Priestly Formation as Spirituality

[1]

Deacon James Keating, Ph.D.

Introduction
Monsignor Charles Murphys book, Models of Priestly Formation, captures what all priestly
formation needs to contain when he notes, In France out of a powerful spiritual matrix called the
French school (17
th
Cent.) a new type of seminary formation was created, aimed at transforming the
priesthood from a mere social institution to a spiritual force.
[2]
The force of the Spirit will define the
priestly formation needed to fully implement the vision of the Second Vatican Council as well. What is
becoming clear is that seminaries do not simply need a re-decoration but a reconstitution in the
powers that were unleashed at the Second Vatican Council. At the Council the whole Church was
instructed that seminarians should live Christs Paschal Mystery in such a way that they will know how
to initiate their own parishioners into it because the seminarians live in intimate and unceasing union
with God the Father through His Son Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit.
[3]
Living in this intimate and
unceasing union is the apex of all seminarian consciousness. This consciousness is born of a profound
appropriation of ones baptismal identity, a love of ones own lay life. It is then confirmed in the rigorous
spiritual and moral conversion afforded by seminary formation. This formation provides a supportive
environment for a man to name the truth of who he is before God. Supportive environment does not
mean one that protects a man from the truth or one that enables him to dismiss the truth about his
character after he has looked at it. Rather, a supportive environment is established by relationships of
faith that seek only one thing: the discernment of a mans authentic vocation. To found and cultivate this
supportive environment, seminary personnel and bishops instruct each seminarian that acceptance into
seminary formation is not proof of a priestly vocation. The first years of seminary are truly about the
reality of come and see. The seminary, first and foremost, is a supportive environment within which a
seminarian becomes eager to receive the truth about himself in relation to the salvific will of Christ. To
facilitate this reception of truth in relation to Christs call to him, a seminarian needs to awaken to a life
of interiority, to a life of communion with Christ. John Paul II succinctly describes such a life:

Pastoral study and action direct one to an inner source, which the work of formation will take
care to guard and make good use of: This is the ever-deeper communion with the pastoral charity
of Jesus, which, just as it was the principle and driving force of his salvific action, likewise, thanks
to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of orders, should constitute the principle
and driving force of the priestly ministry. It is a question of a type of formation meant not only to
ensure scientific, pastoral competence and practical skill, but also and especially a way of being in
communion with the very sentiments and behavior of Christ the good shepherd: Have this mind
among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.
[4]


Seminary formators are then charged to guard an inner source. This source is the seminarians
ever deeper communion with the pastoral charity of Jesus. This communion with the pastoral charity
of Christconstitutes the principle and driving force of priestly ministry. Pope Benedict XVI says the
same truth more forcefully:

Therefore the time spent in direct encounter with God in prayer can rightly be described as the
pastoral priority par excellence: It is the souls breath, without which the priest necessarily
remains breathless, deprived of the oxygen of optimism and joy, which he needs if he is to allow
himself to be sent, day by day, as worker into the Lords Harvest.
[5]


