SIMBANG GABI 2017 5
YEAR OF THE CLERGY AND
CONSECRATED PERSONS
DECEMBER 20, 2017
Jesus, I trust in you!
The most awaited moment has at last
arrived. It is the fullness of time and at last, God sends his Son into the
world to be born of a woman. He sends his Angel Gabriel to a virgin named Mary.
The angel acknowledged the Virgin’s blessedness: Hail, full of grace. The Lord
is with you. And then he proceeded to reveal the Divine plan of her conceiving
and bringing forth into the world the Son of the Most High. It was planned even
from the beginning of time, yes, even before the fall of man. God intended to
send his Son as man in order to give man a share of the Divine Life. It was the
plan that Lucifer resisted and rebelled against. He thought that by seducing
Adam and Eve to sin, he could prevent this plan from being fulfilled. But the
fall of man even gave God greater reason to pursue the plan of the incarnation.
And so the plan was all set, only
one thing was still missing and the angel Gabriel was sent to get it: it was
the consent of the Woman who was destined to be his Son’s mother. The Son was
willing to descend from heaven. The Holy Spirit was willing to make it happen.
All that was needed was for the chosen Woman to say “Yes.” And so it happened.
Mary said: “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done to me according to your
word.” And the Holy Spirit overshadowed her. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us.
God elects. God calls. And yet man
must respond, “Yes.” This was the story of Mary. This is the story of every
priest and consecrated person. We have seen in the past nights that God elects
and calls every priest from the people of God. We heard yesterday that God
wills to make men his allies and helpers in his work of sanctification. He
chooses his men and calls them to follow him. Through Holy Ordination, the Lord
will bestow on them the authority to transform bread and wine into his Body and
Blood. In other words, the Incarnation will once again take place upon the
altar…if only priests would imitate the Blessed Virgin and consent to his will.
When the Virgin said “yes” to God,
the Son’s “yes” to the incarnation is enacted by the Holy Spirit. in like
manner, the priest who has said “yes” to God’s call is bestowed the power to
bring about the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and
Blood of Christ on the altar. When the priest repeats the words of the Lord
upon the bread and wine, the Holy Spirit overshadows the offerings and
transforms them into Christ’s body and blood. In a way, Christ obeys the words
of the priest and descends upon the altar. Thus, bread is no longer bread but
his body and wine is no longer wine but his blood.
St. John Eudes said: “Do you not
envision Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of angels and men, Who was subject to His
Mother and to St. Joseph on earth, erat
subditus illis (Luke 2, 51), actually subjected to the power of His
priests? Does He not obey their commands and their words? Does He not hear
their voice when they summon Him to come into their hands at the consecration
of the bread and wine in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? Have they not power
over His Mystical Body, which is the Church, over His Holy Spirit, over His
grace and His mysteries? Is it not through priests and their ministry that the
Holy Spirit is imparted to the faithful, that the treasures of grace are
distributed and that the secrets of the eternal mysteries are made manifest?
For that very reason Sacred Scripture attributed to them the function of
"dispensers of the mysteries of God (1 Cor. 4, 1). Above all else, how
wonderful is the power of priests over the very Body and Blood of the Saviour!
That power not only gives them the right to bring Our Lord down upon the altar
whenever they wish or to transport Him from one place to another; it also
extends to the point of sacrificing Him every day, and of annihilating Him so
far as it is possible to annihilate Him, because sacrifice means the
destruction of the object sacrificed. Whoever possesses sacrificial power
likewise must have power to destroy what he sacrifices. This is indeed the
greatest and most absolute power God Himself can exercise over His creatures,
to destroy and annihilate them for His glory.
Thus, God has honored the sovereign
Priest, His Divine Son, and all those whom He has called to this holy state of
the priesthood.‘’
O Mary conceived without sin, pray
for us who have recourse to thee!
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