In Greek, the priesthood is called IeraTIoN (Eration), and the word for priest is eregV (Ereis), meaning minister (of the Sacraments and the congregation)

by Archbishop His Eminence Kuriakose Severiose, Senior Metropolitan

Bull No: 178/16 published on 8/11/2016 in Malayalam.

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by Fr. Mark

Yesterday afternoon at Knock I had the privilege of addressing an outstanding group of Irish priests, most of them younger men, and some with only a few years of priesthood. Here is what I said.

Address to a Group of Irish Priests

But we all beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Their Gaze Directed to God

Just a few days before his election to the Chair of Peter on April 1, 2005, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in the context of a remarkable conference at Subiaco, said:

We need men who have their gaze directed to God, to understand true humanity. We need men whose intellects are enlightened by the light of God, and whose hearts God opens, so that their intellects can speak to the intellects of others, and so that their hearts are able to open up to the hearts of others. Only through men who have been touched by God, can God come near to men.

Grant me, if you will, the liberty of adapting Cardinal Ratzinger's text to the circumstances of this meeting:

We need priests who have their gaze directed to God, to understand true humanity. We need priests whose intellects are enlightened by the light of God, and whose hearts God opens, so that their intellects can speak to the intellects of others, and so that their hearts are able to open up to the hearts of others. Only through priests who have been touched by God, can God come near to men.

The priest is, by definition, the man who has his gaze directed to God. The priest is the man who stands before the altar facing God. The priest is the man who enters the Holy of Holies, penetrating with a filial boldness (parrhesía) beyond the veil. "Let us go therefore with confidence to the throne of grace: that we may obtain mercy, and find grace in seasonable aid" (Hebrews 4:16).

The Father Sees Us in His Son

The Lord said to Moses, "Thou canst not see my face: for man shall not see me and live" (Exodus 33:20). Why then are we priests not annihilated, incinerated, consumed by fire from heaven when we enter the sanctuary, when we ascend to the altar, when we open our mouths, daring to utter words that cause even the angels to tremble? It is because, in that moment, and not only at that moment, but at every hour and every moment of every day, the Father sees us in the Son, and sees the Son in us. We stand at the altar, just as we go to the altar and, kissing the altar, leave it to descend into the midst of the flock entrusted to our care, in persona Christi Capitis.

David's poignant plea in Psalm 83 effectively refers to you and to me: "Behold, O God our protector, and look upon the face of thy Christ" (Psalm 83:10). Who is this Christ? Who is this anointed? It is Christ in you, brothers, and you in Christ, not by virtue of your personal holiness, or merits, or virtues, but by a gracious and altogether gratuitous gift of God, an irrevocable gift of God conferred sacramentally, that is ex opere operato, in such wise that it cannot be erased, undone, or obliterated; not by men, nor by angels, nor by God Himself, for it is numbered among those gifts of God that are without repentance, gifts by which God so engages Himself that the retraction of them would be God negating Himself. "For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance: (Romans 11:29).

The priest at the altar is Christ gazing into the uncreated, immaterial, invisible, infinitely loving countenance of the Father, seeing in the light of the Holy Spirit "what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9).

The Head United to the Body

What then are we to say of the people, of the lay faithful of Christ? Are they banished into some kind of outer darkness, forgotten, excluded from the presence of God, and held at bay in the nave by cherubim wielding a flaming sword? The priest enters the sanctuary and stands before the altar, not as the emissary of a distant people to an even more distant God but, rather, in persona Christi Capitis, as the head of the Body of Christ that is the Church congregated in a particular place, and as one organically and vitally united to the members of the Body.

The priest enters the sanctuary and faces God, not in some kind of ritual isolation from his people, but as the head of his people, by whose presence in the sanctuary, at the altar, the heart of the people is lifted up even unto God. This is the meaning of the Sursum corda. The head of the body, seeing what he sees from his place before the altar is compelled to cry out to the members of the body with which he is conjoined, "Hearts on high". And the people, with one voice, respond to the direction given them by their head, "We hold them towards the Lord."

Consider for a moment the ministry of Moses; even while it allows us to grasp something of our own priestly ministry at the altar, is incomplete. It is found wanting. It waits for its completion in Christ.

