In my readings this Paschal-tide I came across a beautiful passage by Peter Chrysologus that I would like to share and then ask for your response. It seems to me that this is a message we need to stress more in our Churches today. I don't hear as much about the "general priesthood" that all believers share as I would like :-)
This is from a homily on Romans 12:1:
"How marvelous is the priesthood of the Christian, for each of us is both the victim that is offered on our own behalf, and the priest who makes the offering. We do not need to go beyond ourselves to seek what we are to immolate to God: with yourself and in yourself you bring the sacrifice you are to offer to God for yourself. The victim remains and the priest remains, always one and the same. Immolated, the victim still lives: the priest who immolates cannot kill. Truly it is an amazing sacrifice in which a body is offered without being slain and blood is offered without being shed. ...
"Each of us is called to be both a sacrifice to God and his priest. Do not forfeit what divine authority confers on you. Put on the garment of holiness, gird yourself with the belt of chastity. Let Christ be your helmet, let the cross on your forehead be your unfailing protection. Your breastplate should be the knowledge of God that he himself has given you. Keep burning continually the sweet-smelling incense of prayer. Take up the sword of the Spirit.
"Let your heart be an altar. Them, with full confidence to God, present your body for sacrifice. God desires not death but faith. God thirsts not for blood, but for self-surrender. God is appeased not by slaughter, but by the offering of your free will."
