Called to Holiness: On Love, Vocation, and Formation

by Pope Benedict XVI

God is so humble that he uses us to spread his word. We become his voice, once we have listened carefully to the word coming from his mouth. We place his word on our lips in order to bring it to the world. He accepts the offering of our prayer, and through it he communicates himself to everyone we meet.

Your only treasure—which, to tell the truth, will alone survive the passage of time and the curtain of death—is the word of the Lord.

The Epistle reading we have just heard, however, paints a different picture. It warns us, not in a threatening way, but realistically, of the need to stay alert, to be aware of the forces of evil at work creating darkness in our world (cf. Eph 6:10–20).

we acknowledge the daily need to move into Christ’s light, to choose life, to seek truth. Indeed, this rhythm—turning away from evil and girding ourselves with the Lord’s strength—is what we celebrate at every Baptism, the gateway to Christian life, the first step along the way of the Lord’s disciples.

She is alive because Christ is alive, truly risen.

This people of God cannot be destroyed for God himself has entered it, he has put down roots in this land.

Naturally, however, behind the mystery of the wine is the reality that he has made himself fruit and wine for us, that his Blood is the fruit of the love born from the earth forever and, in the Eucharist, this Blood becomes our blood, we are renewed, we receive a new identity because Christ’s Blood becomes our blood. Thus we are related to God in the Son and, in the Eucharist, this great reality of life in which we are branches joined to the Son and thereby in union with eternal love becomes our reality.

we must also begin to pray so that this mystery may penetrate our minds and hearts ever more deeply and that we may be ever more capable of living the greatness of the mystery and thus to begin experiencing the commandment to abide in our lives.

“Abide” comes first at the ontological level, namely that we are united with him, he has given himself to us beforehand and has already given us his love, the fruit. It is not we who must produce the abundant fruit; Christianity is not moralism, it is not we who must do all that God expects of the world, but we must first of all enter this ontological mystery: God gives himself. His being, his loving, precedes our action and, in the context of his Body, in the context of being in him, being identified with him and ennobled with his Blood, we too can act with Christ.

Ethics are a consequence of being: first the Lord gives us new life; this is the great gift. Being precedes action, and from this being action then follows, as an organic reality, for we can also be what we are in our activity. Let us thus thank the Lord, for he has removed us from pure moralism; we cannot obey a prescribed law but must only act in accordance with our new identity. Therefore it is no longer obedience, an external thing, but rather the fulfillment of the gift of new life.

but here too the true newness is not what we do, the true newness is what he did: the Lord gave us himself, and the Lord gave us the true newness of being members of his Body, of being branches of the vine that he is. Therefore, the newness is the gift, the great gift, and from the gift, from the newness of the gift, also follows, as I have said, the new action.

concrete life was concerned with the spirits that we meet every day and with which we must reckon daily. God remained distant.

let us think of Plato and Aristotle who began to understand that this God is the agathon, goodness itself, that he is the eros that moves the world; yet this remains a human thought, it is an idea of God that comes close to the truth, but it is an idea of ours, and God remains the hidden God.

However, at the same time, prayer is a journey, I would say [a] flight of stairs: we must learn more and more what it is that we can pray for and what we cannot pray for because it is an expression of our selfishness. I cannot pray for things that are harmful for others, I cannot pray for things that help my egoism, my pride. Thus prayer, in God’s eyes, becomes a process of purification of our thoughts, of our desires. As the Lord says in the Parable of the Vine, we must be pruned, purified, every day; living with Christ, in Christ, abiding in Christ, is a process of purification, and it is only in this process of slow purification, of liberation from ourselves and from the desire to have only ourselves, that the true journey of life lies and the path of joy unfolds.

The fundamental background for the Parable of the Vine is Baptism: we are implanted in Christ; and the Eucharist: we are one loaf, one body, one blood, one life with Christ.

Meditate well upon this mystery of the Church, living the years of your formation in deep joy, humbly, clear-mindedly, and with radical fidelity to the Gospel, in an affectionate relation to the time spent and the people among whom you live. No one chooses the place or the people to whom he is sent, and every time has its own challenges; but in every age God gives the right grace to face and overcome those challenges with love and realism. That is why, no matter the circumstances in which he finds and however difficult they may be, the priest must grow in all kinds of good works, keeping alive within him the words spoken on his Ordination day, by which he was exhorted to model his life on the mystery of the Lord’s cross.

Dear brother bishops, dear priests, deacons, consecrated men and women, catechists, pastoral workers, and all of you who are engaged in the field of educating young people: I fervently exhort you to pay close attention to those members of parish communities, associations, and ecclesial movements who sense a call to the priesthood or to a special consecration. It is important for the Church to create the conditions that will permit many young people to say “yes” in generous response to God’s loving call.

But above all, the Eucharist should be the heart of every vocational journey: it is here that the love of God touches us in Christ’s sacrifice, the perfect expression of love, and it is here that we learn ever anew how to live according to the “high standard” of God’s love. Scripture, prayer, and the Eucharist are the precious treasure enabling us to grasp the beauty of a life spent fully in service of the Kingdom.

Within the family, “a community of life and love,”27 young people can have a wonderful experience of this self-giving love. Indeed, families are not only the privileged place for human and Christian formation; they can also be “the primary and most excellent seed-bed of vocations to a life of consecration to the Kingdom of God”28 by helping their members to see, precisely within the family, the beauty and the importance of the priesthood and the consecrated life.

we need well-trained and courageous priests who are free from ambition and fear but convinced of the Gospel’s Truth, whose chief concern is to proclaim Christ and who are prepared to stoop down to suffering humanity in his Name, enabling everyone, particularly the poor and all who are in difficulty, to experience the comfort of God’s love and the warmth of the ecclesial family.

