Used by permission copyright 2020 Jeff Haynie

Priests, Prophets and Kings, Really?

With the sacrament of baptism, we become priests, prophets and kings. We know this.

Or do we?

Since baptism happened to most of us a very long ago, reviewing this most precious of sacraments is apt.

The word baptism means literally to be plunged into the water- which symbolizes our “burial into Christ’s death” from which we emerge as a new creature. It is the “gateway to life in the spirit” and effects the “birth of water and spirit without which no one can enter the Kingdom of God.” When baptized, each os is left with an indelible spirtual mark.

No sin can erase this mark, even if sin prevents Baptism from bearing the fruits of salvation. Given once for all, Baptism cannot be repeated. Through the sacrament, the Holy Spirit has marked us with the seal of eternal life…Baptism is God’s most beautiful and magnificent gift. . . .We call it gift, grace, anointing, enlightenment, garment of immortality, bath of rebirth, seal, and most precious gift. It is called gift  because it is conferred on those who bring nothing of their own; grace since it is given even to the guilty; Baptism because sin is buried in the water; anointing for it is priestly and royal as are those who are anointed; enlightenment because it radiates light; clothing since it veils our shame; bath  because it washes; and seal as it is our guard and the sign of God’s Lordship….”

Catechism

The only sacrament that the 2.6 billion Christians in the world agree on is baptism; it is universally recognized as valid.

Priests, prophets and kings, really?

I’ve phrased the rhetorical question because my days are flawed and ordinary, Replete with words or actions that bring me to confession, again.

And yet…

In the hour of need

Last Monday morning, the day before the election, I was at adoration. I wasn’t just praying but begging through the litany of the Precious Blood. “Precious Blood of Jesus, save us and the whole world, “over and over. And then I turned to the Liturgy of the Hours, intending to pray Morning Prayer. But I didn’t get past the Office of Readiings for Monday Week lll because part ll of psalm 50 ends with the words,

Call on me in the day of distress .

And I will free you and you shall honor me.

The psalmist’s words brought my fearful thoughts to a screeching halt. In the silence that felt more like an embrace, I closed my prayer book. And stared at Jesus in the monstrance in awe and wonder for the remainder of my Holy Hour.

Ever since my conversion to Catholic Christianity, my prayers are consistently for His Will. But prior to the election I begged that killing babies would not be the law of our land. Enshrined into our Constitution as a “fundamental right.” Or that imaginative, curious and/or confused youngsters would not be condemned to drugs and mutilation because he or she decided being the opposite. would fix every problem. I was begging too, that if four more years of the Democrats was the will of the American people, that I could calmly accept their decision as His Will.

That this man, Donald Trump, one so thoroughly castigated, persecuted and hated, won the 2024 presidential election, is nothing less than miracle. And amplifiees my conviction that you and I need to do more.

What?

I already go to Mass daily!

And pray three rosaries. every day.

And fast three days a week.

Do more?

Yep.

The hour of the laity

The phrase, “the hour of the laity” hit me with a whallop when I saw the video on Father Boniface Hicks’ website. Not from the content of the video but these five words. They are precisely what Dei Verbum, Lumen Gentium, Gaudium et Spes, the documents of Vatican ll boil down to.: we need to think, pray and act like priests, prophets and kings.

How?

Praying– begging– for the heroic virtue needed to engage in this battle for souls.

The hour of the laity expresses the main thrust of Pope Francis’ now fifteen-year papacy. Encyclicals like Fratelli Tutti and especially Fiducia Supplicans make us squirm in discomfort because thr Holy Father forces an examination of our cold hearts.

“Sixty years after the [Second Vatican] Council, we are still debating the division between ‘progressives’ and ‘conservatives,’ while the real difference is between lovers and those who have lost that initial passion,” Pope Francis told the cardinals and senior officials of the Roman Curia when he met them for the traditional exchange of Christmas greetings this morning, Dec. 21. “That is the difference. Only those who love can journey forward….

…whenever God calls us, he sends us on a journey, as he did with Abraham, with Moses, with the prophets and with all the Lord’s disciples. He sends us on a journey, draws us out of our comfort zones, our complacency about what we have already done, and in this way, he sets us free.”

Pope Francis to Curia–and us.

That’s the “more,” isn’t it?

Opening our hearts and minds to those who make us feel uncomfortable: whether because of ‘ideology’, age, or personality. Deciding to look past our natural repugnance to see a person created in the image and likeness of God. Even when it’s not convenient.

I remember a homily from my first spirtual director, Father Greg Brozonowicz not long after I’d become a Catholic Christian. Fr. Greg was imagining a conversation between the angels and Christ after his ascension. They had numerous questions but one primary one.

“Okay, you left eleven fishermen to evangelize the world. You must have been confident they would know what to do. But Jesus, they’re just men. Surely you’ve thought of the worst-case scenario.

After all, you created the universe Lord and must have thought of this.

What if they fail?

What’s your backup plan?”

The Lord replied, “I have no backup plan.’

The Letter to the Hebrews affirms that by his oblation, Christ “has made perfect those who are sanctified” (Hb 10:14) and we have seen that “to make perfect” also means, in the context, “to consecrate as priest”. With his oblation, Christ has consecrated as priests those who are sanctified. All Christians now enjoy priestly privileges that are even better privileges than those of the ancient High Priest himself, because they have the full right of entrance into the true Sanctuary, without any limit of time. …

The Beauty of the Priesthood