The Priesthood and the Immaculate Heart
Conference: “Jesus and the Biblical Roots of the Priesthood”
First Saturday Devotion
Induction of Our Lady’s Handmaids
Votive Mass of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe
La Crosse, Wisconsin
7 November 2026
Is 61, 9-11
1 Sam 2, 1. 4-5. 6-7. 8
Lk 2, 41-51
Homily
IIn the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It is a source of deepest joy for me to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and to observe the devotion of the First Saturdays as we conclude our morning of study on Jesus and the biblical roots of the Holy Priesthood. I welcome, in a special way, the many seminarians from various dioceses, who are studying at Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary in Winona and at the House of Formation in Sioux Falls, who, together with their priest directors, have joined us for today’s conference. Let us pray for them, that they may persevere in responding to Our Lord’s call to the Holy Priesthood. I thank, in a particular way, Dr. John Bergsma, whose study of the Sacred Scriptures has helped so many to understand how God prepared the priesthood of Christ by the priesthood of the First Covenant and how the priesthood of Christ, of the New and Eternal Covenant, has brought to perfection the priesthood of the First Covenant.
The readings of this Votive Mass lead us into the Heart of the Virgin Mary, whom the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council invites priests to venerate “as the mother of the supreme and eternal Priest, as Queen of Apostles, and as protectress of their ministry.”[1] The words of the Prophet Isaiah to which we have just listened belong to the prophecy which Our Lord read in the synagogue at Nazareth at the beginning of His Public Ministry and concluded by declaring: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”[2] Dr. Bergsma has shown us that a text found among the Dead Sea Scrolls interprets this prophecy as the announcement of the return of Melchizedek, the mysterious priest of the First Covenant and precursor of the ordained priest of the New and Eternal Covenant. Dr. Bergsma also shows us how Saint Luke presents Jesus as the promised Melchizedek, King and Priest.[3]
The same chapter of Isaiah promises to the people of God: “[Y]ou shall be called the priests of the LORD.”[4] The Prophet Isaiah expresses the joy of God’s holy people: “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness.”[5] These words of the Prophet are applied by the Church to the Virgin Mary in the Introit of the Holy Mass of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, for, in virtue of the merits of Christ the High Priest, she was clothed with the garments of salvation from the first instant of her conception in view of her truly unique cooperation in the saving work of the Redemptive Incarnation.[6] Christ the High Priest, through those whom He calls and consecrates as brothers to act in His Person as Head and Shepherd of the flock at every time and in every place, clothes each of us “with the garments of salvation … with the robe of righteousness.”[7] He purifies us and strengthens us to be, with Him, “fellow workers in the truth.”[8] So we, like the Blessed Virgin Mary – although not in the altogether unique way of her divine maternity – share in Christ’s saving work. In the words of Saint Paul, we “complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church.”[9]
In the Canticle which follows the First Reading, Hannah, the mother of Samuel the Prophet, sings: “My heart exults in the LORD.”[10] Having prayed in tears for a son, Hannah brought the child Samuel to the house of the Lord at Shiloh, declaring: “Therefore I have lent him to the LORD; as long as he lives, he is lent to the LORD.”[11] Hannah, who gave her son to the Lord, prefigures the vocation and mission of the Virgin Mary, and her canticle finds its fulfillment in the Magnificat, in which the Mother of God magnifies the Lord for the grace bestowed upon her in the Mystery of the Redemptive Incarnation.[12] As adopted sons and daughters of God in God the Son Incarnate, we, through the saving waters of Baptism and our life in the Church, exalt with Mary in the grace of the Holy Spirit which comes to us, unfailingly and immeasurably, through her Divine Maternity: “And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation.”[13]
As Hannah and her husband Elkanah went up each year on pilgrimage to Shiloh, so the Holy Family went up each year on pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover.[14] When the Infant Jesus was presented in the Temple, Saint Luke makes no mention of the redemption of the firstborn, by which the parents of Israel bought back from the Lord the son who belonged to Him.[15] Comparing the Finding in the Temple with the history of Samuel, some scholars, as Dr. Bergsma tells us, conclude that Saint Luke presents Jesus as “the rare exception of an Israelite firstborn who is not redeemed but ends up fulfilling his consecration to God by serving as a priest.”[16] When, after three days of anxious searching, His Mother finds Him, He answers her: “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”[17] Our Lord, to Whom the Father says, “You are a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchizedek,”[18] makes known in the Temple His consecration to the Father, which He would bring to its consummation at another Passover, when He offered Himself on the Cross and, on the third day, rose from the dead.
The Blessed Virgin Mary, who, with Saint Joseph, the Virginal Father of Jesus, provided for the upbringing of her Divine Son, the Eternal High Priest, in the home of Nazareth, never ceases, with maternal love, to accompany those whom He calls to share in His priesthood through the Sacrament of Holy Orders.[19] In the words of Blessed Columba Marmion, “Because of their resemblance to her divine Son, Our Lady sees Jesus in each one of them.”[20] Saint John Mary Vianney, the Curé of Ars, has taught us that “the Priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus,”[21] and it is the Mother of God who draws the hearts of priests to her Immaculate Heart, so that, one with her heart, they may give their hearts totally to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and serve His flock with the undivided heart of a true shepherd.[22]
We ponder the gift of the Holy Priesthood in the Church on the First Saturday of the month. In both the apparition of July 13, 1917, to Saints Francisco and Jacinta Marto, and the Venerable Lucia dos Santos, and the apparitions of December 10, 1925, and of February 15, 1926, to the Venerable Lucia dos Santos, Our Lady and the Infant Jesus made clear the necessity of the devotion of the First Saturdays, whose substance is love of God and our neighbor with its fruit which is peace.[23] It expresses a profound realization of how sins, among them the sins of those sacramentally configured to Christ as Bishops and priests, offend grievously Our Lord and His Immaculate Mother. It inspires humble contrition of heart which strives to make reparation for sins committed and the offense they cause to Our Lord and His Immaculate Mother. Finally, it is an act of trust in the promise which accompanies the devotion, that is, Our Lady’s promise to assist at the hour of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, those who observe the First Saturdays with true repentance and the desire to make reparation.
