The formation of priests
is a demanding mission,
Pope tells professors and students
of French Seminary in Rome
Translated from
the 6/7/09 issue of
Whoever trains priests "should remember that the hope he has for others is first of all, a duty to himself", Pope Benedict XVI said yesterday to professors and students of the French seminary in Rome whom he received in audience at the Sala Clementina of the Apostolic Palace.
Here is a translation of the address he gave in French:
ADDRESS TO FRENCH SEMINARIANS
Your Eminences,
Mr. Rector,
Dear priests and seminarians:
It is with joy that I welcome you on the occasion of your celebration these days of an important moment in the history of the Pontifical French Seminary of Rome.
The Congregation of the Holy Spirit, which has been in charge, since its foundation, now turns it over, after a century and a half of service, to the Conference of French Bishops.
We should thank the Lord for the work accomplished in this institution where, since its opening, 5000 seminarians or young priests have been trained for their vocation.
In acknowledging the work of the members of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, Fathers and Brothers, I wish to entrust to the Lord the apostolates which this congregation, founded by the venerable Fr. Liberman, maintains and develops around the world, particularly in Africa, with a charism that has lost none of its strength and its rightness. May the Lord continue to bless the Congregation and its missions!
The task of forming priests is a delicate mission. The training undergone in a seminary is demanding, because it is a part of the People of God that will be entrusted to the pastoral care of these future priests, the people whom Christ has saved and for whom he gave his life.
It is good that seminarians remember that if the Church is demanding with them, it is because they must take care of those whom Christ has so dearly acquired.
The aptitudes required of future priests are numerous: human maturity, spiritual qualities, apostolic zeal, intellectual rigor... In order to achieve these virtues, candidates for the priesthood must not only show them to their educators, but more importantly, they must be the first beneficiaries of these qualities as they are lived and dispensed by those who have the responsibility for making them grow.
It's a law of our humanity and our faith that we are often not capable of giving more than that which we have received from God through the ecclesial and human mediations that he instituted.
Whoever receives the responsibility for discernment and formation [of future priests] should recall that the hope he has for others must first of all be a duty for himself.
This passing-on of witness coincides with the start of the Year of the Priest. It is a grace for the new team of priest-educators that the French bishops' conference has assembled.
Now that it has received its mission, it has the possiblity, as does the entire Church, to scrutinize more profoundly the identity of priest, as a mystery of grace and mercy.
I am happy to cite the the eminent personage, Cardinal Suhard, who said about the ministers of Christ: "The eternal paradox of the priest. He carries in him the opposites. He conciliates, at the cost of his life, fidelity to God and to man. He looks poor and powerless... He has neither political means nor financial resources, nor the force of arms, which others have to conquer the earth. His strength is in being unarmed and to be 'capable of everything in him who gives him strength'"(Ecclesia n. 141, p. 21, December 1960).
May these words which evoke so well the figure of the sainted Cure d'Ars resound as a call to vocation for many young men in France who wish for a useful and fecund life to serve their love of God.
The particular advantage of the French Seminary is that it is located in the city of Peter. To reiterate the wish expressed by Paul VI
(cf. Address to the elders of the French Seminary, Sept. 11, 1968), I hope that during their stay in Rome, the seminarians may avail of the privilege to familiarize themselves with the history of the Church, discover the breadth of Catholicism and its living unity around the Successor of Peter, so that love for the Church may always be rooted in their heart as pastors.
While invoking on you all the abundant graces of the Lord through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Clare and the Blessed Pius IX, I bestow the Apostolic Blessing on you and your families, on the elders who could not come here today, and to the lay personnel of the Seminary.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/06/2009 01:34]