TOS058 Basics of Faith VI: Priest, Prophet, and King For audio TOS058: Basics of Faith VI – Priest, Prophet, and King | Listen Notes
Join Patti Brunner and Truth of the Spirit to explore Basics of Faith with the Basics of the Laity’s Role as Priest, Prophet and King. Jesus provides the example for us to lead an abundant life as Priest, Prophet, and King. Jesus is the High Priest. There is a ministerial priesthood and a common priesthood. A priest is someone who connects man to God and God to man. According to our baptism, that is one of our duties as a Christian. What’s a prophet? A prophet is someone who hears the voice of God and shares what God says. What is a King? Someone in charge of others by royal birthright, and their duty is to protect, provide and expand the kingdom and to be a good steward. Jesus gives us the example.
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I’m Patti Brunner. I was baptized a Catholic as infant, and raised in faith-filled home, got to go to a Catholic grade school and high school. I married my Catholic high-school sweetheart, and his mother was a convert, but I have always been an active practicing Catholic—my music teacher told me “practice makes perfect”—I’m still practicing my faith! I’m still practicing, still learning still reaching for that perfection. But the way to grow in your faith is to practice your faith. Practice makes perfect. Remember that. When we stand before St. Peter at the gates we want to say: “We practiced and practiced and practiced!”
I am, according to my baptism, I am a priest, prophet and a king. And every one of you who are already baptized are also a priest, prophet & king, and those of you that will be baptized, I look forward to welcoming you into my royal family, as a king, and a priest, and a prophet. And it’s the family of Jesus.
What is a priest? We know that Msgr. David, Fr. Sean, they’re priests, but they are ordained priests. They are part of the “ministerial priesthood”. And we are part of what the Church calls the “common priesthood.”
So, what is a priest? A priest is someone who connects man to God and God to man. According to our baptism, that is one of our duties as a Christian, to connect man to God and God to man. What’s a prophet? A prophet is someone who hears the voice of God and shares what God says. What is a King? Someone in charge of others by royal birthright, and their duty is to protect, provide and expand the kingdom and to be a good steward. So you say, you are telling me what a priest prophet and king is, but how does that fit in for me? Well, we look to Jesus. Jesus gives us the example.
The Catechism tells us, and this is paragraph # 871, “The Christian faithful are those who, inasmuch as they have been incorporated in Christ through Baptism, have been constituted as the people of God; for this reason, since they have become sharers in Christ’s priestly, prophetic, and royal office in their own manner, they are called to exercise the mission which God has entrusted to the Church to fulfill in the world, in accord with the condition proper to each one.”
We know how to be a priest, prophet & king because we are going to look to Jesus and we are going to follow Jesus’ example. Jesus was not just a common priest; he was THE High Priest. He is the High Priest of our Church. If we look back to the Old Testament, when God established the priesthood, He called Aaron out to be a priest and his descendants, his children became priests of the tribe of Israel, but among all the priests there was one special High Priest dedicated to doing something very special. Once a year they would go into the Holy of Holies which was the tabernacle, the tent, in the desert that God explained to Moses how to build. There are several chapters in the scripture that detailed how they were to build this tabernacle, how they were to coat everything with gold and how precious everything was in this tabernacle. And they took the Ark of the Covenant and put inside this box of the Ark of the Covenant the tablets of the 10 Commandments, they put some of the manna, the miraculous manna they were fed in the desert. And then they also put in the staff of Aaron that was a stick that flowered and fruited almonds to prove that he was the true priest of God. And so these things were put in the box, this golden box with these angels over it and this was put into the Holy of Holies. And the presence of God came down and was shown as a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of smoke by day that showed the presence of God within this place. The role for the high priest was to once a year to take the sacrificial blood of the lamb and pour it over the Mercy Seat, and in that way, atone for people’s sins [Leviticus Chapter 16] for the year. It was something to do over and over and over. Jesus was THE High Priest so when he gave his sacrifice on the cross and his blood poured out to the ground it sanctified all of us; he did the atonement for all of us, forever. Now he acts as priest to connect God to Man and Man to God. So he sits at the Father’s right hand He is THE high Priest, but we are all called into that common priesthood to share with others and to bring others to Christ. Jesus shows us how to be priests: by ministering to God, offering prayers; consecrating or dedicating, sacrificing, and relaying God’s love. When you show someone that God loves them you are acting as a priest. You are relaying God’s love to them. When you tell someone, when you share your witness, about your faith and they are encouraged and they get to know the Lord because you’re telling them about Him, then you are acting as a priest of God, you are connecting that person with God; when you pray for that person you are connecting God to that man. So it works both ways. You get the man to know about God and then in your prayers you connect God to man.
