“Priestly Formation as Spirituality”[1] Deacon James Keating, Ph.D.

Introduction

Monsignor Charles Murphy‟s book, Models of Priestly Formation, captures what all priestly formation needs to contain when he notes, “In France out of a powerful spiritual matrix called the French school (17thCent.) a new type of seminary formation was created, aimed at transforming the priesthood from a mere social institution to a spiritual force.”[2] The force of the Spirit will define the priestly formation needed to fully implement the vision of the Second Vatican Council as well. What is becoming clear is that seminaries do not simply need a “re-decoration” but a reconstitution in the powers that were unleashed at the Second Vatican Council. At the Council the whole Church was instructed that seminarians should live Christ’s Paschal Mystery in such a way that they will know how to initiate their own parishioners into it because “the seminarians live in intimate and unceasing union with God the Father through His Son Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit.”[3] Living in this intimate and unceasing union is the apex of all seminarian consciousness. This consciousness is born of a profound appropriation of one‟s baptismal identity, a love of one‟s own lay life. It is then confirmed in the rigorous spiritual and moral conversion afforded by seminary formation. This formation provides a supportive environment for a man to name the truth of who he is before God. Supportive environment does not mean one that “protects” a man from the truth or one that enables him to dismiss the truth about his character after he has looked at it. Rather, a supportive environment is established by relationships of faith that seek only one thing: the discernment of a man‟s authentic vocation. To found and cultivate this supportive environment, seminary personnel and bishops instruct each seminarian that acceptance into seminary formation is not proof of a priestly vocation. The first years of seminary are truly about the reality of “come and see.” The seminary, first and foremost, is a supportive environment within which a seminarian becomes eager to receive the truth about himself in relation to the salvific will of Christ. To facilitate this reception of truth in relation to Christ‟s call to him, a seminarian needs to awaken to a life of interiority, to a life of communion with Christ. John Paul II succinctly describes such a life:

Pastoral study and action direct one to an inner source, which the work of formation will take care to guard and make good use of: This is the ever-deeper communion with the pastoral charity of Jesus, which, just as it was the principle and driving force of his salvific action, likewise, thanks to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of orders, should constitute the principle and driving force of the priestly ministry. It is a question of a type of formation meant not only to ensure scientific, pastoral competence and practical skill, but also and especially a way of being in communion with the very sentiments and behavior of Christ the good shepherd: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.”[4]

Seminary formators are then charged to guard “an inner source.” This source is the seminarian‟s

“ever deeper communion with the pastoral charity of Jesus.” This communion with the pastoral charity of Christconstitutes the principle and driving force of priestly ministry. Pope Benedict XVI says the same truth more forcefully:

Therefore the time spent in direct encounter with God in prayer can rightly be described as the pastoral priority par excellence: It is the soul‟s breath, without which the priest necessarily remains breathless, deprived of the oxygen of optimism and joy, which he needs if he is to allow himself to be sent, day by day, as worker into the Lord‟s Harvest.[5]

