From the outset let us restrict the meaning of the word standard to our own understanding. That is, putting it in the contest in which we are using it. We take the word standard as a target at which we are aiming. It does not mean that we want to monopolize the word standard, but even in its general meaning it carries with it “a pulling upward.” It serves as a goal to aim at, or a goal arrived at.

“Our standard,” as married priests will serve both ways. That is, “aiming high, as well as a goal at which we must arrive.”

I want to make a very important digression, before I take up the matter at issue. I was partly shocked at the first look, when I read among the thoughts of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in contemporary theology, when he speaks of: “Christianity without Religion.” He puts it this way: “Christianity which only uses God when the believers feel the need of God.”

In one phrase he puts it this way: “The great part of the world is without God. This may explain,” he says, “the world being far away from God, hence the world has not yet grown up.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer longs to see the world grow up to maturity, and he concludes: “It can only attain its high goals, when the world will pursue the footsteps of Jesus Christ.” He does not hesitate to say that the life we speak about in Christ is new life. It can only develop by acquiring the habit of being in God and in His presence. We ought not lock God in us, but allow Him to move with us. He concludes that this is the reason why Jesus became us, to be in us and with us.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer touches something which has remained stamped in my mind and heart as well. He says for the fact that nothing is impossible with God, this same power, by a special privilege God has as well given us. If we live in God and act under His guidance, we too can do the impossible and make then possible. This is confirmed by Jesus Christ when He said, “You will still do greater things than these which I have done, when I shall be interceding for you in the other life.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Resistenza e Resa, trad. Bologna, Bompiani, Milano 1969, PP. 268-270.)

I have not gone out of the line of thoughts. It was a digression, which will illustrate what I am driving at. What I mean is that if the Christian world has lost the meaning of Christianity, and is today without God, this fact has affected even priests. We can say that as we see it today the thousands upon thousands of priests have been deranged from the right path. Hence the extreme measures of punishing them have as well punished or stifled the life of the Church. Hence the Catholic Church without priests, has been left without faith. Many people don’t go to church, though they are baptized and are Christians, but living without Christian life, without true genuine religion.

 

Priesthood Without Holiness Is Fake Priesthood

Before I explain the title in details, I was the first to fail to think of priesthood without holiness. It may sound a wicked thought, but in history God reacted terribly when this fact happened. Hence to understand the difference between the Levitical priesthood and the Zadokite, this happened from the disappointment of God with the Levitical family. Though He did not take away the priesthood from the Levites, He showed His disgust of them by giving them ‘menial priestly jobs.”  The commentator on the matter puts it this way: “The demotion of the Levites to menial service in the Temple was enforced in the actual restoration after exile, and explains why relatively few Levites were willing to return.” (Ezra 8:15ff). we know the story when Aaron, the High Priest in the desert followed the will of the people in the absence of Moses, when they made an idol, “this was their God, as to what has happened to Moses, we don’t know.” They adored the golden calf. God did not forget this fact: “Because they used to minister for them before their idols, and became an occasion of sin to the house of Israel, therefore I have sworn an oath against them, says the lord God: they shall bear the consequences of their sin.” (Ezra 44:12).

By so doing the Levites became priest without holiness. Further on we come across God’s claiming of holiness even from Israel as a people, His elect. They were not allowed to have mixed marriages with other nations, who were uncircumcised. That is, unholy, who were pagans. In this case, “holiness was thought of as something physical, as though it were communicable, and therefore not to be brought in contact with unconsecrated persons.” (Ezra 8:15ff).

However the New Testament drive is to be among the unholy in order to become a light among them, salt and yeast. All the three mentioned by Jesus, that is light, salt and yeast, have one common function, to transform and give a new form. With light things become clear. With salt things change taste for the better. Just as well yeast uplifts the dough and takes another form “bread” for instance. All the three in the spiritual sense carry within them something divine, a sharing of godliness, call it holiness. What is light other than God Himself: “What came to be through Him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:4-5).

With bitterness of life, which laid heavy on mankind because of the fall of our ancestors, Adam and Eve, we lost the taste of life: “I came to give them life, and life in abundance.” So once more mankind can raise the head out of the mire of degradation. “But to those who did accept Him, He gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God.” (John 1:12-13).

