Prof J. Egbulefu CCE, PARTICIPATION OF MEMBERS OF THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST IN THE SERVICE OF GOVERNING THE PEOPLE OF GOD
@1 The one and indivisible mystical Body is that Body whose Head is Christ, and whose members are the Christians, while the Church is the unity resulting partly from the intra-relational union of the Christians as the members with one another by the Holy Spirit and partly from the inter-relational union of the aggregate of the Christians with Christ by the same Holy Spirit.
@2 All the members of the Mystical Body participate in the service of governing the Church of Christ in such a way that the laity as the spiritual children of the priest (sacerdos, i.e. presbyter and Bishop, or sacerdotal clergy) should live and govern with the priests (sacerdotes, i.e. presbyters and Bishops, or the sacerdotal clergy) as the spiritual fathers of the lay faithful as long as the spiritual fatherhood of the priests (sacerdotes, i.e. presbyters and Bishops, or the sacerdotal clergy) towards the lay faithful not only 1) derives directly from their being another Christ who is the anointed missionary minister of God the Father, and from their acting in the person of Christ who is the Father of the Christians, but also 2) is modeled 2a) proximately on the spiritual paternity of Christ towards the Christians and 2b) remotely on the spiritual paternity of God the Heavenly Father from whom all good things come and every paternity derives its ultimate origin.
@3 As long as the proper relationship of the lay faithful to the priests (sacerdotal clergy) is that of spiritual children to their spiritual father, but every spiritual relation between spiritual children and their spiritual fathers is rooted in, derives from, and must be modeled on, the relation of the Son of God to God His Father, but the relation between the Son of God to God His Father is such that, the Son of God lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit one God forever and ever, it follows that the lay faithful must live and reign with the priests (sacerdotes, i.e. presbyters and Bishops, or the sacerdotal clergy) in the unity of the deacon as he who (like the Holy Spirit that is neither the Father nor the Son) is neither priest (sacerdos, i.e. presbyter and Bishop, or the sacerdotal clergy) nor lay faithful .
And as long as the relationship between the Son of God and God His Father is also such that the Son did not generate the Father and therefore is not the author of the Father, and therefore has no authority over the Father, and thus cannot reign over the Father, cannot rule over the Father, cannot command the Father, It follows that the faithful lay person as the spiritual child (son or daughter) of the priest (sacerdos, i.e. presbyter and Bishop, or the sacerdotal clergy) cannot occupy a place in the mystical Body that allows them (him or her) to have authority over the sacerdotal clergy, reign over the sacerdotal clergy, govern the sacerdotal clergy, command the sacerdotal clergy.
@4 The relationship between the sacerdotal clergy and the lay faithful in the Church of Christ as in a spiritual family is that between spiritual fathers and spiritual children and analogous to that between God the Father and the Son of God
@4a) This ecclesiological thesis has an evident Christological basis in the fact that Christ declared himself a universally authoritative Servant, a Servant with universal authority.
With regard to His servanthood Jesus states that “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Matt 20:28;Mark 10:45). This is clearly in contrast with the Luciferian mentality (‘non serviam’: ‘I will not serve’).
With regard to the universality of the authority with which He serves,
Jesus declared: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations, teach them to ob-serve all the commands I have given to you ...” ( Mt 28, 19).
From this definition of Himself as a servant with authority Jesus is a minister, an authoritative and exemplary servant, whereby ‘authoritative’ is only an adjective qualifying the noun ‘servant’, follows that servanthood has primacy and precedence and priority over ‘authoritativeness’ and therefore that in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Jesus Christ the hierarchy is to be understood primarily as a function of service or of servanthood, before being understood as an exercise of an authority. And since the proper authority with which Christ as Servant is serving, is the universal authority given to Him by the Father it follows that the Servanthood to be exercised by the hierarchically structured college of the Apostles of Christ and hence by the hierarchically structured group of the successors of the Apostles as ministers, authoritative and exemplary servants, of Christ in His Church is to be execised as a fatherly function, i.e. from the perspective of the function of a Father - origin, author - of a family who, on the basis of His authorship His being the author, has authority in and over the family that originates from Him.
