Ascension and Pentecost

The most powerful means of pastoral service (2011)

God has gone up with a shout! The Lord with the sound of the trumpet!

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ -

We begin June with two great feasts - first the Ascension and then ten days later Pentecost. I have always thought it interesting how the movement from the Ascension to Pentecost mirrors in time our personal experience in the Divine Liturgy. In our celebration of the eucharist we ascend liturgically, mysteriously, sacramentally into the realm of heavenly worship, the Kingdom of God - and then there is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon us and the gifts of bread and wine that we have offered. In short: we ascend with Christ; we receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Our participation in Communion is like a personal Pentecost, and the Holy Spirit makes Christ present in and for and of us. This is a very deep and rich mystery and deserves much continued spiritual reflection. It is something that can be unpacked, so to speak, in many ways. It is at the heart of Christian life.

Our pre-Communion prayers touch on this personal, eucharistic appropriation of the Ascension and Pentecost:

Through Thy glorious ascension Thou didst make the flesh which Thou didst assume divine, and placed it on a throne at the Father's right hand. Grant me to receive a place at the right hand with the saved through communion of Thy holy mysteries.

Through the coming of Thy Spirit, the Comforter, Thou didst make Thy consecrated disciples to be honorable vessels. Show me also to be the receptacle of His coming.

I am thinking of this movement as I write today as something profoundly connected with priestly ministry, since it is the ordained priest who leads the faithful in ascending to the heavenly places and distributes to them the holy, sanctified gifts.

Perhaps this priestly, liturgical theme is why June used to be called 'Seminaries Month' in the Orthodox Church in America and we regularly took special collections for our seminaries and seminarians.

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Recently I have been asked many questions about my own understanding of priestly ministry, and I would like share with you a text and teaching that, along with many liturgical texts, has shaped my priestly sensibility. It comes from a great teacher closely connected with the pastoral formation of clergy at the famous St Sergius Institute in Paris, Archimandrite Kyprian (Kern). He was very much admired by my own beloved teacher Fr Alexander Schmemann.

He writes: The priestly service includes many responsibilities. The priest must satisfy all the requirements of his rank. They include the duties of teaching, spiritual guidance, missionary work, and divine service, taking care of the sick, prisoners, sorrowful, and many other things....

However, God can give or not give certain talents to a priest as to anyone. A priest may prove to be a poor speaker or incapable administrator of his parish, a dull instructor of the Holy Scripture. He can be an insensitive or even too demanding a confessor. He can be at a loss socially. But this will be forgiven him and will not blot out the worth of his spiritual work, if only he possesses a feeling for the Eucharist, if his main occupation is the stewardship of the Mysteries and service at the Divine Liturgy for the mystical union of himself and his flock to the body of Christ, for the sake of being partakers of the divine nature in the words of the Apostle Peter (2 Peter 1:4). A priest is given no greater authority or mystical means than this service to the Mystery of the Body and Blood of Christ. This must be the life's work of the priest.... Nowhere and by no method are prayer and spiritual exploit so realised in a priest as in the sacrament of the Eucharistic sacrifice....

The most spiritually compelling priests always took great joy in their celebration of the eucharistic service and its prayers...

Summing up what has been said about the pastoral gift, we must draw the following conclusion. A special gift is given to the pastor in the laying on of hands... the joyous responsibility of renewing and enlivening souls for the Kingdom of God. This renewal can be accomplished in part through a moral influence upon the personality of those guided, through compassionate love for the guilty, through a sympathetic encounter with their personalities, but, mainly, through the Eucharistic service and joining the faithful, through it, to the mysterious Body of the Church. Anyone beside a priest can influence a neighbour. A mother and educator can commiserate. A close friend can share one's sorrows. But the leading of the celebration of the Eucharist is the responsibility of the priest. The Divine Liturgy is the most powerful means of pastoral service... A priest must always remember that he is called to bring God's mysteries into the heart of the community... [this] is the most powerful means of pastoral influence through which to bring about the moral and mystical revival of the faithful and the parish. (Archimandrite Kyprian Kern, Orthodox Pastoral Service).