Guide to Ongoing Formation for Priests (Ascension)

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CHAPTER FOUR Spiritual Formation

145 In the final hours of his earthly ministry, Jesus spoke with a quiet intensity to the Apostles in the upper room. It was his “last testament” before undergoing his Passion and death. Among those final words, none were more intimate and profound than his earnest desire for their friendship: “I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you” (Jn 15:15-16). 146 Jesus spoke these words to his Apostles at the Last Supper, traditionally understood as the origin of Holy Orders. “I have called you friends,” he said. In saying it to them, he said it to all Christians of all times, and in a particular way to us priests. Jesus wants more from us than our service; he wants our friendship. He wants our heart. It is the one gift that we alone can give him. 147 A true friend is, according to ancient wisdom, “another self.” The ancient wisdom is fulfilled quite literally in a priest’s friendship with Jesus. Priests are, after all, explicitly called to be “another self” of Jesus—an alter Christus —for the people we serve. As we grow in friendship with the Lord, those bonds of charity permeate more and more of our lives. His good becomes our good, his thoughts our thoughts, his aspirations our aspirations. When he rejoices, we rejoice. When he weeps over another Jerusalem, we do so as well. We have made his ambitions our own. 114

114 “In this his specific Christological identity the priest must be aware that his life is a mystery totally grafted onto the mystery of Christ and of the Church in a new way, and that this engages him totally

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