Notes for the Sermon on the occasion of the Priestly Ordination of the Reverend Father James Gordon Frasier Anderson, 22 April 2006

Thou art a Priest forever after the Order of Melchizedek!

Today is the wonderful fulfilment of many years of prayer, labour, and sacrifice. It has taken a long time to get to this day, but it was well worth the perseverance and commitment it has demanded. I shall never forget that particular Friday evening in the summer of 1997 when Gordon and I enjoyed a drink or two at the bar at Michael’s restaurant in Timonium. That evening as we discussed the Church and the ministry and journeys to Anglicanism, I pointedly asked Gordon, ‘have you ever thought of becoming a Priest in Christ’s Holy Catholic Church? Yes I actually put it like that. And the reply was, ‘yes.’ By God’s grace and many years of prayer and study, we arrive today at the conclusion of that conversation.

Today indeed God calls Gordon to the Priesthood of Jesus Christ in His Body the Church through the summons of God’s local representative, the Bishop. And a Priest, a Sacerdos, Gordon today becomes, by the imposition of hands and the invocation of the Holy Ghost.

What is this Priesthood to which Gordon is today ordained?

Pope John Paul II, in his excellent book commemorating his 50th jubilee of Priestly Ordination, Gift and Mystery, recalls his own Ordination, during which, as Gordon shall, he prostrated himself on the floor of the Church, sprawled out in the form of a cross. The late Pontiff reminds us that the Priest, stretched out in such a way, is a bridge, a bridge across time and space, a bridge uniting the Church throughout all ages, a bridge between God and man. The priest is Christ’s bridge, joining heaven and earth, and men to God. He is the link that unites the Church in every generation. He is the sign of the Church’s catholicity and the Sacrament of Christ in history.

There is a crisis in the Church today precisely because we have forgotten what the Priest is. What is the identity of the Catholic Priest?

The genius of Anglicanism is the Catholic Priesthood as expressed in the Ordinal – which combines the ancient Catholic Order of Priests with the truths of the primacy of Holy Scripture and justification by faith.

It is the possession of the Catholic Priesthood in its fullness that makes Anglicanism a true branch of the Apostolic Church and not a sect.

The Priest is a Sacramental Man, a supernatural being – he is the living Sacrament of Christ. He is a mediator and advocate in the one mediator and advocate. He is the representative of God to man, and man to God.

The Priest possesses a unique gift – it is not his own Priesthood that he exercises, but he shares in Christ’s one Priesthood by the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

The Priest is another Christ, alter Christus; he is in persona Christi capitis, in the Person of Christ the Head of the Church; he is the living icon of Christ; he is the image of the Bridegroom of the Bride, the image of Christ for and to His Church.

The Priest is the living instrument of Christ – he enters into the mystery of Christ’s sacrifice of obedience to the heavenly Father. His job is not a ‘job’; he does not function in a role: he is to BE the image of Christ. The ministry of the Priest is ontological – a change occurs in his very being. He is given an indelible character, an invisible mark on his soul that makes him different from anyone or anything else in all creation.

PRIESTHOOD = SACRIFICE

Christ reproduces His life of self-sacrificing love, His self-donating oblation in the life of His sacramental representative. Christ suffers and sacrifices: His Priest, His icon, must also suffer and sacrifice. The Mass is the heart of his sacrifice of love.

Priesthood is the highest dignity known to man – all of the presidents, poobahs, and potentates, all of the philosophers, politicians, and tycoons of the world put together cannot do what the Priest does… for at Mass the Priest unites heaven and earth and holds in his sinful hands the Creator of the universe, the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

On such an occasion as this, we are reminded of the parable of Saint Francis of Assisi. ‘If one happens upon an angel and a Priest, one should greet the Priest first, for the Angel has a higher nature, but the Priest possesses a greater dignity.’

The Priest is the Icon of the Incarnation. Priesthood safeguards the doctrine of the Creeds while extending the very Priestly Work of Jesus Christ in time and space.

What is the consequence of these truths?

In short, one should never forget the advice offered to me on the occasion of my own priesting: a Priest is ordained to be inconvenienced… how true that phrase really is.

Gordon, my dearest of friends, I charge you always to keep in your mind and heart the famous admonition of Father H. A. Wilson, an English Anglo-Catholic priest who exhausted himself in service to the poor of London’s slums:

‘The ministry of the Catholic priest is to pull back the veil between heaven and earth – and to hide himself in the folds.’

Be Jesus Christ to your people, be a holy, godly, loving, self-sacrificing, consecrated Priest of Jesus Christ. Go to God with the people on your heart.

Thou art a Priest forever after the Order of Melchizedek!