Communion with Christ‟s own pastoral charity is the pastoral priority for the priest. From such communion flows his breath, his life‟s principle. To be a priest, then, is to become a man vulnerable to this communion in a way that configures him to the self-offering of Christ upon the cross. This self-offering of Christ, which He shares with the priest through the grace of ordination, ignites and sustains the priest‟s own pastoral charity. In becoming vulnerable to Christ in this way the priest draws his very breath, the principle of his spiritual life, from Jesus‟Sonship; from His obedience to the Father, a mystery that now lives within the priest. To draw life from interiority, however, is not to live there. No, the priest lives for pastoral ministry. The diocesan priest is called to ministry, not monastic contemplation, but he is not called simply to be “busy.” His pastoral charity must flow from His intimacy with Christ in prayer. Interiority gives birth to and nourishes ministry. Having an interior life, therefore, is no threat to priestly self-donation in ministry. It is actually presupposed. Lacking an interior life is the threat, for without it a priest can draw inspiration only from the limited resources of his natural gifts and talents. Thus his commitment to such self-giving demanded by Christ‟s own pastoral charity can easily weaken over the years. In that case ministry simply becomes a function, a series of familiar exercises repeating themselves over time, albeit dressed in differing circumstances from year to year. The newness of priestly life is received from the life of interiority, as is the strength to endure the „routine‟ of pastoral ministry. As with any life commitment, familiarity can breed a superficial and distracting longing for the novel. To avoid this distraction as best as possible, the priest draws his life from an interior communion with Christ‟s own mission enabling him to live his vocation faithfully, even in the sometimes monotonous world of parish life. Developing this life of interiority is not a mystified process, but one rooted in the accessible devotional commitments of the priest: The liturgy of the hours (a key formational reality to the inner life of the priest), a daily examination of consciousness, regular celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation, as well as other practices such as Eucharistic adoration and lectio divina. Such interiority does not simply serve a pragmatic end: keeping one “alive” within the routine of ministry. Interiority must never be reduced to pragmatics because it protects and facilitates an intimate relationship with God. Interiority is synonymous with fidelity to vocation. To have an interior life is to draw meaning from communion with Christ as the very being of a priest. If Pope Benedict XVI and John Paul II have hit upon the crux of seminary formation, how then should seminarians be formed? How ought the seminary formators, and the seminarian himself, “guard” the “inner source,” one‟s own “communion with the pastoral charity of Christ”? What aspects of formation ought to be weighted as those bearing the newness of the Spirit, as those bearing a new priestly formation established in assisting seminarians to share in Christ‟s own pastoral charity? Let me explore now in deeper meditation the key idea of this essay: All priestly formation, and ongoing priestly life, is only rightfully sustained and ordered by an interior intimacy with Christ in a sacramental context. First, I will look at the priestly formation process and its relationship to Catholic spirituality. Second, I will explore how Christ‟s own pastoral charity nourishes priestly formation and life. Next, I will meditate upon the role of the seminary formation staff as it relates to forming the pastoral charity of Christ within seminarians. I will close by articulating some hints toward a new design of priestly formation. Vivifying Priestly Formation In the early years of seminary formation, the focus for the faculty ought to be ordered toward facilitating the appropriation of each seminarian‟s Catholic identity, as well as his affective maturation and spiritual healing. All of this is done in the context of an academic environment that sees spiritual growth as learning’s foundation and not as an appendage to seminary education, relevant only in the confidentiality of spiritual direction. The formators of any new approach to priestly formation will

recognize that the seminarians‟ receptivity to the Spirit and the truth the Spirit reveals to the seminarian about his own identity, sins, and vocation is the most fertile environment for him to receive the truth borne by academics as well. Such relational truth forms the proper framework to appropriate intellectual truth. The seminarian is not a student in the same way one is defined by American academia: Seminarians ought not to isolate critical thinking from their own dynamic life of interior prayer. The seminarian is a man of faith undergoing a gradual purification of the mind, senses, will, and affection. He has entered the school of priestly self-giving, and he needs to be established in radical availability to the living presence of Christ throughout and from within all facets of seminary formation. He especially needs the tutoring of seminary professors who teach him to receive the presence of Christ from within study. This is so because Christ not only offers healing and growth within spiritual direction, worship, and private prayer but alsofrom within study and pastoral ministry. The seminary is a supportive environment because its end is to constitute the man in truth. This means that the seminary faculty and staff have to be open to conversion as well. In order for the seminarian to receive the truth about himself and Christ‟s mysteries, the faculty needs to be receiving the truth about themselves at the deepest levels of prayer. This does not mean that a pre-requisite for faculty hiring is evidence of having regularly entered mystical prayer; it means, rather, that one is daily surrendering the truth of one‟s own interior life to the mystery of Christ for enlightenment, purification, and conversion in the hope that the all-consuming ego dissipates. In the wake of this vulnerability to conversion among the seminarians, the seminary has a responsibility to hire professors who know the precise, finite, and humble mission given to them upon their hiring and throughout employment. To facilitate this delicate area of ongoing spiritual formation for faculty, all members should be encouraged by the rector to be in spiritual direction during the length of his or her tenure. Such a circumstance would give some assurance to the rector that each staff member is entering a relationship with Christ by way of the grace of self-disclosure and accountability to truth. For a seminarian to know the profound love of the Spirit in the process of formation, he needs to be assured that the seminary exists only to discern, test, and judge whether the signs are present for a priestly vocation. These signs are indicated in his outward behavior, interior movements of his heart, his verbal self-revelation to formators, and through communal and peer evaluations. The faculty and staff have to be truly disinterested participants in the work of God.

