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The Rev. Stephen Harding on the authority to act

Ordination Is a Pathway

I wrote earlier about my deepening sense of vocation (See Issue No. 16, Spiritual Development). Underlying my vocation is my authority to act by listening for the voice of God within me, my taking up my responsibility to use my own authority, and the authority that my community gives me to take action. In this section, I talk about the authority that comes from God through ordination as I continue to unpack the meaning of my experiences of the last ten years.

Before I was ordained to the Episcopal priesthood, I went on retreat. Br. Curtis Almquist very kindly met with me to talk about ordination, and I am grateful, as always, for his generosity with his time and his wisdom. After he met with me, I wrote down some of what we talked about and the pre-ordination realizations that I had:

I think that I had been trying to contain the ordination in me - to reduce it to my own limitations, and that didn't feel right. I think now that being a priest is like entering into a mystery that is larger than I am and that I am a part of. In other words, I can't reduce it to my limits or to me, but have to see being a priest as me moving into relationship with an entity greater than I. (May 4, 1999)

From this perspective, the ordination becomes a pathway, a mystery leading to a greater mystery and is a manner of approval, a reaching out from God, an embrace by God, a blessing from the people, and an initiation into the mystery. (May 4, 1999)

There is also something about gathering up the people in the space [as priest] so that we all go down the same path together. It's not just me celebrating the Eucharist, but praying the space so that all are included. I had a glimpse of being part of the community gathered and all of us doing this together - of understanding that the community [in church] supports me - that we are part of the same interconnected matrix. (May 5, 1999)

In some sense, the priest-ness of it is less important than the deepening of the relationship - the reconnecting with God at a very deep level. Being priest is a reflection of this relationship, with certain responsibilities, but I think that my struggle is to remember the order and sequence in which my being priest comes from: my priesthood comes from my deep connection with the Divine as its root and foundation. (May 5, 1999)

Rereading this five years later, several things stay with me: that my own authority comes first from my relationship with God, of whom I am part; out of that sense of my relationship and deep connection with the Divine arises the ability to be a priest, but the function and identity of priest is secondary to my relationship with God.

The Reverend Stephen Harding, S.T.M., BCC, is an Episcopal Priest serving as the Chaplain for the Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, a HealthCare Chaplaincy partner. He is also the Priest Associate for the Healing Ministries at the Church of the Epiphany in Manhattan.

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