God our Father,
we thank you for calling men and women to serve in your Son’s Kingdom as priests, deacons, and consecrated persons.
Send your Holy Spirit to help others to respond generously and courageously to your call.
May our community of faith support vocations of sacrificial love in our youth and young adults.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
There are two social sacraments: Matrimony and Holy Orders. In the natural order man and woman propagate the human species through the sacrament of Matrimony.
There must be government. In the divine, supernatural order, in the Mystical Body of Christ, there must be government and the sacrament of government of the Mystical Body is Holy Orders. In this government, there are degrees, order, and hierarchy. The division of these orders is principally three: diaconate, priesthood, and episcopacy.
The night of the Last Supper, and all during His public life, our blessed Lord chose human instruments to mediate between Him and the world. As Scripture says:
They are to be the ministers and dispensers of the mysteries of God.
Again, in the Epistle of the Hebrews, we read:
For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in the things that appertain to God, that he may offer up gifts and sacrifices for sins.
Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen,
Life is Worth Living radio podcast
episode Holy Orders