And when Moses went forth to the tabernacle, all the people rose up, and every one stood in the door of his pavilion, and they beheld the back of Moses, till he went into the tabernacle. And when he was gone into the tabernacle of the covenant, the pillar of the cloud came down, and stood at the door, and he spoke with Moses. And all saw that the pillar of the cloud stood at the door of the tabernacle. And they stood, and worshipped at the doors of their tents. And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man is wont to speak to his friend (Exodus 33:8-11).

Only in Christ, only by sacramental participation in the priesthood of Christ, is the man who goes into the tabernacle, there to speak to God face to face as a man is wont to speak to his friend, organically conjoined to the people as the head is to the body, and the bridegroom to the bride, the two being one flesh. (See Ephesians 5:23-33).

The Priest: the Man Who Sees

The eyes of the body are in the head; the priest, therefore, is the man who sees and, seeing, leads the faithful into the sacrifice of Christ. An assembly without a priest is a body without a head and, therefore, without eyes to see. (This, of course, is the very knotty ecclesiological problem posed by the so-called "assemblies in the absence of a priest".)

He who stands at the altar and sees is no mere presiding elder; he is the sacerdos, the sacrificing priest; he is the mediator who, facing the Father, enters into the seeing of the Eternal Son and, turning to face the people, communicates to them the grace of what he has seen. "No man hath seen God at any time: the only-begotten Son of God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him" (John 1:18). This, I believe, goes the heart of what Cardinal Ratzinger said in April 2005:

We need men who have their gaze directed to God, to understand true humanity. We need men whose intellects are enlightened by the light of God, and whose hearts God opens, so that their intellects can speak to the intellects of others, and so that their hearts are able to open up to the hearts of others. Only through men who have been touched by God, can God come near to men.

The Locus and Opus of the Priesthood

Over the past fifty years the theological portrait of the priest has become impoverished and diminished by the minimalisation of the essential locus and opus of the priesthood. The locus of the priesthood is the altar; every other expression of priestly ministry converges in the service of the altar and derives from it. "The liturgy," says Sacrosanctum Concilium, article 10, "is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows".

The opus of the priesthood is that sublime mediatorship prefigured in the ladder that Jacob beheld in his dream: "And he saw in his sleep a ladder standing upon the earth, and the top thereof touching heaven: the angels also of God ascending and descending by it" (Genesis 28:10). Who are these angels ascending and descending if not figures of the priests who, "from the rising of the sun even to its going down" (Malachi 1:11), ascend to the altar and descend therefrom, embodying the mediatorship of Christ, the Eternal High Priest?

You, brothers, are men ordained to enter the sanctuary on behalf of all and for all, to stand before the altar and, with eyes raised to the Father offer the Holy Sacrifice, all the while remaining organically conjoined to the body, the spouse given you by the Father and made ready by the Holy Spirit. Take great care, then, not to undervalue the rubric of the Canon by which you are directed to raise your eyes heavenward; squeeze even the smallest rubric and theology comes spurting out of it!

The Anchor of Priestly Identity

The priest is ordained for the altar. If he is not standing before the altar, he is on his way to the altar, or coming from the altar. At every moment of our life we are in relationship to the altar. It is the altar that anchors the identity of the priest. I shall return to this affirmation in a moment.

It is crucial, then, that we understand the impact of liturgical practice or, if you will, of the ars celebrandi, on our self-understanding as priests, and on the manner in which the faithful today come, almost imperceptibly, but inexorably, to understand our priesthood. You are all familiar with Prosper of Aquitaine's axiom, lex orandi, lex credendi. Applied in this particular instance, with reference to the priesthood, it means that the law that determines our liturgical comportment, our enactment of the Sacred Mysteries, by that very fact, shapes, and grounds, and determines how we understand our priesthood, and how the priesthood is understood by the faithful.

