It’s funny: within the ORthodox understanding (non-filioque) the relationships within the Trinity are *exactly* hierarchical. Which confuses me: because it sounds nearly like the Arian Heresy, but ok…

I’ve posted part 3 (last one) in these meditations from Cam’s sermon.

“Who has the power to consecrate? And why is there a hierarchy to protect it? Why does it need to be protected??”

Your asking these questions backwards: God blesses the bread in response to the community’s prayers. Why does this power of God’s “need” to be “protected” and why did some men reserve it to themselves?

Your not intruding, Mark, but you’ve missed about 4 or 5 years of discernment in these pages, and evolution from the magical point of view you discuss. I don’t see it as Jesus’ point of view: only as the view of some Christians. That’s not the same thing.

You noted the issue of comforting the dying, etc. That’s a sacrament that all Christians are required to perform. The Church messed up when she allotted that to a professional clergy.

That’s been the point of this whole months-long discussion on paying $150K for seminary, etc.

Like I said, it’s not an intrusion - it’s more like your coming late to the discussion and cycling backwards.

Peace.

I re-discovered your weblog today. I remember you commenting a lot on Karl Thienes’ “St. Stephen’s Musings” a couple years ago.

I empathize with your dilemma. Unfortunately I do not know enough to give you learned advice, but I hope to pose or at least rephrase your questions.

I sense something is missing in your discernment. It feels like you are skirting around the heart of the issue, but cannot see it, or do not want to see it. And you know it too because you admit near the end that a priest is more than just a leader or the one who says the prayers.

Is a priest defined by his function, or by who he is?

If function alone, then your dilemma is solved. If it is about his being–something more than just a job or a label or descriptor, ontological perhaps (i.e. what is the nature of a priest)–then there is something more to the idea of ordination, or should I emphasize the meaning of consecration and to what a sacrament truly is. As you’ve wrestled with in your post, you know it is both/and, not either/or. A priest is more than just a job.

Which leads to another thing you wrote near the end, “what the community seeks when it creates a priest.” Who creates a priest, the community or God?

If a priest is just a function, a job description, label, then I suppose a community can create a priest any time it needs to fill the role. If God creates the priest, then that leads us back to what a sacrament is and does.

What about your question about power and magic–what magic? If all a priest does is “magic” through some prayerful incantations, then I suppose anyone could become a priest if he has learned the right words to say and has the piece of paper to say he has had the proper training. It comes back to just being a job, a function, doesn’t it?

You left out questions about other priestly functions like being a role model, a spiritual mentor, counselor, advisor, and such. Is being with a sick or dying person just a function of the job, or is it more? Is a spiritual mentor just a function of the job, or is it a part of nature of being a priest? Sure, anybody can be a spiritual role model, but isn’t there something different about a priest as a role model? What does it mean again about being consecrated? Do the notions of sacred vs. profane apply?

Who has the power to consecrate? And why is there a hierarchy to protect it? Why does it need to be protected??

What about the role of priests and sacrifice? Isn’t it the Sacrifice that makes priests different from preachers? Who links us through time and space to *the* one and only true Sacrifice of The Cross, a sacrifice made to pay the debt of love, of faith, of obedience, of forgiveness, of reconciliation?

Where is the Holy Spirit in all this? And what about the Apostles and the lineage of the priesthood back to Jesus, and further back through the Levites and Melchizedeck, to Abraham, to Cain and Able?

Does wanting it to be make it real?

I beg your pardon if I have intruded. As Michael said, more thoughts “to toss into your blender.”

Keep hope alive. Dare to trust. Surrender to grace. Reflect love.
Mark

This is not an answer to your question, just another (?) thought to toss into your blender.