Holy Mass with Priestly Ordinations (8 November 1982)

On Monday, 8 November 1982, the Holy Father  celebrated Holy Mass with priestly ordinations in Valencia. In his homily, the Pope reflected on the grace of the priesthood, focusing on the words of God to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, / before you came into the light, I consecrated you; / I have made you a prophet to the nations” ( Jer 1, 5).

Dear brothers in the priesthood,
dear brothers and sisters.

1. Today we are witnesses of a great event. One hundred and forty-one deacons, coming from all over Spain, will receive priestly ordination. Numerous priests from the various dioceses of your homeland are associated with this Eucharistic celebration. They were invited to this city to relive the day of their ordination.

Allow me to greet first of all the Pastor of this particular Church and the Bishops present, the priests and seminarians, those who have dedicated themselves to God with a special consecration, all the noble people of Valencia, its region and all of Spain, and how many gathered in this avenue of Alameda. I greet with particular affection, together with their families, all the ordinands.

But above all, allow me to renew, from here, my most affectionate remembrance to the people and families who in recent days have suffered the consequences of devastating floods and have lost loved ones. I trust that the necessary solidarity and Christian concern will effectively come to their aid.

This priestly day is set in the city of Valenza, with its deep-rooted Eucharistic and priestly traditions; with its beauty and color, its characteristics and its rich Roman, Arab and Christian history; and above all with its great priestly figures: Saint Vincent Ferrer, Saint Thomas of Villanueva, Saint John of Ribera. To these should be added numerous holy priests, including Saint John of Avila, patron of the Spanish clergy. All of them accompany us with their intercession.

2. What does the grace of the priesthood that these ordinands will receive today consist of?

You know this well, dear deacons, who have carefully prepared for this sacramental moment. You know it, dear priests, who carry the joyful burden and the light load ( Mt 11, 30) of the priesthood. You too know this, Christians of Valencia and Spain, who accompany your priests and with them live the joy of your common priesthood, distinct but not separated from the ministerial priesthood.

In this act I will speak first of all to the ordinands. However, in them I see the ordination, recent or distant, of each of you, priests of Spain, and I exhort you to relive the grace you have because of the laying on of hands (cf. 2 Tim 1, 6).

The sacrament of orders is deeply rooted in the mystery of the call that God addresses to man. The mystery of the divine vocation is realized in the chosen one. The first reading from the book of the prophet Jeremiah reveals this to us.

God manifests his will to man: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, / before you came into the light, I consecrated you; / I have made you a prophet to the nations” ( Jer 1, 5).

Man's call is first of all in God: in his mind and in the election that God himself makes and that man must read in his own heart. In clearly perceiving this vocation that comes from God, man experiences the sense of his own insufficiency. He tries to defend himself when faced with the responsibility of the call. He says like the prophet: "Alas, Lord God, behold, I cannot speak, / because I am young" ( Jer 1, 6). Thus the call becomes the fruit of an internal dialogue with God, and is sometimes like the result of a dispute with him.

Faced with the reservations and difficulties that man rightly opposes, God indicates the power of his grace. And with the power of this grace man obtains that his call is fulfilled: “ « Go to those to whom I will send you / and announce what I will order you. / Do not fear them, / because I am with you to protect you » . / . . . " Behold, I put my words in your mouth " ( Jer 1, 7-9).

It is necessary, my dear brothers and beloved children, to meditate with your heart on this dialogue between God and man, to constantly find the structure of your vocation. This dialogue has already taken place in you who are about to receive priestly ordination. And it must continue, uninterrupted, throughout your life through prayer, the distinctive character of your priestly piety.

3. At the same time, the secret of your priestly identity is founded in the awareness of your call by God. The words of the prophet Jeremiah suggest this identity of the priest as "called" with an election, "consecrated" with an anointing, "sent" on a mission. Called by God in Jesus Christ, consecrated by him with the anointing of his Spirit, sent to carry out his mission in the Church.

The teachings of the Magisterium of the Church on the priesthood, inspired by Revelation, collected, so to speak, from the lips of God, can dispel any doubts regarding priestly identity.

First of all, Jesus Christ our Lord, high and eternal Priest, is the central point of reference. There is only one supreme priest, Christ Jesus (cf. Lumen Gentium , 28; Heb 7, 24; 8, 1), anointed and sent to the world by the Father (cf. Presbyterorum Ordinis , 2; Jn 10, 36). Bishops and priests participate in this single priesthood, each according to his order and rank, to continue the consecration and mission of Christ in the world. Participating in the priestly anointing of Christ and in his mission, priests act "in persona Christi" ( Lumen Gentium , 28).

