Guide to Ongoing Formation for Priests

34 | GUIDE TO ONGOING FORMATION FOR PRIESTS

many priests, as well as some ways that ongoing formation might be custom ized to suit their particular needs.

EARLY PRIESTHOOD

89. For the first years after ordination, the lessons of seminary need to be assimilated in a new way and applied to the actual experience of priestly life and ministry. The gentle and patient hand of a mentor, as well as a wise spiritual director, is vitally important. With the shift away from a structured seminary life, a young priest will want to have a suitable plan of life that is both challenging and realistic. He will need regular periods of rest, prayer, and retreat, when he can step aside from the activity of ministry so he can process his new life in a supernatural light. The intellectual and pastoral formation of a younger priest should include a review of the canons and liturgical texts pertaining to the administration of the sacraments and parish life, as well as faculties, norms, and policies issued by the diocesan bishop. These reviews can benefit the intellectual and pastoral formation of a younger priest, especially when he considers practical questions arising from his ministerial experience. 67 A new priest enters into many new and enriching relationships after he leaves seminary. He is assigned to a parish, where he meets new people and begins to develop relationships with staff, many of whom are women, and with families and other parishioners. His interactions with his own family and previous friends need to adjust to his new responsi bilities. Relationships with other priests, including friends from seminary, must now compete with the many demands on his time and attention. Navigating all these relationships is not easy. The steady guidance of more experienced priests can help the new priest to do so. Careful selection of the pastor of a newly ordained priest is essen tial because “the first destination should respond above all to the need to set young priests on the right path.” 68 In his priestly example and friendship, concern for his younger brother, and capacity to offer gentle suggestions 90. 91.

67 “During the early years of priesthood it is necessary to organize annual formation encounters for dealing in greater depth with appropriate theological, juridical, spiritual and cultural themes, as well as special sessions dedicated to moral, pastoral and liturgical questions, etc. Such encounters may also be occasions to renew the faculty of confession as stipulated by the Code of Canon Law and by the Bishop.” DMLP, no. 111. 68 DMLP, no. 100.