Given that this is my first year as I priest, I want to reflect on what being a priest has meant to me. 

The first thing I noticed is that it felt very different to be someone’s priest and not just their deacon. I found that I gained a sense of spiritual responsibility for my sheep (parishioners). My heart grew to encompass them and live for them and to serve them for God. I think of how Michael Ramsey said that being a priest was about ‘being with God with the people on your heart’ and I found that my heart was transformed to embody this.^[1] I saw this as the work of God’s Spirit working in my heart as I was ordained a priest. At the ordination service, I felt God give me a spirit of boldness to serve him at the moment that Bishop Donald placed his hands on my head. I see this boldness in the way I now have gained a greater sense of ownership of my sheep and the cure of their souls. 

The second thing I notices was the sheer grace and ridiculousness of how God uses me as a priest. Who am I to pronounce God’s absolution? Who am I to stand before God and celebrate the mysteries of the eucharist? There is nothing that makes me worthy to do these things as a priest. I do them only in God’s grace through which he has called me to take part in his work, not because of who I am but because of who he is as the one who calls me. It took me a while to wrestle with this as I was caught in shock and awe about how he uses me. But over time I came to find the peace of enjoying God’s blessing and grace to use me in this way. It is by God’s grace that I can take home communion to someone and it means anything. It is by God’s grace that I can go and sit with the dying and say final prayers over them (which I have done twice this year). I have truly found that priestly ministry is about discovering God’s grace and delighting in it. What a joy and blessing. Thanks be to God. 

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^[1] Michael Ramsey, The Christian Priest Today (London: SPCK, 2009), 15.