Guide to Ongoing Formation for Priests (Ascension)

GOFP 154

Guide to Ongoing Formation for Priests

holiness, to embrace the “newness of life” promised in the Gospel. 122 For a priest, true growth in holiness always produces greater pastoral charity. The priest can give no greater gift to his people than his own resolve to grow in sanctity. Holiness is the fruit both of grace and of one’s free and generous efforts. As St. John Neumann fervently prayed at his first Mass, “O God, give me holiness!” 123 154 A holy life is made up of many elements. It presumes, for example, rightly ordered faith and intellectual honesty. It includes moral integrity and fidelity to the law of God. It is sustained by the sacraments, an active life of prayer, and the presence of God, including a love for silence and solitude. It relies upon and fosters a supernatural outlook, seeing one’s life, world, and relationships through the lens of faith, that is, from the perspective of eternity. 155 The Second Vatican Council taught, “Therefore, since every priest in his own way represents the person of Christ Himself, he is also enriched with special grace. Thus, serving the people committed to him and the entire People of God, he can more properly imitate the perfection of Him whose part he takes. Thus, too, the weakness of human flesh can be healed by the holiness of Him who has become for our sake a high priest ‘holy, innocent, undefiled, set apart from sinners’ (Heb 7:26).” 124 In light of a priest’s particular call to draw souls to Christ, his holiness will also be distinguished by his efforts to keep God, rather than his own preferences and ego, at the center of his life.

122 “Ongoing formation is a requirement that begins and develops from the moment of receiving the Sacrament of Holy Orders, with which the priest is not only ‘consecrated’ by the Father, ‘sent’ by the Son, but also ‘animated’ by the Holy Spirit.” DMLP, no. 87. 123 St. John Neumann, quoted in “Oh God, Give Me Holiness,” The Redemptorists, January 5, 2012. 124 PO, no. 12. See also CIC, c. 276, for specific means of growth in holiness.

70