For this they receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Yes, you are about to receive the Spirit of holiness, as the ordination formula says, so that a special sacred character will configure you to Christ the priest, to be able to act in his name (cf. Presbyterorum Ordinis , 2).

Consecrated through the ministry of the Church, you will participate in its saving mission as "cooperators of the episcopal order" and you must be united to the Bishops, in accordance with the beautiful expression of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, "like the strings to the lyre" (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Ephesios , 4). Sent to a particular community, you will gather the family of God, instructing it with the word, to make it "grow in unity" ( Presbyterorum Ordinis , 2) and "lead it through Christ in the Spirit to the Father" ( Ibid . 4).

4. Called, consecrated, sent. This triple dimension explains and determines your conduct and lifestyle. You are “set aside”; “segregated”, but not “separated” ( Ibid . 3). Thus you can dedicate yourselves fully to the work that is about to be entrusted to you: the service of your brothers.

Understand, therefore, that the consecration you receive absorbs you totally, dedicates you radically, makes you living instruments of the adoption of Christ into the world, a prolongation of his mission for the glory of the Father.

Your total gift to the Lord responds to this. That total gift which is a commitment to holiness. It is the internal task of "imitating what you deal with", as the exhortation of the Roman Pontifical of Ordinations says. It is the grace and commitment of the imitation of Christ, to reproduce in your ministry and in your conduct this image imprinted with the fire of the Spirit. Image of Christ priest and victim, of the crucified redeemer.

In this context of total self-giving, of union with Christ and of communion with his exclusive and definitive dedication to the work of the Father, the obligation of celibacy is understood. It's not a limitation or a frustration. It is the expression of a full donation, of a peculiar consecration, of absolute availability. The gift that God grants in the priesthood responds to the donation of the chosen one with his whole being, with his heart and with his body, with the spousal meaning it has, referring to the love of Christ and the total donation to the community of Church, priestly celibacy.

The soul of this donation is love. For celibacy one does not renounce love, the faculty of living and signifying love in life; the heart and faculties of the priest remain impregnated with the love of Christ, to be a witness of pastoral charity without frontiers among his brothers.

5. The secret of this pastoral charity is found in the dialogue that Christ maintains with each of his chosen ones, as he maintained with Peter, according to the words of the Gospel that we have proclaimed.

It is the question relating to special and exclusive love towards Christ, asked of those who have received a particular mission and have been able to experience the disappointments of their own human weakness.

The Risen Lord does not address Peter to admonish or punish him for his weakness or for the sin he committed in denying him. He comes to ask him for his love. And this is of enormous, eloquent importance for each of you: “Do you love me”? ( Jn 21, 17). You still love me? Do you love me more every time? Yes. Because love is always greater than weakness and sin. And only he, love, always discovers new perspectives of interior renewal and union with God, also through the experience of the weakness of sin.

Christ, therefore, asks, examines about love. And Peter responds: “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you” ( Jn 21, 17). He doesn't answer: Yes, I love you; he relies above all on the Master's heart and on his knowledge and says to him: "You know that I love you".

Thus, through this love professed three times, the Risen Jesus entrusts his sheep to Peter. And in the same way he entrusts them to you. It is necessary that your priestly ministry take root strongly in the love of Jesus Christ.

6. Undivided love for Christ and the flock that he is about to entrust to you unifies the life of the priest and the different expressions of his ministry (cf. Presbyterorum Ordinis , 14).

First of all, configured with the Lord, you must celebrate the Eucharist, which is not an additional act of your ministry: it is the root and raison d'être of your priesthood. You will be priests, first of all, to celebrate and actualize the sacrifice of Christ, "always alive to intercede on their behalf" ( Heb 7, 25). This unique and unrepeatable sacrifice is renewed and made present in the Church in a sacramental way, through the ministry of priests.

The Eucharist thus becomes the mystery that must internally shape your existence. On the one hand, you will sacramentally offer the Body and Blood of the Lord. On the other hand, united with him - "in persona Christi" - you will offer your persons and your lives, so that, taken up and transformed by the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice, they are also externally transfigured with him, participating in the renewing energies of his Resurrection.

The Eucharist will be the culmination of your ministry of evangelization (cf. Presbyterorum Ordinis , 4), the culmination of your vocation of prayer, of glorification of God and of intercession for the world. And through Eucharistic communion your priesthood will be consummated day after day.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, the Valencian apostle and miracle worker, said that "the Mass is the greatest act of contemplation that can be offered". Yes, this is the truth. For this reason all of you are invited to nourish and enliven your own activity with the "abundance of contemplation" ( Lumen Gentium , 41), which will find an inexhaustible source in the celebration of the Eucharist and the sacraments, in the liturgy of the hours, in prayer mental and daily, and in loving meditation on the mysteries of Christ and the Virgin with the prayer of the Rosary.

