Homily of Holy Thursday

Rome, 4 April 1996

Today, Holy Thursday, we recall with veneration what Jesus said and did at the last supper of his life on earth, at which he gave a meaning to spiritual sacrifice to the Father.

A number of motives are interwoven in this celebration which leads us into the Easter Triduum: the Church, the new chosen people, founded on God's pact with humanity realized in Christ, and established historically on the twelve witnesses and depositaries of the secret of Jesus; the Eucharist as the sign, memorial and actuation of this covenant in different times and places; the common priesthood of all, and in particular of those who had been with Jesus from the beginning, and at this moment were chosen by him as his family to celebrate the Passover with him; and loving service, the key to the interpretation of the Jesus event, the explanation of the Eucharist, a commandment for the community, a task and reason for the priesthood.

These motives imply and involve one another. In the special context of the Lord's Supper it is impossible to separate them without losing a part of their significance. Today we need to take them up again, reflecting on our priestly ministry. It is unusual to have so many Salesian priests united for a celebration of Holy Thursday.

Every year on this occasion the Pope writes a letter to priests. Moreover we are at present engaged in a deeper study of the educative and pastoral community, the Salesian family and movement, and the exchange of benefits which must take place in them. In the last thirty years we have done a lot of thinking about the service which must be rendered by those who animate communities, and it has been emphasized that it must be enriched and inspired by priestly endowments and experience. This has not been considered only as a preliminary condition for taking on the task, but as the very content of animation, which is not something technical but spiritual, based on grace and aimed at a more intense living of the state of grace or holiness, through the mediation which Christ conferred on his apostles.

The ordained ministry is not primarily a delegation to do something, but a vocation and charismatic gift. Before being a satisfaction of the people's need for meetings and common prayer, it is an invitation by God to follow Christ in a certain manner. No one accedes to the priesthood for family reasons or because of purely personal qualities, but because of an internal voice which is heard and is later discerned and accepted by the Church. It springs from the Spirit. We do not form a social group. Ours is a spiritual priesthood like that of Jesus. The Spirit's grace leads us to become conformed to Christ the Shepherd, and disposes us to offer our lives to God for men; for their salvation which consists especially in the revelation of God, in whom man succeeds in discovering his destiny.

This was the great work of Jesus, as he himself summed it up in those last supreme moments: "To them I have revealed your name..." with patience, with persistence, with pedagogy. To this are referred all his works and actions. They reach our corporal and psychological dimension, but especially they awaken our awareness of being children of God; they communicate the Spirit's gift, they give sense to our existence, they reconcile us with the Father.

• The charism received by those who are called to the priestly ministry is destined for the community in four different forms.

There is the charism of foundation; it continually brings back the community to Christ by exhortation, but above all by linking it historically with the event of Christ through participation in the apostolic succession of the Bishops. The Christian faith is not a refined religious humanism, nor is it the summation of what is best in all the existing or possible religions. It is the acceptance in the first place of an established fact and of its consequences: the incarnation, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. To this event communities are linked through the testimony of the apostles, maintained by the Church, which reaches even as far as us through their successors. It belongs to the priesthood to keep alive the memory of this reference and bring it about that all other concerns and initiatives of the community become linked with it. There are many gifts and endowments in the community, but the ministry is the charism of foundation. And it is not a matter of personal ability alone nor of professional preparation, even though these two may be of the greatest help, but of the constitution of the body of Christ as is clearly proclaimed in today's celebration. It is the duty of every priest, through his familiarity with Jesus, to make him present so that the community may be supported and grow on solid foundations.

The priest brings a second gift to the community: he becomes the sign and energetic force of ecclesial communion, in an internal and spiritual as well as a visible sense. The Christian community is not characterized by celebrations or by a feeling of sympathy for Christ, nor even by the content of faith alone, but by a historic belonging. It is a people called to be an instrument of the salvation brought by Christ, not outside or beyond history but within it. This membership or belonging has signs of identification and implies also demands of life. It is a spiritual communion and a visible unity. Priests do not monopolize the sense of the Church, but they certainly nourish, sustain and enrich it from the lowest level (like convergence on some human values) up to total communion.

Linked with the preceding there is a third gift: the authenticity of faith and Christian experience. The faith of the individual and the community is a response to the proclamation of salvation and the acceptance of its conditions. It requires both vibrant feelings and depth of reflection; it regards the Gospel, not speculations produced by the human mind, and it has a means of verification: the Church of the apostles. It is in this proclamation and in this comparison that one must delve in order to penetrate the sense and consistency of human values in line with their ultimate destination.