Jesus is the Father of Christians in that He called His own: Children: “Children, how hard itis to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:24-25); “Little children, I am with you only a little longer” (John 13:33).
Christians are those who believe in Christ and love Christ as much affectionately as effectively and hope in Christ.
Christians are those who believe in Christ, love Christ and hope in Christ. They believe in Christ and demonstrate it in that they abide in Him like branches in the True Vine (cf. John 15:1-11).
Christians show that they believe in Christ by conforming to Him, firmly and irrevocably clinging to Him, following His instructions for them; therefore, as they are faithful to Him, they adhere to His words and commandments as imperative words.
Christians are those who love Christ as much affectionately, by adoring Him, that is, by devoutly admiring and praising Him, thanking and exalting Him, as effectively, that is, in a visible or manifest way, by doing what He tells them, observing what He commands, and have been conformed to the moral stature Christ by the Holy Spirit
Christians as those who have been conformed to the moral stature of Jesus Christ as of Him who is radically obedient to the Father by the Holy Spirit are therefore those who obey God by putting into practice the words of God, and who have listened to Christ and observe His commandments as imperative, thus authoritative, words of Christ, and who through obeying Christ are obeying God the Father, doing the divine Will of the Father, and who imitate Christ, doing what Christ does in the way Christ as exemplary servant of God does it and as He told them to do. “Learn from me” (Matt. 11 : 29): to be gentle, non-violent and humble in heart, and like Him who passed through humiliation - One whose humility emerges first from His leaving Himself be humiliated by others, secondly from His lowering and humiliating Himself, reducing His own volume and raising the volume of others than Himself, raising others above Himself, instead of subordinating others below Himself, and thirdly from His emptying Himself of Himself, of every self-centredness, every narcissism, every nepotism, every tribalism, every nationalism, every racism .
Following the example of Christ therefore the behaviour of the Christian should not be self-exaltation or presumption : the vanity and arrogance of the proud do not please God..
Christians are those who hope in Christ, with the confidence not only that His promises are fulfilled or will be fulfilled in them: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day” (John 6: 54), but also that the Son’s imploring or pleading words - i.e., the prayers that the Son has addressed - to the Father for their sake will be answered by the Father : To be exact: “Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17: 24). These two expressions of hope which the Christians nurture and which nourish Christians, namely the hope of participating in the eternal life as of the eternal banquet and the hope of the beatific vision as of seeing the glory given by the loving Father to His beloved Son even before the creation of the world, together constitute the blessed eschatological hope of Christians.
The Church is a unity resulting from the communion of Christians (like a body or an Assembly) with the Holy Spirit poured out from above by the Heavenly Father, through the intercession of the Son, on people who are faithful to Christ as a People faithful to His
instructions, admonitions, exhortations, injunctions.
@4b) A servant can be either a servant with authority given by his Lord, and this servant is called a minister (in this sense Christ the minister says that “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”: Matt 28:18), or a servant without authority from his Lord, and that individual is called a non-minister. A minister can be either an ordained minister, defined as a cleric, or a non-ordained minister or an extraordinary minister.
The aggregate of non-ministers and extraordinary ministers is called the laity, or the layfaithful. The aggregate of ordained ministers is called clergy, or clerics. The ordained minister, the cleric, can be either anointed (in this sense Jesus says that “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor”: Luke 4:18) - and such an anointed ordained minister is called a priest (sacerdos) - or a non-anointed but ordained minister, who is called a deacon. So priests (sacerdotes) are the class of anointed ordained ministers. A priest, that is, an anointed ordained minister, that is, an anointed cleric, can be either an individual who has received the anointing of the head and such is called a “bishop” (episcopos) or an individual who has received the anointing of hands, and such is called “presbyter” (presbýteros).
