Though they are presented as if they are two distinct celebrations, the Jubilees of Bishops and of Priests due to be marked between 25th June 2025 and the 27th June 2025 form an integrated programme, ending with Mass celebrated on 27th for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. If the earlier Jubilee of movements and ecclesial communities reminded us of the role of the charisms in the life of the Church, these two jubilees remind us that, nevertheless, the Church is expressed in a hierarchical structure.
In the programme of the Jubilee, the Bishops will take part in a catechesis with the Holy Father, intended I susggest to manifest the communion of the individual Bishops with the Successor of Peter and their sharing in a care for the universal Church. On the following day, catecheses will be given by Bishops (in language groups) to priests taking part in the Jubilee of Priests, expressing something of the collaboration of a priest with his Bishop in the pastoral care of a parish within a diocese. The Dicastery for the Clergy will also be hosting an event Joyful Priests - I have called you friends, during which there will be testimony of examples of vocational ministry and seminary formation from different parts of the Catholic world.
In a lecture given in 1981, and subsequently published in the journal Communio, Cardinal Lustiger discussed the connection between celibacy and priestly and episcopal ordination. Early in the lecture, he attempted to define "what this episcopal ministry is, priesthood par excellence":
The bishop, exercising in the church the priestly ministry is given to the church-body of Christ as a sign of Christ the head. Thus the whole church can exercise the priestly act of Christ described in the first Epistle of Peter by receiving in the sacramental grace given in the episcopal ministry the assurance that the word which is spoken in her is truly the word that Christ utters in his church, and that faith brought about by the Holy Spirit is truly the common faith of the whole church. Thus guarantees that the holiness given by the Father to his church comes indeed from Christ himself who acts in the sacraments, and so that unity in brotherly love which must always gather the members of the church in mercy and pardon is truly that which is accomplished and operated by Christ himself in his body. Through the priestly ordination of the bishop, the church is assured that she receives herself from Christ, priest, prophet and king. A formula recently quoted by John Paul II condenses the significance of the sacrament of orders - through his priestly ministerial act, the bishop (the priest) acts in persona Christi before the body of Christ, for example, the church.
Cardinal Lustiger continues to suggest that priests "exert jointly and in collegiality the episcopal ministry" as collaborators with the bishop who is the primary priest of his particular church.
In 2009 Pope Benedict XVI wrote a letter to inaugurate a Year for Priests, celebrated to mark the 150th anniversary of the death of St John Vianney. The year began on the Feast of the Sacred Heart that year, the feast being one marked as a day of prayer for the sanctification of priests.
Saint John Mary Vianney taught his parishioners primarily by the witness of his life. It was from his example that they learned to pray, halting frequently before the tabernacle for a visit to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.“One need not say much to pray well” – the Curé explained to them – “We know that Jesus is there in the tabernacle: let us open our hearts to him, let us rejoice in his sacred presence. That is the best prayer”. And he would urge them: “Come to communion, my brothers and sisters, come to Jesus. Come to live from him in order to live with him… “Of course you are not worthy of him, but you need him!”. This way of educating the faithful to the Eucharistic presence and to communion proved most effective when they saw him celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Those present said that “it was not possible to find a finer example of worship… He gazed upon the Host with immense love”. “All good works, taken together, do not equal the sacrifice of the Mass” – he would say – “since they are human works, while the Holy Mass is the work of God”. He was convinced that the fervour of a priest’s life depended entirely upon the Mass: “The reason why a priest is lax is that he does not pay attention to the Mass! My God, how we ought to pity a priest who celebrates as if he were engaged in something routine!”. He was accustomed, when celebrating, also to offer his own life in sacrifice: “What a good thing it is for a priest each morning to offer himself to God in sacrifice!”.
This deep personal identification with the Sacrifice of the Cross led him – by a sole inward movement – from the altar to the confessional. Priests ought never to be resigned to empty confessionals or the apparent indifference of the faithful to this sacrament. In France, at the time of the Curé of Ars, confession was no more easy or frequent than in our own day, since the upheaval caused by the revolution had long inhibited the practice of religion. Yet he sought in every way, by his preaching and his powers of persuasion, to help his parishioners to rediscover the meaning and beauty of the sacrament of Penance, presenting it as an inherent demand of the Eucharistic presence. He thus created a “virtuous” circle. By spending long hours in church before the tabernacle, he inspired the faithful to imitate him by coming to visit Jesus with the knowledge that their parish priest would be there, ready to listen and offer forgiveness. Later, the growing numbers of penitents from all over France would keep him in the confessional for up to sixteen hours a day. It was said that Ars had become “a great hospital of souls”. His first biographer relates that “the grace he obtained [for the conversion of sinners] was so powerful that it would pursue them, not leaving them a moment of peace!”. The saintly Curé reflected something of the same idea when he said: “It is not the sinner who returns to God to beg his forgiveness, but God himself who runs after the sinner and makes him return to him”. “This good Saviour is so filled with love that he seeks us everywhere”.
[It is interesting to compare St John Vianney's observations about the Sacrament of Penance to the late Pope Francis' contemporary emphasis on the mercy of God.]
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