This new life of which Dietrich Bobhoeffer spoke about is a reality. It is true that it is new because, “It is not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God.” To expect more than this from God is just as to expect a golden ring from the mouth of a crow. Man may be asking too much from God. Even what a simple Christian is, which is not simple, “nor by a man’s decision but of God,” more than this it is asking too much.

“Priesthood Without Holiness” means crossing over destroying the foundations of a Christian life, and finally emptying man’s sanctuary, the priest’s holy of holies. It means touching his consecration. A priest receives his first consecration in baptism. Even as simple Christians, as Zachary says in the Canticle at the birth of his son John the Baptist, it was ours, we, the new people, to walk in holiness and with holiness. Hence he says of the forthcoming savior: “he swore to Abraham our father to grant us, that free from fear, and saved from the hands of our foes, we might serve Him in holiness and justice all the days of our life in His presence.”

What is Holiness?

We are not here in a class of catechism. Nor are analysts tearing the word “holiness” into pieces and finally pointing out where holiness is hidden. The simple people like me want only to understand something which serves me in life. So holiness in one word is uprightness. My understanding of uprightness is to lead a balanced life in attitude towards others, acknowledging the supremacy and ownership of God on me and other creatures. To crown it all to live according to God’s plans for my life. Others call it doing God’s Will.  “I come to do God’s Will,” says Jesus. Hence Jesus is called “The Holy One.” In line with Jesus, what then is holiness? They send us back to the understanding of holiness of Israel. We then the new Israel will find our holiness in Jesus.

Let us take it from the Collegeville Biblical theology: “Jesus the Holy One: “In the same way that Israel understood it holiness as a participation in and reflection of the holiness of God, so Christians saw themselves as sharing in the life of the risen Jesus, God’s Holy One, by virtue of their faith and their baptism into Christ.”

 

Priestly Holiness, Something Tangible

With adaptation in the world today, being up to date, the priest has come to believe that simplicity solves more problems than the show off of Aaron’s golden robes, turbans and all that distinguished him from other people. This belief of false humility has induced a priest to lead a hypocritical life, while mixing easily even with gangs, in order to convert them, so he believes. Like a criminal investigation police, who goes as far as to marry in a village, the abode of the suspect, till he finds the murderer hidden in that village. His adulterous life is a means to be accepted as a member of that village. So the marriage of convenience serves as long as he finds the murderer. This is where we stand the priests of today. We have chosen to be simple, up to a criminal level.

We are even encouraged by the palatable words of the exhausted people with the scandals from the priests’ life as they accept his sinful life saying: “He is a man like us.” We believe that the people forgive us by so saying, while it is only tolerance that forces them to accept the priest. They may as well reason as follows: “Nowadays priests are few. Look at that empty parish without a priest. If this priest goes away, shall we have another?” Consequently all the parishioners close their mouths. They feel inadequate to correct the priest, and he goes on leading a sinful life.

I am not saying what I say in order that you close your eyes to my sinfulness. It is exactly from the spirit of compunction, which is eating me up from within, which forces me to confess to you my own sinfulness. I see myself in everything I say. How many sins of human respect I have committed, when there was a need of a strong courageous testimony, when people looked to me in order that they too should pluck courage and do great things d for the glory of God, and for the salvation of souls. Did I remember that I was a priest at that time? I accepted to be one of them, and believed that I was humble by not saying no to such nonsense.

I will never forget when I was one day silenced in a theological meeting in Nairobi at a Eucharist Congress, 1985. My fellow African priests were graduates of overseas universities. Whatever theological issue they discussed, I saw everything in a biblical perspective. I answered with a biblical quotation. These were African Philosophers and theologians. They considered my answers making short cuts, and coming to conclusion too abruptly. So they psychologically made me feel out of place. So I had to leave the meeting. According to them, “you don’t solve everything through the Bible, reason it out.”

Is it our intellectual capacity which will solve the world’s problems? The twelve had only one school and one teacher. With Jesus they walked, they sat down to preach. They saw Him making miracles. He slept on the boat, tired from walking and fatigue. So witnessed to His humanity, when He went to lo0k for figs, when it was not the season for figs. From within their hearts, some of the Apostles laughed at His ignorance. While He blamed the tree that it did not know that the master was passing by to visit the fig tree. Jesus was simple. However, he did not in any way betray His mission as the savior of the world. He had no compromise with the Pharisees, the Scribes, and the High Priests. He stood alone for the truth. He had a message to deliver to the world. He told His Apostles, “you are in the world, but not of the world.”

