exile.

On their way to the place of banishment, the people of the city accompanied their bishops and their priests with lighted candles in their hands in testimony and admiration of them.

The women especially were loud in their lamentations.

With their little children in their arms and at their side, they followed their pastors, and in the midst of their tears and sobs, they cried out, 'Who will take care of us now when you leave us to receive the crown of martyrdom?

Who will now baptize our children?

Who will now deliver us from our sins?

Who will now assist us at the hour of death and bless our last resting place?

And who will now offer up for us the divine sacrifice and distribute to us the bread of life?

Oh, would to God that we could accompany you to exile and to death.' The priest is the instrument that God has chosen to bring sanctifying grace into the world and into our souls so that we can have that supernatural power to get into heaven.

The people of Carthage understood this perfectly, and that is why they cried out, Who will take care of us now?

They saw the absolute necessity of sanctifying grace for salvation, and they knew that they were about to lose the instruments that God had chosen to bring them to salvation.

Our Lord is the perfect mediator between God and man who would offer the perfect sacrifice to free us from hell and to open u- up the gates of heaven for us.

We have no other way to get to heaven but through sanctifying grace, and our Lord brought that into the world by his death on the cross.

The Son of God became man and died on the cross as the Redeemer to do three things.

The first, to satisfy His Father's justice.

The second, to merit all the graces necessary for us for salvation.

And the third, to create an institution which, by drawing on the treasury of these graces, would communicate these graces to us to lead us to eternal life.

This institution is the sacred priesthood.

As you remember, Christ instituted every sacrament.

Our Lord instituted the sacred priesthood through the Sacrament of Holy Orders at the Last Supper.

You see, our Lord had to continue His divine work here on Earth after He left, so He chose men to do His work for Him, and these men are the priests.

Our Lord instituted the sacred priesthood because He loves us and He wants us to get to heaven, and so He gives men the power to bring sanctifying grace into our souls so that we can get there.

The priesthood is the greatest responsibility on Earth.

It is greater on Earth than kings and emperors, and even the angels themselves.

St. John Chrysostom says, For the power of kings is only over the bodies of men, whereas that of priests is over souls.

Men are given powers that are not given to the angels.

An angel cannot turn bread into the body of our Lord Jesus Christ.

An angel cannot grant pardon for a single sin.

But this is a serious responsibility because the purpose of this vocation is to keep souls from falling into hell and to get them into heaven.

A man should not become a priest for his own glory.

St. Bernard says that, The duties of those who will have to give an account for souls is heavy and burdensome.

St. Lawrence Justinian says, The greater the grace that God has bestowed on priests, the more severe the chastisement that their sins deserve.

The priesthood is serious business, and there is a serious penalty waiting for those who fail to work for the salvation of souls.

The power of ordination gives the priest an increase in sanctifying grace and gives him the courage to carry out all of his spiritual duties.

Pope Pius XI, in the encyclical Ad Catholici Sacerdoti, says the following, By the Sacrament of Order, the priest receives also a new and special grace and a particular help by means of which he can cope, in a worthy fashion and with unfailing courage, with the high obligations of the office he has assumed to fulfill the duties thereof.

The Sacrament of Holy Orders confers a perpetual power, not a right, but a perpetual power to exercise the functions of a priest.

To explain this, we n- need to understand that there are two parts to the sacrament.

The first is the power of order and the second is the power of jurisdiction .

the power of order, which is simply the act of being a priest and all that goes with it.

A priest is given this at the moment of ordination.

But the second, the power of jurisdiction, even though a priest has the power of orders in some cases, he can't use this power unless he's been given jurisdiction, unless he's been given the faculties from a bishop.

For example, in order to hear confessions and to witness marriages, the priest has to receive faculties from the bishop.

For him not to have these faculties from a bishop would make these sacraments invalid.

So a priest has to have the faculties.

He has to have the, the power of jurisdiction to execute his orders.

So the priest has to have both the power of order and the power of jurisdiction to work for the church.

As we have seen before, every sacrament has matter and form, and what is the matter and the form of holy orders?

Well, first of all, we know that matter is the material or the stuff of the sacrament, and we know that the form are the words that express the reality that is taking place.

The matter of holy orders, the material is the imposition of hands.

When the priest or when the bishop places the ha- the hands on a priest, a baptized man, excuse me, not a woman, this is the mi- matter for the sacrament.

Now, our Lord did not ordain women.

Why is this?

Our Lord ordained the apostles who were only men.

Man is the only proper matter for this sacrament.

Now even if a bishop were to lay hands on a woman, it couldn't be valid or it wouldn't be valid since a woman is not proper matter for this sacrament.

Now, a woman has the physical ability to bear a child and to be a mother.

A man does not.

This doesn't take away from manhood.

It is just something that God has given to women by creation.

A man has a spiritual ability to receive holy orders based on his physical nature, man and his baptism.

That doesn't take away from the nature of a woman.

It only means that Al- the Almighty and the all-knowing God chose to do it this way.

Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis says the following: Wherefore and order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren, I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.

Close quote, Pope John Paul II.

He also goes on to say, Furthermore, the fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, received neither the mission proper to the apostles nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that the non-admission of women to the priesthood is to be seen as the faithful observance of the plan to be ascribed to the wisdom of the Lord of the Universe.

So the matter is the imposition of hands on a baptized man.

The second, the form of holy orders consists in the words which are said which signify the reality of the sacrament, and this is what the bishop does when he imposes hands on a man, but along this are the prayers that are said.

