The Universal Priesthood of the Baptized

Light of Truth

Question:  Mr Gregory I. Thrissur

What exactly is the meaning of the Universal Priesthood of the Baptized (of all the faithful)? We, lay persons, are told that it is higher and more important than the Ministerial Priesthood of our Priests and Bishops. Still, we are treated as nobodies in the Church?

Answer:  Dr. GEORGE THERUKAATTIL MCBS

Though the universal priesthood of the baptized is an authoritative teaching of the Church, many Catholics seem unaware of it. Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC no, 1546] says very clearly: “Christ, high priest and unique mediator, has made of the Church ‘a kingdom, priests for his God and Father.’ The whole community of the faithful is… priestly. The faithful exercise their baptismal priesthood through their participation, each according to his own vocation, in Christ’s mission as priest, prophet, and king. Through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation the faithful are “consecrated to be. . . a holy priesthood.”

This priesthood is a great mystery. But we can grasp several of its essential aspects. These include: intercession, sacrifice, mediating grace to others, offering creation back to God in thanksgiving, and the contemplative work of “standing before God.” Individually, these aspects of the universal priesthood are familiar. What is lacking is a vision of the whole, connecting these spiritual practices through our participation in Jesus’ priesthood.

It is made more clear in the Letter to the: “[Jesus] holds His priesthood permanently, because he continues for ever. Consequently he is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb 7: 24-25). Since the Church prays “in Jesus’ name,” our prayers are joined with that single, definitive divine-human intercession which Christ makes before His Father for the world. Since Christ is both God and man, we pray both to Him and, in a sense, with Him in union with this eternal intercession. Likewise, our sacrificial acts and redemptive sufferings are a participation in Christ’s priesthood. Jesus suffers in the members of His Mystical Body (Acts 9:5); and while His sacrifice alone redeems us, our struggles can sanctify the Church and bring the grace of Christ’s Passion into the world (Col. 1:24). Similarly, since every baptized (faithful) share in the priesthood of Christ, it makes us mediators of God’s grace. We become “sacraments” of God’s love: signs which embody the very reality that they signify. Baptized into Christ, we live for others as tangible manifestations of the grace given to us. Jesus Himself is the singular, absolute “sacrament” of God’s love in this sense. But we, in Him, are transformed into reality-bearing signs of the same grace. Through our incorporation into Christ the One Mediator (1 Tim. 2:5), our presence also becomes a conduit of grace between God and the world. Another universally-shared aspect of Jesus’ priesthood is the work of thanksgiving: to receive God’s creation as a gift, and to respond by rendering it back to God, with gratitude and rightful use. In this respect, Jesus—in His incarnate priesthood—succeeds where Adam failed. Creation was made for man’s use and God’s glorification, with the intention that all gifts would be referred and offered up to the divine Giver. But mankind shattered this relationship by transgressing against God’s generosity. In Christ—and subsequently, His Church—the relationship is restored: creation shows forth its meaning as a sign of God’s grace, and mankind can offer creation back to God.

The OT does not contain many texts about our theme. There are two important quotations, which are taken over by the NT. Exodus 19:6: “How therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my Covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a Kingdom of Priests and a holy nation.” This text has a double meaning, which shall influence later theology. One can read: “a Kingdom of Priests” which was taken over by I Pet 2:9 or “a Kingdom and Priests” taken over by Rev 1:6 and 5:10.

In the New Testament there are only two series of texts: I Pet 2:9 and 4:10 and a series of allusions in Rev 1:6, 5:10, 20:6. In I Pet 2:9 we read “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy Nation – God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light. Once you were no people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy.” This means the Christian community, the people of God forms a priestly people in whom the common priesthood promised to and prefigured by Israel is realized (I Pet 2:9-10). This common priesthood is founded in the priesthood of Christ and exercised through it. The function of this priesthood is to proclaim God’s mighty act of salvation (I pet 2:9) wrought through the sacrifice of Jesus (Heb 5:9). This proclamation has to be in Word and Deed – through sharing what one has with others (Heb 13:15). Sacrifice appropriate to priesthood is thus not merely a sacrifice of praise (Heb 13:5), but a living sacrifice of themselves (Rom 12:1).

This means cult is to be integrated into life. Christian cult does not consist of what is practised at sacred sites, at sacred times. It is the offering of bodily existing in otherwise profane sphere. This does not mean there is no place of worship but means that worship serves life, not life worship.

