Guide to Ongoing Formation for Priests

Human Formation 3

104. The four dimensions of priestly formation—human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral—are distinct but closely interconnected. They can be compared to the elements of the Lord’s Cross. The spiritual dimen sion, represented by the vertical bar of the Cross, unites us to God. The intellectual dimension, represented by the horizontal bar, takes us into the mind of Christ. The pastoral dimension, represented by the Body of the Lord, forms us to serve Jesus in our neighbor. And the human dimension, according to this image, is the soil in which the Cross is planted. That soil is the subject of this chapter. As ordained men, we commonly understand that grace perfects and presupposes nature, and the grace of the priesthood is no exception. 76 The better the soil in which that grace is planted, the more abundant the yield. However, our humanity is not merely the setting in which our priesthood grows. It is also a reflection of the humanity shared by Jesus, our High Priest. The Letter to the Hebrews teaches that “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin” (4:15). In developing our human nature to its fullest, then, we are also conforming ourselves more closely to the perfect humanity of the Lord. 77 This chapter identifies some markers for the human dimension of the priesthood and then proposes various personal, fraternal, and ecclesial means to reach those markers. 105. 106.

76

See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologicae , I, q. 1, art. 8 ad 2.

77 “The priest, who is called to be a ‘living image’ of Jesus Christ, head and shepherd of the Church, should seek to reflect in himself, as far as possible, the human perfection which shines forth in the incarnate Son of God and which is reflected with particular liveliness in his attitudes toward others as we see narrated in the Gospels.” PDV, no. 43.