Los Angeles
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Meeting with Seminarians
Intervention by Cardinal Mauro Piacenza
Perfect of the Congregation for the Clergy
Venerable Brother Bishops,
Dear Trainers
Dear seminarians,
It gives me great joy to meet you in this short North American living.
The future of the Church, which is certain, because it is in the hands of its Head and Lord, who is Christ, the pulses in your lives. Seminarians today, tomorrow's priests are the living hope of the journey that the Church always does in the world.
Our heartfelt thanks, on behalf of the Church, for your so generous! Know right now that the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy pray for you, because your Lord is to ensure total and unconditional.
Is this the secret of happiness, the secret of fulfillment of the priestly life: give everything, with nothing to keep for themselves, following the example of Jesus!
I do not intend to propose a conference at this meeting, but simply an informal conversation, giving space to your questions spontaneously. I state to your questions just some brief thoughts on what I think is crucial now, and always, in priestly formation.
1. The primacy of God
It is now accepted by the experience of the Church, that the vocations are born, flourish, grow and reach maturity only when it is clearly recognized the primacy of God Any other motivation, which can also accompany the beginning of the perception of a call to the priesthood, flows into the motion of the total donation to the Lord and in recognition of its primacy in our lives, the Church's life and that of the world.
Primacy of God means the primacy of prayer, intimacy with God, the primacy of the spiritual and sacramental life. The Church does not need managers, but of men of God! He does not need sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, political scientists-and all the other variations that we know-and we can imagine. The Church needs men and therefore credible believers, men who received the call of the Lord, are His witnesses motivated in the world!
Primacy of God means the primacy of the sacramental life, lived today, and offer, at the time, to all our brothers! Many things can be found in other men, they are attempting in the priest that he alone can give: Divine Mercy, the Bread of eternal life, a new horizon of meaning that makes life more human that can present and eternal!
You live, dear seminarians, this time in the seminary-transient-like which is a great opportunity that is given to make an extraordinary experience of intimacy with God The relationship you build with him over the years, certainly during the course of life will be deepened and will change, but the foundations, the core of that relationship, it is now! The seminary is in this sense, unique! While every good experience that can happen in your life, before and after this time, the wisdom of the Church indicates the educational community as necessary for the formation of its priests.
The Church needs strong men! Firm in the faith of men, capable of bringing the brothers to an authentic experience of God
The Church needs priests who, in the storms of the dominant culture, when "the boat of many brothers and tossed by the waves of relativism" (cf. J. Ratzinger, Homily at the Mass Eligendo Roman Pontiff ), know in real communion with Peter, keep in balance the helm of his own existence, of the communities entrusted to them and the brothers who ask for help and light their journey of faith.
2. The priority of training
In addition to the unquestioned primacy of God, it is necessary that the man occupying the central place it deserves. No one can wait for a perfect humanity to enter holy orders, but it is essential, in all honesty, get involved, by giving to God through the spiritual director all about themselves. Do not give up the illusion that the issues not resolved (or not properly dealt with) you will suddenly dissolve after ordination. Not so! And experience proves it!
This formation has certainly needs a fair degree of self-knowledge, and in this sense the so-called human sciences can provide valuable assistance, and more importantly need to "stay in touch" with the Holy Christ's humanity!
It is being with Him that we come gradually shaped! Is he real trainer! In this sense, the prolonged Eucharistic adoration plays a fundamental role in the formation and above all human! Letting "tan" from the Eucharistic Sun, means, over time, limerebbe its edges, to learn from the par excellence, standing at the school of Charity made flesh.
In addition to human, is the intellectual center. It is no doubt that it has occupied in recent decades, an important part of the entire seminary formation. Now, most likely in this area is necessary to assess the proportions and balance. While desiring a good education for all, not all priests will have to theologians.
The training should aim to convey the intellectual content of certain faith, reasonable argument sritturistici the fundamentals, those of the great Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church as well as making life examples accompanied by six priests saints. You must not lose your way in the maze of the various theological opinions that do not provide certainty and raise the Truth revealed to be just like any other "human thought". There is certainty about the shape and aiming to have their luggage in a vision of synthesis with the enthusiasm of the mission.
I am personally convinced that a good and usual theological training, which will also rediscover the philosophical foundation of metaphysics and is not afraid to accept the whole truth, is also the best antidote to the many "identity crisis" that some live unfortunately. In this sense, the Holy Father Benedict XVI has repeatedly called all'imprescindibile use of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a horizon as a reference to look at and some of our current theological thinking.
The Catechism is also a great tool that Blessed John Paul II gave to the whole Church, for the proper hermeneutics of Vatican II. Even this aspect is necessary that the intellectual alive misunderstanding whatsoever.
You were born in the Post-Second (I think almost all) and perhaps for that very reason you are both children of the council, is more immune to the biases, sometimes ideological, that the providential interpretation of that event has caused.
You will be you, probably, the first generation to properly interpret the Second Vatican Council, not according to the "spirit" of the Council, which has brought so much confusion in the Church, but according to what is actually said Reconciling the Event, in his texts and the Church the world.
There is no other than the Second Vatican Council that produced the texts in our possession today! It is in those texts that we find God's will for his Church and with them it is necessary to measure, accompanied by two thousand years of tradition and Christian life.
The renewal is always necessary for the Church, because the conversion is always required of its members, poor sinners! But there is, or could exist, a pre-Conciliar Church and a post-Conciliar! If so, the second-we-would be historically and theologically illegitimate!
There exists a single Church of Christ, of which you are part of that is from our Lord to the Apostles, the Blessed Virgin Mary to the Fathers and Doctors of the Church since the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, from Romanesque to Gothic to Baroque, and so on, until the present day, continuously, without interruption, ever!
And all because the Church is the Body of Christ, is the unity of His Person, which is given to us, his members!
You, dear seminarians, priests will be of the same Church of St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Charles Borromeo, St. John Vianney, St. John Bosco, S. Pius X, to the Holy Father Pius, St. Jose Maria Escriva and the Blessed John Paul II. You will be priests of the Church itself, which is made up of many holy priests who for centuries have made it bright, beautiful, radiant and therefore easily recognizable face of the Lord Christ in the world.
The real priorities and the true modernity, then, my dear, is holiness! The only possible source for a genuine and comprehensive reform is the holiness and we need reform! Holiness is not there for a seminar, if not the grace of our Lord and freedom that opens up humbly to his formative action and renewing!
The Seminar of holiness, then, Dean has a truly magnificent and is a woman: the Blessed Virgin Mary. Her that we will repeat throughout his life: "Do whatever he tells you," to accompany us in this difficult but fascinating journey!
Here, I told you some of what I wanted to tell you the rest I'll tell you in prayer every day, because from now on I will carry you with me every day to be priests at the altar and remember that in these difficult times it is nice-but priests priests. They are happy only if you are not half measures: all or nothing!
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