Guide to Ongoing Formation for Priests

CHAPTER 6: PASTORAL FORMATION | 81

that prevent a priest from living in freedom and that limit his pastoral effectiveness.

211. Interior freedom is also a necessary condition for healthy celibacy, obedience, and simplicity of life. Celibacy, as we observed in chapter three, is primarily not a renunciation but a positive choice, a new and powerful way of loving more broadly. To be free, a priest must break with attach ments that suffocate the charismatic grace of celibacy. 176 Obedience is not a slavish conformity to the will of a superior; it is a humble and mature embrace of legitimate authority. It includes prac tical obedience to the diocesan bishop and loyalty to the Holy Father and the teachings of the Church. 177 It cannot flourish in a heart that is turned inward in pride and insecurity. In addition, obedience involves an open ness to serve the Church in whatever capacity the diocesan bishop asks and a willingness, as he is able, to learn other languages or develop new pastoral skills. Last, simplicity of life can take root only in a heart freed from the grasping demands of materialism, consumerism, and other disordered affections. 178 Uprooting these vices, so common in the modern world, is a 212. 176 “Consecrated to Christ in a new and excellent way (see PO, no. 16), the priest must therefore be well aware that he has received a gift from God, which, sanctioned in its turn by a precise juridical bond, gives rise to the moral obligation of observance. Freely assumed, this bond is theological and moral in nature before being juridical, and is the sign of that spousal reality coming to be in sacramental Ordination.” DMLP, no. 58. “Through his celibate life, the priest will be able to fulfill better his ministry on behalf of the People of God. In particular, as he witnesses to the evangelical value of virginity, he will be able to aid Christian spouses to live fully the ‘great sacrament’ of the love of Christ the bridegroom for his spouse the Church, just as his own faithfulness to celibacy will help them to be faithful to each other as husband and wife.” PDV, no. 50. 177 “Since the priestly ministry is the ministry of the Church herself, it can be discharged only by hierarchical communion with the whole body. Therefore, pastoral love demands that acting in this communion, priests dedicate their own wills through obedience to the service of God and their brothers. This love requires that they accept and carry out in a spirit of faith whatever is commanded or recommended by the Sovereign Pontiff, their own bishop, or other superiors.” PO, no. 15. See also CIC, c. 273. 178 “Each priest is called to live the virtue of poverty which consists essentially in consigning his heart to Christ as the true treasure, and not to material things. The priest, whose inheritance is the Lord (see Nm 18:20), knows that his mission, like that of the Church, takes place in the midst of the world and that created goods are necessary for the personal development of man. Nonetheless, he will use such goods with a sense of responsibility, moderation, upright intention and detachment proper to him who has his treasure in heaven and knows that everything is to be used for the edification of the Kingdom of God (Lk 10:7; Mt 10:9-10; 1 Cor 9:14; Gal 6:6) (see PO, no. 17; John Paul II, General Audience, July 21, 1993, no. 3).” DMLP, no. 83.