Now they are different for each, for a deacon, for a priest, or a bishop.

The imposition of hands signifies that something is being given since gifts are normally given by the hands.

A man must be baptized for the sacrament to be ve- to be valid.

As you recall, we cannot receive any other sacrament unless we are first baptized.

If a man is ordained in the state of mortal sin, the sacrament is still valid, but he commits a sacrilege.

By the imposition of hands, what is being given?

The man who receives holy orders receives a character which is imprinted on his soul.

The man who receives holy orders receives this character.

Since it is a mark on his soul, it cannot be repeated, just like baptism and confirmation.

Now this character conforms the priest to Christ, the eternal high priest.

This character is the indelible mark that cannot be re- erased for all of eternity.

If he makes it to heaven, he will always have that sign that he is a priest.

But if he is condemned to hell, he is the prize of the devil's, because he carries this mark and he has disgraced his priesthood.

Now even when a priest has been laicized, he still keeps the sacramental character of the priesthood.

A priest who's been laicized can absolve from sins and give the last rites, but only in the danger of death.

Even a priest in the state of mortal sin can still perform the sacraments validly, but he commits the mortal sin of sacrilege every time he exercises office in this state.

So who is the proper minister of this sacrament?

The ordinary minister of holy orders is a consecrated bishop alone, because by consecration he has the fullness of the priesthood.

Now there are three major roles in the sacred priesthood, and in order they are, number one, prayer, number two, preaching, and three, administering the sacraments.

By the first one, prayer, a priest must become holy himself.

Otherwise he cannot expect to lead others to holiness.

He does that most importantly through prayer.

Our Lord tells us in the Gospel of Saint Luke, Thou art always to pray.

He says the divine office throughout the day and says these at the prescribed hours.

Now many priests do a holy hour every day in the presence of the blessed sacrament.

Now Archbishop Sheen made a promise that his entire priesthood he would s- do a holy hour every single day, and he fulfilled that promise all the way until his death.Even at one time when he was caught in France on a long day of travel, it was just before 11:00 PM, he went to a church.

And he sat there in the church and stayed with our Lord for that final hour.

Now, he fell asleep during that time, but he offered that hour nonetheless, much like the apostles' first holy hour in our Lord's presence in the agony in the garden.

The second major role of the priest is preaching.

In preaching, he has to sanctify and lead others to heaven by his teaching office.

The preaching of God's words is not simply a human activity.

It is something spiritual that releases grace into the world.

Now, I know of a priest who was once scheduled to give a talk on the rosary to an unmotivated and lukewarm parish.

So he scheduled this talk, he said a rosary before, and he prepared.

But when he went out to the church, there was no one there.

He was there, but nobody else was there.

But his duty was to preach, and he clearly understood the supernatural graces that he releases into the world by his words.

So he preached his entire sermon to an empty church.

But this is the power of grace.

Nobody can say, Well, is this foolishness or is this wisdom?

Well, to those with faith, no explanation is necessary.

To those without faith, no explanation is possible.

Saint Paul tells us that faith comes by hearing.

It is by hearing the word of God, the word of God, not the word of a priest, but the word of God, and that is what a priest has to do.

He has to ask through prayer that his words be truly the words of God.

He also must ask through prayer that he be filled with the spirit of God.

That is why prayer always has to come first.

Reme- he has to remember also that this is a supernatural work, it is not a human work.

He must detach himself from himself so that he doesn't give his opinion of a church teaching.

No matter how difficult it may be for those listening to hear the truths of faith, he still has to preach.

The third obligation of the priest is to distribute the sacraments.

He has to bring sanctifying grace to the souls of men.

The priest's major role is to offer sacrifice, perfectly completed in the holy sacrifice of the mass.

Now, when our Lord instituted the priesthood, when he commanded the apostles, Do this in memory of me, he was giving them an order to distribute graces into the world because he would be that channel that God had chosen.

But the sacraments themselves do not give the faithful the necessary dispositions to receive the sacraments.

The priest must do that, and he has to inwardly beg for the interior graces attached to the sacraments that we are all about to receive.

The sacraments are visible signs of invisible graces.

The priest has to make us aware of what we are in fact receiving and to dispose us for that.

For example now, before holy communion, make the intention to receive all the graces that you need to make, to make yourself holy and worthy, and to make a holy and worthy communion, to make the most holy and worthy communion that you've ever made in your life.

Ask God to give you all the graces to overcome a particular fault or to grow any particular virtue.

Renew this intention when you're receiving our Lord today in the holy Eucharist.

God ordained priests to show us the way to heaven and to give us the sacraments so that priests would pour out sanctifying grace unto the souls of all men, because this is something absolutely necessary for us if we want to get to heaven.

So let's do a quick review.

Sanctifying grace is the single most important thing in this life.

Sanctifying grace is absolutely necessary for salvation, because without it we cannot get into heaven or we cannot live there.

The seven sacraments are the channels that God put in place to pour sanctifying grace into our souls and to give us the supernatural power to get into heaven.

Our Lord instituted the sacrament of holy orders to call men to the priesthood, to bring sanctifying grace to our souls, and to get us to heaven.

Without the priesthood, there is no forgiveness of sins, there is no holy Eucharist, there is no way to grow in sanctifying grace after baptism.

And I will close with the words of Saint John Vianney, who said, After God, the priest is everything.

Leave a parish 20 years without a priest, they will worship beasts.

When people wish to destroy religion, they begin by attacking the priest.

Because where there is no longer any priest, there is no sacrifice.

Where there is no longer any sacrifice, there is