The Priest as Mediator

Our priesthood is a sacramental participation in the mediatorship of Christ: in His ascending mediation ad Patrem, and in His descending mediation ad Ecclesiam and, by consequence, ad gentes. The priest embodies the ascending mediation of Christ principally, and most perfectly, in the act of the Sacrifice, the Holy Oblation: "This is My Body; this is the chalice of My Blood". He embodies the descending mediation of Christ principally, and most perfectly, in the act of the Communion: "Holy things for the holy; Behold the Lamb of God". Sacrifice, then, and Communion correspond to the ascending and descending mediation of the priest. For the first, he passes through the people, enters the sanctuary, ascends to the altar, and faces God; for the second, he takes from the altar what has been offered to God in an unbloody immolation and given back to him from God, and turning to the people, descends from the altar towards them to distribute to them the adorable Gifts by which they are brought into communion with the mystery enacted at the altar.

For the act of the Sacrifice, the priest, following the age-old and venerable tradition in East and West that is confirmed in the rubrics of the latest edition of the Roman Missal, the Editio Typica Tertia, stands before the altar facing the Father, with the Son, in the Holy Spirit. For the act of the Commuion, he faces the people, shows them the Body and Blood of Christ and gives them the same Body and Blood of Christ to be received after the manner of food and drink, the esca viatorum, the sustenance of wayfarers.

The two directions implied in offering the Holy Sacrifice and in presenting Holy Communion to the faithful condition our understanding — or misunderstanding — of the priesthood. By eliminating the so-called ad orientem position for the Sacrifice, one effectively undermines the role of the priest as sacrificer, thereby obscuring his representation of the ascending mediatorship of Christ. By suppressing the movement of the priest toward the faithful for the Communion, one undermines the role of the priest as distributor of the Holy Mysteries, thereby minimizing his representation of the descending mediatorship of Christ.

The Lex Orandi

The lex orandi that determines the lex credendi — that is the liturgical action that grounds and shapes our understanding, in this instance, of the priesthood) refers not merely to the texts contained in the various liturgical books. It refers also to the ritual context of those texts: movements, gestures, melodies, and the entire complexus of sacred signs that give a body to the texts and clothe them with a suitable vesture.

A truncated and minimalistic ars celebrandi will lead to a truncated and minimalistic understanding of the priesthood. Nothing, I fear, has had a greater impact on popular understanding of what it means to be a priest — and this, even among ourselves — than the obliteration in practice of the full liturgical representation, in the person of the priest, of the double mediation of Christ Jesus. Need we be reminded that the Second Vatican Council defined the Sacred Liturgy precisely terms of this double mediation: ad Patrem, and ad Ecclesiam.

Rightly, then, the liturgy is considered as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. In the liturgy the sanctification of the man is signified by signs perceptible to the senses, and is effected in a way which corresponds with each of these signs; in the liturgy the whole public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and His members. (Sacrosanctum Concilium, article 7).

When the entire Mass is celebrated with the priest facing the people, the theocentric, latreutic reality of the mediating, sacrificing priesthood of Christ is effectively obscured, not only in ourselves but, even more dramatically, I think, in the faithful we serve. This is not an abstruse question for deliberation by liturgical specialists; it relates compellingly to the so-called crisis in priestly identity and to those deficient "theologies" of the priesthood inflicted upon so many seminarians and priests, leaving the trail of suffering and confusion that has so marked the Church over the past fifty years.

The way we celebrate the Sacred Liturgy shapes what we believe about our priesthood, and projects that belief onto the faithful; and what we believe and project about our priesthood shapes the way we live it.

Going to and Coming from the Altar

Lest I be guilty of presenting a priesthood confined to the sanctuary, a priesthood without zeal for evangelisation and without missionary impetus, allow me to return for a moment to my analogy of the priest standing at the altar, on his way to the altar, or coming from the altar. Each of these three situations corresponds to one of the three aspects of the Church's life and mission in the world: leitourgía, martyría, and diakonía.

I have already developed at some length the significance of Leitourgía in emphasing it as the context in which the sacrificing priest makes present in his person the mediatorship of Christ.

Martyría

Martyría corresponds to the priest making his way to the altar, bearing witness, evangelising and catechising as he goes. Being, at every moment of his life, on his way to the altar is the essential witness of the priest. All that he is, all that he says and does has a Eucharistic finality. Evangelisation, catechesis, preaching, and teaching, as well as the ascetical yoke that the priest willingly bears in the sight of the world by remaining unworldly, and by presenting himself visibly as a priest, all of this is Martyría.