You should never skip Mass—a day without the Eucharist is incomplete—and thus already at the seminary we grow up with this daily liturgy. It seems to me very important that we feel the need to be with the Lord in the Eucharist, not as a professional obligation but truly as an interiorly felt duty, so that the Eucharist should never be missed.

But I think these things are essential: the Eucharist, the Office of Readings, prayer, and a conversation every day, even a brief one, with the Lord on his words that I must proclaim. And never lose either your friendship with priests, listening to the voice of the living Church, or naturally, availability to the people entrusted to me, because from these very people, with their suffering, their faith experiences, their doubts and difficulties, we too can learn, seek and find God, find our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is a period designed for formation and discernment; years in which priority must be the constant pursuit of a personal relationship with Jesus, an intimate experience of his love that is acquired first of all through prayer and through contact with the Sacred Scriptures, read, interpreted, and meditated upon in the faith of the ecclesial community.

Prayer is the first form of witness that awakens vocations. Like the Apostle Andrew, who tells his brother that he has come to know the Master, so too anyone who wants to be a disciple and witness of Christ must have “seen” him personally, come to know him, and learned to love him and to abide with him.

Another aspect of the consecration belonging to the priesthood and the religious life is the complete gift of oneself to God.

In following Jesus, everyone called to a life of special consecration must do his utmost to testify that he has given himself completely to God.

The story of every vocation is almost always intertwined with the testimony of a priest who joyfully lives the gift of himself to his brothers and sisters for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

A third aspect that necessarily characterizes the priest and the consecrated person is a life of communion.

In a particular way the priest must be a man of communion, open to all, capable of gathering into one the pilgrim flock that the goodness of the Lord has entrusted to him, helping to overcome divisions, to heal rifts, to settle conflicts and misunderstandings, and to forgive offences.

are the first and most convincing factor in the growth of vocations.”

It can be said that priestly vocations are born of contact with priests, as a sort of precious legacy handed down by word, example, and a whole way of life.

Every priest, every consecrated person, faithful to his or her vocation, radiates the joy of serving Christ and draws all Christians to respond to the universal call to holiness.

Personal witness, in the form of concrete existential choices, will encourage young people for their part to make demanding decisions affecting their future.

The priest’s journey to holiness also depends upon his decision to work out, with God’s help, his own knowledge and commitment, a true and sound personal culture that is the product of enthusiastic and constant study. Faith has a rational and intellectual dimension of its own that is essential to it.

We are chosen: St. Peter now transfers this to all the baptized, and the very content of the first chapters of his First Letter is that the baptized are admitted to the privileges of Israel, they are the new Israel. Chosen: I think it is worth reflecting on this word. We are chosen. God has always known us, even before our birth, before our conception; God wanted me as a Christian, as a Catholic, he wanted me as a priest. God thought of me, he sought me among millions, among a great many, he saw me and he chose me. It was not for my merits, which were nonexistent, but out of his goodness; he wanted me to be a messenger of his choice, which is also always a mission, above all a mission, and a responsibility for others. Chosen: we must be grateful and joyful for this event. God thought of me, he chose me as a Catholic, me, as a messenger of his Gospel, as a priest. In my opinion it is worth reflecting several times on this and coming back to this fact of his choice; he chose me, he wanted me; now I am responding.

St Augustine once said, Christians are those who do not have their roots below, like trees, but have their roots above, and they do not live this

It is an act of God. Born anew does not solely concern the sphere of the will or of thought, but the sphere of being. I am reborn: this means that becoming Christian is first of all passive; I cannot make myself Christian, but I am caused to be reborn, I am remade by the Lord in the depths of my being. And I enter into this process of rebirth, I let myself be transformed, renewed, reborn. This seems to me very important: as a Christian I do not just form an idea of my own that I share with a few others, and if I do not like them anymore I can leave. No: it concerns the very depths of being, namely, becoming a Christian begins with an action of God, above all with an action of his, and I let myself be formed and transformed.

Being born anew, letting ourselves be born anew, therefore involves deliberately letting ourselves be incorporated into this family, living for God the Father and by God the Father, living by communion with Christ his Son who causes me to be born anew through his Resurrection, as the Letter says (cf. 1 Pt 1:3), living with the Church, letting myself be formed by the Church in so many ways, in so many processes, and being open to my brethren, really recognizing others as my brothers and sisters, who are born anew with me, transformed, renewed; each is responsible for the other, hence a responsibility of Baptism that is a lifelong process of the whole of life. The second term: inheritance. It is a very important word in the Old Testament, where Abraham is told that his seed will inherit the earth, and this was always the promise for his descendants. You will have the earth, you will be heirs of the earth. In the New Testament, this word becomes a word for us; we are heirs, not of a specific country, but of the land of God, of the future of God. Inheritance is something of the future, and thus this word tells us above all that as Christians we have a future, the future is ours, the future is God’s. Thus, being Christians, we know that the future is ours, and the tree of the Church is not a tree that is dying but a tree that constantly puts out new shoots. Therefore we have a reason not to let ourselves be upset, as Pope John said, by the prophets of doom who say, well, the Ch...