Kindle Notes & Highlights
Anyone who wishes to become a priest must be first and foremost a “man of God,” to use the expression of Saint Paul (1 Tm 6:11). For us God is not some abstract hypothesis; he is not some stranger who left the scene after the “big bang.” God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. In the face of Jesus Christ we see the face of God. In his words we hear God himself speaking to us. It follows that the most important thing in our path toward priesthood and during the whole of our priestly lives is our personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ. The priest is not the leader of a sort of
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To be with him and to be sent out—the two are inseparable. Only one who is “with him” comes to know him and can truly proclaim him. And anyone who has been with him cannot keep to himself what he has found; instead, he has to pass it on.
Dear friends, truth is not an imposition. Nor is it simply a set of rules. It is a discovery of the One who never fails us; the One whom we can always trust. In seeking truth we come to live by belief because ultimately truth is a person: Jesus Christ. That is why authentic freedom is not an opting out. It is an opting in; nothing less than letting go of self and allowing oneself to be drawn into Christ’s very being for others.
Let your imaginations soar freely along the limitless expanse of the horizons of Christian discipleship.
As the saints teach us so vividly, prayer becomes hope in action.
his Death and Resurrection, and his Ascension—what we call the Paschal Mystery.
“work of Jesus” is the real content of the liturgy.
And new injustices have arisen: some are complex and stem from the exploitation of the heart and manipulation of the mind; even our common habitat, the earth itself, groans under the weight of consumerist greed and irresponsible exploitation.
I urge you to deepen your friendship with Jesus the Good Shepherd. Talk heart to heart with him. Reject any temptation to ostentation, careerism, or conceit. Strive for a pattern of life truly marked by charity, chastity, and humility, in imitation of Christ, the Eternal High Priest, of whom you are to become living icons.
Today,
No perfect community exists, but it is fidelity to a founding charism, not to particular individuals, that the Lord calls you to discern. Have courage! You too can make your life a gift of self for the love of the Lord Jesus and, in him, of every member of the human family.
The urgent call of the Lord stresses that prayer for vocations should be continuous and trusting. The Christian community can only really “have ever greater faith and hope in God’s providence” if it is enlivened by prayer.
Our first duty, therefore, is to keep alive in families and in parishes, in movements and in apostolic associations, in religious communities and in all the sectors of diocesan life this appeal to the divine initiative with unceasing prayer.
And Paul dares to propose a strong paradox: “Through love, be servants” (Gal 5:13) (in Greek: douléuete). In other words, freedom, paradoxically, is achieved in service. We become free if we become servants of one another. And so Paul places the whole matter of freedom in the light of the truth of man.
Therefore, to see God, to orient oneself to God, know God, know God’s will, enter into the will that is, into the love of God is to enter ever more into the space of truth. And this journey of coming to know God, of loving relationship with God, is the extraordinary adventure of our Christian life; for in Christ we know the face of God, the face of God that loves us even unto the Cross, unto the gift of himself.
By participating in the sacraments, by listening to the word of God truly the divine will, the divine law, enters into our will. Our will identifies with his, we become one single will, and thus we can truly be freed; we can truly do what we want to do; because we want with Christ, we want in the truth and with the truth.
We exist in this identity of will, and thus we truly reach freedom.
Only the love of Christ can make the apostolate effective, especially in moments of difficulty and trial.
Society continues to suffer from the wounds caused by atheist ideology, and it is often seduced by the modern mentality of hedonistic consumerism amid a dangerous crisis of human and religious values and a growing drift toward ethical and cultural relativism.
the Church does not seek privileges, but only to be able to work freely in the service of all, in the spirit of the Gospel.
This life of special consecration was born to keep the Gospel always before the People of God as a reminder that manifests, certifies, and proclaims to the whole Church the radical nature of the Gospel and the coming of the Kingdom.
before calling them, Jesus spent the night alone in prayer, listening to the will of the Father (cf. Lk 6:12) in a spirit of interior detachment from mundane concerns.
Vocations to the ministerial priesthood and to the consecrated life are first and foremost the fruit of constant contact with the living God and insistent prayer lifted up to the “Lord of the harvest,” whether in parish communities, in Christian families, or in groups specifically devoted to prayer for vocations.
He invites them to become his friends, to listen attentively to his word, and to live with him. He teaches them complete commitment to God and to the extension of his kingdom in accordance with the law of the Gospel:
The Lord does not fail to call people at every stage of life to share in his mission and to serve the Church in the ordained ministry and in the consecrated life.
every Christian community, every member of the Church, needs consciously to feel responsibility for promoting vocations. It is important to encourage and support those who show clear signs of a call to priestly life and religious consecration and to enable them to feel the warmth of the whole community as they respond “yes” to God and the Church.
