Times Have Changed Since George Herbert... But

The Priest Is Christ's Slave, And Christ Himself Took The Form Of A Slave And Became Obedient To Death. So The Priest In Serving Human Needs Lives A Godward Life, Possessed By God And Witnessing That Only When Lives Are Utterly Possessed By God Do They Find Their True Freedom.

As Priests Uphold Their People In Prayer, So Their People Are To Uphold Them With Prayer And Love, For He Cannot Work Without His People.

It Brings Spiritual Warfare And Suffering For The Priest As He Identifies With Those Who Suffer, And Shares The Frustrations, Anger, And Incomprehensibility Of That Suffering In What It Does To Those Who Suffer. The Priest Shares In These Struggles Of His Suffering People, The Uncertainties It Brings, The Sense Of Divine Abandonment It Induces, And The Loneliness Caused.

Priesthood Is Not A Convenient, Historically Conditioned Form Of Church Organisation, But Is Rooted In The Incarnation, In The Priesthood And Mission Of Christ Himself.

There Is A Kind Of Thinking In The Church That Wants To Reduce The Priest To A Mere Functionary, A Managing Director, Where Administration Rather Than Doctrine And Worship Are To Determine The Form Of The Church.