This year, the Great Lent is coming early, season-wise. It is still high winter in North America. Easter is on April 1. It can be snowy on Good Friday and Easter - disrupting all the outdoor processions on Good Friday and on Easter. Somehow, Good Friday and Snow doesn't quite mix. Back in Kerala, we would be sweating on Good Friday. (Both from heat as well as from overcrowding inside the church.)

Priesthood is a very important and powerful position in our church. Only priests have the ability and authority to conduct holy qurobo. The spiritual gift conferred by the ordination is expressed by the following prayer of the Byzantine Rite. (The bishop, while laying on his hand, says among other things: )

Lord, fill with the gift of the Holy Spirit
him whom you have deigned to raise to the rank of the priesthood,
that he may be worthy to stand without reproach before your altar,
to proclaim the Gospel of your kingdom,
to fulfill the ministry of your word of truth,
to offer you spiritual gifts and sacrifices,
to renew your people by the bath of rebirth;
so that he may go out to meet
our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, your only Son,
on the day of his second coming,
and may receive from your vast goodness
the recompense for a faithful administration of his order.

Priesthood is a solemn function. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, as a very young priest, exclaimed:

We must begin by purifying ourselves before purifying others; we must be instructed to be able to instruct, become light to illuminate, draw close to God to bring him close to others, be sanctified to sanctify, lead by the hand and counsel prudently. I know whose ministers we are, where we find ourselves and to where we strive. I know God's greatness and man's weakness, but also his potential. [Who then is the priest? He is] the defender of truth, who stands with angels, gives glory with archangels, causes sacrifices to rise to the altar on high, shares Christ's priesthood, refashions creation, restores it in God's image, recreates it for the world on high and, even greater, is divinized and divinizes.

The holy Cure of Ars added, "The priest continues the work of redemption on earth.... If we really understood the priest on earth, we would die not of fright but of love.... The Priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus."

Yes, indeed, the Priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus.

Please pray for all the departed clergy this Sunday.