Our Share in Each of Christ’s Roles — Part 1: As Priest

08-24-2025Weekly Reflection Jen Arnold, M.A.

This week, we will begin a three-part series on our participation in the threefold office of Christ as priest, prophet, and king, which comes with our baptismal obligations.

Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal, lives in a friary in the Bronx. He has written a book, Habits for Holiness: Small Steps for Making Big Spiritual Progress. The premise of the book is that we all know what it means to be holy in an abstract sense, but it can be a challenge to figure out how to take small, manageable steps in order to grow in holiness. To that end, Fr. Ames offers practical wisdom and advice with real-world suggestions to incorporate into our daily lives.

His book includes chapters for each of the roles we are called to live out by virtue of our baptism: priest, prophet, and king. First, I will summarize what the Church teaches about the laity’s participation in each role, according to the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church: Lumen Gentium. Then, I will offer some insights taken from Fr. Ames’ book.

Lumen Gentium paragraphs 10 and 11 teach that all the faithful share in Christ’s priesthood, but in two distinct ways: the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial (or hierarchical) priesthood. The common priesthood belongs to all baptized Christians. It is lived out by offering spiritual sacrifices and prayer in union with Christ through the Eucharist. The ministerial priesthood belongs to ordained priests and bishops. It differs from the common priesthood in essence, not just degree, because it is directed toward serving the faithful by teaching, sanctifying, and leading them. Together, both forms of priesthood participate in the one priesthood of Christ and are ordered toward each other: the ministerial priesthood exists to help the faithful grow in their own priestly role and their own holiness, most particularly through the sacraments. In our priestly office as lay members of the Church, we then offer our own sacrifices and prayer.

To explain how our sacrifices and prayer work together, Fr. Ames uses the imagery of hot coal and incense. One without the other is pointless. Without the incense, the hot coal burns without a purpose, and without the hot coal, the incense won’t rise. When the incense is placed on the hot coal, the smoke of the burning incense rises toward heaven, filling its surroundings with its fragrance. If we think of our sacrifices as the hot coal and our prayers as the incense, the analogy reveals that one without the other won’t bear fruit. Suffering without prayer becomes meaningless, and prayer without sacrifice reveals a rejection of God’s invitation to participate in Jesus’ redemptive sacrifice. Fr. Ames says, “The greatest force in history is prayer united with sacrifice.”

The first piece of advice offered by Fr. Ames is to simply take note of small, everyday sufferings you experience already. He mentions things like traffic, noise, and tiredness. If you are a parent, especially of young children, you are making sacrifices every day to serve them. All these little things add up to be your burning coal. It is already there, whether or not you have recognized it. Once you notice them, you can begin “laying them on the altar” as an offering to Jesus in prayer. You can do this on a day-to-day basis, but even further, you can make your participation in the Mass more fruitful by recalling the sufferings of your entire week as the gifts are brought forward and placed on the altar for consecration. This is the time to place your sacrifices on the altar and unite them with the sacrifice of Jesus. One practical tip Fr. Ames offers to help you be more aware and intentional about your daily sacrifices is to have a cord with ten beads in your pocket. Each time a sacrifice is made, move a bead from one end of the cord to the other until all ten have been moved to the other end. At the end of the day, as you prepare to sleep, offer these sacrifices to Jesus.

Besides recognizing the small sufferings that happen to you, you can also take up extra sacrifices. If you are new to adding extra penances to your spiritual practice, Fr. Ames includes some critical advice: “I’d recommend looking to grow in fidelity before taking on extra corporal penances. For example, I’d pursue greater patience, less gossip, more purity, reconciliation of relationships, and so forth before fasting, sleeping less, and the like.” He also strongly recommends not pursuing larger sacrifices without the guidance of a spiritual director for the good of both your physical and spiritual health.

Now that we’ve covered the sacrificial aspect of our priesthood, we can expand on the prayer aspect, specifically intercessory prayer. We can unite these sacrifices with Jesus’ sacrifice and offer them for a particular person or intention. Fr. Ames invites you, first, to pay attention to the people around you as you go about your day. Who might need your intercessory prayer at any given moment? During that minor annoyance you are experiencing, notice who or what is going on around you so that you may offer the prayer and sacrifice for it in real time. As Christians, we are called to intercede for the whole world and the salvation of all souls, and no prayer or sacrifice is too small.

If we want to pray for a particular intention, Fr. Ames offers two practical suggestions. The first is to offer a small and consistent sacrifice. Give something up for a set period of time, such as a favorite food or television show. What you give up and the length of time is up to you, but the idea is to offer it up, along with your prayer for a particular intention. The second suggestion is to do what Father calls a “life novena.” He says, “‘Ok, for this particular intention, I’m going to offer the next nine days of my life. And I include in that offering all of the sufferings that are usually part of my life. But also, I offer whatever God wants to give me.” Fr. Ames reports the life novena as being very “efficacious and fruitful” in his own practice. Remember what I stated earlier: “The greatest force in history is prayer united with sacrifice.”

To conclude, here are a few questions for reflection presented by Fr. Ames:

• Can I take a moment and prayerfully reflect on ways in which I am already making regular sacrifices out of fidelity to Christ?
• Is there a way to pay attention to the sacrifices I’m making so that I can intentionally unite them with the offering of Jesus?
• Am I paying attention to the people I meet throughout the day? Can I begin interceding for them?
• Is there an intention particularly close to my heart that I just don’t know what to do with? Would offering nine days of prayer and sacrifice for this intention be something I feel moved to do?

Spend time this week seeking out and reflecting on opportunities to share in Christ’s priesthood.  Next week, we’ll look at how we participate in the office of prophet.