The devotion is not an isolated act but expresses a way of life, namely, daily loving conversion of heart to Christ’s Most Sacred Heart, under the maternal guidance and care of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Today, let us pray, in particular, through the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, that our Bishops and priests may teach, sanctify and govern in the person of Christ with fidelity and courage, and that the Church may be blessed with many holy vocations to the ordained priesthood.
Today, we also have the induction of new members of the Handmaids of Our Lady who are dedicated, in a particular way, to serve the cleanliness of the Shrine Church as a privileged place in which, under the maternal care of Our Lady, pilgrims encounter Christ, God the Son Incarnate. After the homily, I will induct Helen Arnold, Lucy Frost, and Grace Mayton into the Handmaids of Our Lady. Their service of Our Lord and His Virgin Mother, Our Lady of Guadalupe, flows from their attention to the priestly call to worship God “in spirit and truth,”[24] especially by the exercise of the virtue of purity. They are inspired by Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Communion of Saints to be ever more attentive to the effects of original sin in their lives, to the temptations which would lead them to soil the purity of God’s grace at work within them from the moment of their baptism. May they be of good courage in their holy resolve, for Our Lord will never be lacking in His grace to make them faithful, generous, and pure, and Our Lady will never be lacking in seeking for them the help of God’s grace.
We pray especially for those to be inducted today in the Handmaids of Our Lady, that they will be faithful, generous, and pure in their service of Our Lord Who offers the Eucharistic Sacrifice, through His priests, in the Shrine Church and who dwells in the tabernacle to be present for us always. We thank the Handmaids of Our Lady for their service to the pilgrims to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe here, and we thank their parents and other leaders who guide them in the fidelity and excellence of their service.
Let us now lift up our hearts, one with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus, the Eternal High Priest, Who in the Eucharistic Sacrifice renews sacramentally His Sacrifice on Calvary. With the Virgin Mother, who kept all these things in her heart, let us offer ourselves with Christ to the Father and receive Him in Holy Communion with the faith and love of her Immaculate Heart. Through her intercession, let us ask Him to keep our Bishops and priests one with His priestly Heart.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE
[1] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, Presbyterorum Ordinis, 7 December 1965, 18.
[2] Lk 4, 21. Cf. Lk 4, 16-20.
[3] Cf. John Bergsma, Jesus and the Old Testament Roots of the Priesthood (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2021), Chapter Two, “The Priesthood from Isaac to the Exile.”
[4] Is 61, 6.
[5] Is 61, 10.
[6] Cf. The Roman Missal, The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 8 December, Entrance Antiphon (Introit), Is 61, 10; “Pius IX, Bull Ineffabilis Deus, December 8, 1854 (Definition of the Immaculate Conception of Mary,” Heinrich Denzinger, Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals, ed. Peter Hünermann for original bilingual edition, and Robert Fastiggi and Anne Englund Nash for the English edition, 43rd ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), pp. 574-575, no. 2803.
[7] Is 61, 10.
[8] 3 Jn 8.
[9] Col 1, 24.
[10] 1 Sam 2, 1.
[11] 1 Sam 1, 28. Cf. 1 Sam 1, 10-11. 24-27.
[12] Cf. Lk 1, 46-55.
[13] Lk 1, 50.
[14] Cf. 1 Sam 1, 3; 2, 19; Lk 2, 41.
[15] Cf. Lk 2, 22-24; Ex 13, 2. 13; Bergsma, Jesus and the Old Testament Roots of the Priesthood, Chapter Three, “The Priesthood in the New Testament.”
[16] Bergsma, Jesus and the Old Testament Roots of the Priesthood, Chapter Three, “The Priesthood in the New Testament.”
[17] Lk 2, 49.
[18] Heb 5, 6. Cf. Ps 110, 4.
[19] Cf. Lk 2, 51-52; Pope Saint John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Redemptoris Custos, 15 August 1989, 16; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 531-532.
[20] Blessed Columba Marmion, O.S.B., Christ, the Ideal of the Priest, tr. Matthew Dillon (London: Sands & Co., 1952), p. 291.
[21] “Le Sacerdoce, c’est l’amour du cœur de Jésus.” Saint John Mary Vianney, in B. Nodet, Jean-Marie Vianney, Curé d’Ars, p. 100. English translation: Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1589.
[22] Cf. Presbyterorum Ordinis, 16.
[23] Cf. Carmel of Coimbra, A Pathway under the Gaze of Mary: Biography of Sister Maria Lucia of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart O.C.D., tr. James A. Colson, ed. Barbara Ernster (Washington, NJ: World Apostolate of Fatima, 2015), pp. 66-71, and 158-161.
[24] Jn 4, 24.