ORDERS and ORDINATION. — Orders is the Sacrament, instituted by Jesus Christ, by which the ministers of Christian worship are constituted.
I. THE SACRAMENT OF ORDERS
SUMMARY:
I. Institution of the priesthood of the New Testament
II. The three grades of the priesthood
III. Transmission of the priesthood
IV. Matter and form of the Sacrament of Orders
V. The effects of the Sacrament of Orders
VI. Conclusion.I. INSTITUTION OF THE PRIESTHOOD OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
Jesus, by natural right and by divine vocation the High Priest of the New Covenant (Hebr. 4:14), needing to remove His sensible presence (John 16:6-7) and to render simultaneously perpetual and visible the economy of salvation (Luke 24:45-48), from the very beginning of His public life chose certain disciples, whom He trained with every care. As the crowning of this didactic formation, at the moment when He instituted the Sacrifice of the Mass (q.v.), with a supernatural investiture expressed in the words: “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24), He transmitted to them the power to renew, to offer the unbloody oblation, the perpetual memorial of the immolation of Calvary. On the day of the Resurrection and the Ascension, by conferring upon the same Apostles the power to forgive sins (John 20:21-23) and the triple power to teach, to sanctify, and to govern all nations (Matt. 28:19-20), He established them as God’s representatives before men (descending mediation), whereas at the Last Supper He had constituted them as representatives of men before God (ascending mediation).True priests of the New Testament, in whom the promises of the Prophets were fulfilled (cf. Isa. 66:20-23; Mal. 1:10-11), the Apostles felt with pride the honor of the divine investiture: “Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers (οἰκονόμοι) of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. 4:1); “God hath made us fit ministers of the New Testament” (2 Cor. 3:6) and “hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation” (ibid. 5:18) “and we are ambassadors for Christ” (ibid. 5:20).