In being a prophet we hear the voice of God. So Jesus is a prophet. Jesus heard the voice of God. Jesus is the voice of God. Jesus is the Word. The Word made flesh. He is our prophet. When we listen to the Scriptures, when we listen to Jesus, we hear the voice of God. John, the Gospel of John, chapter, Jesus says: He only said what the Father told him. So, when we hear Jesus speak we are hearing the Father speak. So we are connected through the priest, prophet, Jesus, with the Word of God. We hear him. We act as prophets when we speak the word of God into our lives: “Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world.” “Seek the Lord and He shall be found” “God is love.” “Put on the armor of God.” “Pray always.” These are all scripture quotes. And by telling you these scripture quotes I am speaking the Lord’s Word to you. I am a prophet to you by proclaiming the Word of the Lord. I can proclaim that Word into my own life. I can be a prophet unto myself; but the Church is calling us to be a prophet to others, to build up the Church. When we take what we hear and teach that to others, we are prophets. And Jesus did that. He showed us the way. He had disciples all the time He is all the time teaching. He is all the time sharing what the Father says with others. He’s all the time pulling out of the Old Testament and telling the people again, explaining what it means. So when he does this he is acting as prophet. And that is our example to also do that.
Ok, the King. Jesus is king. Christ the King. Right? But he is a servant-king. He doesn’t lord it over us. He is a servant-king. A king is a ruler by birthright. And the duty of a king, remember, is to protect, to defend, to expand the territory and to be a good steward. Jesus was obedient to His Father. He was obedient to his Father unto death. In John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” We follow Jesus’ example and just like he told us in John 5:19 that he does only what he sees the Father doing. So we have heard that Jesus only says what the Father says and now Jesus is also telling us that he only does what the Father does. If we do just what Jesus did we are doing what the Father desires. If we say the things Jesus said we are saying the things that God the Father desires. You see? And we become that priest, we become that prophet. See how simple that is? How wonderfully simple he has made it?
In John 10: 10 Jesus said, “I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.” O dear people, you are such a grace filled group here. You have the zeal that has drawn you hear tonight. You have the zeal to step out into your priest, prophet and king rights. You will have these rights as you continue your Baptism and your sacraments, the Confirmation that empowers you the grace of the Holy Spirit. The Eucharist that will nourish you to continue strengthens you to do these things. And those of you who are sponsors you are living out your priesthood to your fellow Christians here. It’s just a marvelous thing to think about—that the Church is made up of people who are willing to activate their priest, prophet and kingships and step out in boldness and to “do”. And it’s not that the Church is asking you to be missionaries in Africa. No, the Church and the Catechism tells us that we are to first be this priest prophet and king in our own home. How important it is—that our relationships with our spouses, with our children—that we bring this into that and then into the work place! The workplace can be a sacred place for a priest prophet and king as you live your life and you live by the values of the Christian faith, and you live by the example that Jesus has given us. Do everything you do in an excellent way because, remember everything you do, you are acting as a priest, a prophet and a king. You would not expect a prophet to cheat people. You would not expect a priest to be mean and ugly to someone. You would not expect a king to be selfish. Well, that’s right. So as we look at the opposites sometimes we are in the opposites. You know? But our Baptism will bring us out of that slavery. God does not want us to live a life of slavery He does not want us to be a slave to sin. He sent his son to break the bondage of sin to bring us to freedom, to bring us out of that slavery, to adopt us into that royal family. When you were kids you would love to grow up and be a queen or a princess or prince, well, here’s our chance. We all are! We are baptized into the royal family of Jesus.
