The entire meaning of the life of a Catholic priest is summarized by the hymn number two hundred and seventy-six (276) of the Catholic Hymn Book: All to Jesus I Surrender All to him I freely give I will ever love and trust Him in his presence daily live.
All to Jesus I Surrender humbly at His feet I bow worldly pleasure all forsaken Take me, Jesus take me now.
All to Jesus I Surrender Lord, I give myself to thee fill me with Thy Love and power Let Thy blessing fall on me.
That is exactly what it means to be a Catholic priest. This, the Catholic Priest is constituted, as it were, to give his life most unreservedly to God as he serves his creator in humanity. The Catholic priest is called, chosen and commissioned to give the totality of his life to God in the services, which he renders to God in both friends and foes without distinction. Now, it is human to embark in any business venture with great expectation to receiving some reward or gain. Yet, the Catholic priest who is human is said to have surrendered all, including the expected gain. The questions now are: what will his gain be? And will the gain come? And where will the gain be? In surrendering all to Jesus, the priest receives in return a complete perfect life in Jesus where he will lack nothing again. For, Jesus himself has said: “I am the Vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he, it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Simply put therefore the gain of the priest who surrenders all is the BEARING OF FRUIT IN ABUNDANCE on which he, the priest and others are to be fed unto everlasting life. This is to happen in Jesus Christ when the surrendering all to Jesus is total and the abiding in Jesus is also total. For this reason we can confidently say that he who gives all gets all. What is more it is also for the same reason that made the Lord Jesus state categorically, and I quote: “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:25).
From all we have discussed hitherto, it should be clear that the Catholic priest is a man who makes himself completely available to be sacrificially offered to God in the services he renders to his fellow men and women in complete charity. To prove that the priests' self giving is rooted in, and emanates from perfect charity, his love and services for all and sundry must be seen to be unconditional. In truth, without perfect charity no priest can really claim that he can surrender all or that he has surrendered all. That will be impossible.
The offering which the priest makes of himself to God which in turn makes him completely available, ready and willing to love and give his life for the salvation of all and sundry daily can only be seen and adjudged as the product of perfect charity if and only if it is not determine by people's applause. Applause or aversion the charity with which the Catholic priest is to live, work and die for others should always be “VIRGO INTACTA, that is completely unviolated virgin, as it well.
We do not have to wander too far to find the reason why the priest must be synonymous with perfect charity. Few examples from the scripture and the teachings of the Saints suffice to convince us: ubi caritas est amor. Ubi caritas Deus sibi est= where there is charity there is love. Where there is charity God is there. This is what the scripture has taught us unequivocally, that, “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:17). According to Robert Bellarmine, perfect charity is that with which no man is lost, and without which no man is saved. The priest's mission is to save himself and help others to be saved.
Heaven is the goal to which every Christian should aim at, and the only final and indispensable player which can make us reach and score the goal is charity. For this reason, St. Francis de Sales states: “Faith points out the way to the land of promise as a pillar of fire, hope feeds us with its manna of sweetness but charity actually introduces us into the promised land”. Alms according to St. Francis of Assisi, “are an inheritance and justice which is due to the poor which Jesus Christ has levied upon us”. Therefore, to enable a priest give alms of himself, he cannot but be an embodiment of charity, which hungers and thirsts for every worthy sacrifice to be offered by him even for the good of the most deadly foe or foes.
Now, if the priest has surrendered all and is now dead to all, why is it that the Church appeals to the faithful (clergy and laity alike) to contribute to assist the priest? The answer is this, the priest being dead as a sacrificial lamb, owns nothing but possesses all for all others. What the Church requests the faithful to contribute are prayers, moral and material contributions for the propagation and perpetuation of the priesthood and its dignity, to uphold the integrity of the Church and the glorification of God in His Majesty.
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