It is essential that every local Church become more sensitive and attentive to the pastoral care of vocations,
to grow in familiarity with the Sacred Scriptures and thus to listen attentively and fruitfully to the word of God; to understand that entering into God’s will does not crush or destroy a person, but instead leads to the discovery of the deepest truth about ourselves; and finally to be generous and fraternal in relationships with others, since it is only in being open to the love of God that we discover true joy and the fulfillment of our aspirations.
The Second Vatican Council explicitly reminded us that “the duty of fostering vocations pertains to the whole Christian community, which should exercise it above all by a fully Christian life.”
The ability to foster vocations is a hallmark of the vitality of a local Church.
“Vocations as a sign of hope founded in faith,”
but also because this problem is the precise and inescapable indicator of the vitality of faith and love of individual parish and diocesan communities and the evidence of the moral health of Christian families. Wherever numerous vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life are to be found, that is where people are living the Gospel with generosity.”
Hope is the expectation of something positive in the future, yet at the same time it must sustain our present existence, which is often marked by dissatisfaction and failures.
And this love, fully manifested in Jesus Christ, engages with our existence and demands a response in terms of what each individual wants to do with his or her life and what he or she is prepared to offer in order to live it to the full.
Accepting his invitation means no longer choosing our own path. Following him means immersing our own will in the will of Jesus, truly giving him priority, giving him pride of place in every area of our lives: in the family, at work, in our personal interests, in ourselves. It means handing over our very lives to him, living in profound intimacy with him, entering through him into communion with the Father in the Holy Spirit, and consequently with our brothers and sisters. This communion of life with Jesus is the privileged “setting” in which we can experience hope and in which life will be
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Deep and constant prayer brings about growth in the faith of the Christian community, in the unceasingly renewed certainty that God never abandons his people and that he sustains them by raising up particular vocations—to the priesthood and the consecrated life—so that they can be signs of hope for the world.
Whenever a disciple of Jesus accepts the divine call to dedicate himself to the priestly ministry or to the consecrated life, we witness one of the most mature fruits of the Christian community, which helps us to look with particular trust and hope to the future of the Church and to her commitment to evangelization.
So let there be committed priests, who know how to accompany young people as “companions on the journey,” helping them, on life’s often tortuous and difficult path, to recognize Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life (cf. Jn 14:6), telling them, with Gospel courage, how beautiful it is to serve God, the Christian community, one’s brothers and sisters. Let there be priests who manifest the fruitfulness of an enthusiastic commitment, which gives a sense of completeness to their lives, because it is founded on faith in him who loved us first (cf. 1 Jn 4:19).
The secret of holiness is friendship with Christ and faithful obedience to his will. St. Ambrose said, “Christ is everything for us”; and St. Benedict warned against putting anything before the love of Christ.
the vocation to the service of the Church as communion.
In order to foster vocations, therefore, it is important that pastoral activity be attentive to the mystery of the Church as communion; because whoever lives in an ecclesial community that is harmonious, co-responsible and conscientious, certainly learns more easily to discern the call of the Lord. The care of vocations, therefore, demands a constant education for listening to the voice of God.
At the center of every Christian community is the Eucharist, the source and summit of the life of the Church.
The Kingdom of God is really God himself, who makes himself present in our midst and reigns through us. The Kingdom of God is built up when God lives in us and we bring God into the world. You do so when you testify to a meaning rooted
by the vow of celibate chastity we do not consecrate ourselves to individualism or a life of isolation; instead, we solemnly promise to put completely and unreservedly at the service of God’s Kingdom—and thus at the service of others—the deep relationships of which we are capable and that we receive as a gift. In this way priests and religious become men and women of hope: staking everything on God and thus showing that God for them is something real, they open up a space for his presence—the presence of God’s Kingdom—in our world.
Only by entering into God’s will do we attain our true identity. Our world today needs the testimony of this experience precisely because of its desire for “self-realization” and “self-determination.”
every altar is a symbol of Jesus Christ, present in the midst of his Church as priest, altar, and victim.
In the name of human freedom and autonomy, God’s name is passed over in silence, religion is reduced to private devotion, and faith is shunned in the public square. At times this mentality, so completely at odds with the core of the Gospel, can even cloud our own understanding of the Church and her mission.
Yet history, including the history of our own time, shows that the question of God will never be silenced and that indifference to the religious dimension of human existence ultimately diminishes and betrays man himself.
you yourselves will become living altars, where Christ’s sacrificial love is made present as an inspiration and a source of spiritual nourishment to everyone you meet.
Never forget that celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom means embracing a life completely devoted to love, a love that enables you to commit yourselves fully to God’s service and to be totally present to your brothers and sisters, especially those in need.