Each faculty member, therefore, must be far enough advanced in his or her own interior life to be possessed by a “holy indifference,” which in turn communicates spiritual maturity and a supportive environment to seminarians. Within such an environment of spiritual freedom, the reception of the truth by the seminarian about himself and about his own vocation will be more readily discerned and embraced. Men leaving the seminary after discerning their vocation to seek marriage should be as joyful as the ones leaving seminary to return to the diocese for ordination. This joyful disposition is not ideal or romantic; it is simply the ordinary fruit of a seminary community that places the discernment of God‟s will and an eagerness to receive the Spirit‟s healing at the center of the seminary‟s mission. Within such an environment some of the fear that possesses seminarians as a result of their continually being assessed, evaluated, and “watched” will dissipate in the face of a growing trust which spiritual maturity engenders. In such a mature environment vocations can be freely discerned and chosen. The Heart of Formation: Christ’s own Pastoral Charity

Let me move now into my second major consideration: the lynchpin for spirituality being the integrating heart of seminary formation is the seminarians‟own “communion with the pastoral charity of Christ.”[6] From all eternity, the Son receives divinity from the Father and is one with Him. Jesus came to recognize this truth, this metaphysical reality, with His intellect when He developed humanly and reflected on His own identity. At that point He was faced with a choice: How would He live His human

life? Scripture makes it clear that Jesus chose always to live His human life in a way that flows from His divinity, namely, by always doing the Father‟s will. Thus, not only in His divinity but also in His humanity, Jesus‟ whole stance in life was to attend to the One Who loved Him—to listen raptly and always to obey. This human attentiveness involved listening to the Father's “voice” not only in the revelation of Hebrew history but especially in quiet prayer. Thus, Christ experienced His Sonship as a gift He received from the Father from all eternity, and He responds to this gift, not only in His divinity but also in His humanity, by His own gift of self-surrender. Mysteriously, then, His act of reception elicits His loving choice to surrender.[7]

Recognizing that Jesus responded humanly to the gift He received by choosing always to obey the Father is powerful motivation for the seminarian who strives to be like Christ, and is a key to opening his participation in Christ‟s pastoral charity. The seminarian, too, is faced with a choice: How will I live out my vocation? The appropriate response is to be like Christ in living an obedient, upright life of self-surrender, but one can live such a life happily only if it emanates from the heart. Like Christ, then, the seminarian must listen raptly, not least in quiet prayer, and respond by surrendering his own will to the Father out of the power and joy he receives from being in communion with Christ. This communion is simply the result of the seminarian inviting Christ to live His Sonship over again in him. In so doing Christ is free to live the mystery of receptivity as surrender and surrender as receptivity over again in the seminarian, thus securing the man to the Trinitarian life of love in ever deepening ways. This surrendered receptivity in Christ is healing, is the life of holiness; such communion is the branch being grafted to the Vine (Jn. 15:5).

What communion with Christ means, then, is to surrender to God the Father in Christ by way of the Spirit as an ongoing act of receiving His great love.[8] This forms the basic dynamic of a seminarian developing an interior life. This communion is maintained, deepened, and fulfilled by way of an interior life that seeks only to host the pastoral charity of Christ, not simply as one act of oblation but as the movement of one‟s very being. Further, this communion is assured and secured by the very nature of its being given within, and by way of, the sacramental reality of the Church. While still in formation, the seminarian enters this mystery by accepting whatever the truth reveals about himself and his vocation in the light of faith. The seminarian is to learn how to host the truth,[9] to suffer its coming for the sake of his own holiness. This truth is uncovered in spiritual direction, study, fellowship, and pastoral ministry. He is to learn how to continue receiving this truth about himself and Christ even as he follows the daily horarium. This openness to truth, not as an abstraction but as the reception of his status before God as “son” in Christ, is to become habitual. The instilling of such a habit will become the hallmark of the new priestly formation. Communion with Christ offers the future priest an untold healing of his affection for sin and a firmer grasp upon his true identity in Christ, repudiating any other identity imposed upon him by the popular secular culture, limited, finite friendships, or even neurotic conditions within which he was raised as a boy. The priestly formation process explicitly proclaims that each seminarian is a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).

