Commissioned or Ordained?

Commissioned or Ordained?

Unfortunately there is no clear cut definition to be invoked here for the entire Christian family of believers. The definitions, terms and even expectations of different Christian communities will very greatly here and there.

Let us first start with a basic definition of each term!

Ordination

Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform various religious rites and ceremonies. The process and ceremonies of ordination vary by religion and denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is undergoing the process of ordination is sometimes called an ordinand. The liturgy used at an ordination is sometimes referred to as an ordination.

Commission is a little bit more ambiguous here.

Commission means to send on a mission or make an order.

Authority to act in behalf of another.

The more traditional Churches like Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism and some others ordination generally refers to ordaining someone as a deacon or priest. The ordained priest here receives the power to consecrate the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The form of definition in not generally the sense that these Churches see in which other denominations use this term. For them an ordained Baptist minister is not considered a priest.

Ordination in some Christian denominations means being ordained as pastors of a particular church.

Why would a church choose to ‘commission’ female as pastors and ‘ordain’ male pastors? Is there a difference?

Again that depends on the denomination. Anglicans, for example the ordain women as priests and have in recent years elevated some as bishops.

In the mind of Catholics and Orthodox, pastors male or female in most Protestant denominations are simply commissioned as pastors, as no real ordination takes place.

Protestant hold that their ordination to be quite a valid term in their eyes. So be it.

Let us look a little more on the term commission historically speaking to understand where I am going.

Common usage of this term exists in most Christian Churches, some apart from ordination. For example the Catholic Church in a sense commissions members to a particular ministry apart from that pertaining the the sacred ministry of the priesthood. Thus members of the faithful who are attached to a particular form of ministry such as youth ministry could be seen as been commissioned to this ministry.

As noted above, the term commission can be be defined as being sent out.

Historically speaking this term has been used in the Catholic Church and is every different in the sense of ordination.

In fact the ancient Feast of the Dispersion of the Apostles. In some books it is known as the Commission of the Apostles or the Great Commission. This Feast was generally held in some regions on July 15 and was known in Latin as the Dimissio", "Dispersio", or "Divisio Apostolorum".

Jesus commissioned the Apostles prior to their ordination:

Dispersion of the Apostles

The Christian Gospels of Mark and Matthew say that, after the Ascension of Jesus, his Apostles "went out and preached everywhere". This is described in Mark 16 verses 19 and 20,[1] and Matthew 28 verses 19 and 20.[2] According to a tradition mentioned by Eusebius, they dispersed to distinct parts of the world. In the Middle Ages a liturgical feast of the Dispersion of the Apostles was celebrated to commemorate their missionary work and their founding the apostolic sees. This annual feast was held on 15 July and ranked as a major double.

The Acts of the Apostles, the canonical sequel to the Gospel of Luke, portrays the dispersal as occurring a substantial time after the ascension, with the ministry staying in Jerusalem at first and spreading from there beginning with the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch.

Liturgical Feast

The first vestige of the liturgical feast of the Dispersion of the Apostles appears in the undoubtedly authentic sequence composed for it by a certain Godescalc (d. 1098) while a monk of Limburg on the Haardt; he also introduced this feast at Aachen, when provost of the Church of Our Lady. God's alc was a follower of Henry IV and it is probable that he introduced this feast in the Church of Our Lady as a means of propaganda against Pope Gregory VII, with whom Henry stood in direct rivalry during the Investiture Controversy.

The feast is next mentioned by William Durandus, Bishop of Mende (Rationale Div. Off. 7.15) in the second half of the 13th century. Under the title, "Dimissio", "Dispersio", or "Divisio Apostolorum" it was celebrated during the Middle Ages in France, Spain, Italy, the Low Countries and also at least in the north of Germany. It is also mentioned in the "Order of Service for the Monastery of St. Gall" dating from 1583 as feast "duplex minus". The object of the feast (so Godescalcus) was to commemorate the departure (dispersion) of the Apostles from Jerusalem to various parts of the world, perhaps some fourteen years after the Ascension of Jesus, presumably following the Great Commission (Mark 16:14–20, Matthew 28:18-20). According to Durandus, some of his contemporaries honoured on this feast of the "Divisio Apostolorum" the (apocryphal) division of the relics (bodies) of St. Peter and St. Paul by St. Sylvester.

In 1909, according to the article by Frederick Holweck published in that year in volume 5 of the Catholic Encyclopedia, the feast was still kept with solemnity by some missionary societies, in Germany and Poland, also in some English and French dioceses and in the United States by the ecclesiastical provinces of St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Dubuque, and Santa Fé.

The feast was not included in the Tridentine Calendar or in any later revision of the General Roman Calendar.

The proper Office for this feast is relegated to the "Pro Aliquibus Locis" or "For Other Places." The feast is celebrated in some places on July 15, titled "The Division of the Apostles" with a rank of Double. The rubric is taken from the Common Office, except the proper Nocturns for Matins, and the following Prayer that is recited throughout that day:

O GOD, Who hast been pleased to bring us to know Thy Name by the means of Thy blessed Apostles, grant us the grace to honor their everlasting glory by our own progress and by the same honoring also to progress. Through our Lord.