A Great Thought

I ran across this in a book I am reading, Ecclesiogenesis: The Base Communities Reinvent the Church by Leonardo Boff. The book is written from a Roman Catholic perspective, re-examining the nature and role of the priesthood in light of "base communties" in Brazil, churches without priests to serve them. Toward the end of the book, Boff offers this reflection on the role of priest (or pastor or minister):

A priest is a mediator and reconciler of divergent realities. Priests have a feeling of living and existing in an atmosphere of basic estrangement: they have to face God and face others, face surrounding reality and face themselves. The drama of human life is shot through with division and lies; life longs for oneness, for peace and concord between the universe and its profound meaning. The priest seeks to be the crucible of the common experience of all human beings, seeks to live from this experience and for its successful outcome. Therefore the priest lives apart from the world, not out of contempt for the world but in order to fulfill a mission of oneness and meditation for the world.

I fully believe in and am fully steeped in the concept of the priesthood of all believers and will always work toward that as I teach and disciple. Rarely, however, do I find that reality absorbed by those with whom I come in contact and to whom I minister. So there is always an element of a priestly, mediating role in how many, if not most, see me or see anyone, whether clergy or lay minister, who h as chosen to develop a relationship with God. We truly are crucibles of human experience if we allow ourselves to be. We truly are in the world, but not of it.