Understanding the Mass and the Male-Only Priesthood with St. Bonaventure

A controversial teaching of the Church is that the ministerial priesthood, the sacrament of Holy Orders, is reserved to males alone.  The Church does not have the ability to ordain a woman.  Most contemporary people do not understand this teaching and find it unjust, sexist, and old-fashioned.  St. Bonaventure helps us understand this teaching in his explanation of the ceremonies of the Mass, entitled Expositio Missae: The Mysteries of the Mass Explained (TAN Books, 2024). 

St. Bonaventure begins with several key affirmations concerning the Mass.  Chiefly, the Mass is a representation of the one sacrifice of Christ which was first offered on Calvary—the Mass is the same sacrifice as the Cross of Christ.  Thus, all the ceremonies and liturgical acts of the Mass are designed to call to mind and represent that historical event.  This explains, for example, why the priest should speak the prayers of the Mass softly, because Christ spoke softly to His accusers and from the Cross due to His humility and the suffering He was enduring. 

Since the Mass is the same sacrifice of the Cross, the priest who says or offers the Mass is a representative of Christ.  The priest stands in persona Christi.  He is an icon of Christ.  Thus, all the liturgical clothes, the vestments that the priest wears during Mass symbolize some aspect of Christ. 

The first vestment which the priest wears, underneath all the others, is the amice.  The amice is a rectangular piece of white cloth wrapped around the priest’s shoulders with attached strings tied around his waist.  According to St. Bonaventure, the amice symbolizes Christ’s headship, that Christ is the head of the Church which is His body.  Christ is the leader of the Church.  Thus, He can act on its behalf, especially in reference to the Father.  The amice symbolizes Christ’s headship by covering the upper body of the priest.  In antiquity, it was worn around the head (like a hood), and thus the symbolism was clearer.  Today, the amice is optional to priests. 

Next is the alb, which is a full-length white robe.  The whiteness symbolizes the purity of Christ and recalls the white robes that newly baptized Catholics wear.  Third is the cincture, which is a rope the priest wraps around his waist as a belt.  Practically, it holds the alb (and the stole) in place.  Symbolically, the chain-like wrapping around the waist points to self-control of the lower appetites; they are tightly controlled as if chained.  Thus, the cincture represents Christ’s (and Mary’s) virginity.  For the celibate priest, it reminds him of his own chastity as well. 

Fourth is the maniple.  The word “maniple” first referred to a unit of Roman soldiers and then to the standard that unit bore.  As a vestment, it is a decorated piece of cloth draped over the left arm like a shield.  It seems to have originally had the practical purpose of being a sort of washcloth for the priest to clean his hands and face during the liturgy.  But Bonaventure explains that it also has a spiritual meaning more akin to its military linguistic history.  It shows Christ’s readiness to engage in spiritual combat against the forces of evil.  Today, the maniple is no longer used. 

Fifth is the stole, which is still a required vestment.  It hangs over the priest’s neck.  By hanging around the neck, it is a symbol of obedience to a higher authority.  Christ, in His human will, was obedient to the Divine will of God and thus accepted the cross for our salvation.  The final vestment is the chasuble.  The word “chasuble” means “small house.”  It is the priest’s outer-garment and covers him and the other vestments.  By its covering of all else, Bonaventure explains that the chasuble symbolizes how Christ fills both heaven and earth—it refers to God’s omnipresence.

The typical explanation of the Church’s reservation of Holy Orders to males is rooted in the fact that the priest stands in persona Christi; he represents Christ.  Since Christ assumed a male human nature, since He was a man and not a woman, the priest needs to be male in order to accurately represent Christ in His humanity.  

Yet, there is a common objection in favor of allowing women to be ordained priests (or priestesses I suppose).  It is that the priest also acts on behalf of the Church.  He stands in persona Ecclesiae.  St. Bonaventure highlights this fact often in his explanation of the Mass.  The priest prays on behalf of the people, on behalf of the Church.  At this point the objector would point out that the Church is feminine, the Church is our mother not our father.  Thus, a woman could fittingly stand as a representative of the Church. 

However, this objection to the reservation of Holy Orders to men misses a key point which Bonaventure makes in his explanation of the priest’s vestments.  It is that Christ can only represent the Church, stand in persona Ecclesiae, because He first stands in persona Christi, and precisely because the priest represents Christ insofar as He is head of the Church. 

Recall that the first vestment the priest puts on, the most innermost vestment, is the amice which, according to St. Bonaventure, represents Christ’s headship.  As the first vestment worn, it has a certain primacy.  The others build on it and their symbolisms build on its own meaning.  The virginity, purity, or obedience of Christ are crucial, but they affect our salvation because Christ is our head, because we are members of His body.  Thus, the amice’s first place as innermost and foundational vestment reflects the fact that Christ’s headship, and the priest’s representation of precisely that reality, is what enables the Mass to work, so to speak.  The priest can only act on behalf of the Church, he can only offer prayers and sacrifices on our behalf, because he completes the Church by adding headship to it.  Where the head is, there is the whole Church. 

The fact that we do not understand the teaching about the male-only priesthood shows that we do not understand what the priesthood is all about; it shows that we do not understand the Mass.  We have lost sight of the significance of the Mass and its ceremonies, and thus we have lost sight of the meaning of the priesthood. 

Author’s Note: This article was inspired by the book Expositio Missae: The Mysteries of the Mass Explained, available from TAN Books.

Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash