In persona Christi

In persona Christi is a Latin phrase meaning "in the person of Christ", an important concept in Roman Catholicism and, similarly or in varying degrees, other Christian traditions, such as Lutheranism, Anglicanism, as well as Eastern Orthodoxy. In Catholic theology, a priest is In persona Christi because, in the sacraments he administers, it is God and Christ who acts through the instrumentality of the priest.

Quotes

• Another reason, perhaps the most important one, why only men and not women can become priests in the Church is based on the fact that, when offering the Eucharistic sacrifice on the altar, the priest acts in persona Christi, the Heavenly High Priest (cf. Heb. 2:17). ‘Christ is here preparing the supper,’ says John Chrysostom (De Jud. 6), ‘for it is not by the work of a man that what is on the altar becomes the Body and Blood of Christ. When he approaches the altar and presents his priestly supplication there, he is only the interpreter and representative of the Saviour, but the grace and power that accomplishes everything is that of the Lord.’Now, since Jesus here on earth as a man was precisely a man, a woman cannot represent him at the altar, even if she were fully worthy. On the contrary, a man is suitable to do so, not because of his character or because he is worthy but solely because this is the will of Jesus by virtue of priestly consecration.
  • Msgr. Klaus Gamber, quoted in Sacerdozio della donna? Uno studio di Mons. Klaus Gamber (August 13, 2020)

• God created the world through an active speech. God's Word is not descriptive, it is creative. God speaks the worls is being...God's Word changes, it is effective, makes things happen...What God says, is. If Jesus is just a spiritual teacher among many, one great religious figure, okay, fine. But there are thousands of those. What claims the Church is He is not a human figure amomg many, but He is the Word made flesh. The very embodiement of God [as a] transformative and creative work. The night before he dies, that Jesus took bread, the Pasqual bead, and said: "This is my Body." Taking the goblet with the meal, said: "This is the chalice of my Blood". If that [was said] by a human being, a great hero, a philosopher, a social reformer, okay, we say: "He is using a symbolic talk." But who is saying that? The Word made flesh. The Word whose speech constitutes reality at the deepest level. Just as if God spokes you to be, so Jesus speaks His presence into being, over the appearence of bread and wine...We move into His very identity at that point. We now commence to speak in the first person, saying: "Take this, all of you, and eat it. This is my Body given for you." We speak in persona Christi, we speak in the very Word of Jesus.
  • Msgr. Robert Barron, The Real Presence of Jesus Christ God in the Eucharist (February 27, 2020)

See also

• Eucharist
• Sacrament
• Transubstantiation