A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mk 6:7-13
Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by twoand gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the journeybut a walking stick—no food, no sack, no money in their belts. They were, however, to wear sandalsbut not a second tunic. He said to them,“Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave. Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you,leave there and shake the dust off your feetin testimony against them.” So they went off and preached repentance. The Twelve drove out many demons,and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.
REFLECTION
Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by twoand gave them authority over unclean spirits.
The priest's role is to bring people to eternal life.
PAPA constantly prays that the Church will always have holy priests: that they celebrate Mass with dignity, hear confessions for hours, eagerly administer the sacraments, and teach our Catholic faith. We pray that they be cheerful, patient, friendly, generous, giving, and untiring workers for the Kingdom of God. In the Dialogue of St Catherine of Siena, our Lord said,
" I do not want the respect which priests should be given to be in any way diminished, for the reverence and respect which is shown them is not referred to them, but to Me, by virtue of the Blood which I have given to them to administer. Were it not for this, you should render them the same reverence as lay people, and no more....You must not offend them; by offending them you offend Me and not them. Therefore I forbid it and I have laid it down that you shall not touch my Christs." (Chapter 116)
Through our Baptism and Confirmation, we too, belong to the royal priesthood. We follow the vocation God has given us and through our secular tasks sanctify and offer to God our daily works and circumstances. We, too, work through our vocation to bring people to God and eternal life.
The priest, however, is especially called for the ministerial priesthood. By the Sacrament of Holy Orders, the priest offers gifts and sacrifices for sins, and is Christ himself: the living and transparent image of Christ who at Mass in the persona of Christ, uses his hands, voice and whole being for the redemptive Sacrifice of Calvary. It is Christ, using the priest, who changes the bread and wine to His Body and Blood at Mass.
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