It’s easy to forget the awesome office the Priest. We see him daily offering the Mass, hearing confessions, anointing, counseling, helping his people to overcome their difficulties and sins.

How often to we stop to think about what the Priest really is? One way to do that is to consider different terms for the things the Priest does, terms that have more weight, more meaning.

For example, when the Priest says Mass, in reality he is offering the Holy Sacrifice of Christ at Calvary, making that actual same sacrifice really present in a particular time and place, bringing Jesus to the sacred altar in his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity so that He can be united to His Church.

Take a second and really think about that...

Consider this example: when the Priest hears confessions, what he is really doing is allowing himself to become Christ so that sinners can turn away from their decrepitude, be cleansed of their unworthiness, and stand again perfected before God to worship Him.

Take a second and really think about that...

Think of anything that the Priest does, and then put it into the context of its sacred character. The office of the Priest is awesome - inspiring awe - when we really think about it.

St. Gregory of Nazianzus wrote of the incredible reality of what the Priest is in his Orations:

“I know whose ministers we are, where we find ourselves and to where we strive. I know God's greatness and man's weakness, but also his potential. [Who then is the priest? He is] the defender of truth, who stands with angels, gives glory with archangels, causes sacrifices to rise to the altar on high, shares Christ's priesthood, refashions creation, restores it in God's image, recreates it for the world on high and, even greater, is divinized and divinizes.”

If you’re discerning a potential vocation to the priesthood, this shouldn’t make you shrink away; rather, it should be an occasion to realize that God may have fantastic plans for you, that you might be an instrument for His work of Salvation in our broken world!

As St. Gregory did, realize both your weekness and your potential greatness with the help of God. Don't be afraid to do what He asks of you!