O Sacerdos, quid es tu?
Non est a te, quia de nihilo,
Non es ad te, quia mediator ad Deum,
Non es tibi, quia sponsus ecclesiae,
No es tui, quia servus omnium,
Non es tu, quia Dei minister,
Quid es ergo? Nihil et omnia,
O Sacerdos.
This poem, found early on in Michael Ramsey's classic, The Christian Priest Today, sums up so much of what walking in this vocation means. (It also is simply neat for the progression of prepositions and articles in Latin.)
I think of it, as a thread in the House of Bishops/Deputies list serve grapples with nomenclemature -- 'woman priest,' but not 'male priest;' 'gay priest,' but not 'hetero priest.' It is true, one is a priest without qualifiers. The qualifiers come with the person who inhabits the vocation of priest but they address the esse, not the vocation.
Perhas the wisest thing that someone told me before going to seminary, actually as I was just beginning to think about ordination 22 years ago was, 'Don't ever lose sight of yourself. There will be a time when your priesthood will fail you and if you don't know who you are, you will be even more lost.' Such wise words, coming from one of my early sisters of priesthood... I have marked them well.
And so, I qualify myself as a chocolate-loving, cat-fanatic, iPod-toting, music-loving, voracious reading, walking pilgrim and much more. Priest is just a part of the entirety.
Beneath these thoughts lie the fact that tonight the church will receive two more people en route to the priesthood. We will ordain a man and a woman to the transitional diaconate and we will be all the richer for it.
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