Now I’m not saying it’s always going to be easy because we have attachments. If we deny our priesthood, our kingly prophetic life, our hearts will become hard and empty. And we can use our freewill to love money, we can love power, we can allow our own selfishness to try to fill that emptiness; that can’t work. Jesus calls us to cut the attachments and to accept his grace to boldly be his priest, his prophet, his king. He’s got wonderful examples all through scripture all through tradition. We also have saints that we can model our lives after, who have showed us the way. We have early saints, and middle saints and modern saints.
So, early saints—we’ve got Peter, Paul; we see what they did in the Acts of the Apostles. We can see how they messed up and then God rescued them. And we can see how they stepped out in faith and the things they did. Jesus told them to go forth and baptize people in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And thank God they did it! Because that’s the only way we could be here tonight! They stepped out into their priesthood, into their prophetic, kingly life and have done those things! We can look at St. Irenaeus of Lyons who died in the year 202, who was a bishop and a defender of the faith and, carried on the tradition of the apostles and disciples that followed Jesus. He’s the next generation. I don’t know how many generations before us but it’s a long time. And then we can look at Felicity, Perpetua—who were women who were martyred for their faith back when the Roman Empire was killing all the Christians. And it was their dedication and their willingness to die for their faith that set an example for other people of the town. They just couldn’t comprehend; they just couldn’t comprehend these beautiful young women, and this beautiful pregnant woman, that were willing to die for their faith. But that act of martyrdom was their priesthood in action. Their sacrifice! They sacrificed just like Jesus sacrificed on the cross. They offered their lives in that priesthood.
We have some modern saints like Padre Pio. We have Maximilian Kolbe, Sister Faustina Kowalska who died I guess right as World War II was starting. We can look at their lives and we can look at their examples. And we’ve got the saints from the middle: like Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Becket, Therese of Lisieux and Teresa of Avila. Therese of Lisieux she was in her early 20’s when she died. She had a “Little Way” of following Jesus, of carrying out her priesthood, of carrying out her prophetic life, of carrying out her kingly life. And she kept a little diary and she died very young. And the writings that she had, impacted our Church so much that they have made her a doctor of the Church. She stands right up there with all the theologians that for years and years practiced their faith. So, just because you are little, just because you are young, just because you are old, doesn’t mean that you cannot impact the Church, that you cannot make a difference in the Church. I believe you will. I know that you will, because God has given you the grace to do that. And there’s a lot of people around, mentors, I lot of people if you think about it; think about the one person you’ve met that really impacted you, that really drew you to be here, to be a part of this program. Those are our mentors; those are our examples to follow. Those are our priest, prophet, and king examples to step into, to follow. Ok?
And then we’ve got the scripture St Peter encourages us to become a spiritual house, in 1 Peter, chapter 2, he says: “5 like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”. He tells us: “ 9 you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” In Matthew, Chapter 5 Jesus said, “14 You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid.” These things that are going on in your lives, Jesus is setting you up to be an example, to be a light for others. It doesn’t end here. Raise it up on the lampstand for all to see. So that’s what we are encouraged to do with our faith. We are encouraged to be the light for others. And we are that light for others as we are a priest, a prophet and a king.
