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From talking to these men, it becomes clear that this is partly because they have been able to really give themselves fully to Christ during these days, in a way which perhaps at other times of the year they are unable to do. We live in an ever accelerating world in which we struggle to make real and meaningful time for God. From the earliest passages of Genesis, God makes it clear that the crowning purpose of creation is for humanity to rest in Him. And yet we have distorted this plan by making work and not rest in God the focus and source of our identity. We rest so that we can work again, rather than work so that we can rest. Yet we see how in just a few days of intense closeness to God, through entering whole-heartedly into the Christmas or Easter liturgies and mysteries, we can be “re-created” in God and become changed once again by his presence fully alive with us. In drawing closer to God in this way we then begin to uncover, prompted by the Holy Spirit, a deeper awareness of our own identity and calling. For some, the way in which God wants them to make Christ incarnate in the world today, or to be witnesses to the Resurrection, is through offering themselves unconditionally as a priest in the service of God and his church.

Christ reveals the fullness of his priestly heart during these days: the servant priest who washes the feet of the disciples at the Last Supper before offering them his very body and blood as the way they are themselves to make him present for others; the sacrificial priest who offers his own life on the cross for the healing and reconciliation of the world; and the priest as a herald of hope in the joy of the Resurrection. It is no wonder that those whom God is calling to be priests today experience that their hearts burn brightly during these extraordinary days of intimacy with Christ, in which he lays bare his own heart to us.

Perhaps this Holy Week and Easter has been a time when Christ has revealed to you his desire that you should share in his priesthood. This may have been the confirmation of a deep and sustained sense of calling to the priesthood within you, or it may have come as a completely new revelation in your life. In whatever way you have experienced this call of Christ, I would be honoured to meet you and listen to your story. You can contact me at richardnesbitt@rcdow.org.uk
Fr Richard Nesbitt

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