Father Kevin Fife's Ordination

         
In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts:
the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:  and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. (Isaiah vi. 1-8) 

Our text is taken from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. Isaiah, as you all know, was one of the great Major Prophets of the Old Testament. He lived from somewhere between 740 and 686 B.C., praying for the victory of his homeland Israel against the foreign occupation of the Assyrians. Victory soon came with the courageous efforts of King Hezekiah. But none of this might ever have happened had Isaiah not been chosen and called to pray for his people Israel. And Isaiah never would have been chosen and called had he not been in possession of that character that is at once open to the vision of God Almighty and duly humbled in His presence. His character, you see, was fitted for the prophesy and promise. And this, because he was separated out for mission and ministry. 

Isaiah the prophet was separated out, chosen, and called by God because of that character that is most suitable for the ministration of His Will. What is this character, you might ask? Isaiah had no consciousness whatsoever of being worthy or fit for any work from the God whom He had seen and endured. Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips…(Is. vi. 5) The prophet echoes his forefather Moses who beholding the Burning Bush and the Word that emerged from it hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. (Ex. iii. 6) and, also, Jeremiah the Prophet who when God touched his mouth said Ah Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak for I am a child. (Jer. i. 6) Isaiah is undone and all the more so because he dwells in the midst of a people of unclean lips. Isaiah is the recipient of both a vision and a call because he has been separated out from those who shall not see with their eyes nor hear with their ears until they understand the extent of their spiritual destruction.
But, still, Isaiah does not understand what God has in store for him. The Prophet is truly undone. He is full of the sense of his own sin and the punishment that it justly deserves. Isaiah is filled with ​anguish, anxiety, and fear. He stands in the presence of the Lord of life but hears only the message of death, his own death. Isaiah, by all standards, was a man of deep faith and an unsullied life. And yet now, he sees stains in himself which he had not imagined before, and discovered impurities…and saw his own sin and his people’s sin, for he did not feel that he ever ought to separate himself from them…till this mighty cry of anguish was wrung from him. (Trench: Isaiah’s Vision) Isaiah knows his own iniquity in the presence of the All Holy God. God sends the seraphim or His angel of love to touch Isaiah’s lips and reveal God’s will. Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. (Ibid, 7) The Lord, knowing perfectly well what He intends, then asks Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Instinctively, humbly, and without any thought for himself, Isaiah responds: Here I am; send me. (Ibid, 8)

Isaiah the Prophet stands in a long line of those who are chosen, called, separated out, and sent to prophesy, promise, proclaim, and preach God’s Word and Will for His people. Isaiah the prophet, as Archbishop Trench reminds us, is one who has seen himself in that terrible light which laid open and manifest to him all of himself which hitherto had been hidden even to himself. (Idem) Those who remain at a guilty distance from God can never behold even the remotest skirts of the glory of Him on whom the seraphim wait to catch the faintest echoes of that angelic song ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ which fills the temple of God. (Idem)

Today, my friends, we come to celebrate the Ordination to the Priesthood of one man whom we believe has consecrated his heart to God, the tip of whose lips have been touched by the Angel of Love and set apart for ministry in God’s Holy Church. Today, my friends, we come to pray for one man who knows that because he is undone, a man of unclean lips in the midst of a people of unclean lips, he is not satisfied with and in himself but dreams one thing, that one thing that is everythingand lacking to others. (Idem) Today, my friends, we come to ordain one man who is chosen, called, separated out and sent to help us to receive that cry of anguish that qualifies his character to minister to us. Make no mistake, this qualified character is chosen, with Isaiah, to become one of God’s suffering servants. He is called to become the Lord’s Messenger, Watchman, and Steward, to teach and to premonish, to feed and to provide for the Lord’s family, to seek Christ’s Sheep dispersed abroad…and for His children who are in the midst of this naughty world. He is called to remember always how great a treasure is committed to his charge. The treasure is you all, the sheep of Christ, which He has bought with His Death, and for whom He shed His blood. You are the Body of Christ, and you He must serve. Towards you he must never cease in his labor, his care and diligence, until he has done all that lieth in him, according to his bounden duty, to bring all committed unto his charge, unto that agreement in the faith and knowledge of God, and to that ripeness and perfectness of age in Christ, that there be no place left among you, either for error in religion, or viciousness in life. Today, my friends, we pray that Kevin Fife will forever be ruled and governed by so High a Dignity placed in him that he should never give offence or be the occasion of others’ offence to God. For his part, like Isaiah, he must remember that he hangs forever upon the Grace of God. He must recall day in and day out that the will and ability to become one who is chosen, called, separated out, and sent is given of God alone. Thus, he must pray for God’s Holy Spirit at all times.

The weighty work that Kevin Fife is called to is your salvation. So, you must be deeply impressed with this one fact and pray for it. Kevin is chosen, called, and sent to minister the Gospel of Jesus Christ to you. He is called to study the Holy Scriptures, the Fathers, the great Medieval Doctors, and the Reformers of the Church so that he might be better able to teach you sound doctrine and to exhort you to that holiness of life that leads to salvation. He is called to drive from his soul and yours erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God’s Word. You must humbly allow him to be your preacher and teacher. You must let him admonish and discipline you when you err and strayfrom Christ’s Way as your pastor. Kevin is called also to minister the Holy Sacraments to you. His cure and charge are to discern the state and character of your souls and to ready them always to faithfully receive the most Precious Body and Blood of our Blessed Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. If Kevin is chosen, called, and sent to humble himself under the mighty Hand of God (1 Peter v. 6), so too must you, through his needful assistance, whereby he pastors and ministers to your souls.

Today, my friends, we praise God for having chosen, called, separated out, and sent Kevin Fife to us as priest and pastor. Today, my friends, Kevin will be grafted into the great branching tree of the Apostles’ ministry. For, as Austin Farrer reminds us, 

A priest is a living stem, bearing [the Word and] Sacraments as its fruits: [he preaches and teaches], he gives you the Body and Blood of Christ; he gives you, if you faithfully confess before him, Christ’s own [forgiveness]. And that’s not all; the man who bears the Sacrament is sacramental himself; he is, one might almost say, himself a walking sacrament…
 
A walking Sacrament is a man through whom God works in a way that even the great prophet Isaiah could never have imagined. Kevin is becoming a walking Sacrament, a living stem from the Apostolic tree.

​St. John Vianney, the Curé d’Ars, one of the world’s greatest walking Sacraments, said that The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus. Today, we are blessed by Father Kevin Fife, who with the Prophet Isaiah, as a walking Sacrament will minister the love of the heart of Jesus to us. If we faithfully receive what Jesus gives to us through him, I am sure that we all shall be, with him, undone. 

Amen.

©wjsmartin
 
       
 
 
 
 
 
 

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