Program of Priestly Formation 6th edition

20 | PROGRAM OF PRIESTLY FORMATION

40. For priests, the specific arena in which their spiritual life unfolds is their exercise of ministry in fulfillment of their mission. 63 The life of priests in the Spirit means their continuous transformation and conver sion of heart centered on the integration or linking of their identity as configured to Christ, Head and Shepherd, Servant and Spouse, with their ministry of Word, Sacrament, and pastoral governance (leadership). 64 “ In contemplating the Lord, who offered His life for others, he will be able to give himself generously and with self-sacrifice for the People of God.” 65 He will more closely imitate Jesus, who came to serve and not to be served. The ministry itself, by which the priest brings Christ’s redemptive gifts to his people, transforms the priest’s own life. In a particular way, the celebrations of the sacraments lead the priest to a holy encounter with God’s all-transforming, merciful love. When the priest’s identity as sacramentally configured to Christ culminates in his ministry on behalf of Christ, which is called amoris offi cium (a work of love), he finds his unity of life in pastoral charity. “Priests will achieve the unity of their lives by joining themselves with Christ in the recognition of the Father’s will and in the gift of themselves to the flock entrusted to them. In this way, by adopting the role of the good shepherd they will find in the practice of pastoral charity itself the bond of priestly perfection which will reduce to unity their life and activity.” 66 Priestly life lived in configuration to Jesus Christ must necessarily manifest and give witness to the radicalism of the Gospel. In other words, priests are called to a way of life that gives evident and transparent witness to the power of the Gospel at work in their lives. A life of continual conver sion allows the priest to become and remain “a ‘man of discernment,’ able to read the reality of human life in the light of the Spirit. In this way he will be able to choose, decide and act according to the will of God.” 67 The elements of such a lifestyle—named here and to be developed elsewhere in this document—include the following: 41. 42. 43.

63 See Pastores Dabo Vobis , no. 24; Presbyterorum Ordinis , no. 12; Synod of Bishops, The Ministerial Priesthood and Justice in the World (1971), part 2, I, iii. 64 See Pastores Dabo Vobis , nos. 24-26. 65 Ratio Fundamentalis , no. 41. 66 Presbyterorum Ordinis , no. 14. 67 Ratio Fundamentalis , no. 43.