Kingdom of Priests (Reflection: 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time

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Shortly before Moses received the Law at Mount Sinai, God promised the Israelites that if they obey His law, they would be a Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation. To be holy means that Israel was set apart from all the other nations as God’s own special possession.

This holiness needed to be cultivated however, which is why He commanded them, “Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.” (Leviticus 11:44) All the laws He gave for them to follow were meant to illustrate and remind them of that holiness: “You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean.” (Leviticus 10:10) St. Peter would later apply the command to be holy to New Testament believers when he writes: “but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written,’You shall be holy, for I am holy.’ (1 Peter 1:15-16)

Similarly, to be a Kingdom of Priests meant that every Israelite exercised a priestly role. Later on, a ministerial priesthood was set up from the tribe of Levi, who served God in the Tabernacle. However, this did not detract from the common priesthood of the Israelites. This later becomes the basis of the New Testament teaching that all Christians are priests. St. John teaches that through His death, Christ “made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father.” (Revelation 1:6, cf. 5:10)

Likewise, St. Peter tells believers that “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9) Here, he takes the language of Exodus and applies it to Christians.

This belief in a common priesthood of all the faithful (as distinct from the ministerial priesthood) is enshrined in the Catechism:

The baptized have become “living stones” to be “built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood.” By Baptism they share in the priesthood of Christ, in his prophetic and royal mission. They are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that [they] may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called [them] out of darkness into his marvelous light.” Baptism gives a share in the common priesthood of all believers. (CCC 1268)

Let us celebrate, then, the reality that in Christ, we have been made into a Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation, and let us strive to live in that reality at all times “by the witness of holy lives and practical charity.” (CCC 1273)

J. Luis Dizon