Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides Service) - In Italy we have a saying: “you can tell by the way a priest celebrates the Eucharist, the devotion with which he lifts his hands during Mass how much love he has in his heart for Jesus!” In actual fact similar statements are often found in the writings of the Church’s saints and blesseds all of whom without exception have a special relationship with the Most Holy Eucharist, celebrated and adored.
Recently with important documents Pope John Paul II has called to the attention of bishops, priests and lay people the need to rediscover the immense gift of God’s Love who gave Himself to us to be true nourishment in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. The announcement made by the Holy Father at St John Lateran’s on the feast of Corpus Christi Thursday June 10 of a special Year of the Eucharist, is part of the Holy Spirit’s “strategy” for our present day to revive, what the Pope calls, “wonder for the Eucharist”.
The Most Holy Eucharist, source and summit of the life of the Church, food and support of every authentic Christian life, leads us to contemplate the priest’s anointed hands. Without those consecrated hands we would not have this “bread of life” that is Jesus Christ. This is why those hands are so dearly loved by those who love Jesus and they are hated by the One whom Christ calls “murderer from all time”, by Satan. Satan has led a war on the hands of priests since Christianity began: chaining them in prisons in ancient times and in concentration camps in our modern day, during terrible persecutions against Christians; throwing mud on these hands with scandals caused by unfaithful priests; “amputating those hands”, not physically but morally, pushing to egoism and pride priests who are slaves of themselves in order to paralyse the propelling force of the Sacrament of Holy Orders which gives only to the ordained priest the power to absolve sins. But those anointed hands do not rise automatically, they must be powered by the will, moved by the priest’s self-giving love as he raises his hands to bless and to absolve!
Through the centuries history has recorded many, many cases of holy and faithful priests but sadly also cases of priest who betrayed their priestly ministry. However the former are immensely more numerous than the latter. What is more only God can judge human persons who are a mystery and this is why the Gospel urges us not to “condemn” but to “forgive”, not to “curse” but to “bless” indeed even to “bless those who curse us”. If we were to take this seriously we Christians would be an invincible power against evil!
The hands of the priest are anointed to bless, to consecrate and to absolve. No wonder then that in many countries still people venerate these hands not only by kissing the hands of a priest who has celebrated his first Mass but also when they meet a priest as an act of veneration for Christ whom he represents sacramentally. How many people still kneel whenever a hand is raised to impart the blessing of God Almighty!
Beautiful prayers have been written to thank the Lord for the hands of the priest and to invoke the grace of perseverance. One of these prayers calls the priest to contemplate his hands and to raise his right hand more often to bless, while he is travelling, before meals or before going to sleep, when he enters a house and when he leaves … The priest’s blessing in fact has a power which is not human it is divine: the blessing comes not from the priest but from God, Three in One!
In a world where more and more hands are raised for violence, where blood, hatred and revenge soil and deform the beauty given to hands by the Creator, in a world of selfish hands, we have an immense need of anointed hands of men consecrated to God. In fact in the name of Christ they will withstand the wave of evil stirred by invisible hands of fallen angels, demons in everlasting strife with God and His creatures.
Only God knows how many waves of evil about to swallow humanity in the whirlpool of hatred have been halted by consecrated and blessing hands raised by priests in the name of Christ. Hell trembles at something Saint Paul once said: “ every knee on earth and in heaven shall bend at the name of Jesus”. For desperate people who wonder where to turn in the struggle against evil it is a grace to find on their path the hand of a priest raised to bless.
In many countries despite galloping secularisation, families still want their homes to be blessed by the priest. A true believer in Christ cannot do without the blessing of the priest because he or she knows that there is a supernatural power associated with the solemn sign of the cross accompanied with the powerful words: “May Almighty God bless you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit”.
Yes, it is true, we see the tremor in the hands of the Pope and yet those consecrated hands of the Vicar of Christ are seen by many as the most representative, the most reassuring, the strongest hands of our humanity at this dawn of the third millennium; hands visibly fragile but incredibly strong because they are invested with Christ’s own power! Hands which need, however, to be sustained, like the hands of Moses, by our own hands joined in prayer for the Pope.
The wall which separated east from west is no more thanks also to the priestly power of the hands of John Paul II which - together with the blessing hands of countless Christians persecuted and killed because they were merciful - worked one of the greatest miracles in modern history.
Lastly we must say that every hand which moves to make a act of charity, every hand which is a sign of authentic love is a priestly hand, like the hand of Mother Teresa of Calcutta clutching her rosary.
Through baptism in fact every Christian carries Christ’s blessing to people although only the priest can give the special blessings reserved to his ministry. Every mother and father, every child and young person, every elderly person, can be a blessing for others.
How great is the need for consecrated hands which bless the faithful who in turn become living blessings for the world with their lives. The hands of priests joined with those of the lay faithful can form a circle to embrace the world in a huge hug of love, to heal divisions caused by evil and win all hearts for Christ. (L.A.) (Agenzia Fides 17/6/2004; Righe 81; Parole 1.161)
