Preached at Croydon Minster on the 60th anniversary of priesting of the Revd Canon Arthur Quinn and the 25th of the Revd Canon Dr Andrew Bishop.
Isaiah 6.1-4,8 ‘Here I am: send me’
Psalm 23.1-3a, 5-6
John 17:1-2, 9, 14-26 Father the hour has come: glorify your
Son
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60 years ago, in Fr Arthur’s case, 25
years ago in mine, and one day ago, in this church, for three people: priests
have been ordained, in service of Christ and his Church, from the time of the
Apostles.
Priesthood in the Church has a deep
provenance going back to the time of Abraham and the mystical priest-king
Melchizedek, on to Aaron the priest and on to the Temple in Jerusalem.
The essential task of the priest is to offer sacrifice and intercession in
pursuit of reconciling human lives to God.
Priesthood - in the Old Testament and
New and into the Apostolic Age and therefore in the life of the Church - is all
focused on Jesus Christ, Eternal High Priest.
Jesus Christ both expands and
intensifies all notions of what priesthood is.
In Jesus Christ the priestly task of the
offering of sacrifice is no longer about the blood of bulls and goats and lambs;
but is found in his offering of himself, once for all, upon the cross: he is
the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
Blood and water flowed from the heart of
Jesus when the centurion’s lance pierced his side and he gave up his life.
That is the fulfilment of all sacrifice.
Nothing can perfect or improve the self-offering
of Christ who is, as the hymn puts it, both priest and victim.
And today, through Christ our great High
Priest, we receive the benefits of his sacrifice in the Eucharist, that’s why
often it is known as the Sacrifice of the Mass.
The Eucharist is not a blood sacrifice
but the re-presentation of the sacrifice of Christ in which we share, in the
way he promised at the Last Supper, saying ‘this is my body, this is my blood’.
The sweet incense that masked the stench
of slaughtered animals in the Temple, is now the fragrance of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ, a fragrance that fills lives that will receive him, and
accompanies the offering of ourselves, our souls and bodies to be a holy and
lively sacrifice to him.
Incense too represents another dimension
of priesthood, that of intercession, of prayer rising before the Lord, ‘let my
prayer rise before you as incense’, says the psalm, ‘the lifting up of my hands
as the evening sacrifice’ (Psalm 144).
Jesus Christ is the exemplar of prayer,
that union with the Father. The intimacy of that relationship flowed through
our gospel reading:
‘Righteous
Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have
sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the
love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’ (John
17.25,26)
This intimacy of prayer and communion of
Father and Son, woven in the love of the Holy Spirit, is the fountain of
reconciliation.
Drinking from that fountain brings us to
life in its abundance and a clearer vision of life means we can be clear
sighted about our sin.
That is why the sacrament we call
Confession is also known as the Sacrament of Reconciliation, in which the
penitent repents and the priest declares, at Christ’s word, the forgiveness of
sins.
When we know the glory we can attain; we
see the sin that impedes it.
Essentially, the Christian priest is to
be the mirror of Jesus Christ, the Eternal High Priest.
At its heart that’s what my ministry is
meant to be about, and Arthur’s too: as a song of the 1980s put it: ‘here comes
the mirror man’!
A mirror, in itself, hasn’t got anything
to show.
All that I, or Arthur, or any priest can
bring is our own humanity, and the honest endeavour to reflect the sacrifice,
reconciliation and love of Christ to the world.
The priest’s vocation starts with the
holiness of God, as Isaiah found in the Temple.
Before being commissioned to be sent by
the LORD, Isaiah, in the midst of the sacrifice and incense of the Temple cries
out:
‘Woe
is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of
unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’ (Isaiah 6.5)
The priest is first a human being, a
sinner, falling short of God’s glory, yet by God’s grace we can be sent by the
Lord. One of the Articles of Religion is entitled ‘of the unworthiness of the
ministers, which hinders not the effect of the sacrament’. (Article 26).
Even human unworthiness cannot dim the
divine light.
The Church Fathers often speak of the
Blessed Virgin Mary – who said ‘how can this be?’ - as the moon reflecting the
light of the sun: s-u-n and S-o-n.
That’s one reason why Mary is known as ‘Mother
of Priests’.
I have used the phrase ‘mirror men’, but
the ancient way of putting it is that, in the Liturgy, the priest is an icon of
Christ who acts in persona Christi,
in the person of Christ.
So I trust that we have been ‘mirror
men’ in the parishes and chaplaincies in which we have served, reflecting the
sacrifice of Jesus Christ, interceding and reconciling in his name not our own.
St Augustine of Hippo remarked to the
people of his diocese, ‘I am a Christian with you and a Bishop for you’.
A priest is both a Christian with you
and a priest for you.
To be a priest in the Church of God is
the most overwhelming privilege when we pause to consider it.
No doubt like me, Arthur will be mindful
tonight - on this jubilee, this lovely (but ultimately artificial) landmark -
of those people who we have baptised, prepared for confirmation, married and
buried; those whose vocations we have spotted and nurtured, those whose
confessions we have heard and to whom we have pronounced Christ’s forgiveness; those
dying in the hope of the resurrection to eternal life and those who lacked that
hope; the students, and others who we have endeavoured to guide through the
world’s machinations and the valley of the shadow of death; those people to
whom we have had to speak firmly, for the sake of truth, and those who have
needed a kind or encouraging word; those who have gathered at the altar as we
have proclaimed Christ in word and sacrament supremely in the breaking of
bread.
No doubt too, Arthur will be mindful, like
me, of those priests who in their time were sources of inspiration to us, and thankful
to our families, friends and congregations who have made our ministries
possible and sustainable.
Ultimately the task of each priest, and
each Christian, is to turn to Christ and walk with him the path of life.
With fellow priests, not least in this
season of life here, I trust that Arthur and I mirror and show to you the
sacrificial love of Christ that reconciles us to the Blessed Trinity.
Please pray for your priests, and all
priests, mindful of the words the priest says at the end of a Confession to the
person forgiven.
The Lord has put away your
sins.
When you pray, please pray
for me, a sinner too.
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