How is a preist Christ?

[Chuck1]

Hi ,
I was wondering if anyone can explain how is a priest christ ?

Thanks chuck
Feel free to move mods if it goes in a better place

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Hi ,
I was wondering if anyone can explain how is a priest christ ?

Thanks chuck
Feel free to move mods if it goes in a better place

Many ways.

All of us are called to be Christ to one another. A priest is Christ in that way, just as you and I are.

At Mass, the priest acts in what we call ‘persona Christi’ or in the place of Christ. (He does this when he hears confessions also).

That doesn’t mean that as the Eucharist turns from bread and wine into the actual Body and Blood of Christ while retaining the appearance of bread and wine that a priest kind of ‘morphs’ into Christ while retaining the appearance of a priest though!

I do not believe that the Catholic Church teaches that a priest ‘becomes Christ’ as if somehow Christ gets called like a genie from a bottle to ‘take over’ in the body of some human being.

But I do believe it teaches that through the divine Will of Christ Himself (meaning that HE is the one in charge), He has chosen to act through specific people (priests) in specific ways (confession, celebration of Mass) for the betterment of all people. Not because He HAS to, but because He has CHOSEN to.

Does this help to explain?

 

[aragonjohn1]

God chose twelve men to symbolize Christ as High Priest (vis-a-vis both God and the Church) as Head of the Body and as Groom to the Bride. (See especially Ephesians 5 toward the end of the chapter on the Great Mystery and spousal symbolism.) Women can not symbolize the Head (the Man Jesus Christ) to the Body, nor the Groom (the same Man Jesus Christ) to the Bride (the Church).

I wish to point out that not even any man can symbolize this. Only those chosen by the Church and ordained through apostolic succession. So going back to the example of the Eucharist, should a community of Catholics lack an ordained man (it happened in both Japan and Korea for hundreds of years, as well as in much of England and Scandinavia during the same period), they could not have a layman, or ordained deacon even, celebrate the Mass with any supernatural effect. Reason: supernatural causes alone bring supernatural effects and God has chosen to bring about the supernatural effect of extending the Priesthood of His Incarnate Son only through the symbolism He choose for Christ as Head to Body and Groom to Bride through the laying on of hands upon men by the Twelve and their successors.

Just as it is not by the natural properties of water or the human symbolism of Baptism (the Jews had a baptism of repentance) that the supernatural effects of Sacramental Baptism occur, neither is it by the natural qualifications of any human being, male or female, as such that any supernatural effects of Priesthood take place. That is why it is not by the natural qualifications of a woman functioning in the role of a priest (preaching, ministering, etc.) that there would by any supernatural effects. Only the men the Church accepts as living symbols of the God-Man Jesus Christ as Head to the Body of the Church, and Groom to the Church as His Bride through sacramental Ordination by Apostolic Succession have the supernatural causality.

• philvaz.com/apologetics/a51.htm
• scripturecatholic.com/the_priesthood.html

SHALOM
GOD BLESS

 

[L_Marshall]

The priest has no power of his own. The priest, who is just a man, cannot turn wine into blood, forgive sins, et cetera. However, when he is ordained a priest he is consecrated to act in persona Christae, which mean in the person of or in the name of Christ. This means that Christ acts through the priest in a special way, so that he can absolve sins or consecrate the Eucharist.

It is the same priest, Christ Jesus, whose sacred person his minister truly represents. Now the minister, by reason of the sacerdotal consecration which he has received, is truly made like to the high priest and possesses the authority to act in the power and place of the person of Christ himself (virtute ac persona ipsius Christi).

 

[Swiss_Guy]

Hi ,
I was wondering if anyone can explain how is a priest christ ?

Thanks chuck
Feel free to move mods if it goes in a better place

A priest isn’t actually Christ; he acts in the Person of Christ when he performs the sacraments. Or put in terms that (I find) are easier to understand, Christ works through the priest.