In this way all diocesan priestly formation is ordered toward the maturation of men who are contemplatives even in action.[10] They draw their dynamic and developmental acceptance of their sonship from a continual receptivity to Christ‟s own love now alive in them. John Paul II echoes the same insight,“Those called to share Christ‟s mission and sacrifice find in his example the incentive to give prayer its rightful place in their lives, as the foundation, root and guarantee of holiness in action”[11] A life of prayer keeps open the wellspring that is the soul so that the priest can live out his ministry from the depths of interiority, from a place of deep union with Christ. This wellspring animates a seminarian‟s natural gifts and talents, gifts him with healing and consolation, and invites him to receive the call to turn from sin. Ultimately this place is the heart, formed in an ecclesial context, where one continually hears Christ‟s own voice sending each seminarian on mission. For a seminarian to be

ordained without knowing how to go into the heart and wait on the Lord, eager and open to receive divine love and truth, is to have constructed a failed formation process. Without such knowledge he is driven to cope with the burdens of ministry through functionalism.

If the first virtue of priestly life to be jettisoned is prayer, as reportedly it is, then surely the first goal of seminary formation is to secure a love of prayer and a habit of prayer in each seminarian. If this interior communion with Christ is secured in faith, hope, and love, then the seminarian is more likely to acknowledge this communion as preeminent since it gives rise to a ministry that shares in Christ‟s own pastoral charity. Without prayer, the priest is a busy man of skilled efficiency; with prayer the priest bears the coming of Another. The primary focus of seminary formation is to “guard” the inner source of communion between the seminarian and Christ. From this interior source will flow the “principle and driving force” needed to be a public minister, from such a source he becomes a man who gives witness to the ongoing availability of Christ‟s own charity. Pope Benedict XVI articulates this vision:

Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can give to others much more than their outward necessities; I can give them the look of love which they crave…If I have no contact whatsoever with God in my life, then I cannot see in the other anything more than the other, and I am incapable of seeing in him the image of God.… The saints—consider the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta—constantly renewed their capacity for love of neighbor from their encounter with the Eucharistic Lord, and conversely this encounter acquired its realism and depth in their service to others. Love of God and love of neighbor are thus inseparable, they form a single commandment. But both live from the love of God who has loved us first. No longer is it a question, then, of a “commandment” imposed from without…, but rather of a freely-bestowed experience of love from within, a love which by its very nature must then be shared with others. Love grows through love.[12]

Communion with Christ within the Seminary Staff

Pope Benedict‟s meditation on the relationship between receiving the love of God and loving one‟s neighbor brings out clearly the need for a deeper relationship between the spiritual life and the pastoral ministry program in any seminary. The genius of the new Program for Priestly Formation is in stating that spirituality is the core and heart of seminary formation around which all other aspects of seminary life are to be integrated.[13] Communion with Christ is the highest truth and reality of all seminary formation. Without a specific call to the faculty and staff from the rector to enter this communion, the four pillars of seminary formation are in danger of becoming “rivals” with one another vying for time, attention, money or status. In most seminaries pride of place is given to academics, but to have academics fill this place alone underscores the urgency of the need to re-think priestly formation. The key is not to have any aspect of seminary formation “reign” but to have all faculty and staff become imbued with an authentic love of what is holy, love of the interior life, love of congress with Christ‟s own Spirit. With this kind of faculty, their respective areas of expertise will both retain their own internal rationale, logic, and methods even as they become informed with the integrating agency of Christian and priestly spirituality. Such professors or staff members will lead the seminarians to the source and goal of all study and pastoral formation: communion with God. One does not manipulate a curriculum in an attempt to make it “pious”; one secures faculty and staff that are already “dedicated to the total formation” of the seminarian.[14]