Diakonía

Diakonía corresponds to the priest coming from the altar to bring the remedies of Divine Mercy to those who, injured and broken, lie in darkness and in the shadow of death. Every sacramental and pastoral expression of the hospitality and compassion of Christ is Diakonía. Every ministration to the sick, every moment taken to listen to the pain of another, or to dry another's tears, or to speak a word of hope or risk a gesture of love is Diakonía.

Three Pontificates

It is interesting to note how readily each of these three aspects of the Church's life and mission corresponds to one of the three pontificates that most of you have known: Blessed John Paul II was the pope of Martyría, bearing witness to the splendour of the truth, even unto death. Pope Benedict XVI is the pontiff of Leitourgía, making the Church a place where beauty is at home, and summoning the Church to a foretaste here and now of the beauty of the liturgy that awaits us in the heavenly Jerusalem. Pope Francis is emerging as the pontiff of Diakonía, showing the mercy of God in gestures that touch the poor, that reach the alienated, and that seem even to stir the indifferent.

In the Friendship of Christ

None of this, of course, can be sustained unless a priest abides in the friendship of Christ and, like Saint Joseph and Saint John who appeared at Knock, opens his innermost life to Mary. The first direct mandate that Our Lord gave His Apostles after their ordination to the priesthood in the Cenacle, on the night before He suffered, was that they should watch and pray with Him. He asked only for their company, for their presence, for their prayer (cf. Matthew 26:37-41). "Watch ye, and pray that you enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Mark 13:48). Very specifically, He asked this of Peter, James, and John, thus illustrating for generations of priests through the ages that we are to come together for prayer, even if we be but two or three. "For where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20). In asking this of the Apostles, Our Lord confirmed the original reason that motivated His choice of them, according to Saint Mark's account of the call of the Twelve: "And He made that twelve should be with Him" (Mark 3:14).

The priest who opens his heart to the friendship of Christ, particularly by being spendthrift with time set apart for adoration of His Eucharistic Face and for exposure to the fire of His Eucharistic Heart will, by the same token, find himself living in the presence of the all-pure Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary. One who, in imitation of Saint Joseph and Saint John, lives with Mary, will follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes (Apocalypse 14:4).

Prayer of the Heart

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and the Divine Office prayed reverently, devoutly, and attentively are indispensable to one called to embody the mediatorship of Christ the Eternal High Priest. Liturgical prayer will, nonetheless, without the intimate prayer of the heart, grow cold and formalistic. The liturgy is a searing, soaring flame that renders all that we bring to it incandescent, but when the flame of the liturgy disappears, there must remain a bed of glowing embers — the uninterrupted secret prayer of the heart — lest we succumb to the cold that sets in as soon as one stops praying.

In conclusion, permit me to turn to prayer the magnificent text of Cardinal Ratzinger's discourse at Subiaco eight years ago:

Lord Jesus Christ,
Eternal High Priest, and immolated Lamb,
Mediator between God and Men,
make of us priests who hold their gaze fixed upon God,
priests capable of understanding the weakness of men
and of bearing witness
to the transforming power of Your grace.
Make of us priests whose intellects are enlightened
by the radiance that shines from Your Face,
and whose hearts have been opened by Your love
as by a lance;
So fill our gaze at the altar
that our intellects will be able to speak
to the intellects of others,
and our hearts listen and speak to their hearts.
Only through priests who have been touched by You,
can You come near to men.
Touch us, then, so often as we touch Your most pure Body;
Touch us, so often as Your saving Blood moistens our lips,
that through us You may make yourself present
in places and in lives where, even now,
you remain unknown, unwelcomed, and unloved.
Who live and reign with the Father,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever.
Amen.

by Cardinal Cláudio Hummes

Dear Priests,

Prayer necessarily occupies a central place in the life of the priest. This is not hard to understand, since prayer fosters the disciple’s intimacy with his Master, Jesus Christ. We all know that when prayer lessens, faith is weakened and the ministry loses content and meaning. The essential consequence of this is that the priest will have less joy and less happiness in his daily ministry. It is as if, following Jesus along the road, the priest, who walks along with many others, were to begin to lag behind bit by bit and so distance himself from the Master, even losing sight of him on the horizon. From that moment he will find himself lost and uncertain.