On the foundation of Christ, in ecclesial communion, and with attention to authentic faith, we enter progressively into the realm of grace, of relationship with God, of the human experience of feeling ourselves children of the Father, lived also at a psychological level: it is the itinerary of the spirit within us, the understanding of the sacramental and vital mediations offered us by God. Again, it is not a matter of powers but of a vocation and a gift, with which the Spirit makes us instruments to be vehicles of grace as he sends us to the community.

• Priests recall the foundation; they insert others in the Church, they develop the faith and introduce others to grace through the service of the word. All take part in the proclamation and exhortation, but the priest signifies its urgency for unveiling the mystery of life: he recalls that it culminates in Christ Jesus; he dedicates himself to embodying this in life and puts himself at its service.

In the same way he helps the individual and the community to give the generous response to God which is holiness. All collaborate to this end, but the priest perceives it as the greatest benefit of the person; he is concerned that individuals and community progress in it for men and for God, and offers the riches of experience and grace which Christ and the Church possess.

Priests animate and guide the community to direct them towards Christ, to live in love, and to give fullness to their ecclesial membership.

Once again they do not do this alone, nor is it necessarily done from posts of administration or coordination. It arises whenever there is clarification of rapport with the Lord and there is defined the witness of charity. He has it at heart that the community should not live for itself but place itself at the service of others as Jesus did. In this existence for others they must not stop at human possibilities, but grasp the divine plan revealed in Christ; that they trust not only in temporal means but in spiritual means too; that they believe in the fertility of the Spirit's presence which educates the conscience and opens up to grace.

• To enable them to exercise these ministries not in a bureaucratic fashion but with interior joy, dedication and conviction, the Spirit equips priests with an energy which is the characteristic of their existence and spirituality: pastoral charity. Everybody has this, but the priest receives it as his principal gift. It is the love which leads him to contemplate and identify himself with Christ and to collaborate with him who enlightens, heals, gathers people together in unity and gives his life for them. And not only this! It enables him to make Christ present around him through words and gestures which are visible and intelligible, and solidly directed towards the goal of salvation.

The priesthood, understood in this fashion, is exercised not in certain specific acts, but at every moment of life. It is the priestly existence which is the mediating element as was that of Christ, defined and described as a priest by the Epistle to the Hebrews. The minister acts "in persona Christi" when he celebrates and (without thereby making sacred his own state) even when he walks the streets because it is his life which has been assumed by Jesus.

• This leads us to one or two comments on our Salesian priesthood. The Lord calls us to be priests and educators. This means taking the grace of our ministry into the field of human experience of the young and the community concerned with youth. We exercise the ministry of the word when we preach a homily, but not less so when we speak with a youngster in the playground, when we gather together a group of animators, or when we teach a class. As our pulpit we have chosen the school, and as the place for proclamation meeting places indoors and outdoors. The word of God is not left isolated but is offered in a living context. For the young person, the word of God may be a dialogue or a welcoming greeting if he finds in them enlightenment and support.

We draw profit through the energy of priestly animation when we direct communities and works towards Christ, towards a service to the faith of the young even though we may be dealing with technical questions or organizational matters.

Being priests and educators means that we never separate spirit from matter, orientation from the necessary means, objectives from mediations, the secular from the religious, life from sacrament.

We sanctify when we celebrate, but no less in our daily relationships as well. Grace is certainly communicated through the acts of Jesus carried out by the Church, but also by our other acts which spring from a priestly heart.

• A second comment arises from a question which at first sight seems rather disturbing, but in fact makes us decidedly optimistic. Is it true that in the CEP there can at times be several priests, but there is little evidence of priestly gifts and service? And if this is so, may it not be because we thought that the field of education, the educative community, the youthful environment, are not the place for the profitable use of priestly characteristics, and so we waited for Sunday to exercise the priesthood in its most religious and ritual form? This question leads to a perspective which is encouraging. What a wealth of enlightenment, of grace, of orientation and transformation will be unleashed when each of us, people of God and ordained ministers, sets free the energies of his priesthood.

Both youngsters and adults feel the need for this. And it will not signify any mortification of the secular dimension, but rather its perfecting and fulfillment.

To this priestly service, which has its culmination in the Eucharist, Jesus invites us today with those words: "Do this in memory of me".