"Through the sacrament of Holy Orders priests share in the universal dimensions of the mission that Christ entrusted to the apostles. the spiritual gift they have received in ordination prepares them, not for a limited and restricted mission, "but for the fullest, in fact the universal mission of salvation 'to the end of the earth,"' "prepared in spirit to preach the Gospel everywhere."
"It is in the Eucharistic cult or in the Eucharistic assembly of the faithful (synaxis) that they exercise in a supreme degree their sacred office; there, acting in the person of Christ and proclaiming his mystery, they unite the votive offerings of the faithful to the sacrifice of Christ their head, and in the sacrifice of the Mass they make present again and apply, until the coming of the Lord, the unique sacrifice of the New Testament, that namely of Christ offering himself once for all a spotless victim to the Father." From this unique sacrifice their whole priestly ministry draws its strength." (CCC 1565-1566)
A man called to the priesthood must be rooted in a life of prayer. Each day in the life of a priest is centered on prayer. Offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, praying the Divine Office, contemplation of Sacred Scripture, and a Holy Hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament are all part of the life of prayer necessary in the life of a priest.
Ordained in the person of Jesus Christ the head, a priest must then act in the person of Christ the head. At the Last Supper, Jesus washed the feet of the apostles. Jesus came to serve, not to be served. A priest is the servant of God, ordered to serve God's people at all times, in Word and Sacrament.
A priest is ordained to offer sacrifice, primarily at the Altar. A man called to priesthood should be one who understands sacrifice and lives that out everyday. Self giving, generous, and humble of heart should define a man of sacrifice.
A priest is sent to preach the Gospel, in and out of season. A priest is sent to baptize all nations, in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. A priest is a man called to go out to the peripheries of society and to walk with the people of God. Each man called to priesthood should have a zeal of mission in their heart.
"Religious life was born in the East during the first centuries of Christianity. Lived within institutes canonically erected by the Church, it is distinguished from other forms of consecrated life by its liturgical character, public profession of the evangelical counsels, fraternal life led in common, and witness given to the union of Christ with the Church.
Religious life derives from the mystery of the Church. It is a gift she has received from her Lord, a gift she offers as a stable way of life to the faithful called by God to profess the counsels. Thus, the Church can both show forth Christ and acknowledge herself to be the Savior's bride. Religious life in its various forms is called to signify the very charity of God in the language of our time.
All religious, whether exempt or not, take their place among the collaborators of the diocesan bishop in his pastoral duty. From the outset of the work of evangelization, the missionary "planting" and expansion of the Church require the presence of the religious life in all its forms. 'History witnesses to the outstanding service rendered by religious families in the propagation of the faith and in the formation of new Churches: from the ancient monastic institutions to the medieval orders, all the way to the more recent congregations'." CCC 925-927
"Christ proposes the evangelical counsels, in their great variety, to every disciple. the perfection of charity, to which all the faithful are called, entails for those who freely follow the call to consecrated life the obligation of practicing chastity in celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom, poverty and obedience. It is the profession of these counsels, within a permanent state of life recognized by the Church, that characterizes the life consecrated to God. The religious state is thus one way of experiencing a "more intimate" consecration, rooted in Baptism and dedicated totally to God. In the consecrated life, Christ's faithful, moved by the Holy Spirit, propose to follow Christ more nearly, to give themselves to God who is loved above all and, pursuing the perfection of charity in the service of the Kingdom, to signify and proclaim in the Church the glory of the world to come." CCC 915-916
Pope John Paul II in "Vita Consecrata" describes the evangelical counsels in light of the Trinity:
"The chastity of celibates and virgins, as a manifestation of dedication to God with an undivided heart (cf. 1 Cor 7:32-34), is a reflection of the infinite love which links the three Divine Persons in the mysterious depths of the life of the Trinity, the love to which the Incarnate Word bears witness even to the point of giving his life, the love ‘poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit’ (Rom 5:5), which evokes a response of total love for God and the brethren.
Poverty proclaims that God is man's only real treasure. When poverty is lived according to the example of Christ who, ‘though he was rich ... became poor’ (2 Cor 8:9), it becomes an expression of that total gift of self which the three Divine Persons make to one another. This gift overflows into creation and is fully revealed in the Incarnation of the Word and in his redemptive death.
Obedience, practiced in imitation of Christ, whose food was to do the Father's will (cf. Jn 4:34), shows the liberating beauty of a dependence which is not servile but filial, marked by a deep sense of responsibility and animated by mutual trust, which is a reflection in history of the loving harmony between the three Divine Persons" (par 21).
"THE COMMUNION OF LOVE BETWEEN GOD AND PEOPLE, A FUNDAMENTAL PART OF THE REVELATION AND FAITH EXPERIENCE OF ISRAEL, FINDS A MEANINGFUL EXPRESSION IN THE MARRIAGE COVENANT WHICH IS ESTABLISHED BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN."
~ Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio 12
"How can I ever express the happiness of the marriage that is joined together by the Church strengthened by an offering, sealed by a blessing, announced by angels and ratified by the Father? ...How wonderful the bond between two believers with a single hope, a single desire, a single observance, a single service! They are both brethren and both fellow-servants; there is no separation between them in spirit or flesh; in fact they are truly two in one flesh and where the flesh is one, one is the spirit." Tertullian, Ad uxorem, II, VIII, 6-8
"The family finds in the plan of God the Creator and Redeemer not only its identity, what it is, but also its mission, what it can and should do. The role that God calls the family to perform in history derives from what the family is; its role represents the dynamic and existential development of what it is. Each family finds within itself a summons that cannot be ignored, and that specifies both its dignity and its responsibility: family, become what you are.
Accordingly, the family must go back to the 'beginning" of God's creative act, if it is to attain self-knowledge and self-realization in accordance with the inner truth not only of what it is but also of what it does in history. And since in God's plan it has been established as an "intimate community of life and love,' (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et spes, 48) the family has the mission to become more and more what it is, that is to say, a community of life and love, in an effort that will find fulfillment, as will everything created and redeemed, in the Kingdom of God. Looking at it in such a way as to reach its very roots, we must say that the essence and role of the family are in the final analysis specified by love. Hence the family has the mission to guard, reveal and communicate love, and this is a living reflection of and a real sharing in God's love for humanity and the love of Christ the Lord for the Church His bride.
Every particular task of the family is an expressive and concrete actuation of that fundamental mission. We must therefore go deeper into the unique riches of the family's mission and probe its contents, which are both manifold and unified." ~ St. John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio 17
"In a deservedly famous page, Tertullian has well expressed the greatness of this conjugal life in Christ and its beauty: 'How can I ever express the happiness of the marriage that is joined together by the Church strengthened by an offering, sealed by a blessing, announced by angels and ratified by the Father? ...How wonderful the bond between two believers with a single hope, a single desire, a single observance, a single service! They are both brethren and both fellow-servants; there is no separation between them in spirit or flesh; in fact they are truly two in one flesh and where the flesh is one, one is the spirit.'...
...Indeed, by means of baptism, man and woman are definitively placed within the new and eternal covenant, in the spousal covenant of Christ with the Church. And it is because of this indestructible insertion that the intimate community of conjugal life and love, founded by the Creator, is elevated and assumed into the spousal charity of Christ, sustained and enriched by His redeeming power...
...Spouses are therefore the permanent reminder to the Church of what happened on the Cross; they are for one another and for the children witnesses to the salvation in which the sacrament makes them sharers. Of this salvation event marriage, like every sacrament, is a memorial, actuation and prophecy: "As a memorial, the sacrament gives them the grace and duty of commemorating the great works of God and of bearing witness to them before their children. As actuation, it gives them the grace and duty of putting into practice in the present, towards each other and their children, the demands of a love which forgives and redeems. As prophecy, it gives them the grace and duty of living and bearing witness to the hope of the future encounter with Christ."
“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home." ~ Mt 1:20
Marriage is not just a default institution for everyone not called to priesthood or religious life. It too is a call from God Himself. God calls real men to answer the call to be a true husband and father to the next generation of the human race. The art of true manliness is rooted in Our Savior Jesus Christ. It is only in a relationship with Jesus Christ that a man find His true identity. True masculinity cannot be verified in the weights and measures of the world. It is formed and nurtured in the fires of Christian virtue, walking the way of the cross.
To be an authentic husband requires a man to receive the heart of a woman as Christ did the Church on the cross. Christ gave every ounce of his blood for His bride - a true man called to be husband must do the same. He must have heroic courage and a well formed heart so that he can take a wife and love her to the point of death.
To be an authentic father requires a man to give of himself - he will have to sacrifice time and energy. He is the true teacher of the next generation of the qualities of honesty, integrity, and work ethic. He is the hand of justice within the family unit - and to use this office well, he must know the heart of Jesus Christ.
Like the call to be husband and father, God also calls real women to be wife and mother. The call to marriage for women is a call into a new reality, a reality in which the next generation is given its human form through the womb of a woman. The woman is the carrier of life, the nurturer of life, the entry point into existence of the creative power of God the Father. It is in the act of the receptivity of the Son to the will of the Father that the feminine heart is rooted. It is Christ's active receptivity of the love of God the Father on the cross that the woman finds her true identity as participant in the creative love of God.
To be an authentic wife requires a woman to open herself in vulnerability to the will of God acted out through the heart of a man, just as Christ surrendered to the will of the Father on the cross. It was in this complete vulnerability that Christ received all that the Father is. By opening up and surrendering his heart in this way, He returned all that He is to the Father - and this action bore fruit in the outpouring of the Spirit upon the Church. The woman must have heroic courage to open her heart completely to her husband, even to the point of death.
To be an authentic mother requires a woman to give of herself - her body in the pregnancy and the nurturing of the infant, her time, patient endurance, and most especially her tender love. She is the teacher of the human heart, helping the next generation how to open up in vulnerability before the Savior of the world. The feminine heart, so gentle and kind, instructs the other to authentically respond to the love of God infused on every human heart.