Chapter Five of "Holy Thursday: An Intimate Remembrance" by Francois
Mauriac.
The priest in whom the sacred character conceals the human aspect
disturbs by his mere presence the dark and secret things that lurk
within us. The earth trembles under the foot of Jesus Christ.
The ferret has been put into the warren....
Paul Claudel
The Eucharist must not prevent us from considering the other
sacrament which was instituted on Holy Thursday: Holy Orders. "Do
this in remembrance of me." "Do this, as often as you drink [the
cup], in remembrance of me."
The twelve apostles are the first twelve priests; Judas is the first
bad priest. They were themselves so keenly conscious of being no
longer men like others that their first task, after Jesus had
disappeared from their sight, was to replace the traitor, Judas:
"Therefore, of these men who have been in our company all the time
that the Lord Jesus moved among us, from John's baptism until the day
that He was taken up from us, of these one must become a witness with
us of His resurrection." "And the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was
numbered with the eleven apostles."
Now they are ordained, the first members of an innumerable family.
Holiness entered the world with Christ. The Church is holy and what
matters to us the wretchedness of individuals, their falls, their
betrayals? "The great glory of the Church," writes Jacques Maritain,
"is to be holy with sinning members." Until the end of the world, the
hands of a few chosen men will never cease to lift up "the Lamb of
God who takes away the sin of the world." It was through the
imposition of hands that even in those early days Stephen was made
deacon-Stephen whose face, as it is recorded in the Acts, appeared to
the Sanhedrin "as though it were the face of an angel." That light
which shone on the face of Stephen has never been extinguished
through the ages; and, in spite of all denials, it has never ceased
to bathe the faces of lowly priests; it shone on the humble visage of
the Cure d'Ars.
The grace of Holy Thursday will be transmitted unto the end of time,
unto the last of the priests who will celebrate the last Mass in a
shattered universe. Holy Thursday created these men; a mark was
stamped on them; a sign was given to them. They are like to us and
yet so different-a fact never more surprising than in this pagan age.
People say that there is a scarcity of priests. In truth, what an
adorable mystery it is that there still are any priests. They no
longer have any
human advantage. Celibacy, solitude, hatred very often, derision and,
above all, the indifference of a world in which there seems to be no
longer room for them-such is the portion they have chosen. They have
no apparent power; their task sometimes seems to be centered about
material things, identifying them, in the eyes of the masses, with
the staffs of town halls and of funeral parlors. A pagan atmosphere
prevails all around them. The people would laugh at their virtue if
they believed in it, but they do not. They are spied upon. A
thousand voices accuse those who fall. As for the others, the greater
number, no one is surprised to see them toiling without any sort of
recognition, without appreciable salary, bending over the bodies of
the dying or ambling about the parish schoolyards.
Who can describe the solitude of the priest in the country, in the
midst of peasants so often indifferent, if not hostile, to the spirit
of Christ? We enter a village church; we find only an old priest
kneeling in the sanctuary, keeping a solitary watch with his Master.
The words of Christ concerning priests are proven every day: "I am
sending you forth like sheep in the midst of wolves.... You will be
hated by all for my name's sake." For centuries, since the first Holy
Thursday, some men have chosen to become objects of hatred, without
expecting any human consolation. They have chosen to lose their lives
because once Someone made them the seemingly foolish promise: "He who
finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake
will find it." And elsewhere: "Everyone who acknowledges me before
men, I also will acknowledge him before my Father in Heaven."
But if they did not find their joy even in this world, would they
persevere? "What are you going to do?" said Abbe Perreyve to Christ,
the day before he was ordained. "You are delivering Yourself; You are
abandoning Yourself to me. You surrender Your Body to me. I shall use
it for my needs and for the needs of other souls.... I shall touch
You, I shall carry You, I shall handle You and You will allow me to
do it; I shall place You on the lips of whom I will; You will never
refuse...." Indeed, priests, holy priests, are repaid by an immense
love.