7. The consecration that you are about to receive qualifies you for service, for the ministry of salvation, to be like Christ the "consecrated of the Father" and the "sent into the world" ( Jn 10:30).

You must dedicate yourselves to the faithful of the People of God, so that they may be "consecrated in the truth" ( Jn 17:17). Service to men is not a different dimension of your priesthood: it is the consequence of your consecration.

Exercise your ministerial tasks like many other acts of your consecration, convinced that all these can be summed up in one: bringing together the community that will be entrusted to you to the praise of God the Father, through Jesus Christ and in the Spirit, so that the Church of Christ may be the sacrament of salvation. For this reason you will evangelize and dedicate yourselves to the catechesis of children and adults; for this reason you will be available in the celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation; for this reason you will visit the sick and help the poor, doing everything to everyone to win everyone (cf. 1 Cor 9, 22).

Do not be afraid, by doing so, of being separated from your faithful and from those to whom your mission destines you. It would separate you from them even more if you forgot or neglected the sense of consecration that distinguishes your priesthood. Being one more, in profession, in lifestyle, in the way of dressing, in political commitment, would not help you to fully realize your mission; you would defraud your faithful who want you to be full priests: liturgists, teachers, pastors, without thereby neglecting to be, like Christ, brothers and friends.

Therefore, make your total availability to God an availability for your faithful. Give them the true bread of the word, in fidelity to the truth of God and the teachings of the Church. Facilitate their access to the sacraments, and first and foremost to the sacrament of penance, a sign and instrument of God's mercy and of the reconciliation brought about by Christ (cf. John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis , 20), being assiduous in receiving it yourselves. Love the sick, the poor, the marginalized; commit yourself to all just workers' causes; console the afflicted; give hope to young people. Show yourselves in everything "as ministers of Christ" ( 2 Cor 6, 8).

8. In the Liturgy of the Word these well-known expressions of the first letter of Saint Peter were proclaimed, addressed to the elders, to the "presbyters", to all the priests present here.

Precisely, you gathered here are the "presbiteros", the "elders". And the young people who receive this ordination today will also become "elders", responsible for the community.

Meditate carefully on what Peter, the elder, "witness of the sufferings of Christ and sharer in the glory that is to be revealed" ( 1 Pt 5, 1) asks you. What does he ask you?

He begs you to carry out the pastoral ministry that has been entrusted to you: “not by force but spontaneously, according to God; not for base money, but with readiness of mind." Yes, with generous dedication. And as living models of the flock (cf. 1 Pt 5, 3).

Here is the apostolic program of priestly life and priestly ministry that one day God has entrusted to you. It has lost nothing of its substantial relevance. It is a living program, of today. And you must frequently place it before your eyes, in your soul, to see your life and your ministry reflected, as in a mirror.

If you do so, as the multitude of holy priests who in your homeland were witnesses of Christ teach you, you will receive, when the "supreme Shepherd" appears, this "incorruptible crown of glory" ( 1 Pt 5, 4).

9. My dear brothers in the priesthood: the successor of Peter who speaks to you, repeats this message to you; and he would like it to be engraved in your souls, in the hearts of every priest, on the day of this great priestly ordination and in this celebration of the grace of the priesthood throughout Spain.

Be faithful to this message that comes from Christ!

May this celebration give to the whole Church in Spain a renewal of the inexhaustible grace of the Catholic priesthood; greater unity among all those who have received the same grace of the presbyterate; a considerable increase in priestly vocations among young people, attracted by the joyful example of your dedication, and of the many seminarians present here, whom I greet one by one to confirm and encourage them in their vocation. At the same time I announce to them that I am leaving a special written message of mine for them.

May the Virgin Mary, whom Valenza venerates with the sweet title of Mother of the Abandoned, bow with love to you and make you faithful disciples of the Lord. Welcome her as a Mother, as John welcomed her at the foot of the Cross (cf. Jn 19, 26-27). May each of you, in the grace of her priesthood, also be able to say of her "Totus tuus".

The Risen Lord, present among us, looks at you with love, my dear priests and ordinands, and repeats his question about your sincere and loyal love: "Do you love me?". May each of you say today and always: "Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you" ( Jn 21:17). Thus your ministry will be a faithful and fruitful service of love in the Church, for the salvation of men.

May the memory of this solemn priestly ordination in the presence of the Pope increase your faith in Jesus Christ, the Eternal Priest, who communicates his priesthood for the salvation of all men. So be it.

© Copyright 1982 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

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