In this session, we're going to look at the
sacrament of Holy Orders, the sacrament that Christ uses to create leaders for his Church:
bishops, priests and deacons.
We'll be drawing upon the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas and later teachings from the
Church's magisterium.
As good Thomists, we start with created
order.
God created beings and persons with a hierarchy, a chain of being, with certain creatures being
higher or more sophisticated than others.
God uses these differences for the common good.
The differences glorify God's excellence and largess, his ability to create so much diversity.
Also, these differences ennoble us creatures.
God gives certain beings agency, and God works with these agents to bring about greater goods.
For instance, God has made certain human beings tall and athletic, and so certain basketball
players can do a slam dunk.
Is that unjust to the little child?
No.
The basketball player can pick up the child and then the child can do a slam dunk too.
Everyone wins and God is glorified.
In the supernatural order also, God uses hierarchy
for the common good.
Jesus Christ, because he is both God and man, is superior to us mere human beings.
Christ and his sacred humanity serves as a mediator between God and us.
Christ is thus a priest.
He offers worship to God, especially the act of sacrifice, the sacrifice of his life and
his passion and death.
And he bestows the gift of grace from God to human beings.
Christ is the only true priest, for he is the only true mediator, the only person who
saves as both God and man.
But through the sacraments, Christ gives the possibility to participate in his one priesthood.
Three sacraments configure us into a participation
in Christ's priesthood.
Those sacraments are Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders.
Their sacramental characters are participations in Christ's priesthood.
By baptismal character, the baptized participate in an initial way in Christ's priesthood.
Baptism makes a person a member of the lay faithful.
The baptized receive the holy power to receive further gifts from God, especially Christ's
sacraments.
Those who receive the second sacrament, confirmation, receive the priestly power to witness maturely
to Christ and his Church.
Finally, the ordained, the clergy, received the sacred power to bestow,
in an active way.
God's grace to others,
The clergy are Christ's most powerful class of human instruments.
So the sacrament of Holy Orders creates sacred
ministers, whose role is to build up and sustain the Church in the life of grace.
The highest of clerical acts is to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Why?
Because the Mass gives us Christ's real, full sacramental presence, the Eucharist.
The next highest work of the clergy are the other sacraments, especially those sacraments
that forgive sins, baptism and penance.
The forgiveness of sins allows people to participate in that highest act, the Eucharist.
Lastly, the ordained ministers lead the church community by preaching, teaching, and pastoral
governance.
The point there is, again, to bring people to the Eucharist.
For Aquinas, the high point of life is the Eucharist.
There are different ways that a man can be
ordained.
These are called grades or ranks or orders.
The three grades are from highest to lowest: bishop, presbyter, often called a priest,
and deacon.
They have different powers and roles.
For St. Thomas, these differences entailed different ways to support the Eucharistic
life of the Church.
Both bishops and presbyters can offer the sacrifice of the Mass, forgive sins, bestow
blessings, and preach and lead in the name of Jesus.
But only bishops have the fullness of Holy Orders.
Only they, for instance, can ordain another man.
Without that ability, we wouldn't have priests to celebrate Mass for us, so bishops sustain
the entire life of the Church.
Finally, deacons assist in distributing Holy Communion and with the Church's outreach to
the poor and her care of material goods.
Remember the sacraments tripartite structure
from a few classes ago.
For Holy Orders, the first step, the sacramentum tantum, is the liturgical rite of ordination.
The minister of Holy Orders is a Bishop.
The sacramental matter is the bishop's laying on of hands on the head of a baptized male.
That act signifies the conferral of sacred authority.
The sacramental form is an ordination prayer said by the bishop.
That speech specifies to which clerical grade the man is being ordained, episcopacy, the
presbyterate, or the diaconate.
Only a baptized male can be ordained because even in his physical gender, the ordained
minister has to serve as an icon of Christ.
Similar to how it'd be weird if a male actor were to play a woman's role in a movie, so
only a can represent Christ to the Church.
Only a man can act the role of Christ in an official leadership capacity.
From that first step of Holy Orders, the liturgical
rite, the man is boosted to a new level,
the second step of the sacramental dynamic, the res et sacramentum.
Here we find the clergyman's sacramental character, that configuration to Christ and his priesthood.
Finally, the sacrament works through that second level to the third level, the res
tantum, which is the sacramental grace conferred upon the man.
That grace helps the cleric to do a good, holy job acting in the person of Christ.
From that grace, the clergy serve the laity, the entire Church.
Indeed, the entire world.
The clergy exists to serve others and to help them serve God.
Through the ordained bishops, priests, and deacons, Christ acts to create saints.
Everyone wins.
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