Letter to Seminarians
on the Occasion of the Day for the Sanctification of
Priests
The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
7 June 2013
Dearest Seminarians,
On
the solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, we celebrate most
significantly the day for the sanctification of priests and, as you are in the
Seminary to respond in the most fitting way possible to your vocation, it is
important for me to send you this letter, with great affection, so that you may
feel involved and, as such, remember this important occasion.
We
contemplate together today the origin of the divine vocation. The Holy Father
has emphasised firmly the love in which those who are Priests of Christ and of
the Church must participate. In his homily at his first Chrism Mass (28 March
2013), Pope Francis said “This I ask you: be shepherds, with the ‘odour of the
sheep’”. By this striking image, the Successor of Peter invites us to have a
strong and solid love for the People of God, a love which – as the same Pontiff
has noted – is not fed from purely human sources, nor is it reinforced by
techniques of self-persuasion. It is the personal encounter with the Lord; it
is keeping alive the knowledge of having been called by Him, who gives the
truly greater supernatural strength to be Priests in the image of the Good
Shepherd of all, Christ Jesus. But in order to be such tomorrow, you have to
prepare yourselves today. In very clear words, Pope Francis has referred to the
primacy of grace in the priestly life: “It is not in soul-searching or constant
introspection that we encounter the Lord: self-help courses can be useful in
life, but to live our priestly life going from one course to another, from one
method to another, leads us to become pelagians and to minimise the power of
grace” (ibidem).
For
the disciple walking with Christ, walking in grace, means taking on with
spiritual joy the weight of the priestly cross. We hear again the Holy Father
teaching about this: “When we journey without the Cross, when we build without
the Cross, when we profess Christ without the Cross, we are not disciples of
the Lord, we are worldly” (Homily at the
Holy Mass with the Cardinals, 14 March 2013). On the contrary, to live our
ministry as a service to Christ crucified, prevents us from understanding the
Church as a human organisation “a charitable NGO, but not the Church, the Bride
of the Lord” (ibidem).
In
the light of these first magisterial teachings of Pope Francis, I invite you to
consider your life as a gift of God and, at the same time, a task which has
been entrusted to you, not simply by men but – albeit by way of the necessary
mediation by the Church – ultimately by the Lord himself, who has a plan for
your life and for the lives of the brothers and sisters whom you will be called
to serve.
It
is necessary to view the whole of our life in terms of a divine call, and also
of a generous human response. This involves cultivating within ourselves the vocational sense, which interprets life
as a continual dialogue with the Lord Jesus, risen and alive. In every age,
Christ has called and continues to call men to follow him more closely by
participating in his priesthood – that implies that, in every period of the
history of the Church, the Lord has held a vocational dialogue with the
faithful that He has chosen, so that they may be his representatives among the
people of God, as well as mediators between heaven and earth, particularly in
the celebration of the liturgy and the sacraments. In fact, one can say that
the liturgy opens heaven wide here on earth.
On
this basis, you are called through ordination – without any merit of your own –
to be mediators between God and his people and to make possible the salvific
encounter through the celebration of the divine mysteries. Notwithstanding your
own limits, you have responded to this call with generosity and joy. It is
important that you always keep alive the sense of youthfulness in your hearts:
“We must live the faith with a young heart, always: a young heart, even at the
age of seventy or eighty. Dear young people! With Christ, the heart never grows
old” (Pope Francis, Homily for Palm Sunday, 24 March 2013,
no. 3).
The
youthfulness of the priestly spirit, firm in its vocation, is guaranteed by
prayer, that is the continually maintained attitude of interior silence which
favours listening to God every day. This continual
opening of the heart happens, naturally, within a stability that – once the
fundamental life decisions have been taken – is capable, with the help of
grace, to remain faithful to the tasks which have been solemnly accepted, right
up to the end of our earthly life. However, this necessary stability does not
imply closing our ear to the ongoing call of God, because the Lord, while
confirming us every day in our fundamental vocation, is always at the door of
our heart knocking (cf. Acts 3:30), waiting for us to open it to Him with the
same generosity with which we said to him our first “fiat”, imitating the availability of the Ever Virgin Mother of God
(cf. Lk. 1:38). We can, therefore, never place limits on the plan that God has
for us and that he will communicate to us day after day, throughout the whole
of our life.