 

Where Should HOLINESS Bring Us To?

Holiness is not passivity. It is not a mother of pearl to be hidden in a cloth only to be taken out when it will be time to sell it for a better price. Moreover, how far is Holiness a gatherer of personal grandeur? It is not to be displayed for a show off. It is life from God to be lived while we are on earth. “Be perfect as your Heavenly father is perfect.” God’s perfection is seen in the perfection of creation. “He made everything well, and was Himself fully satisfied with everything he created.” He sees Himself in everything. While a human being is still a better mirror of God among all earthly creatures. Living according to His plans, allowing every grace he imparts to us, we too will be a reflection of God, not only ontologically, “made in God’s image,” but also in a virtuous life “made in God’s likeness.”

It Is Up To Us To Choose

The Fathers of the Church dwell so long on the explanation of the meaning of the twelve explorers sent by Moses to the Promised Land. One would rather be inclined to believe the majority, the ten who spoke against the Promised Land. They spoke with such conviction that if it were not by the intervention of God, the two, Joshua and Caleb, would have lost the case. (Num. 14:20-38). The anger of God against the ten explorers who spoke against the Promised Land had great consequences on the population of Israel. The forty days of exploration was made equal to forty years being nomads for the Israelites in the desert. The explorers abused the confidence Moses had in them by selecting them as trustworthy people to represent the people of Israel. On the contrary they worked against Moses and people believed in what they said, and refused to go on to the Promised Land.

In the history of salvation, even among the Apostles there were those who caused scandals. Judas Iscariot was one, and so up to a certain measure Peter the Apostle who denied Jesus at a very important moment. However, thank God, He came back to his senses, and was given a great responsibility to head the Church.

The Fathers of the Church see this fact of betrayal in the Church, still today, being carried out by us priests. With our lack of faith we have played the role of the ten bad explorers who spoke evil of the Promised Land. And consequently caused disaster which befell the whole nation to be punished by death during the period of forty years, and not allowed to enter into the Promised Land. Only the later generation entered the Promised Land, with Joshua and Caleb, the two faithful servants of Moses. For us the Promised Land is nothing else other than Paradise, the eternal abode to which we look forward to after a life of faith. Our life must give testimony of the reality of this Promised Land. The scandals which the priests cause have great consequences. Because of their being believed to be so close to God. The awareness of being a priest should not only serve when the priest is carrying on a priestsly function, but that he is a priest every moment. “It is not the habit,” they say, “that makes a monk.” This is true up to a certain extent, but in the past, the children from the royal family had special education, and had to learn how to behave themselves in the community in which they were living. A priest ought to be simple, but up to what extent? A priest is a priest, not the habit. His life has to demonstrate that he is a priest.

There is a story of a priest who went to the beach in summer, and freely mixed himself among the people, since he was morally loose. He was certain that having nothing special as a mark of his priesthood, he would safely play the good boy, giving himself excessive freedom with some mothers, not to say girls in the water. At one moment a girl looked at his knees. It was those days when priest spent a lot of time on their knees. On his knees were marks of a hardened skin on both knees. The girl looked closely and said: “Father, where do you say mass?” The priest blushed and said: “Not far from here.” He went out of the water, and was never seen again. Here it was not the habit, but his manners betrayed him.

For the married priests we hope that such games will not be played again. We hope that the remedy is in the family. A priest will uphold the standard of his priesthood together with his family, and will not commit such scandals.

Ours is a duty to lead people to the Promised Land. The faith explorers did not deny that there were giants in Canaan, and the surrounding countries. But what is that when “God is with us?” They have had experience of God’s intervention in most difficult moments. God was always there with them.

We are priests of hope. Our confidence in God should always be our driving force as long as we live on this earth. Behind us are many who look to us, and follow us. Nothing is insurmountable, when it comes to the salvation of the people. Jesus has done already the greatest and the most difficult task. As he says Himself to each one of us: “Come follow me. Take up your cross and follow me.”

We are renewed priests, settled in our families. On the other hand, we are repentant priests. So was St. Peter our model of life.

+ E. Milingo.