Is Your Minister A Priest?

HOLY CROSS TRACTS - August 1916

By Father James O.S. Huntington, OHC

Is your Minister a priest?
"A priest ! No ! Protestants have no use for priests."
I hope you do not really mean that.
"Why not?"
Because it would be as much as to say: Protestants have no use for our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
"Well, of course I don't stand for that."
No, I am sure you do not. But there is no doubt that Jesus Christ is a Priest, that He has the one only true priest­hood in Heaven or earth.
"Yes, that is just what I believe. But if He is the only true Priest how can any one else be rightly called so?"
That is exactly what I want to explain, if you will be patient with me.
When you said just now that Protestants have no use for priests, what you were thinking was this: — that priests are a class or caste of men who try to make people believe that a soul cannot get into communication with God except by making use of them, and that God will not give men what they need except through them.
Of course there have been such priests as that, the priests of heathen religions, — like the "medicine men" among the Indians, — but they were not true priests at all.

And that false idea of priesthood has shown itself here and there in the Christian Church. But the true idea of a Christian priesthood is just the opposite. It is, as I said, that all true priesthood is in Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Mary. He joins all Christians to Himself in Holy Baptism, whereby they become Christians, that is mem­bers of Christ. And the whole Christian people shares in the great offices of its Head. He is the true Prophet and Priest and King. So Christians are kings and priests unto God, and they should be prophets as well, continually prophesying, or forth-telling, by their lives if not by their words, the good news of God. It is not, of course, that each Christian exercises an independent royalty or priesthood or prophetic function, in his own right as it were. That would spell confusion. He is to reign over himself, over his body and over his possessions, and the things committed to his care, but he does so because he belongs to Christ, Who is King of kings,—not king of slaves, for to serve Him is to reign. So, also, the Christian does not preach himself but Christ Jesus the Lord. Christ said to His followers, "It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of My Father that speaketh in you." So, once more, it is not that a Christian can be a priest apart from Christ, but he is to have a share in the priesthood of Christ, offering up "spiritual sacrifices" to God, and ministering grace by word and deed.
"Well, all that seems reasonable enough, but what are you coming to?"Just this. Protestants do not claim that all men shall have exactly the same extent of authority; they recognize that a father must be responsible for his family, a school-teacher for his pupils, a foreman for his workmen, a captain for his soldiers, etc.

Then, again, most Protestants do not wish to have all people "exercise in prophesy" to the same degree. They let most of the preaching be done by men trained and set apart for that office.
Why should it not be so with regard to the priesthood? Why should not certain Christians be chosen and set apart that Christ the one true Priest may act in and through them, as they minister to men, and lead them in the sacri­ficial worship of the Holy Eucharist?
"Do you mean that a priest does not claim to take the place of Christ?"
Certainly not. Christ is not an absentee. He has not left this earth to be ruled or fed or taught by certain men, while He stays away. That mistake has opened the way for the tyrants who have oppressed, the ecclesiastics who have cheated, and the heresiarchs who have misled man­kind. But Christ declared after His Resurrection that all power was given unto Him in Heaven and in earth, in His Ascension He went up into Heaven to "fill all things" and to His Apostles, and through them to the Apostolic ministry to the end of time, He said: "As My Father sent Me even so I send you," "he that receiveth you receiveth: Me," 'Lo, I am with you always unto the consummation of the ages.'
"Then you mean to say that a priest does not put him­self in the place of Christ?"
No indeed, God forbid! No properly taught and right-minded priest would dream of such a thing. He acts for Christ only as he acts from Christ. When our Lord came forth from His heavenly Father He was not separat­ed from Him, for He says: "The Father hath not left Me alone," "as Thou, Father, art in Me," "the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works." And when Christ said to His Apostles, and so to all His priests, "As My Father hath sent Me even so send I you," He must have meant that He was to be in them and to act through them, just as St. Paul said, referring to his exercise of absolution, "to whomsoever I forgave anything, in the Person of Christ forgave I it."
"Then what a priest gives to people is not really his at all."
No, not his at all, any more than your friend's gift to you on Christmas morning belongs to the messenger who brings it to your door.
"But I always thought that you Catholics in your Sacra­ments make much of the man, while Protestants depend on Christ."
Yes, that is one of the many mistakes that people make. As a matter of fact the personality of the priest is of very little consequence to us. It does make a good deal of dif­ference to me who is the preacher, but, when I go to make my Communion, it counts for very little who is the priest. He is but the hand of Christ. So if I depend upon the fervour and eloquence of a man who "makes a prayer," I must needs be affected by his personality. But the priest who says the words that the Church puts on his lips is to me only a voice,—the voice of Christ.
"You surprise me very much. I thought that all this about priests was the very opposite of democracy, but you seem to make it almost the same thing."
Of course it is, if by democracy you mean the removal of class and caste. Have you never thought that one reason why the Church dresses Her priests up in such singular robes is that they are so like other men that otherwise you would not know they were priests? Of course we should be glad if all our priests were wise and holy, but we value their ministrations not because of their wisdom or holiness, but because they are "ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." But I forgot; you said that your minister is not a priest.
"No, but I wish he were."
Well, he can be if he is willing.
"How?"

I must tell you that another time. But before we part I want to read you a statement made by one of the wisest teachers of the Church in England. He lived nearly three hundred years ago. His name was Richard Hooker. You will see how strongly he puts what I have tried to say to you, that a priest is nothing in himself, but simply the instru­ment of God.
"For in that they are Christ's ambassadors and His labourers, who should give them their commission but He Whose most inward affairs they manage? Is not God alone the Father of spirits? Are not souls the purchase of Jesus Christ? What angel in Heaven could have said to man as our Lord did unto Peter, 'Feed my sheep: Preach: Baptize: Do this in remembrance of Me: Whose sins ye retain they are retained: and their offences in Heaven pardoned whose faults you shall on earth forgive?' What think we? Are these terrestrial sounds, or else are they voices uttered out of the clouds above? The power of the ministry of God translateth out of darkness into glory, it raiseth men from the earth and bringeth God himself down from Heaven, by blessing visible elements it maketh them invisible grace, it giveth daily the Holy Ghost, it hath to dispose of that flesh which was given for the life of the world and that blood which was poured out to redeem souls, when it poureth malediction upon the heads of the wicked they perish, when it revoketh the same they revive. O wretched blindness if we admire not so great power, more wretched if we con­sider it aright and notwithstanding imagine that any but God can bestow it!"