In this Year For Priests, it has been requested that thoughts be shared on the gift of the priesthood. It is a challenging opportunity to try to express, in a limited amount of words, more than 40 years of priesthood. 

The priesthood, while lived individually in a person, is bigger than any of us and its expression in each of us is limited to our frail human qualities. One can never be worthy of the priesthood, but can only spend one’s priesthood becoming less unworthy of the great gift that has been given.

In holy orders, a man is ordered to serve the people of God. He does this by the administration of the sacraments and acts in the person of Christ — “in persona Christi” — at the altar and in the confessional. At the words of consecration, the priest does not say, “This is Christ’s body,” but rather, “This is my body.” In confession, he does not say, “Christ absolves you from your sins,” but instead, “I absolve you from your sins.”

In older terminology we would say the priest in an alter Christus, another Christ. We were always to be Christ to others. This is a challenge that, as we have so recently seen, is not always attained.

Times change, people change, the focus of the priesthood might change, but the work of the priest does not change.

In the years I have been a priest, there have been four bishops in our diocese and five popes. During that time, the work did not change nor did the sacramental ministrations essentially change. The priesthood is beyond personalities or time or even location.

The priest is one of the few people who are involved with people at every event of their lives. He is present as they come into the world to baptize them; he is there to assist them to confess their sins and receive the Eucharist for the first time. As the spirit of God comes to them in confirmation, he is there. As two people commit themselves in marriage, he is their witness for the Church. In their illness, he is there with the sacrament of the sick. At the loss of a loved one, he is there to bury them. He is there to help them in the difficulties of their life; he is there to bring them the grace of God in sacramental and non-sacramental ways. He is there for them. 

For the most part he is welcomed and respected. He hears things no one else ever will. He will help people make decisions that will always be confidential. Once the clerical collar is seen, for better and worse, a mind-set is formed. Much of the respect for the priesthood comes from those who have come before us. We add our own image that will last long after us.

How my 40-plus years of priesthood were exercised is of less importance than the fact that I am privileged to be a priest. It is something I had always wanted to do since serving as an altar boy in grade three. That vocation was nourished in Catholic grammar and high school. My education took me to college in Rhode Island and graduate school in Baltimore, Md. 

My interest in education allowed me to serve as chaplain in various diocesan high schools and now I have a parish with a school. Today, a parish school is a different challenge than those days when schools flourished and were supported by priests and people alike. 

While we may design our life, for the priest, it is designed by God. My parish work was to be limited for a period of time. I served in the chancery for 23 years of my priesthood; it allowed me to see beyond a parish to a diocese. As mission director, I am able to see the Church beyond our country, and, as archivist, I learned how the past is part of the present. As director of the diocesan Permanent Diaconate Office, I have come to a better understanding of holy orders and the goodness of those who want to make Christ present as permanent deacons.

As secretary and master of ceremonies, I came to know our bishops in a more personal manner and was able to help my brother priests in a variety of circumstances. It also allowed me the possibility of visiting all the parishes in our diocese. God chose to have me exercise my priesthood in a different manner, but it was priestly ministry. 

Now I am pleased to be a pastor of a wonderful parish and continue to exercise my priestly ministry in that special and wonderful way. 

It is my hope that as priests share their love of the priesthood in this Year For Priests, many will come to appreciate the gift of the priesthood and other men may be inspired to beg the Lord to call them to share in the special gift of the priesthood.

Msgr. Oliveira, ordained in 1967, is pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in New Bedford.