The Doctrine of the Fathers of the Church: The theme comes easily in their sermons. The theologian Bernard Botte summarizes the most important trends in the Fathers: a) Metaphorical: the righteous is a priest because of the spiritual worship of His heart. b) Mystical: in so far as the Christians are incorporated in Christ, they participate really in His priesthood. (esp. Augustine). c) Realistic: since the Christians are anointed at their Baptism. Now the anointing is only given to priest. So they too are priests. (Tertullian, Origen, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine).

The Doctrine of Eastern Churches: It is typical of Eastern tradition that they never apply this triple form of power (Priest, King and Prophet) to the ordained Priesthood, but only to the whole of Christian people, to the Church as a community. The reason is: The ministerial Priesthood is not seen as a participation of the Priesthood of Christ, at least in the sense of Western theologians’ use of the well-known formula: Sacerdos alter Christus. The kingly, priestly and prophetic dignity of Christ is participated by the whole Church as a community, and therefore by all the faithful.

There is however another line of thought when medieval theologians tried to interpret the universal priesthood of the faithful. They connected it with the Sacraments and the acts of worship. The idea, that by their baptism and confirmation, the members of the Church were habilitated to receive passively the Christian sacraments. This idea has a great success and is still been defended, even in Vatican II. Y. Congar summarizes the idea: “The new worship according to the rite of Christian life… is not something purely personal, private and altogether inward; it is truly a religious, a worshipping and sacrificial order, with its High Priest or Head, Christ, the sole “verus sacerdos;” it also has its ministers, its sacraments and its faithful people by implication ordered, consecrated, appointed and united to it.”

Thomas Aquinas presented in a way a very corporate conception of the priestly character in the Church, primarily founded or actively by the members of this Church. For Thomas, the sacramental character is at the same time a “consignatio externa,” a visible marking (more than a sign), and therefore directly connected with the visible rite. Both cannot be separated, according to the old scholastic description of the character as “sacramentum (sign) and res (reality).

Theological Reflection: The current trend within the Roman Catholic theology in explaining the universal priesthood of the faithful is not satisfactory. We cannot soothe the people by telling them that they partake in the priesthood of Christ by their ability to receive the Sacraments is definitely passed. We look at the sacraments as true celebrations, and the celebrants are the whole people of God as assembled for this purpose. Priest is only presiding – all are concelebrants.

This does not mean priesthood is eliminated from Church. Church’s priesthood must be understood differently. The effective, exclusive and definitive priesthood of Christ will be effective only if there is a way of making his priestly action present in community. The Church must actualize “the mother of all sacrifices” of Christ and she is entrusted with the reconciliation message of that sacrifice. Reconciliation with one another and with God (communion, Kingdom of God) is the essence of Christian priesthood. NT sees this ministry of reconciliation realized collectively in the universal or social priesthood of all Christians and individually in the professional (ministerial) priesthood of certain officials of the Church. I Pet 2:9: “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people” have been called to declare praises of Him who called them out of darkness into his wonderful light. Rev. 5:8-10: “Kingdom and priests to serve God.” The sacrifice of this priestly people consists in offering themselves their bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God and to do so continually this sacrifice to God through Jesus (Heb 13:15-6, Rom 12:1). This sacrifice of praise consists in confessing His name and in living out this confession by not forgetting to do good and by sharing what they have with others. Cultic worship in Christian community is always the symbolic representation of Christian life through which we come to an awareness of what this Christian life is and find the courage to live it.

So, the universal priesthood of the baptized is not to be thought of as a participation in the ministerial priesthood of the Church. The baptized Christian is not a watered down priest. Rather universal priesthood is a primary dimension of Christian life deriving from the relation, which each Christian has to the unique priesthood of Jesus. It is this common priesthood which is therefore the ground and foundation of the ministerial priesthood. For bishops, priests and deacons are first and primarily Christian. Their ministerial priesthood is a concretization of the common priesthood of Christian people. “What I am for you terrifies me, what I am with you consoles me. For you I am a Bishop, with you I am a Christian” (St Augustine). In similar vein Samuel Ryan says: “My priesthood is the sacrament of the priesthood of my mother.”

But Cultic priesthood in the Church was given a theological basis by scholasticism. Priesthood was defined in terms of divine power to consecrate the Eucharist and canonized by the council of Trent. Eucharistic (cultic) priesthood dominated the Western theology, even after although Vatican II integrated Eucharistic (cultic) priesthood into a broader understanding of Christian ministry as a continuation of the threefold ministry of Christ, teaching, sanctifying and leading. The Council avoided the expression “alter Christus” to priests. Even the representation of the headship of Christ by the leaders and ministers of the Church has to be understood not in an authoritative way, but in a servant way. It is to be understood more as pastors, building up the Christian community, by making the saving work of Jesus, His “for us” effectively, making present to people through word, sign and style of life.

