Priesthood Ordination of Brother Reginald Udouj, OSB, and Brother Cassian Elkins, OSB

Published: July 14, 2018

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor preached the following homily at St. Benedict Church in Subiaco on Saturday, July 14, 2018. It is based on the following readings: Isaiah 6:1-8; 1 Timothy 4:12-16; and Luke 22:14-20, 24-30.

Bishop Taylor

Reginald and Cassian, you are the second and third monk of Subiaco that I have ordained to the priesthood. Father Patrick Boland was the first.

As Benedictines, your priesthood is sort of a vocation within a vocation. First you were called to the monastic life and then at a certain point the abbot, who stands in the person of Christ, saw a need for additional priests to serve the community.

So he sent you to get prepared for this service. But as you well know, priesthood does not elevate you among your brother monks. Quite the contrary. All monks are servants of each other and now you have an additional way to put yourself at the service of your brothers — and indeed of everyone whose paths you cross.

This is obvious from the Gospel reading you chose for your ordination. Jesus, the Son of God and King of the Universe, gives us sacramentally the body and blood he will pour out for our salvation the following day on the altar of the cross.

And then having thus instituted the Eucharist, he proceeds to institute also the priesthood, saying: “Do this in memory of me.” Which raises the question: what is the “this” that we priests are supposed to do in memory of Jesus? Well most obviously to consecrate bread and wine into the real body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus — he’s instituting the Eucharist after all.

But for us priests, there’s something further. The “this” we are supposed to do in memory of Jesus also requires us to pour ourselves out too, sacrifice our lives for the salvation of others too, in union with Jesus.

Jesus offered himself and so was both priest and victim. He offered the sacrifice and he was the sacrifice. And so it should also be with us. When we priests offer the Eucharist to the Father, we offer ourselves to the Father too, in union with Jesus. Ours is not a career, it is a vocation to take up our cross and follow Jesus, do what he did.

So yes, like Jesus on Holy Thursday, we priests offer sacrifice, but like Jesus on Good Friday, we are also at least a small part of the sacrifice being offered. That is why Jesus is so insistent in the second part of our Gospel reading that true greatness is found only in the service of others.

This is fleshed out further in our other readings. In our second reading from 1 Timothy, St. Paul reminds us that a priest should be an example for others in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity. He should also be diligent in proclaiming Scripture, exhortation and teaching, reminding us priests that by persevering we will save both ourselves and those who listen to us.

And so today we ordain you priests “in the line of Melchizedek” as we heard in our responsorial psalm. A priesthood received not from a human source, as was the case of the inherited Old Testament priesthood passed down from father to son, which in time degenerated into something resembling a career, a job, a source of employment that ended with each priest’s death.

No, the priesthood of Jesus’ disciples is received from a divine source, God himself, Jesus, mediated through the Apostles to whom he entrusted this ministry at the Last Supper and their successors, and thus a vocation, a call that does not end with death — “forever, in the line of Melchizedek.”

Those brother priests whose bodies now lay buried in your monastic cemetery continue to intercede for us as priests, now directly before the throne of God. Their sacrificial lives now fully united to that of Jesus, the eternal High Priest, in whose priesthood you will now share, a priesthood that lasts forever. God bless you and may God continue to bless us and all of his people through you.