Vatican City, 25 January 2016 (VIS) –
"You are preparing to respond to that impulse from the Spirit,
to be the 'future of the Church', in accordance with God's heart; not
with individual preferences or passing fashions, but as the
announcement of the Gospel requires", said the Pope this morning
as he received in audience the Pontifical Community of the Lombard
Seminary in Rome, in the Clementine Hall. "To prepare oneself
well requires not only extensive work, but also an inner conversion,
basing daily ministry on the first call of Jesus, and reviving it in
the personal relationship with Him, as did the apostle Paul, whose
conversion we remember today".
The pope went on to mention St. Charles
Borromeo, whose life is presented as "a constant movement of
conversion, reflecting the image of the Pastor. He identified with
this image, and he nurtured it with his life, aware that discourse
becomes reality at the price of blood: the sanguinis ministri were
for him the true priests. He achieved this image by losing himself in
it; he applied all his passion to reproducing it. In this way, the
great work of the theologians of the time, the Council of Trent, was
carried out by holy pastors like Borromeo".
Francis also emphasised that they were
the heirs of and witnesses to a great history of sainthood, "rooted
in your patrons, the bishops Ambrose and Charles; and in more recent
times your alumni have included three Blesseds and three Servants of
God. This is the goal to strive for. Often, though, a temptation
appears on the way, to be resisted: that of 'normality', of a pastor
for whom a 'normal' life is enough. This priest then begins to
content himself with any attention he receives, judges his ministry
on the basis of his successes and gradually goes in search of what he
likes, becoming lukewarm and without true interest in others. The
'normality' for us is instead pastoral holiness, the giving of life.
If a priest decides merely to become a normal person, he will be a
mediocre priest, or worse".
"The words of life can be
announced only those who make their own life into a constant dialogue
with the Word of God, or better, with God who speaks. In these years
you have been entrusted with the mission of training in this dialogue
of life: the knowledge of the various disciplines you study is not an
end in itself, but must instead be made concrete in the conversation
of prayer and in the real encounter with people. It is not beneficial
to form oneself in a compartmentalised fashion, as prayer, cultural
and pastoral ministry are the cornerstones of the same edifice: they
must remain steadfast and united to support each other, well cemented
together, so that the priests of today and tomorrow will be spiritual
men and merciful pastors, unified within by the love of the Lord and
able to spread the joy of the Gospel in the simplicity of life".
The Pope also remarked that to be a
good priest, it is essential to maintain contact and closeness with
the bishop. "The characteristic of the diocesan priest is
precisely his diocesan nature, and the cornerstone of this is
frequent contact with the bishop, in dialogue and discernment with
him. A priest who does not maintain a close relationship with his
bishop is slowly isolated from the diocesan group and his
fruitfulness diminishes, precisely because he does not participate in
dialogue with the Father of the Diocese". He concluded by asking
those present to "cultivate the beauty of friendship and the art
of establishing relations, so as to create a priestly fraternity,
made stronger by its particular diversities".
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