[Antioch]

Santilla writes some interesting observations here about the phenomena of the empty confesional.

[dfwgator]

I suspect nowadays most of the priests are like the Priest in the movie "The Commitments."

Steven: Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It's been a month since my last confession. I've been with this band, and there's been a lot of cursing and blasphemy. And I've been neglecting my exams. And there's these three girls with the band... I've had lustful thoughts. About all of them. And when I studied I used to sing hymns, now I'm always humming When A Man Loves A Woman by Marvin Gaye.

Priest: Percy Sledge.

Steven: Wha'?

Priest: It was Percy Sledge did that particular song. I've got the album.

[eastsider]

All the sacraments are streams of grace by dint of their relationship to the Eucharist, which Christ Jesus inextricably linked to the priesthood when he instituted them together in the Cenacle on the night before he died. After his resurrection, he further linked the priesthood and the Eucharist to the sacramental forgiveness of sins when he breathed on the apostles in the same Cenacle.

The bottom line is that they who abandon the sacraments abandon the priesthood, they who abandon the priesthood abandon the sacraments, and they who abandon either abandon Christ.

Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." ...

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

"You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.

Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

[Salvation]

Priests as Mediators

by Fr. John De Celles

Other Articles by Fr. John De Celles

Priests as Mediators

12/3/05

People often wonder why Catholics have to go to a priest to be forgiven their sins. Some point out that St. Paul tells us that Jesus is the only Mediator between God and man (1 Tm 2:5).

But while Jesus is the only way to the Father and the only Mediator, Scripture makes it very clear that God calls other human beings to participate in this mediation. From the very beginning of God's revelation to Israel 3,700 years ago, God has chosen individual human beings — people like Abraham, Moses and the prophets — to communicate, or mediate, His will to the world. And in today's Gospel text, St. Mark reminds us that God sent St. John the Baptist to act as a mediator between Jesus and the Jews.

Why does God send mediators, both before and after Jesus? Advent is a season of preparation for celebrating Jesus’ coming into the world at Christmas. At the heart of this mystery is the fact that God became man to communicate clearly and completely through His human body and with human words. But Jesus took His body with Him when He ascended into heaven, while our bodies — the bodies of Christians — are still here. And Jesus continues to send us to mediate through the body, through speaking and hearing His word, and through the holy symbols we see and touch, especially the sacraments.

The Gospel tells us that 2,000 years ago, St. John the Baptist proclaimed "a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." And in response Scripture says: "People...were going out to [John]...as they acknowledged their sins." Today, we do exactly the same thing as we go to the sacrament of penance and acknowledge, or confess, our sins before God’s chosen mediators — the priests of the Church. And when we hear those mediators say "I absolve you from your sins" we can hear in their human voices, not the voice of St. John, but the voice Jesus Himself, who St. John tells us "takes away the sin of the world!" (Jn 1:29).

The mediation of priests is a great gift to the whole Church. But by their baptism "in water and the Holy Spirit," lay Christians are also called to be mediators of Christ in some way. For most serious Christians, Advent is a time when the words of St. John can elicit a very strong response from us: We hear, "prepare the way of the Lord," and part of us shouts, "Yes, Lord."

But most of us don’t go much further than that initial "yes." Sometimes this is because we're afraid of failure, and sometimes it’s because we really don't know how to prepare the way.

If you’re afraid of failure, remember you are only a mediating instrument — you prepare the way only by allowing Jesus to act through you; let Him worry about the final results. Remember that the great mediator of the Messiah, St. John the Baptist, recognized that even his work was incomplete and only an opening for the Lord: "One Who is more powerful is to come after me."

If you just don't know how to prepare Jesus’ way, remember you start by preparing yourself, by accepting the word of God proclaimed by the Baptizer and by the Church: Confess and repent your sins.

Few of us are called to be public mediators like St. John the Baptist or priests. But this Advent the Lord Jesus Christ calls every single Christian to be His mediator to a sinful world by proclaiming, in everything we say and do: "Prepare the way of the Lord...make straight His paths."

Fr. De Celles is Parochial Vicar of St. Michael Parish in Annandale, Virginia.

(This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)