This total formation is laid out by the Program of Priestly Formation, and is to be integrated by spirituality. Therefore, seminary personnel ought to be open to securing this integration by promoting priestly spirituality from within all the pillars of seminary formation. In the end, it will be the re-thinking of faculty formation that really develops priestly formation.[15] As some seminaries continue to find benefit in a seminarian “spirituality year,” it may not simply be the seminarians who need such; it

may be seminary personnel. If the new Program for Priestly Formation is to take root, all seminary staff and faculty should be invited to receive communion with Christ in a new way—in and through their professional studies. Where will such a school of prayer open its doors? What seminary or university will take up the challenge to form a new generation of doctoral students whose formation structurally includes the “guarding” of interior communion with Christ? Those seminary personnel who let Christ reach them from within, therefore, can concur with Bede Jarrett, OP:

It is perfectly obvious that if I am so blessed by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, that I find my reason, will and emotions perceptive of divine currents previously lost to me, I can hardly help acting in a new way…. The vision has come; it cannot simply open my eyes to new things in life without thereby altering that very life itself…. It is clear, therefore, that the gifts will not leave me where I was before, but will influence my actions as well as alter my vision.[16]

These altered actions and visions “animated by the Spirit of Christ”[17] ought not to stay as

“private,” spiritual memories within seminary faculty members‟ hearts but ought, instead, affect the way one teaches, mentors, and guides each seminarian. All seminary specializations are harmonized by one object: to make future priests “true shepherds of souls” under the direction of faculty and staff who teach “students how to live in intimate and unceasing union with God.”[18] Establishing such a faculty is the key to a priesthood that ministers to the parish out of a living communion with the pastoral charity of Christ. “The faithful expect only one thing from priests: that they be specialists in promoting the encounter between man and God…. He is expected to be an expert in the spiritual life.”[19] Pope Benedict XVI states with his usual clarity, “True prayer is never egocentric, but is always centered upon the other. As such, it trains the one who prays in the “ecstasy” of charity, in the capacity to come out from oneself in order to become neighbor to the other in humble and disinterested service.”[20] This insight from Pope Benedict XVI is dramatic in its concentration and summation of the truth that all seminary formators are invited to behold. The seminary‟s mission is to bring the seminarian to “ecstasy.” The seminary formation processes are to tutor the seminarian to stand outside of his own concerns and delight, instead, in serving lay holiness and dwelling with God in contemplation as he offers such service. Pastoral charity, then, is not born of skills learned in a class or in field education. Pastoral theology, and associated disciplines, can assist the seminarian to enact crucial human virtues such as kindness, hospitality, compassion, reflective listening, and prudence. These are all essential for the seminarian to possess if he is to become a man of communion and not division. These skills, habits, and virtues, however, will not fuel his ardor to be present to the suffering indefinitely; only a transcendent source will heal him and, through him, the people he serves until his death. To draw from a transcendent source to continue in ministry is not a nod to pragmatism or utilitarianism: “You better pray; it makes you more effective in dispensing charitable service.” Rather, priesthood is to be ordered toward pastoral charity born of union with Christ‟s own compassion. Here one stands not on the ground of effective ministry but on the ground of fidelity to a call. Christ compassion is to be readily discerned in the priest by the ones he serves. Any measured effectiveness will come from parishioners turning to Christ singularly or en masse. In the end the “effectiveness” of the priest is known only when his people turn from sin and toward a deeper participation in the paschal mystery. Consequently, the ecstasy of charity is received throughout formation as the faculty turns the seminarian toward the healing heart of Christ, a heart that, in concert with psychological therapy, spiritual direction, theological study, and apostolic action, dissipates any sense of entitlement in the seminarian or other sinful preoccupations with the self. This is why it is crucial to have a mature faculty looking only for conversion from the seminarian. The mature faculty finds its emotional satisfaction,

