Pope Francis: Seven Pillars
of Priesthood
Mazur 2014
What is Pope Francis’
vision for the priesthood – how are our priests and future priests to serve
their people most faithfully and fruitfully? Here are seven key concerns which
have emerged from both Pope Francis’s spoken words and also the witness of his
own priestly ministry.
1)
The strength of a priest depends on his relationship with Christ. Pope Francis has said that the touchstone of
how deeply a priest is living his vocation is the extent to which he seeks
Christ in his daily life. In a typically direct question, Pope Francis asked a
gathering of Rome’s priests at the beginning of Lent, “At night, how does your
day end? With God, or with television?” At the heart of any priest’s ministry
must be a living relationship with Christ, so that the priest sees as Christ
sees and loves as he loves. It took the disciples time to really “become
Christ” to others so this is not a given at ordination. For this to happen, the
priest needs to continue to grow in union with Christ through prayer and
intimacy.
a)
Caryll Houselander:”The
Reed of God” 76-77: “This is another of the things to be discovered in
contemplating Our Lady. We ask Hm to come and abide in us; we ask the Holy
Spirit to formHim from our lives; we believe that He does do this.
a.
If Christ is formed of
our lives, it means that He will suffer in us. Or, more truly, we will suffer
in Him.
b.
‘And He was made man.’
Our Lady saw at once what was meant in her case: supernaturally.
He was made herself.
Our Lady saw at once what as meant in her case supernaturally,
He was made herself.
If He is made man in you, He will be
made you; in me, me.
It is extremely difficult
to lay hold of this fact. It is vry hard ot to think of a kind of mystical
Christ just beside us, or just in front of us, suffering with infinite patience
and joy, being obedient, humble, persevering, fulfilling His Father’s will.
It is really difficult to realize that
if He is formed in our life we are not beside Him but in Him; and what He asks
of us is to realize that it is actually in what we do that He wants to act and to suffer.
For example, if you are
conscripted , it is Christ Who is saying
good-bye and leaving His home; Christ Wo is marching on the endless route
march. The blisters on the feet of the new recruit are bleeding on the feet of
Christ.
Again, if you are na office worker
and the person over you is trying perhaps rather limited in intelligence, so
that you magine you have some kind of right to be irritable, well, it is not
you at all that must be obedient and humble and gracious, it is Christ. Christ,
Who said to the weak and timid civil servant, Pontius Pilate: ‘You would have
no power over Me if it were not given to you from above.’
It really needs to be practiced to
be understood. We need to say to ourselves a thousand times a day: ‘Christ
wants to do this:’ ‘Christ wants to suffer this.’
b)
Until grace
achieves that victory in your mind and heart, you cannot comprehend most of
Jesus and Paul. Before conversion you tend to think of God as almost entirely
"out there." After transformation you don't look out at reality as if
it is hidden in the distance. You look out from reality! You're in
the middle of it now. You're a part of it. Your life is participating in God's
Life. Paul is almost obsessed by this idea. It underwrites absolutely everything
he says. Paul is the great announcer of what is happening everywhere all the
time. You're not writing the story; you're a character inside of a story that
is already being written through you. Paul's code word for consciously living
within this reality, used numerous times throughout all his letters, is en Christo, or living inside the Christ Mystery.
2)
Just as he must be
close to Christ so the priest must be close to the people he serves. In his first Chrism Mass homily, Pope
Francis famously spoke of how priests must be “shepherds living with the ‘smell of the sheep’” If priests truly
are to be pastors rather than administrators they need to “go out to meet the people,” especially the lost sheep. The pastor
who stays behind his computer in the presbytery, he declared, is not an “authentic
pastor.” Pope Francis praised one priest for knowing his parishioners so well
that he knew not only their names, but also their pets’ names! In an age in
which so many priests, bishops and curial officials are enslaved by
administrative tasks, Pope Francis is summoning them to reprioritize toward the
Church’s evangelical mission.
3)
As Pope Francis
emphasized in the homily of his inaugural Mass, a priest’s authority must be linked
to service, especially to the care and protection of the poorest, weakest, the
least important and most easily forgotten. This means that priests have to leave their comfort zone and
have "real contact with the poor and the marginalised.” Francis, who was
known as the "slum bishop" in Argentina because of his work among the
poor, has said reaching out to those on the margins of society was "the
most concrete way of imitating Jesus". His own first visits after moving
to the Vatican were to a jail for juveniles and to the southern Italian island
of Lampedusa to pay tribute to impoverished immigrants who have died trying to
get to Europe.
4)
The priest must be a minister of mercy. Pope Francis told a group of ten
newly-ordained priests that the most important advice he could give them was
simply, “Be merciful.” His motto Miserando Atque Eligendo (“Chosen Through the
Eyes of Mercy”) highlights that his own vocation was born in an experience of
God’s mercy, when as a 16-year-old boy he went to confession on the feast of
the St Matthew, the great convert. Pope Francis’ reminder in his first Angelus
address that God never tires of forgiving us is a clear call to priests never
to tire in faithfully dispensing that mercy, both sacramentally and in their
daily living.
5)
The priest is called to a simplicity of life. Diocesan priests do not take a vow of
poverty, but commit themselves to a simple lifestyle. Pope Francis has
repeatedly criticised priests who give in to vanity and worldly ambition.
During his years in Buenos Aires, Cardinal Bergoglio’s example of living in a
small apartment rather than an episcopal palace, taking public transportation
rather than a car with a driver and cooking for himself (all of which we see
mirrored in his new life as Pope) was a clear challenge to his fellow priests
to examine the sincerity and authenticity of their own spiritual poverty.
6) The priest
must be a model of integrity. There can be no place in priests for a haughty clericalism,
any kind of abuse of their position or a concern to climb the ecclesial career
ladder – Pope Francis is calling and requiring priests to understand that their
authority derives not from worldly power but from personal integrity and
humility in imitation of Christ. Paying his pre-conclave bill at the priests’
residence personally immediately after his election was not just a nice gesture
indicating a total absence of a sense of privilege, but it was a real sign that
no priest should consider himself exempt from the demands of ordinary
accountability. Otherwise priests can “become wolves not shepherds”.
7) Finally the priest is to
be a source of blessing for his people. The anointing which he receives at his ordination is not meant
just for himself – it is to flow through him to those he serves. As Pope
Francis said at his first Chrism Mass, “A good priest can be recognised by the
way his people are anointed... when our people are anointed with the oil of
gladness, it is obvious: for example, when they leave Mass looking as if they
have heard good news.” This was also very much the theme of his second Chrism
Mass homily – the priest is “anointed with the oil of gladness so as to anoint
others with the oil of gladness.” In his preaching, in his prayer, through
being truly present to his flock in the realities of their everyday lives, the
priest is to help them “feel that the fragrance of the Anointed One, Christ,
has come to them through the priest.”
Here are words for us
all from Pope Francis:
“Dear lay faithful, be
close to your priests with affection and with your prayers, that they may be
always be shepherds according to God’s heart. And pray for those whom God is
calling to be priests that they may respond to this call with humility and joy.
Dear priests, may God
the Father renew in us the Spirit of holiness with whom we have been anointed.
May he renew his spirit in our hearts so that this anointing may spread to
everyone, especially to those “outskirts” where our lay faithful people most
look for it and most appreciate it. May our people sense that we are the Lord’s
disciples; and may they receive through our words and deeds the oil of gladness
which Jesus, the Anointed One, came to bring us”
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