Ordination, like baptism, imparts something permanent and eternal in the human being. Pope Francis suggests a similar attitude in the notion that ordination does not complete a personal achievement, but rather initiates them into an ongoing openness to the Holy Spirit, and to God’s leadership and transformation for their life.
59. Having become instruments for igniting the fire of the Lord’s love on the earth, protected in the womb of Mary, Virgin made Church (as St Francis sang of her) priests should allow the Holy Spirit to work on them, to bring to completion the work he began in them at their ordination.
So, ordination is a beginning. Not an end.
The action of the Spirit offers to them the possibility of exercising their ministry of presiding in the Eucharistic assembly with the fear of Peter, aware of being a sinner (Luke 5:1-11), with the powerful humility of the suffering servant (cf. Isaiah 42ff), with the desire “to be eaten” by the people entrusted to them in the daily exercise of the ministry.
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Catholic Sensibility 