deep friendships, and recreational diversions with other peers and family, not in any possessive friendship with seminarians. Many know of the horror stories of parents who try to become “friends” with their children; in so doing whose needs are really being met? If the faculty is fascinated with Christ and, as a result, treasures priesthood for the sake of the Church‟s holiness, then in their professional capacity they will point the seminarian away from themselves and toward Christ and the Church. One of the deeper spiritual meanings of being a faculty member is this call to ascetical, disinterested service. This, of course, does not mean that the faculty suppresses affection for their students since seminarians are present in the community intentionally looking toward the faculty as older and wiser brothers and sisters in Christ. Certainly, enjoying the fellowship of seminarians in recreational and informal social settings is acceptable and needed. An “eremitical” faculty does not help seminarians mature in Christ; availability to seminarians is crucial in forming them to be men of charity, but it is availability for their needs, not the affective needs of the faculty. By way of such a mature faculty, their fascination with Christ and the needs of His Church can emerge as the core of the seminary mission. In this mission, seminary personnel wish to assist the seminarian in rendering his heart available to Christ so that He can affect it with His own charity. This is done, of course, through the ordinary matter of seminary life, but it is mediated through the extraordinary grasp that Christ has upon the hearts of the faculty and staff. If the ecstasy of charity is to rule the consciousness of the seminarian, faculty members must not be afraid to take the students where Christ has already taken them: into an understanding of study that is suffused with Divine encounter and not simply information. Christ‟s pastoral charity, then, is already given to those in formation by way of baptism and an ongoing sacramental life in the context of a continual and ever-deepening contemplation of the Paschal Mystery. This charity of Christ will be received in a new way upon ordination. At its heart to receive the charity of Christ means that one is empowered to love those in need with the same love with which Christ loves. It is the life of God in us, the indwelling Holy Spirit which has “been poured out into [their] hearts” (Rom. 5:5). This love is a different quality of love than one that arises from moral virtue exhausted in the willing of the good of the other. It demands a different set of practices to make its presence known and appropriated in each seminarian‟s heart. Pastoral charity, then, is more about surrender to the Presence within than a work of the will in the face of need. It is about the transformation wrought by the Living Spirit Who elicits a love for self and the poor out of one’s own reception of the love of God. To truly give Christ‟s love free reign within the heart, each seminarian needs to be immersed in a seminary conspiracy of hospitality toward interiority. If this is a hallmark of the seminary, then the future priest will learn that his healing power does not depend upon his own wit and usefulness but upon his courage in allowing Christ‟s love to refashion his character according to holiness.

This hospitality toward Christ is partly encouraged by the formation faculty‟s agreement that all seminarians must learn how to discern, embrace and endure the truth. Without the desire to receive truth from all quarters of formation, the seminarian will never learn how to live fully in love of truth as a priest. Only a priest who loves the truth can welcome the charity of Christ as the emblem of his life and ministry. For the seminary to be a place where men come to receive and bear the truth about themselves, doctrine, the Paschal Mystery, and the meaning of the lay vocation signals that such men will be able to charitably order their parishes toward such truth as well. In and through such men, others will be able to bear the truth of their lives by way of the pastoral charity that has taken up residence in the heart of the pastor. This emblematic modeling does not exhaust the pastor-parishioner relationship since the laity are called to echo the voice of the Samaritans in John 4:42: “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.” To

be able to hear for themselves, however, means that someone, hopefully the pastor, has led parishioners into a life of interiority. Emerging New Design If communion with the pastoral charity of Christ is to define the spiritual lives of seminarians, then priestly formation must dedicate itself more specifically to the task of promoting this communion.[21] With Pastores Dabo Vobis and the Program for Priestly Formation, the principles of formation are clearly stated. Now, the day to day shape of the seminary needs to emerge to assure these principles come alive in the Spirit and not simply in the mind of the authors‟ of these works.