But only the priests (i.e. presbyters and bishops) are another Christ (alter Christus) and act in the person of Christ (in persona Christi), not only in the name of Christ.
Since on the one hand the Jesus who was anointed and sent was a minister, i.e., a servant with authority given to Him by the Father, is that Christ who is the Father of Christians, having called them “His children”, but on the other hand only priests (i.e. presbyters and bishops) are another Christ and act in the person of Christ, it follows that only priests (i.e. presbyters and bishops) are the fathers of those Christians, who are ‘non-ministers’, or ‘non-ordained ministers’, i.e., extraordinary ministers, or are ‘ordained but not anointed ministers’, i.e., deacons.
Therefore only priests (i.e. presbyters and bishops) are spiritual fathers of that aggregate of non-ministers and extraordinary ministers which is called the laity or the lay faithful.
But priests (i.e. presbyters and bishops) are clerics.
Therefore only priestly clerics are the spiritual fathers of the laity as well as the fathers of deacons.
Since on the one hand priests (i.e. presbyters and bishops) are spiritual fathers in that they represent Christ as the Father of Christians, but on the other hand Christ as Father of Christians represents God His Heavenly Father, it follows that priests (i.e. presbyters and bishops) must take the model of their spiritual fatherhood towards the lay faithful from the Heavenly Father of Christ only through, with and in the spiritual paternity of Christ towards Christians.
Priests (i.e. presbyters and bishops) take the model of their spiritual paternity towards the laity from the paternity of God the Heavenly Father through the spiritual paternity of Christ towards Christians.
The pastoral vocation of priests (i.e. presbyters and bishops) is both great and universal: it is directed towards the whole Church and is also missionary. Normally, it is linked to the service of a particular community of the People of God, in which each individual expects attention, care and love. The ministry of the priests (i.e. presbyters and bishops) is therefore also the ministry of fatherhood. Through his dedication to souls many are those generated to the new life in Christ. This is a true spiritual fatherhood as Saint Paul exclaimed: “For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel” (1Cor 4:15). Just like Abraham , the priest becomes “father of many nations” (Rom 4:18), and in the Christian growth flourishing around him discovers the reward for the toils and sufferings of his daily service. Moreover, on the supernatural level as well as on the natural level, the mission of fatherhood does not end with birth, but extends to and embraces all life long. Priests (i.e. presbyters and bishops) make of their life those vibrant words of the Apostle: “My little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (Gal 4:19). Thus with generosity renewed each day do they live this gift of spiritual fatherhood and orient to it the fulfilment of each task of their ministry (cf. CONGREGATION FOR THE CLERGY, Directory on the Ministry and Life of Priests, New Edition (11 February 2013), n. 24).
The Heavenly Father, whose spiritual fatherhood is the ultimate as the supreme model of all spiritual fatherhood, is the one who 1) gives daily bread to His children, and 2) forgives them their transgressions, both their sins as offences against God and humiliation of Him before His adversary, and their crimes as offences against humanity, be it against a single man, be it against a human collective (the human family or human community or society, or the nation or the people), and 3) does not lead children into temptation, does not close their organs of perception of evil, but instead leads them to avoid evil by opening their organs of perception as to how to avoid mistakes and errors; and who 4) frees them from all the evil into which they have already fallen, i.e., from the traps (snares) of the evil one, from poverty, hunger, disease and death.
@4c) As long as the authority exercised by the Son who lives and reigns with the Father is given to Him by the Father, but the relation between the Son and His Father with whom He lives and reigns is the criterion and model for the proper relation between the lay faithful and the priests (i.e. the presbyter and the bishops) as the proper spiritual fathers of the lay faithful that live and reign with the priests (sacerdotal clergy) in the unity of the deacon, it follows that the authority exercised by the lay faithful who live and reign with the priests (i.e. the presbyters and the bishops) as the sacerdotal Clergy must be only such authority that is given to the lay faithful by the priests (i.e. the presbyters and the bishops) as the sacerdotal Clergy.