Introduction
My dear brothers in the
priesthood,
We all remember Saint Peter’s
words on Mount Tabor, "Lord, it is wonderful for us to be here."
It is indeed wonderful for us to be together this afternoon. We
come as brothers, priests, disciples, friends, and also as
sinners in need of forgiveness. We come humbly, yet joyfully, to
our great High Priest, who feels our weaknesses with us.
I welcome each of you very
warmly to this Lenten celebration of the Sacrament of Penance.
As the Letter to the Hebrews
says: "Let us draw near, then, to the throne of grace",
confident of the infinite mercy of God…
Homily
Almost forty years ago, in
1966, Karl Rahner wrote some words about the priest of the
future, which now seem to have a prophetic ring to them.
Tomorrow’s priest, he said, may not have a power drawn from the
social prestige of the Church, but will have the courage to
carry out his ministry even without prestige and power. He will
calmly see God’s triumph at work even if he himself feels
defeated. He will know that he is in God’s service and on God’s
mission, even if he cannot always measure the power of grace. He
will be a man whose vocation is his life, and whose life will be
to believe and hope and love from his own innermost experience
of God and God’s grace.
Tomorrow’s priest, Rahner
says, will be like his Lord, a man with a pierced heart: pierced
with the godlessness of the life around him, pierced by love
that does not count the cost, pierced by the experience of his
own weakness; and, we must add today, pierced by the misconduct
of fellow-priests, which has cast such a shadow over all of us.
The priest will be a man with
a pierced heart because his task is to lead others to their own
hearts, to the core of our human existence. He can do that only
if he has found his own heart, and discovered for himself that
it is in the very woundedness of human life that God has chosen
to dwell.
The priest of the future will
know that he has been chosen by God in spite of — or rather,
because of — his weakness. He will know that just as Christ’s
pierced heart is the temple of God and the fountain of the
Spirit, so his own pierced heart is the true strength of his
mission. He will know that his unembarrassed faithfulness to the
wisdom of God, which seems foolish to the world, is the real
source of his credibility. [cf. "The Man with the Pierced
Heart", in Servants of the Lord, London: Burns & Oates, 1968,
107-119]
We are those priests of the
future. Rahner, of course, has not said everything about us, but
many of his thoughts will resonate with us as we come today to
celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation together.
Much has changed in our lives
in the last few decades, but the essential things remain the
same: above all, Jesus, the Son of God, remains the same, our
supreme high priest, who understands our weakness, who has been
put to the test in the same way as ourselves. (Hb 4.14-16) It is
him whom we have come to meet here, "the mercy that welcomes and
the love that saves". [John Paul II, Holy Thursday Letter to
Priests, 2002]
We know from our own ministry
as confessors the power and graciousness that are part of the
mystery of this sacrament. Like Mary in today’s Gospel, in the
face of God's plans we have all asked, "But how can such a thing
come about?" and have learned that the answer lies in the
mysterious presence of the Spirit. We have all experienced in
this sacrament the unexpected of the Gospel, the unexpected of
grace; we know from experience that "nothing is impossible to
God". (Lk 1.34, 38) In our ministry as confessors we have all
tried, as Pope John Paul says so beautifully, to bring "the
penitent into contact with the merciful heart of God through the
friendly face of a brother". [ibid.]
In his letter "Misericordia
Dei - On Certain Aspects of the Celebration of the
Sacrament of Penance", also published in 2002 and sent to all
priests, the Holy Father provides much for us to reflect on as
bearers of God’s mercy.
The merciful heart of God is a
pierced heart, just like ours. So we come humbly, but assured of
welcome, knowing that we have a high priest who understands us.
In our experience of God’s astonishing graciousness, we try to
learn how to become the "friendly face" of a reconciling and
welcoming Church. Wounded, we come for healing; weak, we come
for strength; weary, we come for the courage to go on; sinners,
we come for the forgiveness which gives new life. Though we are
unworthy servants, we have tried our best to be faithful ones,
and we come joyfully to the Lord, our Teacher and Friend. "Let
us, then, have no fear in approaching the throne of grace to
receive mercy and to find grace when we are in need of help." (Hb
4.16)
+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.
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