Cardinal Frank Leo's Holy Thursday Message to Priests

Message to Priests for Holy Thursday
17 April 2025
His Eminence Frank Cardinal Leo
Metropolitan Archbishop of Toronto

Touching Christ’s Body

My dear Brother Priests,

May Jesus and Mary be in your souls.

I am reaching out to you this day, the birth of our priesthood in Christ, in a spirit of fraternal and ecclesial closeness. Ever mindful of the weight and extent of our preparations for the Holy Week celebrations, I wish to offer a short reflection to underscore how precious and incomparable our vocation is and to thank you for the daily gift of yourselves in service to God’s holy People.

The biblical pericope that comes to mind and upon which I have been meditating most recently is that of the Risen Christ appearing to his disciples (cf. Jn 20:19-28). We read in the Scriptures, “The evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you’” (v.19). Christ, our Eternal High Priest, made himself visible and tangible on that transformative Easter evening in the midst of his Kingdom-family, the eschatological household, i.e., the Church - Community of believers. As members of the faithful of Christ and moreover as priests of the new and eternal covenant, we encounter Christ in and through the community. Following St. Thomas the Apostle who, in touching Christ’s Body was cured of the infirmity of disbelief, we are called to let our lives and ministries be touched by Christ - present and active in the Church - to heal our woundedness and shortcomings. It is a consoling thought: Jesus comes to us and manifests himself in the ecclesial gathering, and we as members of his Mystical Body rejoice in and benefit from his healing presence. Today, every day, and just as on that first apparition on the evening of Easter Sunday, as shepherds of Christ’s flock entrusted to our sacred ministry, we too touch the Body of Christ as we serve our sisters and brothers in Ecclesia. How paramount it is for us to remember and honour the presence, love, truth and action of Christ in and through his Bride, the Church. We come into real and authentic contact with him as we minister to his ecclesial and Mystical Body. He reaches out to us and offers us his crucified hands so that our hands may be purified and become vehicles of grace to those to whom we minister with the sacraments. He speaks words of everlasting life to our priestly hearts that we may in turn spread and share the hope and truth of his living Gospel with every man, woman and child he himself places on our ministerial path. We experience his shalom when we lovingly care for our brothers and sisters in the community of faith, striving to lead, animate, accompany and guide them as loving spiritual fathers.

And yet, there is another aspect of his divine-human existence among us which fills us with Paschal joy, Christ’s Eucharistic presence: The Real Presence. We come to touch the Body of Christ in an absolutely unique manner when we embrace in our consecrated hands the Lord’s Eucharistic Body each day at Mass. This life-giving presence of Christ - the touching and holding of his Body in our hands - heals us of our spiritual ailments and unhealthy attachments while at the same time increases pastoral charity in us, molding us into shepherds after his own heart. To touch the Body of Christ each day! What an unbelievable, insurmountable and uplifting experience of which we partake, most unworthily, on a daily basis. Are we not called to bear that Eucharistic faith, lovingly touching the blessed Body of Christ as we offer up the most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass every day? Our souls are enlightened by his truth, our hearts set on fire by his mercy, our eyes provided with new spiritual sight and our hands sanctified so as to bring grace and consolation to those in need. To touch Christ and then to spend our days serving the community, through a committed and generous offering of ourselves: what a gift it is to be a priest of Jesus Christ.

Dear Fathers, Brothers in the Lord Jesus our Sovereign Priest, I am most grateful to you all for the sacred ministry you exercise in and for the life of our archdiocesan Church, here in Toronto. I am filled with gratitude for the Masses you celebrate daily and devoutly for God’s greater glory and the nourishment of the Christian people. I rejoice in knowing of the profound selflessness and apostolic zeal with which you dedicate yourselves in reaching out to the poor and the lost, the broken and the wounded, the abandoned and the forgotten as good shepherds seeking the lost sheep. I recognize the gift of yourselves in praying each day the Divine Office as great intercessors on behalf of God’s holy People and indeed the entire world. I honour you in the life-giving ministry of reconciliation you offer through the sacrament of forgiveness. I acknowledge and appreciate your generosity in the pastoral outreach you provide by sharing Christ and his Gospel in schools, religious communities, nursing homes, youth groups, ecclesial lay movements and associations and other social agencies: opportunities no doubt of great care, witnessing and evangelization. I am edified at the depth of your commitment to walk wholeheartedly along the path of priestly holiness, under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the anima Ecclesiae. And finally, I am so truly thankful for the quality of the relationships we enjoy; for the fraternal and sacramental bond that unites us and keeps us in communion with one another in the Lord.

As we prepare to celebrate the holiest days of the year, know that I am thinking of you, especially those who are struggling or are ill; those who are tired and feel unappreciated; the retired and the elderly members of our presbyterate; the newly ordained and the newly arrived; those who have gone to their heavenly reward. I remember you daily before the Altar of the sacrifice and the table of the Lord, and in praying the holy rosary. I wish you a blessed Thursday of Holy Week. Happy feast of the Priesthood and may we experience, in this Holy Year especially, the Easter joy of belonging to Christ as his beloved and chosen priests. May we never forget the irreplaceable and unique mission and ministry we have received in our calling: to make the Body of Christ present and tangible in the celebration of the Eucharist and in the life of the Community.

Yours sincerely in Jesus with Mary,

+Frank Cardinal Leo
Metropolitan Archbishop of Toronto