Homily Priestly Ordinations in CTS
Savior, Jerusalem, June 29, 2025
Acts 12:1-11; 2 Tim 4:6-8,17-18; Mt 16:13-19
Dear brothers in Christ and in St. Peter
Dear Fr. Custos,
may the Lord give you peace!
The Gospel that we read every year on this occasion always offers us new suggestions. Today, too, we are picking up just one of them. I am talking about the knowledge of God according to flesh and blood on the one hand, or according to God’s own inspiration on the other. These are two different ways of standing before God, the life and the world. They can also be two ways of standing in the life of the church, as we shall see.
To say something about Jesus, the crowd and the disciples refer to the great prophets of the past (“Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets” - Mt 16:14): That is, they realize that Jesus is understood as a great, special person, but no different from others who were already part of biblical history. They notice nothing new, go no further and see in him the same gestures, the same attitudes, the same word as had been conveyed by other messengers of God in the past. The thinking of the crowd, their knowledge of Jesus is only human, it comes from “flesh and blood” the result of their reflection, their reasoning (cf. Mt. 16:17: “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father”). Even today, the temptation is the same, as always: to reduce Jesus to a figure that can be completely fitted into our human understanding, our flesh and blood. Fascinating, interesting, but in the end always just one of us.
Peter’s answer, however, goes further. What is missing from the crowd’s thinking about Jesus, what they cannot see, is given to Peter through an inspiration from the Father in heaven (Mt 16:17). It does not come from flesh and blood, it does not come from Peter’s observation, his thinking, his experience. It does not stop at something already known, but opens up to a revelation, to a light that Peter and the other disciples cannot give themselves.
For there is something unprecedented and scandalous about the person of Jesus that flesh and blood alone cannot comprehend. It involves conversion to the revelation of a God who has fully revealed himself in the flesh and in the life of a human being like us. And this understanding does not come about through an effort of the intellect, but by allowing oneself to be drawn to the Father; it comes from wonder.
You are already consecrated to God through your religious profession, and now you also become ministers of God through your priestly ordination. In other words, your life is called to become an integral reflection of God’s action, in you and in the communities for which you are destined. You are, in short, called to proclaim Jesus with the same words as Peter: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). And of course it is about doing this with your life, through your witness. A priest places at the center of his life not himself, but his relationship with Christ. And that means giving space to prayer, especially personal, and of course ecclesial prayer. It means celebrating the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, with dignity and respect. For the sacraments, the Eucharist, are not your property and prerogative; they belong to Christ and the Church. Therefore, let the person of Christ, the beauty of the Church, shine in your ministry and do not make yourself the protagonist of the priestly ministry, of the sacraments you administer, of the word you proclaim. Instead, be humble instruments of the salvation that is in Christ alone. In short, in your priestly ministry, do not be guided by flesh and blood, but always be inspired and guided by the action of the Spirit, who keeps alive in you the presence of Christ, which is the heart and center of every priest's life.
The church that is born right here in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost needs Peter, the rock on which the community takes shape (“I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church” - Mt 16:18), but it also needs the priests, also rocks, around whom the church must take shape, the shape of Christ. Your communities will only take on the form of Christ if you are the image of Christ. They will be built on the rock of Peter if you are attached and faithful to that rock. There are no other ways. Everything else will be given to you in addition. And any other reference in your priestly ministry that does not put Christ at the center will only be vanity and will remain unfruitful.
And there is a way to understand whether you will truly be the image of Christ and whether your communities will be built with Christ as the cornerstone. Whether “gates of the netherworld” will try to prevail against you (cf. Mt 16:18). That is, if the world, not understanding you, will try to get you to think and act according to “flesh and blood” and not according to the revelation of God the Father. That is, when you succumb to the temptation to reduce your ministry to a purely human, albeit important, accompaniment and thus give up being first and foremost instruments of salvation. Today’s world does not want to hear about eternal salvation. It wants to save itself, only here and now, in the present time, without any transcendent view. Instead, your ministry must relate to eternity, which has already begun in you and to which you are to direct your faithful.
You will be called upon to respond to the many needs of the people entrusted to you, who will very often have no other reference besides you. And there will be many of these needs. “The poor you will always have with you” (Mark 14,7). And unfortunately, there will be more and more of them. And woe to you if, under the pretext of caring for the souls of the faithful, you neglect their material needs. But woe to you too, if you reduce your service to material needs alone. The world will confront you with many demands and problems: Injustice, suffering and loneliness, hunger and poverty. And these will be voices that you will have to hear and make your own. This suffering will also have to become yours. But in these realities, you must go beyond the human response of “flesh and blood”. You must base your response on God, the only one who can give hope and comfort even in these dramatic situations: Jesus Christ. You will dedicate yourselves to many social, pastoral and educational activities that will be fruitful and create communion, only to the extent that they are not centered on yourselves, but on love for Christ and the Church.
There will come days when this ministry, which you are beginning today and which now fills you with joy, will become burdensome for you, when loneliness and fatigue will become particularly heavy. Easter time will also come for you, in short. Immediately after Peter’s confession, as we know, Jesus speaks of his passion (“From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly” - Mt 16:21). You too will have your own ascent to Jerusalem to make. But it will become a path of salvation if you allow yourself to be inspired not by “flesh and blood” but by God, if you leave room for His Word of life, if the sacraments you celebrate nourish you first, before your communities, if you build your priestly life on a faithful relationship with Jesus. Then you too, like Jesus, will be ready to live your Easter with confidence, to live your Gethsemane with the certainty of the resurrection. Then you will truly be instruments of salvation, witnesses of eternal life and of hope that does not disappoint (Rom. 5:5).
Will you be able to live like this? I sincerely hope so. We really need such witnesses. May the Immaculate Virgin accompany you in your priestly ministry. And don’t forget to pray for our little Church in Jerusalem, where you are called to serve, that it may continue to bear witness to our hope in Christ, the Son of the living God, also in these turbulent and dramatic times. Amen.