Scripture teaches that God is doing something new (Is. 43:19); since so much is demanded of seminary personnel, many of whom carry three titles, the eagerness to discover this newness is often diminished by daily demands. When new ideas on priestly formation come forth, most professors cling forcefully to their notes and power point presentations: “nothing will change in my classroom, thank you. I am busy enough.” Into these fears, however, is spoken an awakening truth: The renewal of priestly formation is not concerned with more to do but with more to receive. Within new seminary structures that facilitate the truth that seminary is a spiritual force and not simply a social institution we can begin to orient the processes of formation to flow from communion with Christ. The Decree on Priestly Training, Pastores Dabo Vobis, and Program for Priestly Formation are all simply the beginning of the renewal needed. These documents must be placed in conversation with the restoration of the Diaconate and the crucial, but still largely dormant, power of the universal call to holiness of the laity (Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, Lumen Gentium, and Gaudium et Spes). This call, as of late, has simply led to the development of intra-ecclesial lay ministry programs. All of these realities and sources coalesce carrying with them the potential to bring about a new Pentecost of priestly formation. This Pentecost bears with it a commitment to regain interiority as the wellspring of communion with the pastoral charity of Christ. But such interiority is only secured in a Eucharistic community that carries priestly formation into the depths of relationship with the vocation of lay holiness, the still-emerging mystery of the diaconate as clergy who live a lay life, and the central role of the bishop in the lives of his future priests. Msgr. Charles Murphy‟s statement that “…even though the Second Vatican Council drew to a close [over] forty years ago the proper shape of formation of future priests is still in the experimental stage,”[22] is especially true in light of what is known of seminary history after the Council of Trent.

The Council of Trent‟s vision of priestly formation in the 17th century was carried by the Spirit through the prayerful desires of emerging congregations of religious and priests such as the Jesuits, Eudists, Sulpicians, and Vincentians. Immediately after the Council of Trent, a reform movement of priestly formation was enfleshed in humble, retreat-like processes that bloomed into massive, all-encompassing programs over the ensuing three hundred years. If history does indeed “rhyme,” then we can acknowledge that we are only a mere 40 years out from the closing of the Second Vatican Council and its pastoral summons to reform. What gift is still unfolding from Vatican II that our successors in priestly formation will receive in three hundred years? The Spirit is still breathing His truth into the hearts, consciences, and prayer of many bishops who now actively search for better ways to secure the Church‟s mission through the formation of seminarians in holiness.

For now, then, how can seminary personnel assist the seminarian in becoming spiritually vulnerable and elicit from him the desire to be affected by and available to a sustainable communion with Christ‟s own pastoral charity? Short of establishing new doctoral or licentiate programs for future seminary professors, and before we re-establish the horarium in ways that can better “guard” the inner source of communion with Christ is there an interim solution for the present time? As a limited but real beginning, the faculty can begin to recognize where and how their field of expertise is porous to

communion with Christ. Once identified, the seminarian is invited by the faculty to become conscious of these porous content elements in both studies and class lectures.[23]

Seminary formators have to receive their own dignity; they are not university professors practicing their craft in exile. Their responsibility toward theology is one ordered toward the goal of seminary formation: to form emotionally mature priests who are receptive to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, in love with orthodoxy, and compelled to deepen these realities in a contemplation which elicits pastoral desire. But even this is not sufficient. The professor must also explicitly order his teaching and writing toward the goal of priestly life by assisting seminarians to bring forth a fascination with the holiness of God, the God Who wishes to transform lay life. The priest is not his own; he gives his life for lay holiness. Pope John Paul II writes, “First of all, I have no hesitation in saying that all pastoral initiatives must be set in relation to holiness…. Prayer can progress, as a genuine dialogue of love, to the point of rendering the person wholly possessed by the divine Beloved, vibrating at the Spirit's touch, resting filially within the Father‟s heart. This is the lived experience of Christ's promise: „He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him‟ (Jn. 14:21).”[24] If professors teach in the light that all pastoral initiatives must be set in relation to holiness, they will elicit a desire within seminarians to be affected by the pastoral charity of Christ through real and sustained prayer. The regeneration of seminary formation is just beginning, particularly as the integrating power of spirituality (i.e., communion with Christ) affects and orders the academic, pastoral, and human formation facets of priestly education. As this gift is received more and more by many seminary personnel, the transformation of seminary life, future priestly ministry, and lay holiness will be palpable. But in this epoch we are only pioneers, just as the Sulpicians, Jesuits, Eudists and Vincentians were at the time of their birth in service to priestly formation. Deacon James Keating, Ph.D. is Director of Theological Formation in the Institute for Priestly Formation at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska (USA). Previous to this appointment he was Professor of Moral and Spiritual Theology at the Pontifical College Josephinum, Ohio, (USA). jameskeating@creighton.edu

