Show Yourself to the Priest
6th Sunday of the Year
The Catholic liturgy is made up of prayers, gestures, ceremonies, and customs that have made their way into way Catholics worship over the course of the entire two-thousand-year history of the Church. Some of them, quite obviously, go back to Jesus himself, who on the night he was betrayed took bread and wine and said they were his Body and Blood. Some were practices in the earliest Christian communities, like the salutation, “The Lord be with you,” and response, “And with your spirit.” Others were incorporated from the behaviors proper to the Byzantine court, such as bowing. Genuflection, on the other hand, was introduced in the late Middle Ages after what was expected of a knight showing honor and fealty to his king.
To the outsider, ignorant of the liturgy and its history—as well as to the insider who might think what happens up here in the sanctuary is none of their business—much, if not all, of Catholic ceremonial looks strange. What happens in here doesn’t happen out there. You wouldn’t expect to find a man like me dressed like this outside a church any more than you would expect to see a wooly mammoth outside a museum. However, to whatever degree what we do here may be strange, it is also meaningful. Nothing happens without reason. No sign is not a symbol.
One ceremony in particular is the purification rite, which takes place after Communion. To the untrained eye, this might look like Father ‘doing the dishes’. He pours water into the vessels that held the Host and Precious Blood and after drinking the water wipes them dry. The practical concern is that whatever particles of the Eucharist remain in the chalice or on the paten are consumed, since we believe Christ is fully present in any bit of the Host or Precious Blood that we can see, no matter how small. This ritual then ensures that none of Christ remains present on the sacred vessels, so that they are once again ready to be used the next time the sacrifice of the Mass is offered.
Though the purification rite might seem like something we rather recently made up (as in, within the last 800 years), its roots are deeply biblical, reaching all the way back to the priestly laws contained in the book of Leviticus. Today’s First Reading is a good example. “If someone has on his skin a scab or pustule or blotch which appears to be the sore of leprosy, he shall be brought to Aaron, the priest, or to one of the priests among his descendants. If the man is leprous and unclean, the priest shall declare him unclean.” One of the fundamental responsibility of priests in the Old Testament is to discern and declare what is clean from what is unclean; and this responsibility carries over into the Christian priesthood exercised by those who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders. I am neither a dermatologist nor an expert in infectious diseases and would certainly not be the one to ask about whether or not one was a leper. But by the grace of God, I as a priest possess the authority to declare those who encounter God’s mercy through the sacraments to be clean.
With Lent beginning this Wednesday, I want to make a general encouragement in favor of the sacrament of reconciliation, especially to those who have not been for some time. One reason I’ve often heard for why people don’t go to confession is that they ‘have a deal worked out with God.’ They and God have an understanding that the person is sorry for their sins and God has forgiven them. Now, it is certain that God does want to have a relationship with each of us, and there is no denying that God is able to work outside the sacraments. But I must also say that God has promised to work within them. Jesus heals the leper in the Gospel because it is within his will to do so; but upon healing the man, he sends him to the priest, whose responsibility it was in the Old Law to examine him and declare him clean. In the New Law, which governs the ministry of the Church, Jesus fulfills his desire to heal us by leading us to the sacraments where, in the person of the priest, Christ brings healing, mercy, and peace. What I find to be invaluable about going to confession myself is the certainty that, on the other side, God has forgiven me. The sacraments leave no shadow of a doubt: they make a reality the grace they promise and contain. In the sacraments, we are guaranteed to encounter Christ and receive him and his grace that makes us whole. In the words of Pope St. Leo, “what was visible in our Savior has passed over into his mysteries.” Just as the leprous man went to Jesus and begged him for healing and received it, when we go to confession for mercy, we go to Jesus and find it.
This past week I had the opportunity to anoint an elderly man as he was dying. I have known him practically my entire life, and as a deacon he was one of those who encouraged me the most to become a priest. He passed away Thursday night, about 12 hours after I brought him the sacraments. In addition to the absolution that’s given at the end of confession, a priest is also able to grant the Apostolic Pardon, which grants “a full pardon and the remission of all your sins.” Anytime I have had the grace to speak those words—words which take away all their sins and remit all temporal punishment incurred by the sins of one’s life—I have felt both profoundly unworthy of the office the Church has entrusted to me, a sinner myself, and in awe at the tremendous mercy of God who makes salvation so accessible to us. Only the Pope has the authority to declare someone a saint, but having given this man what the Church had to offer, I have no reason to believe he is not, now, rejoicing with the saints in heaven.
The fact of the matter is that God is always present to us in the sacraments, not only in those extraordinary moments but in every Mass, every confession, every anointing, every marriage, every ordination, every confirmation, every baptism. The sacraments come to us at the hands of priests; and we know that priests are not perfect people, but we believe that, no matter what, when they celebrate the sacraments as they ought, God always shows up. Beneath the layers of ceremony we see before us—some ancient, some new, and almost all of it strange—is the hidden, quiet work of God, restoring us to the Father in Christ and enlivening us to live through the Holy Spirt. As Lent approaches, Christ tells us to go, show ourselves to the priest, so that in the sacraments of the Church, he can encounter us, heal us, and make us whole.
Homily preached February 10/11, 2024 at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen and St. Thomas Aquinas, Hampden