This
vocational openness also represents the most certain way to live evangelical joy. It is, in fact, the
Lord who will make us truly happy. Our joy does not come from mundane
satisfaction, which makes us briefly happy and quickly disappears, as St.
Ignatius of Loyola noted in his first spiritual discernment (cf. Liturgy of the Hours, Office of Readings
of 31 July, II Reading). Our joy is Christ! In the daily dialogue with Him, our
spirit is reassured and continually renews our passion and our zeal for the
salvation of souls.
This
prayerful dimension of the priestly vocation reminds us of still more very
important aspects. First among them is the fact that vocations grow not principally from a pastoral strategy, but above
all through prayer. As Jesus taught:
“Pray... the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest” (Lk.
10:2). Commenting on these evangelical words, Pope Benedict XVI noted: “We
cannot simply ‘produce’ vocations; they must come from God. This is not like
other professions; we cannot simply recruit people by using the right kind of
publicity or the correct type of strategy. The call which comes from the heart
of God must always find its way into the heart of man” (Meeting with Priests and Permanent Deacons of Bavaria. 14 September
2006). You, dear Seminarians, have been called by the Lord, but many people
spread throughout the world have supported and are supporting your response
with their prayers and their sacrifices. Be grateful for this and unite
yourselves to these prayers and sacrifices to support other responses to
vocations. To the primacy of prayer can then be added, as a channel of this
divine grace, the sound, motivated and
enthusiastic vocational pastoral action on the part of the Church. With
regard to this ecclesial collaboration with the divine work of giving pastors
to the People of God and the Mystical Body of Christ, it is appropriate to remember
briefly a few matters that mark it out, that is: respect for priestly
vocations, the witness of the lives of Priests, the specific work of Seminary
formators.
It
is first of all necessary that the Church appreciates
you for your priestly vocation, considering that the Community of the
disciples of Christ cannot exist without the service of the sacred ministers. From
this comes the care, attention and reverence for the priesthood. Secondly,
vocations are highly favoured, as can be seen from the example and the care that
the priests offer them. It would be difficult for an exemplary priest not to
stimulate the question in the minds of young people: could I not also be called
to a wonderful and happy life like this? Particularly in this way, Priests are
channels through which God makes the divine call resound in the heart of those
He has chosen. Priests then will nurture the seeds of vocation that begin to
spring in the souls of the young, by means of sacramental Confession, spiritual
direction, preaching and pastoral enthusiasm. I am sure that many of you will
be witnesses to and beneficiaries of this.
I
would, furthermore, like to say a word about the important role of those
priests to whom the Bishops entrust your formation. The Seminary formators are called to continue and to deepen the
care for priestly vocations, while they provide all the required help for the
necessary personal discernment of every candidate. As to this, we must remember
the two principles which must guide the evaluation of vocations: the friendly
welcome and the just severity. While every prejudice as well as every rigorsim
should be avoided in the treatment of seminarians, on the other hand it is of
the greatest importance to guard carefully against laxism and carelessness in judgment.
The Church certainly needs Priests, but not any kind of Priest! The love that
welcomes must therefore accompany the truth which judges with clarity whether,
for a particular candidate, the signs of a vocation and the human qualities
necessary for a trustworthy response to it are present. The pastoral urgency of
the Church cannot be permitted to bring about haste in conferring the sacred
ministry. On the contrary, where there is doubt, it is better to take the time
necessary and carry out appropriate evaluations, which will not exclude the
dismissal of those candidates who are not able to offer sufficient guarantees.
My
dearest Seminarians, with these brief comments, I have endeavoured to redirect
our spiritual attention to the immense gift and to the absolutely free mystery
of our special vocation. We entrust to the intercession of our most holy Mother
Mary and of St. Joseph the gifts of fidelity and of perseverance in the divine
call that, by pure grace, they may be bestowed upon us and that we may seek to
respond to the divine generosity, which always sends pastors for the flock with
renewed apostolic zeal. Keep persevering, always remembering that we show our
love in this world by our fidelity.
I
remember you each day in prayer with great affection, and I implore the Lord to
send down his divine benediction upon you.
Mauro Cardinal
Piacenza
Prefect
Congregation for the
Clergy