In a nutshell, outline your role as a Priest?

My role as a priest is to bring Christ to others in the sacraments and to preach the good news of salvation. This includes the daily celebration of Mass and other sacraments (sometimes called “the divine mysteries”), preaching, frequent confession, regular prayer and study. I have a duty to reflect Christ in a way that calls into account the nobility of the office of the priesthood. As St John Marie Vianney, patron saint of priests, said, “Oh, how great is a priest! The priest will not understand the greatness of his office till he is in Heaven. If he understood it on earth, he would die, not of fear, but of love.”

Priests are distinct from the rest of the faithful because of their office. St Bernard once said that this distinction is marked in the priest, quid in natura, quis in persona, qualis in moribus (what he is in his nature, who he is in his person and how he is in his conduct). In his nature, a priest is like any other men, since “Every high priest taken from among men is ordained by men for the things that appertain to God” (Heb. 5,1). So a priest is born, lives and dies like any other. Yet in his person, a priest is “the apex of all things” (St Ignatius of Antioch) precisely because he deals directly with the divine mysteries and, more generally, those “things that appertain to God”. In a certain sense the priest becomes “another Christ when he celebrates the sacraments, since these sacraments are the very life of God. It is very important that a priest should recognise this personal dignity. Finally, the conduct of a priest must reflect this dignity in a virtuous life. Origen applies to the priest that test given to the prophet Jeremiah: “I sat not in the assembly of jesters … I sat alone” (Jer.15,17). The priest must in a sense “stand alone”. He does this not because he is better than others, but because his office bears a particular responsibility such that a deep personal fidelity to Christ enables him to minister faithfully to others.

We might reflect again on the words of St John Vianney: “the priest is not a priest for himself; he does not give himself absolution; he does not administer the Sacraments to himself. He is not for himself, he is for you. After God, the priest is everything. Leave a parish twenty years without priests; they will worship beasts”.