>Yes, a priest who neglects prayer will become weak in faith, joyless, and uncertain of the very things that should be life giving for him. At the origin of every crisis in the life of a priest is a lack of prayer, that is, of conscious surrender to the Friendship of Christ. Nowhere can a priest experience the Friendship of Christ more effectively than in the radiance of His Eucharistic Face. Priests who pray daily, for one hour, before the Blessed Sacrament attest to the purifying, healing, and transforming effect of such prayer on their lives.

St. John Chrysostom, in a homily commenting on the First Letter of St. Paul to Timothy, observes wisely: "The devil attacks the shepherd. In fact, if by killing the sheep the flock is reduced, by instead eliminating the shepherd he will destroy the entire flock." This statement makes one think about many contemporary situations. Chrysostom warns us that the lessening of the shepherds will and does make the number of the faithful and of communities decrease. Without shepherds our communities will be destroyed!

>The Evil One hates the priests of Jesus Christ, and will do everything in his power to drag or push them into patterns of sin, to confuse their thinking, to corrupt their hearts, and to destroy their confidence in the Mercy of God. Who then, among priests, can be saved? The priest who takes refuge beneath the mantle of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, his Mother and his Advocate. The priest who cherishes Mary with a love that is at once filial and spousal. Mary’s most precious gift to her priests is a gentle, but compelling, inclination to prayer. Saint Benedict speaks in the Holy Rule of "falling frequently to prayer." This is, I think, a distinctively Marian grace.

But here I would like above all to talk about the needfulness of prayer so that, as Chrysostom might say, the shepherds can defeat the devil and so that they are not lessened. Truly, without the vital food of prayer the priest becomes sick, the disciple does not find the strength to follow the Master, and thus dies of hunger. As a consequence his flock is scattered, and dies in its own turn.

>Priests who pray generate communities that pray. A prayerful priest will generate a praying parish. Where priest and people persevere together in prayer, with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the Holy Spirit is poured out in abundance, quickening the life of the Church, and causing the face of the Church to shine with joy even in the midst of great sufferings.

In fact every priest finds an essential reference point in the ecclesial community. He is a very special disciple of the Lord who called him and who, by the sacrament of Order, configured him to Himself as Head and Shepherd of the Church. Christ is the one Shepherd, but he has deigned to make the Twelve and their Successors partake in His Ministry, amongst whom Priests also participate in this sacrament, albeit in a lower grade, in such a way that they also take part in the ministry of Christ, Head and Shepherd. This carries with it an essential bond between the priest and the ecclesial community. He cannot do any less than his duty, since without a shepherd the community withers. Rather, following the example of Moses, he must be found with his arms raised to Heaven in prayer so that the people will not perish.

>This paragraph causes me to think of the vast brotherhood of parish priests who, though uncanonised and unsung, prayed their flocks into a great holiness. I am reminded of the example of Father Edgar J. Farrell, whose Mass I often served as a boy; he would prepare for Holy Mass with prayer, kneeling at his prie-dieu in the sacristy, and prolong his thanksgiving after Mass. In recent years, the "Protestant" custom of greeting the faithful at the door of the church after Holy Mass has become widespread. We ought to recover, it seems to me, the paradigm of the recollected priest, intent on making his thanksgiving after Mass in the sanctuary, in view of his people. How much more fruitful would this be than the banal greeting and trivial remarks at the door of the church.

It is for this reason that the priest, if he is to remain faithful to Christ and faithful to the community, must be a man of prayer, a man who lives close to the Lord. Moreover, he needs to be strengthened by the prayer of the Church and of every Christian. Let the sheep pray for their shepherd! When the shepherd becomes aware that his life of prayer is weakening, it is time for him to turn to the Holy Spirit and to beseech like the poor of heart. The Spirit will rekindle the fire in his heart. He will rekindle the passion and the enchantment of the Lord, who is ever present and wishes to eat with him.