Though this is the case, in India Priesthood is still more understood as cultic function (poojari) presiding over the Eucharist and administration of sacraments. Priests in India are more like Poojaris, sacred persons, with sacral powers to change bread and wine into body and blood of Christ as if by magical power of priests and because they are sacral, they are set apart from the world. They belong to the realm of sacred and distinguished from lay persons, in dress, special forms of lifestyle, even though Jesus, become human overcame this distinction through His life and teaching. Priestly celibacy was considered as merely abstention from sex for cultic purity. Priests are not allowed to do “worldly pursuits,” or “to enter politics” though priests can be managers of Bank, or there is the Vatican diplomacy etc. There is a basic inconsistency in our understanding of the priesthood in the Church today. What has happened is that instead of being understood as one ministry among others, with its own precise and limited functions (like the episcopacy, presbyterate and diaconate of NT) priesthood has swallowed up all the other ministries and came to stand for an omni-competent clerical caste (like brahmins), which is defined by status rather than by its function.

Rethinking therefore the category of Universal priesthood of the baptized, we have to say that it is a quality of being Christian in, with and through Christ. The laity ought to have ever clearer consciousness not only of belonging to the Church but of being the Church. It is universal, because it belongs to all members of the Church corporately and individually. It is priesthood in the scriptural sense, of ministering as a kind of mediator between God and men. Through us God is bringing all men together in Christ. With Christ we turn towards God in prayer and worship for the cause of all men. Here we may integrate from the Fathers and the scholastics: Priests are consecrated by a visible rite. The common priesthood rests upon the visible consecration by baptism and confirmation. Lay people are those believers who have by baptism been incorporated into the people of God. They sanctify the world from within not only by secular activity but also by religious activity of evangelization. They participate in Christ’s priestly, prophetic and royal office by witness of their lives, their faith, hope and love. Through them Christ is known in all temporal matters. In this we see that the laity is honoured as God’s people. “A consecrated nation,” note the emphasis in St Peter’s words on the choice of God, a chosen people, a race God means to have for himself. This is completed for each one of us in our baptism. God’s holy people are embracing all lay persons, priests and religious. The community exists before any singling out of functions within the Church and remains more significant than any distinctions that may later be made. The lay persons are by no means half Christians. What is decisive for us all is the common vocation we received in baptism. “A royal priesthood” means Christ is the one and only high priest of NT. But He gave His whole Church a share in His priestly dignity and office. Through His own blood, He has entered into the sanctuary (Heb 9:12) and so has brought us all with Him. We may offer up our worship and sacrifice to God. We are told in Peter’s epistle that “as stones that live and breathe, we must be built up on Him into a spiritual fabric. We must be a holy priesthood to offer up that spiritual sacrifice. (Spiritual sacrifice, i.e., life of faith, hope and love).

Hopes for the Future

The participatory structures called for Vatican II, like the parish councils, pastoral and diocesan councils and finance committees, etc., should be set up. Each parish must have, according to the pattern of local institution (like the panchayats, sabhas, and sanghams) some sort of a representative body which will help the community to turn from a passive recipient into active participant in the life of the Church, e.g., palliyogams or Catholica Sabha. All matters of Church need to be discussed and decided upon by appropriate ecclesial bodies of representatives of priests and lay people at parish, regional and finally at the level of the whole Church depending on the nature of the subject. Accountability at the diocesan and parish levels, and greater participation in decision making for the lay people should become the hallmark of the Church administration. Laity should be increasingly involved in the care of temporalities. Lay ministries, e.g., of catechesis, evangelists, will not only enhance the status of the laity in the Church by official recognition of their activities, but also benefit everyone, if their creation is preceded by an adequate formation. Parish communities should foster a sense of respect for other religions and build bridges of communication to reach out to people of other faiths.

Even the contemplative work of “standing before God for all”—bringing the world into the Lord’s presence, and vice versa, within oneself—is not limited to a particular group or class of Christians. It is an aspect of Christ’s priesthood which He shares with all members of Christ’s Mystical Body. The essence of inward prayer is simply being present to God, opening ourselves to His transcendent love. All true prayer is prayer for all: even a simple prayer—such as, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me”—includes all people, in all times and places, when offered “in spirit and truth.”

May I end my summary of the Universal priesthood of all baptized, with the work that St Edith Stein called “standing before God for all.” Rooted in Christian mysticism, this is the simple yet profound task of bringing the world into God’s presence, and God’s presence into the world, wit hin oneself.

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