Collins, Keenan Jones: Sharing the Priesthood of Christ

12 Y. Congar, Priest and Layman, trans. P. J. Hepburne Scott (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1967), 79 80, 92 3; trans. corrected.

Congar put his ﬁnger here on the persistent temptation for priests to indulge and be satisﬁed with ritualism. Gestures, words, and what accompanies them can become more important than interior devotion and loving service to others. In the New Testament and the works of early Christian writers, ‘liturgy (leitourgia)’ referred both to Christian worship and to the obligation to meet the material needs of others. The double usage of this term suggests the essential bond between worship and social action through the service of the needy and suffering.13

13 See G. O’Collins, Living Vatican II: The 21st Council for the 21st Century (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2006), 59 60; and S. R. Holman, The Beggars Are Dying: Beggars and Bishops in Roman Cappadocia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).

Finally, Augustine and Luther are at their best on this theme. As we documented, Augustine emphasized that the external rituals performed by priests should be matched by the inner obedience and sacriﬁce of their lifestyle. True sacriﬁce, for Augustine, was always found in a life given to God in faith and love. Luther puts matters more vividly. Introducing a speciﬁc detail from the rite of priestly ordination, he draws out the pastoral implications of being anointed and writes: ‘beyond other Christians, they [priests] are anointed on their ﬁngers, not so much for the purpose of being worthy to touch the sacrament of the body of Christ as to deal gently with the matter of the same sacrament: that is, with the people of Christ.’14

14 Lectures on Hebrews (Heb. 5: 1), in LW xxix. 170.

With this image we arrive at our ﬁnal thesis, and the question: how do ordained priests participate in Christ’s priesthood when they celebrate the Eucharist? Unquestionably, there are less controversial issues that belong here: for instance, about the ‘invocation (epiclesis)’ of the Holy Spirit at the Eucharist and the Trinitarian nature of the Eucharist. In BEM the Faith and Order Commission dealt clearly and helpfully with both matters. In its Report on the Process and its Responses, the Commission drew matters together: ‘in the Holy Spirit, Christ comes to us, clothed in his mighty acts, and gathers us in his self-offering to the Father.’15

15 Faith and Order Commission, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry 1982 1990, 116.

This same Report delineated and rejected two extreme views of what happens at the Eucharist: ‘the Lord’s Supper is neither the occasion of a simple recollection of Christ and his death, nor yet a repetition of Calvary.’16

16 Ibid. 115.

If so, what then is the Eucharist in its essential link with the once-and-for-all, sacriﬁcial, self-giving of Christ?

THESIS 12

In the celebration of the Eucharist ordained priests are visible signs of the invisible Christ, Priest and Victim or Offerer and Offering, whose unique and sufﬁcient sacriﬁce, accomplished once and for all in his life, death, and resurrection, continues to be present and operative on behalf of the whole human race. The heart of this thesis is the Augustinian-style distinction between the ‘visible signs’ (the ministerial priests) and the ‘invisible Christ’, perpetually present and active through the Holy Spirit in his priestly work at the sacriﬁcial meal that is the Eucharist. In the founding event of his sacriﬁce that would deﬁne forever the Christian story, Jesus established a new covenant with God, which he visibly articulated at the Last Supper and ratiﬁed through his death and resurrection. Through instituting the Eucharist as the perpetual, living, and effective commemoration of his sacriﬁce in which he would remain dynamically present, he could draw into his own self-offering all later generations of believers. This is to recognize that the Eucharist is neither a mere ‘memorial’ of Christ’s sacriﬁce nor simply a communion in the ‘beneﬁts’ Christ has brought to human beings. His beneﬁts, whether at the Eucharist or beyond, are ‘unavailable without his person’ and his personal presence.17