>Surrounding every priest who prays is a community that prays for him and with him. The criticism of priests often leads to sins of rash judgment, defamation, and slander. The temptation to speak ill of a priest can become, in effect, an invitation to pray for him, to fast for him, and to represent him before the Eucharistic Face of Jesus, close to His Open Heart.

We wish to pray with and for priests in this Year for Priests with perseverance and great love. To this end, the Congregation for the Clergy celebrates a Eucharistic-Marian Hour for and with priests, at 4 p.m. in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, Rome, each first Thursday of the month during the Year for Priests. Many people joyfully come to pray with us.

Cardinal Cláudio Hummes
Archbishop Emeritus of São Paulo
Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy
[Translation distributed by the Congregation for Clergy]

by Abbot Tryphon, All-Merciful Saviour Monastery

Orthodoxy has traditionally avoided clericalism, yet in more recent times this very corruption of priestly service has entered the doors of the Orthodox Church. It has led some clergy to seek out, for personal gain, even the heavy burden of hierarchical service to Christ's Church. Motivated by their desire for princely honor, their sight is clouded so as to endanger not only their own souls, but the souls of the laity who are in need of humble, fatherly, pastoral care, and who will suffer under their "pastoral" guidance.

This quest for honor has led many clergy to participate in a culture of abuse, where they even turn on one another in their sad attempt at aligning themselves with "officialdom". The culture of abuse that is encouraged and fomented by refusing to live in adherence to the simplicity and humility of Christ's example, is not much different than that of the grade school pecking order where the bully builds alliances based on fear.

It is the same culture that chooses to ignore destructive behavior which undermines the message of the Gospel, and displaces the ministry of healing, replacing it with a worldly culture not unlike that of the fiefdoms of medieval Europe. Those in priestly service must be close to their people, serving as both fathers and brothers, ever being gentle, patient, and merciful. Those in priestly service must be animated by inner poverty, and give themselves over in the freedom of the Lord. Their lives must be in witness to the outward simplicity and austerity of life as exemplified by Christ Himself.

Orthodoxy must be returned to the basics, putting off all royal pretensions and princely ways. Our bishops need to lead their dioceses with biblical standards based on love of their priests, and love of their people, for rule by fear and tyranny is not of Christ. Priests, too, must lead their people as loving fathers, and not as local governors appointed by Caesar.

These are dangerous times, and the people of God must be given the spiritual tools needed to thrive as society falters and Christianity itself is under increased attack. The road ahead requires bishops and priests be more than religious officials, they must be holy men who lead their people as loving, caring, and merciful pastors.

by Pope Francis

Pope Francis appealed for God to grant believers the courage to embrace Christian poverty, saying people cannot forgive a priest who is attached to money.

Taking his inspiration from the day's Gospel reading where Jesus drove out the traders from the temple, accusing them of transforming it into a den of thieves, the Pope's homily was a reflection on the power and allure of money. He said Jesus's action helps us to understand where the seed of the antichrist is contained, the seed of the enemy that ruins his Kingdom: attachment to money.

"Our Lord God, the house of our Lord God is a house of prayer. Our encounter with the Lord (is) with the God of love. And the money-lord that enters into the house of God, is constantly seeking to enter inside. And those people who were changing money or selling things, they were renting their places, right? – from the priests… the priests were renting out those places and then received money. This is the lord that can ruin our life and can lead us to end our life in a bad way, without happiness, without the joy of serving the true Lord who is the only one capable of giving us that true joy."

Noting it's a personal choice, Pope Francis then asked his listeners: "How is your attachment to money? Are you attached to money?"

"The people of God have a great flair for accepting, for canonizing as well as condemning – because the people of God are capable of condemning – for forgiving so many weaknesses, so many sins by priests but they cannot forgive two of them: attachment to money, because when they see a priest attached to money, they do not forgive him, and mistreating people, because when a priest mistreats the faithful: the people of God can't accept this and they do not forgive him. The other things, the other weaknesses, the other sins ….. yes ok, it's not right but the poor man is alone, it's this…. And they seek to justify (his sins). But their condemnation is not as strong or as definitive: the people of God could understand this. Following the lord of money leads a priest to be the head of a firm or be a prince or we can go even higher…"

The Pope went on to recall the teraphims, the idols that Jacob's wife Rachel kept hidden, as an example of this attachment to material goods.

