This month many new deacons and priests are preparing for ordination in the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion). The ordination service is a solemn and celebratory occasion in which the bishop lays his hand on each of the ordinands and in the consecratory prayer asks God for the outpouring of his Holy Spirit and his gifts proper to the ministry to which the candidate is being ordained.
So while we celebrate and pray for all candidates who are preparing for Holy Orders as priests or deacons and giving themselves to the service of God and his church, this is a time to remind ourselves that every baptised Christian is called into a community of the faithful. We are a chosen people constituted by God to be a ‘priestly nation’. And so, wherever we are and in whatever we do for a living, we are called to proclaim the Good News of Christ not only with our lips but in our lives. We are to be walking gospels in which our belief and living practice are an integrated whole.
As Christians we are called to live lives of faith, hope and love, called to to proclaim the mighty acts of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvellous light, and so follow in the footsteps of our crucified and risen Lord, Jesus Christ.
