Hence, the valid Ordination of a Priest is of essential importance to the laity.
But there is another aspect of "the Office and Work of a Priest in the Church of God". This we see in the word
The Priest not only ministers before God on behalf of his people, but he ministers to his people on behalf of God. In this aspect of the Priesthood, he ministers God's gifts to the laity. If, as a Priest, he pleads the One Sacrifice on behalf of the people, as a Minister he feeds the people upon the one Sacrifice. His chief ministerial duty is to minister to the people--to give them Baptism, Absolution, Holy Communion; to minister to all their spiritual needs whenever, and wherever, he is needed.
It is, surely, a sad necessity that this ministerial "office and work" should be so often confused with finance, doles, charities, begging sermons, committees, etc. In all such things he is, indeed, truly serving and ministering; but he is often obliged to place them in the wrong order of importance, and so dim the sight of the laity to his real position, and not infrequently make his spiritual ministrations unacceptable. A well-known and London-wide respected Priest said { 133} shortly before he died, that he had almost scattered his congregation by the constant "begging sermons" which he hated, but which necessity made imperative. The laity are claiming (and rightly claiming) the privilege of being Church workers, and are preaching (and rightly preaching) that "the Clergy are not the Church". If only they would practise what they preach, and relieve the Clergy of all Church finance, they need never listen to another "begging sermon" again. So doing, they would rejoice the heart of the Clergy, and fulfil one of their true functions as laity.
This is one of the most beautiful of all the clerical names, only it has become smirched by common use.
The word Parson is derived from _Persona_, a _person_. The Parson is _the_ Person--the Person who represents God in the Parish. It is not his own person, or position, that he stands for, but the position and Person of his Master. Like St. Paul, he can say, "I magnify mine office," and probably the best way to magnify his office will be to minimize himself. The outward marks of { 134} respect still shown to "the Parson" in some places, are not necessarily shown to the person himself (though often, thank God, they may be), but are meant, however unconsciously, to honour the Person he represents--just as the lifting of the hat to a woman is not, of necessity, a mark of respect to the individual woman, but a tribute to the Womanhood she represents.