The Priest and the Couple

Father Henri Caffarel said there is “an affinity between marriage and the priesthood,” “a mysterious correspondence between Holy Orders and Marriage,” two sacraments at the service of communion within the Church.

The Couple, the Teams of Our Lady, and the Priest

Father Henri Caffarel attached great importance to the presence of the priest within Teams of Our Lady and alongside families. As both a sign and the presence of Christ, he is part of the Team in a different way. He is at the service of conjugal love, the Magisterium, and communion. For the priest, the Team is a source of joy, emotional balance, and pastoral experience. This is how Father Henri Caffarel presented the presence of the priest as a spiritual counselor within a Team of Our Lady.

The Sacrament of Holy Orders: the Priest’s Mission

For Father Henri Caffarel, it is through the priest that Christ “continues to exercise his priestly activity.” Thus, in reference to Christ’s mission as mediator among men, the same term applies to the priest. The priest “is the man who stands in the middle, not to separate but to unite, the man who goes from the One to others, from God to men, to bring about a reconciliation and a covenant.”

“For those who know Christ and his teaching, recourse to the priestly ministry is not optional: it is through priestly action and the sacraments that Christ reaches them and communicates the Holy Spirit who “teaches them all things,” “pours charity into their hearts,” “prays within them: Abba, Father.”

What unites the two Sacraments of Holy Orders and Marriage?

Father Henri Caffarel worked and wrote extensively to develop “a spirituality of the married Christian.” To the greatness of the sacrament of marriage corresponds the greatness of the sacrament of Holy Orders. “This priest who forgives you in the sacrament of penance, who announces the Word of God, who blesses—do you believe, yes or no, that through him it is a current action of the ever-living Christ that reaches you?“

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As the Father has sent me I am sending you

Mankind must know that they have a Saviour in God, so that they can open themselves to his purifying and sanctifying action. Hence the need for Christ to have messengers among them. It is not only a logical necessity, it is the whole pedagogy of God, as revealed in the Bible.

Our Two Sacraments

Your generation grasped the intuition that God’s vision of human love is magnificent, that Christian perfection is not the exclusive preserve of monks, and that marriage, too, is a path to holiness.