Guide to Ongoing Formation for Priests

38 | GUIDE TO ONGOING FORMATION FOR PRIESTS

Senior priests with flexibility in their schedules provide valuable service to local, regional, or even national Catholic organizations. Their experience and wisdom are a treasure of profound worth to their younger brothers, and every diocese would do well to tap into that source of spiritual wealth. 75 Senior priests can also be of great help offering Mass coverage for short periods of time, so that other priests can go on retreat, spend time with brother priests, care for family members, or engage in their own ongoing formation. In these and many other ways, senior clergy can be a tremendous source of vitality for an entire presbyterate, if they are prepared to assume their new role through proper support and adequate care. These, then, are some of the means of formation that we will address in greater detail in the chapters that follow—and some of the stages of life for which a plan of ongoing formation should be adapted. We hope that the specific recommendations in each dimension of formation will provide enough detail to suggest concrete means for growth, yet allow for their application to each priest’s particular needs and circumstances. After all, we do not know exactly what Jesus did with his Apostles during those forty days of companionship and formation after his Resurrection, but we can be sure that each one received what he needed to keep growing. The rest of this document seeks to provide the same. 102. 103.

75 “In particular, they [senior priests] will be able to share with others their own experiences, provide encour agement, receptiveness, listening and serenity to their confreres, and be available if they are summoned ‘to become effective teachers and trainers of other priests’ (PDV, no. 77).” DMLP, no. 113.