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HOLY THURSDAY REFLECTIONS FOR MY BROTHER PRIESTS, 2025
We will remember again later this evening what the Lord did and said in the Upper Room the night before He suffered and died. This is my Body. This is my Blood. Remember Me. We are the fruits of those words. We are the heirs of that mandate.
Were there women at the Last Supper? The Gospels do not mention any women but I believe in my heart that there was at least one woman in the Upper Room that evening—Mary the mother of the Lord. If not physically, certainly spiritually, Mary was there. She, who gave Jesus her body and blood from her womb for nine months, cannot be absent. Mary, who first gave Jesus His food as milk from her breast, taught Jesus how to feed others, not from the kitchen pan and pot but from her soul.
Before Jesus said “This is my Body…this is my Blood” Mary must have whispered many times for the past thirty three years, from the silence of her soul, “This is my body…this is my blood,” as she cradled Him in her arms.
And at Calvary, standing beneath the cross, Mary could have said with her eyes fixed on her Son hanging on the tree of the cross “This is my body they have nailed to the cross. His body came from my body. This is my blood dripping on the soil of this hill. His blood came from my blood.”
The blood of the Son is the blood of the mother. The body of the Son is the body of the mother. Perhaps among all the creatures of God, the Virgin Mary was the most deserving to be a priest and bishop; but she is not, by the design of her Son Himself.
Surely the Virgin Mary was better than Peter who lied about his friendship with the Lord. Surely the Virgin Mother can offer better consolation and deeper tenderness than the sons of thunder James and John. Women have genius that men do not possess. In our age, some women in the Church can be better orators than us bishops whose homilies are long and winding. But the mandate to proclaim Easter was given to the woman apostle to the apostles—Mary Magdalene; she was not ordained for the priesthood. We have varied tasks assigned by the Lord. It is not our tasks that make us great or greater than the rest. It is love that makes us great—man or woman, young or old, rich or poor. Greatness is in love. That will never change. It is the lesson of the Lord.
The language of the Mass has changed over time; so do our vestments. Our manner of receiving absolution for sins has also changed in the course of more than two thousand years. The ordination only of men for the priesthood, for more than two thousand years now, may look outdated in need of review but it is not so. The Lord did not ordain any women. He selected all of his apostles, and none were women. Saint John Paul II said it definitively:
Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren, I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.
The mission and life of a priest must be carried out with masculine traits. Masculinity and the priesthood are inseparable because the priest reveals by his life and person, the love of God the Father. Christ’s maleness is essential, so that the same Christ can reveal the masculine fatherly love of God the Father.
A man could not claim the right to get pregnant. It simply would not work. His body would not support carrying a child to term. In the same vein, a woman cannot claim the right to reveal manhood as a priest. It simply would not work. The gift of motherhood among women complements the gift of fatherhood of men. Neither men nor women have a right to be priests. The priesthood is not a right of anyone.
The priesthood is a privilege, bestowed by God alone. He chooses and calls his priests. It is an amazing grace beyond human wisdom. Wrapped in awe we just say “Thank you Lord!”
How are we to treat women in the Church? The first letter of Paul to Timothy is our lighthouse. “Treat older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters with complete purity.” (5:2).
This Chrism Mass can be a good occasion for us to seek pardon for the sins of us priests against women in the Church. The Lord always treated women with openness, respect, acceptance and tenderness. It is good to ask ourselves how much of Christ’s attitude towards women have we really imitated?
Unchallenged clericalism has led to repeated verbal and physical abuse against our women catechists, collectors and cleaners who are old enough to be our mothers. God forgive us.
Dishonesty in private life has emboldened us to break the boundaries of celibate loving. As women are left to stay behind secret shadows, we enjoy the limelight of prestige and public respect. Lord, have mercy!
Women who suffer from unequal treatment despite their talents are relegated to menial jobs in the kitchen and laundry while their genius is mocked or ignored. We seek forgiveness.
The root of sin is a failure of gratitude. Our sins against women in the Church mostly redound to a failure to see them as graces from God for the Church. We have not truly thanked the women in our parishes and schools for their feminine genius. We seek their pardon for our blind ingratitude.
Today beloved brothers, I thank God for your mothers. I thank God for your sisters. I thank God for the women in the Church who might have hurt you but actually left with you important lessons in life. I thank God for the women who pray for you. I thank God for womanhood which helps us live fully our fatherhood and priesthood.
Amen.
