The very word "Eucharist" means "thanksgiving", and whenever we celebrate it we give thanks to God for all His many gifts and especially for the sum and apex of them: the person and mission of Jesus Christ, His Son, given to us as Lord and Savior.
This evening's solemn celebration is the expression of our profound gratitude for a very special gift: the priesthood, which our venerable and beloved Bishop Francis Micallef has shared with Christ for the last fifty years.
We dutifully pay homage to the person of Bishop Francis. The magnificent letter, that we just read, written to him by His Holiness Pope John Paul II, has well highlighted his faithful service to the Church as a priest and as a bishop. The Holy Father stated that he wanted to be the first in paying tribute to him, since it was he who named him a bishop and conferred on him the fullness of the priesthood. We can only echo the beautiful words of the Pope and join in extending all our prayerful best wishes.
The scriptural readings, chosen personally by the Bishop for this evening, give special meaning to our liturgical celebration.
The first Reading has told us the call of the prophet Jeremiah. In a very special and personal way, fifty years ago, the Lord also said to Bishop Micallef: "To whomever I send you, you shall go; whatever I command you, you shall speak. Have no fear before them, because I am with you to deliver you". We are grateful indeed that God had chosen him and we thank Bishop Francis for having accepted and fulfilled the not easy task during the past five decades.
Borrowing the words of Saint Paul to the early Christians of Corinth, in the second reading, Bishop Micallef gives praise for all the blessings accomplished by God's grace in the midst of the people whom he was called to serve, and urges them (all of us) to progress steadily toward the final and glorious revelation of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
I am certain that the reading from the Gospel of John on Christ the Good Shepherd has been the object of Bishop Micallef's daily meditation in the last fifty years, as he so generously and faithfully strove to be like the Lord. Let us recall that, like the Good Shepherd, Bishop Francis never once abandoned his flock, even in the most difficult and dangerous circumstances.
The figure of the Good Shepherd, who gives his life "to" and "for" his sheep, helps us to further focus our reflection on that sublime "gift and mystery" of the priesthood we celebrate this evening with our beloved Bishop. Only in the person of Jesus we begin to perceive the beauty and the depth of this mystery, because the priesthood of Christ is not "incidental", a task that he might or might not have assumed: rather, it is integral to his identity as the Son Incarnate, as God-made-man.
In all cultures and languages, a priest is regarded as an intermediary, a mediator, a go-between mankind and God. In some ancient languages, such as Latin, the priest was called "pontifex", (in English "pontiff"), which meant "builder of bridges" [the word bridge in Latin is "pons, pontis"], an image that aptly conveys the meaning of the priestly office. It is in fact the function of a bridge to unite two points apart from each other.
In the Old Testament, following the great covenant of Sinai, to the members of the tribe of Levi was reserved the office of priests, to offer prayer and sacrifices to God on behalf of the people, in order to recall and renew the fundamental relationship God had established with Israel with the solemn words of the covenant: "I am your God, you are my people". By that covenant God had struck a common destiny between himself, all holy, and a sinful and wandering people that in his mercy he had chosen to forgive and call his own. But the Jewish priesthood could not go beyond the function of performing rituals that reawakened the memory and the demands of that fundamental pact.
It is in the person of Christ Jesus our Lord that the covenant is radically changed: he is in himself and at the same time truly God and truly Man, and thus the covenant of a common destiny becomes that of a joint existence: not simply "I am yours and you are mine", but "I am you and you are me". Christ is more than a bridge-builder, he is the bridge, cemented by the blood of his sacrifice on the cross and by his glorious resurrection from the dead. From now on, the relationship between mankind and God passes wholly through Christ. "No one comes to the Father except through me" (Jn 14:6).
Now there is only one priesthood, that of Christ, and it can be shared and exercised in different ways. Made one with Christ in baptism, every believer shares in this unique priesthood, prompting the Apostle Peter to tell us: "You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God" (1 Pt 2:9). But the Lord Jesus also reserved for and conferred on his closest disciples and their successors unique functions of priestly service for the good of the community. It is a ministry that includes above all the celebration of the Eucharist, the proclamation of God's Word, the sanctification of the faithful through the Sacraments, and the leadership of God's people in communion and service.
It is the fiftieth anniversary of the sharing in this specific ministerial priesthood that we celebrate this evening with our beloved Bishop. During this period of time, as a priest and a bishop of the Catholic Church, he has been an extension in time and space of that one and only bridge which is Christ the High Priest. Through his ministry, countless people have traveled their way to God and God has reached to embrace them. To God be all glory, to Bishop Micallef our congratulations and prayerful best wishes.