"It's sad to see a priest who's at the end of his life, he's in agony, he's in a coma and his relatives are there like vultures, looking to see what they can take away. Let us grant this pleasure to the Lord, a true examination of our conscience. 'Lord, are you my Lord or is it – like Rachel – these teraphims hidden in my heart, this idol of money?' And be courageous: be courageous. Make a choice. Sufficient money like that of an honest worker, sufficient savings like those of an honest worker. But all these financial interests are not permissible, this is idolatry. May the Lord grant us all the grace of Christian poverty."

"May the Lord," concluded the Pope, "give us the grace of the poverty of working people, those who work and earn a fair wage and who do not seek any more."

by Todd Pruitt

Whenever a pastor falls, especially one who is famous (or infamous), it affords the church in general and pastors specifically an opportunity to do some serious reflection. I have served on a church staff since I was a 20 year old college sophomore. Twenty seven years later I daily realize how much I still need to grow.

Like so many, I have thought and opined quite a bit about Mark Driscoll and the fallout at Mars Hill Church. I have thought about the many warning signs early on in Driscoll's ministry that some gave voice to but few heard. I have thought about some of the failures of Mars Hill to hold her leadership accountable. But most recently I have been reflecting on the condition of my own heart.

The following is a bit of my own interior dialogue that I welcome you to listen in on.

1. Shepherd the flock that God has given you.

"Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly" (1 Peter 5:2). Whatever else a pastor may have time to do he must not allow it to interfere with this most basic duty. This means preaching and teaching, visiting the sick, admonishing the errant, battling wolves, and comforting the wounded. All this takes time and requires personal sacrifices. This is what pastors do. Very few of us can shepherd a local church and lead a movement at the same time.

2. Do not despise anonymity.

Some of the finest pastors are those whose names most of us won't know until we get to Heaven. If you are serving in relative anonymity do not envy those pastors who enjoy the lights of fame and influence. There are far worse fates than not being famous.

3. You are highly replaceable.

Paul referred to himself and his fellow apostles as "jars of clay" (1 Cor 4:7). The term Paul uses refers to the most common of household vessels. These clay pots were typically used to store certain goods of varying value. They were also commonly used for refuse. These vessels were cheap, not especially strong, and replaceable. The church will never need you. When you break or are thrown out the Lord will easily replace you. Carry the gospel well. Feed the flock competently. But never teach God's people that you are indispensable.

4. Be careful how you measure success.

If you live by the numbers then you will die by the numbers. When a pastor craves numeric success he will inevitably love what people represent far more than he loves the people. This is a tricky issue for pastors. Lack of numeric growth tends to be viewed as a failure of the pastor. What is more, the pastor's employers (the congregation) want to see their church grow. Certainly it is a noble desire to reach many for the gospel. But our hearts are deceptive. When pastors enjoy numeric success we are susceptible to pride, self-sufficiency, and a sense of entitlement. That is, we expect to be compensated handsomely for engineering the church's success. But God's people are not grist for the mill of the pastor's personal quest for success.

5. You are not a CEO.

The biblical metaphor of shepherd given to the spiritual overseers of God's people in both Old and New Testaments is not to be dismissed simply because certain religious entrepreneurs do not want to be burdened with the responsibilities of pastoral ministry. The church staff is not your staff. The elders of the church are not your elders. They belong to the Lord and are accountable to the congregation.

6. Serving within a well ordered denomination is a blessing.

After serving within a non-denominational church for almost 5 years I am grateful to be part of a denomination with a lengthy confession of faith and Book of Church Order (PCA). Governance and polity matter. Does this mean that non-denominational churches are a bad idea? Generally speaking: Yes. Can a multi-layered and highly detailed polity slow things down and make decision making less efficient? Absolutely. And this is a good thing. We are too sinful to be trusted with unchecked power. Don't ever place yourself in the dangerous position of serving alongside a hand-picked board. You need the governance and accountability structures of a well ordered denomination.

7. Tremble at the prospect of your future judgment.

"Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness" (James 3:1). Being a pastor is not a right. It is a rather terrifying responsibility. Take time every day to reflect upon the fact that you will be judged by Jesus for how you fed and cared for His beloved people.