For every Christian who tries to live according to his belief,
inevitable scandals count for little when one considers the holiness
of the Catholic priesthood as a whole. Let the heretics boast of not
needing anyone to reach God. Do they believe that worthy Catholics do
not enjoy the delight of solitude in contemplation and union with the
Father? But it is because of its conformity with our fallen nature,
with our wounded nature, that Catholicism shows itself to be the true
Church. Only in her bosom is kept the promise that Christ made to His
disciples, on that Thursday: "I will not leave you orphans." From the
very beginning of His public life, He had testified to the power
given to the Son of Man to forgive sins. And this power was
transmitted to His priests: "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are
forgiven them."
Protestants see in the Sacrament of Penance a means of easy
forgiveness, but only so that one may sin again. One is helpless
against such a distorted notion. Let us not cease to repeat to them
that, in order that absolution be valid, one must first hate one's
sin, a prerequisite which, in certain cases, is very difficult to
achieve. Next, we must resolve never to sin again-and this is not
only a matter of words but an inner determination of which God is the
only judge. Last, the fear of punishment does not suffice if it is
not inspired by love of God. No one can be forgiven without a
beginning of love.
Through the visible priest, the invisible Christ forgives our sins
and opens again His heart to us. That is why those faithful who are
eager to make some progress in the spiritual life not only confess
but agree that a priest direct them in this difficult path: "I will
not leave you orphans." Spiritual paternity, which the world deems
hateful, is nevertheless the token of salvation. Even if it requires
a great effort for human pride to submit to its fruits are admirable.
No action in the world gives us, to the same degree as does this
voluntary subjection, the certainty of our own freedom. This light
yoke, to which we are not compelled to submit, we must desire, we
must accept, through an act of free will unceasingly renewed. The
faithful subject themselves in order not to be slaves. They submit in
order to remain free.
It will be objected that, nevertheless, the faithful suffer from it;
that saints themselves have suffered from it; that direction was for
some a source of great distress, and even that they sometimes found
in it an obstacle much more than an efficient aid; and, on the other
hand, that some souls were able outside of Catholicism to reach a
high degree of perfection without any such help.
But perhaps those souls lacked precisely this resemblance with the
Christ of Holy Thursday, obedient even unto death: this last defeat
which consummates the Christian's victory. The submission of the
penitent to his spiritual director puts it within the power of the
most humble of the faithful to make that complete renunciation which
is demanded for the slightest progress in the following of Christ.
Furthermore, there does not exist any other means of looking at
oneself full in the face; for it is not with our own eyes that we can
see ourselves: "If thou knewest thy sins," said Christ to Pascal,
"thou wouldst lose courage." No one can judge oneself impartially; we
have to know ourselves, but at the same time we must not lose
courage. It is this balance that the faithful Catholic obtains from
spiritual direction. Those who are reckless lose exaggerated
confidence in themselves; those who are timid are reassured, and, at
last, they understand fully the words spoken by St. John: "If our
heart blames us, God is greater than our heart."
No, it is not to a man that we submit, but to Jesus Christ whose
place he takes. And it is admirable to know how the most common
priest, as soon as he has put on the stole and lifted his hand above
our bent heads, is stripped of his own personality, is changed for us
into another person who is infinitely greater than himself. Besides,
this man, this priest, is himself submitted to another priest. The
Pope is penitent and is directed. The man before whom we kneel,
kneels in his turn-he who judges is judged. He hears our sins but he
confesses his own. Confession, penance, contrition, constitute the
sacred patrimony shared by all priests and all the faithful.
We receive three inestimable treasures:< the certainty of being
forgiven> through the words of Jesus to the paralytic, repeated
expressly for us: "Thy sins are forgiven"; a kiss of peace received
in the very depths of our miserable hearts; a blank page upon which
the most infamous man, having become once more like a little child,
can begin writing his life anew...for it is never too late to become
a saint.
Such is the immense stream of grace which has its source in the first
priestly ordination of this sacred Thursday.
The entire book may be purchased from Sophia Institute Press, Box
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