[1] An earlier version of this essay under the title of “Sharing in the Pastoral Charity of Christ” appeared in Seminary Journal 14:3 (2008). This essay continues and deepens a previous work, “Priestly Spirituality, Seminary Formation, and Lay Mission” in Seminary Journal 13:2 (2007), especially pages 78-84. [2] MURPHY, Charles. Models of Priestly Formation (New York: Crossroad, 2006) 9. [3] VATICAN II, Decree Optatam Totius (On Priestly Training), n. 8 (emphasis added). [4] JOHN PAUL II, Post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Pastores dabo vobis, 25 March 1992, n. 57. [5] BENEDICT XVI. “Address to Clergy”, Freising Cathedral, 2006. (http/Stjamescatholic.org/2006/09/popes) [6] JOHN PAUL II, Pastores Dabo Vobis, n. 57. [7] See, LAIRD, Peter. Obedience Transfigured (Rome: Academia Alfonsiana, 2006) 228ff. [8] Walter Kasper‟s work, Theology and Church (New York: Crossroad, 1989) is also of help in trying to understand what is meant by communion with Christ. Communion with Christ is entered upon only

through the mystery of faith. “The word „commnuio‟ does not originally mean community at all. It means participation…participation in the good things of salvation conferred by God: participation in the Holy Spirit, in new life, in love, in the Gospel, but above all, participation in the Eucharist” (p. 154). Scripturally, argues Kasper, the meaning of communion goes back to “the apostle Paul where we read „The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ (1Cor.10:16f)?‟” (p. 154). [9] Human formation at the seminary has to become increasingly focused upon the ability of each seminarian to host the truth about himself, and then to appropriately explore any interior resistance to such receptivity. Exactly how human and spiritual formation coalesces needs to be further examined. [10] See CORETH, Emerich SJ, “In Actione Contemplativus” in Zeitschrift fur Katholische

Theologie 76 (1954) 55-82. [11] JOHN PAUL II, Priesthood in the Third Millenium: Addresses of Pope John Paul II (Princeton: Scepter, 1994) 58. [12] BENEDICT XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus caritas est, 25 December 2005, n.18 (emphasis added). [13] UNITED STATES CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS, Program of Priestly Formation, n.115. [14] Program of Priestly Formation, n. 351. [15] I explore this idea further in my book, Resting on the Heart of Christ: The Vocation and Spirituality of the Seminary Theologian (Omaha: IPF Publications, 2009). [16] JARRET, Bede OP, An Anthology of Bede Jarrett, ed. Jordan Aumann (Dubuque: Priory Press, 1961). [17] VATICAN II, Decree Optatam Totius (On Priestly Training), n. 1. [18] VATICAN II, Decree Optatam Totius (On Priestly Training), nn. 4, 8. [19] BENEDICT XVI, “Meeting With The Clergy,” Warsaw Cathedral, 25 May 2006; See also, TOUPS, David. Reclaiming our Priestly Character (Omaha: IPF Publications, 2008) for a sustained treatment on the identity of the priest. [20] BENEDICT XVI, Ash Wednesday Homily, 2008. [21] We can develop how contemplation of Jesus' pastoral charity helps the seminarian participate in this mystery by utilizing the basic horarium of seminary life and by promoting a deep commitment to praying with Scripture in ways described by George Aschenbrenner, SJ in his article, “Becoming Whom We Contemplate” in The Way Supplement (Spring 1985) and his book, Stretched for Glory (Chicago: Loyola, 2004). [22] MURPHY, Models of Priestly Formation, 85. [23] See my article, “How Can Catholic Spirituality Be More at the Heart of Priestly Formation?” in Seminary Journal, (Winter 2005), pp. 43-53, for a fuller explication of this point. [24] POPE JOHN PAUL II, Apostolic Letter Novo Millenium Ineunte, 6 January 2001, nn.30, 33.