I’m going to challenge you to grow more, and you can do this by sharing. You have so much to share. Everyone has a story. Everyone had something that has happened in their lives, they can share with others. And it doesn’t always have to be good experiences. You know? A lot of times we learn stuff by messing up. Sometimes we learn stuff by surviving, surviving horrible things, but by the grace of God pulls us through things. And then we have that powerful witness. Or we have a powerful witness of a beautiful moment when we’ve felt God’s presence. Or we might have an experience of something good that someone has done for us, someone who’s taken care of us when we had a need. And we can share that experience. And when we share that with others we are shining the light of Christ. We are being that priest, prophet, king. We are taking that to the world.
Teach what you know. It’s real important. Teach what you know. And make sure, by verifying, that you know what the Church teaches. So if you think you know something, well, you probably do. But let’s look it up, let’s use the Catechism, let’s use the Bible. The Catechism is a really good place to start, because it’s got all those cross-references. When you look something up it may send you to the bible or it may send you to a document somewhere. So, when you start looking up what you already know you’ll see that it’s expanded and you grow in that; you grow in what you already know and then you know something you didn’t know before. Plus, when you share what you know you can stand on, you can stand on the Word of God, you are a prophet that speaks truth rather than hearsay. You’re going to know your faith and you’re going to teach your faith in truth. So that’s what I encourage you to do. Teach what you know. Verify what you know. Grow in what you know. And then seek out what you don’t know. And learn that and then you’ll be ready to teach that to others.
Pray. To be a priest, prophet and King, you need to pray. You have to pray. Spend time in prayer. Prayer is raising your mind and heart to God. [St. Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians to] “Rejoice always, pray constantly, and give thanks to God in all circumstances.” And then sacrifice, too. Sacrifice, dedicate, consecrate your life; dedicate every day to the Lord. When you do that, then every day is a priestly action when you dedicate your day to the Lord. If you are having a struggle, consecrate that struggle to the Lord and you will be amazed how the burden will be lifted. It will. And make a plan. In the Our Father we pray “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” Guess what? You all are bringing the kingdom to earth. By the things you step out to do.
Prayer:
When you hear: “It’s impossible.” The prophet says God says: All things are possible. [Luke 18:27]
When you hear: “I’m too tired.” The prophet says God says: I will give you rest. [Matthew 11:28-30]
When you hear: “Nobody loves me.” The prophet says God says: I love you. [John 3:16 & John 13:34]
When you hear: “I can’t go on.” The prophet says God says: My grace is sufficient. [II Corinthian.12:9 & Ps 91:15]
When you hear: “I can’t figure things out.” The prophet says God says: I will direct your steps. [Proverbs 3:5-6]
When you hear: “I can’t do it.” The prophet says God says: I am can do all things. [Philippians 4:13]
When you hear: “I am not able.” The prophet says God says: I am able. [II Corinthians 9:8]
When you hear: “I can’t forgive myself.” The prophet says God says: I forgive you. [I John 1:9 & Romans 8:1]
When you hear: “I can’t manage.” The prophet says God says: I will supply all your needs. [Philippians 4:19]
When you hear: “I am afraid.” The prophet says God says: I have not given you a spirit of fear. [II Timothy 1:7]
When you hear: “I’m not smart enough.” The prophet says God says: I give you wisdom. [I Corinthians. 1:30]
When you hear: “I’m worried & frustrated.” The prophet says God says: Cast all your cares on Me [1 Peter 5:7].
When you hear: “I don’t have enough faith.” The prophet says God says: I’ve given everyone a measure of faith. [Romans 12:3]
When you hear: “I feel all alone.” The prophet says God says: I will never leave you or forsake you. [Hebrews 13:5]
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the Sacred Scriptures you have given us. Help us to turn our society to a culture of life. Help us to recognize the truth that is your word. Let our mouth speak from the abundance of our hearts and may that abundance be your Word living in us. Come Holy Spirit, through the Sacred Scripture reveal Jesus to us and the nature of the Father. Anoint us to hear and live your word and to be your priest, your prophet, your king. To bring the fullness of the kingdom, the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.
You are the future of the Church. You are the Church today. And you are the priest, the prophet and the king in my life. Thank you.
