Mike Pascual R220 IPM – Liturgy and Sacraments Session 7

 Understanding the Ordained Priesthood under a coherent theology of ministry  In other words, how do we make sense of the priesthood?  Answer is to make sense of how we understand ministry.

 Defining our terms…  Vatican II  Identify some general obstacles in our experience (theology has a sociology)  Systematic Theology…  Or analogy of faith

 Literally means “service”  In our use, any service rendered in the Church to assist in the fulfillment of its mission  Our understanding of Church can affect how we look at the role of service…

 Prior to Vatican II, the Church was seen as an Institution  The Documents of Vatican II shifted the stress of understanding the Church away from institution

 While there was no specific model that replaced Institution, the documents of Vatican II specifically highlighted the concept of the Church as the People of God.

 This highlight acknowledged the baptized participating in some way in the one priesthood of Christ and in mission of the Church itself (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church 11, 30, 31)  Source of Common Priesthood is Baptism…

 How do we understand the relationship of the laity and the ordained priesthood?  Why an issue?  What we pray is what we believe…  And therefore how we live.

 Caste system? THE PRIESTTHE LAITY

 What does this say? THE PRIEST Institution ORDINATION THE LAITY Communion BAPTISM

 The laity are described as “not the priesthood.”  “second-class” citizens?  Encourages “clericalism”  How is ministry seen in this model?

 How does the understanding of ministry (the Church at service) operate?  All ministry is of the priest? And the laity?

 Priest = persona Christi capitis  The Lay leaders empowered by the Holy Spirit. THE PRIEST JESUS CHRIST THE LAITY THE HOLY SPIRIT

 “The basic understanding that the Trinitarian God is not an abstract reality of three persons, but rather a God of love and relationship.” (Hahnenberg 84)  Edward Hahnenberg, Ministries: A Relational Approach (New York, NY: Crossword Publishing Company, 2003),

 Greek: Hypostasis (relation…)  Latin: Persona  English: Person  In essence, the three persons are three relationships…

 God the Father as the Divine Source…  God the Son is distinguished as God the Son because of His relationship(hypostasis)… Jesus as the begotten Son of the Father  God the Spirit is distinguished as God the Spirit because of His relationship (hypostasis) … The Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

 The belief of this theology of the Trinity necessarily implies a relational understanding of all reality…  All of reality is relational…  You can apply to ministry…

 This theology of relation can be applied to ministry by recognizing that an “individualistic conception of the minister is impossible to maintain.” (Hahnenberg, 95.)  From this account, the minister is not “the person apart.”

 The Minister serves as a member of the Church, in relation to God, both “local and universal; these horizontal relationships with other human beings flow from the relationship to God through Christ in the Spirit.”

 The leader needs the people in order to be the leader.  Similarly…the priest needs the laity to be the priest…  Therefore, it is from this relationship with the community that their ministry is a reality.

Community MINISTRIES

 Helps us see the integrative work between Christ and the Spirit in the life of the Church  Dividing line model suggests contrast (if not conflict) of Christ and the Spirit

 Hence, a particular ministry does not exhaust the Church’s reality, but participates in it.  The charism of community leadership within an individual supports a community head who recapitulates the community.

 The Minister stands in place of the community on behalf of the community.  Example Priest is Person of Christ, Head of the Church (Body of Christ)

 The priest is  a minister of unity,  calls attention to the other members of the body, to the variety of gifts  and services raised up by the Holy Spirit.

 This suggests that the head minister (the priest) ought to be a ministry of synthesis, not a synthesis of ministry.  He should not take in the ministries as his own to do,  BUT BE THE CATALYST  Dynamic Christ and Spirit movement…  Person of Christ and Charism of the Spirit…  Pentecost parallels?

 In the world of Roman civic institutions, the word ordo suggested a well-defined social group or class, usually distinct from the general populace, such as the ordo of senators or the ordo of knights.

 Thomas O’Meara imagines different degrees of ministry to articulate our experience of the diversity of ministries within the people of God. (Hahnenberg 126)

GENERAL CHRISTIAN MINISTRY OCCASSIONAL PUBLIC MINISTRY LEADERSHIP OF AREAS OF MINISTRY LEADERSHIP OF COMMUNITIES

 One’s “Church position” is determined by  1. the minister’s commitment to ministry  2. the significance and public nature of the ministry itself  3. the recognition accorded by the community of its leaders  (page 131)

MINISTRY RECOGNITIONCOMMITMENT

 a personal call,  ecclesial discernment and recognition of a genuine charism  formation appropriate to the demands of ministry,  some authorization by community leadership, and  some ritualization as a prayer for the assistance of the Holy Spirit and a sending forth on behalf of the community.”  Richard Gaillardetz, “The Ecclesiological Foundations of Ministry within an Ordered Communion” 36.

 Ontology means “nature of being”  Is the minister who is “ordered” (ordained in the loosest understanding of the word) changed ontologically?  Based off of this understanding of Ordered Ministry, there is a change in their relational ontology.

 The change of being is their relational being within the church.  This is the change in ecclesial positioning…

 Theology of Ministry stems from an understanding of:  The Trinity (Relationality)  The Church (Ordered Communion) 

 This understanding of Ministry is based off a Trinitarian world-view of relationship and an understanding of Church as ordered communion.

 This situates the Sacrament of Orders within a wider understanding of Orders and Ministry  Similar to what we did with the word Sacraments  We can now appreciate the role and understanding of the Sacrament of Orders and Matrimony as Sacraments of Ministry