Title: The Sacrament of Holy Orders in the Catholic Church
Headings: The Sacrament of Holy Orders: Priests of the New Sacrifice
The Sacrament of Holy Orders: Priests of the New Sacrifice
The priesthood & the sacrifice
Prayer in action
Deeply rooted in the Old Testament
A new Sacrifice for the New Covenant
Priests at Christ’s own command
Holy Orders is a unique sacrament
Three successive stages
The priest & the Sacrifice of the Mass
Sustained by grace
A major difference between Catholics and Protestants
An essential link to Christ

Content: The Sacrament of Holy Orders in the Catholic Church
The Sacrament of Holy Orders: Priests of the New Sacrifice
The sacrament of Holy Orders creates a priest. There’s a little more to it than that, of course. As the Catechism’s section on Holy Orders says: this “is the sacrament through which the mission entrusted by Christ to his apostles continues to be exercised in the Church until the end of time: thus it is the sacrament of apostolic ministry. It includes three degrees”—the orders of bishop, priest, and deacon. ( Catechism, 1536)
But to keep things simple, let’s start with the priest. The priesthood & the sacrifice
To know what a priest is we have to know what a sacrifice is. Nowadays the word “sacrifice” is used in many different ways.