About The Author:

Todd Pruitt blogs regularly at Ref21 and 1517. He is a graduate of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City. He, along with Carl Trueman and Aimee Byrd, hosts the podcast Mortification of Spin.

by Santhosh Chacko

After observing several incidents happening in our churches and dioceses, especially outside Kerala including that of Ireland, Australia, UK, US and Canada, I clearly see a noticeable trend in our church. In the villages of Kerala there was a time where poor members of the SOC highly depended on clergy. This is probably the result of social pressure- for them to bury their relatives in the respective cemetery, marry children in their own churches, and most importantly the family pressure (among the relatives) to keep the church close to their lives. This relationship of clergy-laymen probably still continue in some of the churches in the villages of Kerala. Clergy lived completely on the income received from laymen but cared for the spiritual welfare of the laymen in return-teaching him the word of God, performing necessary sacraments etc.

Laymen, in this scenario, badly needed clergy for their survival, both individually and socially. This type of relationship has started to disappear and in some parts of the world; it is better to say that this has already disappeared in places like America or Europe, where people are more free and have no binding relationship to clergy. They are not under pressure from any society or relatives to keep church and clergy to their hearts. They do not need a priest or church of their own to perform weddings, burial etc. They do not depend on the church cemetery for burials and thus have no obligation to either the church or to the clergy in any degree. If the clergy in these places depend on the people for income, they will become obliged to the laymen - a reverse state of what existed in the villages of Kerala once upon a time.

Clergy or church however, do not realize this change in trend. This is evident from ordaining priests with no educational qualifications to serve in this new world. Priests should be selected based on their qualification, both professional and spiritual education. Candidates who will never get a job to sustain himself should not be ordained as priest. Nowadays the tendency is to ordain priest if one knows just Thaksa and nothing else, not even has a job! These type of people think all the members of the church will come forward to provide money to them (yes, there was a time like that but not the new generation!). They will, only if the priest can prove that he is beneficial to them (in all manner, atleast spiritually). Unfortunately, there are only a minority of people who sincerely wish to receive H. Communion from church regularly for their spiritual needs (a sign of failure of Spiritual Mission in our church because of lack of capable clergy). Most others come to church mainly for socialization.

Most churches in America and Europe that belongs to Syriac Orthodox (People of Middle East origin) Church have very poor attendance, and in some cases only clergy remains! This will soon happen to the second and third generation immigrants of our church in American and European continents. Does any one care?

As a church, how can we rectify this issue or what can we do to prevent future crash in the church? In my opinion (Please share yours too), in addition to spiritually training our children at home, we need clergy who are:

1. Educated and self sustained or have his own job (including that for bishops) - so they don't depend on others

2. Dedicated in the Mission of Spirituality-so they take self initiatives to bring faithful to God (Fishers of Men; Mathew 4:19)

3. Able to reach and touch the hearts of all the members-so they can change their heart and bring them to God

4. Role models of Christian Life (blameless in all the sense)-so the laity can imitate a saintly life from these teachers.

5. Not into greed, not behind money, or building properties, but building the temple of God, that is human souls - so these clergy will give importance to building the imperishable church of God and not the perishable properties.

6. Able to convert the people, and turn to God for free (Salvation should be free to all) - so all people will be attracted to God and continue to remain in the SOC fellowship for continuous spiritual nourishment

7. Perform all the necessary sacraments to faithful for free. St. Paul and other disciples worked to earn their own livelihood and dedicated their life to provide sacraments to others for free- So people will not feel that it is a business incorporation but is a spiritual organization meant to improve the spiritual life of people.

In brief, in the 21st century and beyond, it is clergy who needs laity and not laity who needs clergy. The ultimate goal of God in establishing his Church is to generate laity who are saved (Disciples are called to make fishers of Men). If there is no laity remained in the church, there is no need for clergy either. So it is high time to think and act to save our church in the modern era. Like our current Patriarch said in one interview, both parents and clergy are equally responsible for the spiritual growth of the children. However, if we currently don't have parents taking responsibility, the only thing we can do is to create clergy who would be able to influence both parents as well as children.