Communion with Christs own pastoral charity is the pastoral priority for the priest. From such
communion flows his breath, his lifes principle. To be a priest, then, is to become a man vulnerable to
this communion in a way that configures him to the self-offering of Christ upon the cross. This self-
offering of Christ, which He shares with the priest through the grace of ordination, ignites and sustains
the priests own pastoral charity. In becoming vulnerable to Christ in this way the priest draws his very
breath, the principle of his spiritual life, from JesusSonship; from His obedience to the Father, a
mystery that now lives within the priest. To draw life from interiority, however, is not to live there.
No, the priest lives for pastoral ministry. The diocesan priest is called to ministry, not monastic
contemplation, but he is not called simply to be busy. His pastoral charity must flow from His intimacy
with Christ in prayer. Interiority gives birth to and nourishes ministry.
Having an interior life, therefore, is no threat to priestly self-donation in ministry. It is actually
presupposed. Lacking an interior life is the threat, for without it a priest can draw inspiration only from
the limited resources of his natural gifts and talents. Thus his commitment to such self-giving demanded
by Christs own pastoral charity can easily weaken over the years. In that case ministry simply becomes a
function, a series of familiar exercises repeating themselves over time, albeit dressed in differing
circumstances from year to year. The newness of priestly life is received from the life of interiority, as is
the strength to endure the routine of pastoral ministry. As with any life commitment, familiarity can
breed a superficial and distracting longing for the novel. To avoid this distraction as best as possible, the
priest draws his life from an interior communion with Christs own mission enabling him to live his
vocation faithfully, even in the sometimes monotonous world of parish life. Developing this life of
interiority is not a mystified process, but one rooted in the accessible devotional commitments of the
priest: The liturgy of the hours (a key formational reality to the inner life of the priest), a daily
examination of consciousness, regular celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation, as well as other
practices such as Eucharistic adoration and lectio divina. Such interiority does not simply serve a
pragmatic end: keeping one alive within the routine of ministry. Interiority must never be reduced to
pragmatics because it protects and facilitates an intimate relationship with God. Interiority is
synonymous with fidelity to vocation. To have an interior life is to draw meaning from communion with
Christ as the very being of a priest.
If Pope Benedict XVI and John Paul II have hit upon the crux of seminary formation, how then
should seminarians be formed? How ought the seminary formators, and the seminarian himself,
guard the inner source, ones own communion with the pastoral charity of Christ? What aspects of
formation ought to be weighted as those bearing the newness of the Spirit, as those bearing a new
priestly formation established in assisting seminarians to share in Christs own pastoral charity?
Let me explore now in deeper meditation the key idea of this essay: All priestly formation, and
ongoing priestly life, is only rightfully sustained and ordered by an interior intimacy with Christ in a
sacramental context. First, I will look at the priestly formation process and its relationship to Catholic
spirituality. Second, I will explore how Christs own pastoral charity nourishes priestly formation and
life. Next, I will meditate upon the role of the seminary formation staff as it relates to forming the
pastoral charity of Christ within seminarians. I will close by articulating some hints toward a new design
of priestly formation.

Vivifying Priestly Formation
In the early years of seminary formation, the focus for the faculty ought to be ordered toward
facilitating the appropriation of each seminarians Catholic identity, as well as his affective maturation
and spiritual healing. All of this is done in the context of an academic environment that sees spiritual
growth as learnings foundation and not as an appendage to seminary education, relevant only in the
confidentiality of spiritual direction. The formators of any new approach to priestly formation will
recognize that the seminarians receptivity to the Spirit and the truth the Spirit reveals to the seminarian
about his own identity, sins, and vocation is the most fertile environment for him to receive the truth
borne by academics as well. Such relational truth forms the proper framework to appropriate
intellectual truth. The seminarian is not a student in the same way one is defined by American
academia: Seminarians ought not to isolate critical thinking from their own dynamic life of interior
prayer. The seminarian is a man of faith undergoing a gradual purification of the mind, senses, will, and
affection. He has entered the school of priestly self-giving, and he needs to be established in radical
availability to the living presence of Christ throughout and from within all facets of seminary formation.
He especially needs the tutoring of seminary professors who teach him to receive the presence of Christ
from within study. This is so because Christ not only offers healing and growth within spiritual
direction, worship, and private prayer but alsofrom within study and pastoral ministry.
The seminary is a supportive environment because its end is to constitute the man in truth. This
means that the seminary faculty and staff have to be open to conversion as well. In order for the
seminarian to receive the truth about himself and Christs mysteries, the faculty needs to be receiving
the truth about themselves at the deepest levels of prayer. This does not mean that a pre-requisite for
faculty hiring is evidence of having regularly entered mystical prayer; it means, rather, that one is daily
surrendering the truth of ones own interior life to the mystery of Christ for enlightenment, purification,
and conversion in the hope that the all-consuming ego dissipates. In the wake of this vulnerability to
conversion among the seminarians, the seminary has a responsibility to hire professors who know the
precise, finite, and humble mission given to them upon their hiring and throughout employment. To
facilitate this delicate area of ongoing spiritual formation for faculty, all members should be encouraged
by the rector to be in spiritual direction during the length of his or her tenure. Such a circumstance
would give some assurance to the rector that each staff member is entering a relationship with Christ by
way of the grace of self-disclosure and accountability to truth. For a seminarian to know the profound
love of the Spirit in the process of formation, he needs to be assured that the seminary exists only to
discern, test, and judge whether the signs are present for a priestly vocation. These signs are indicated in
his outward behavior, interior movements of his heart, his verbal self-revelation to formators, and
through communal and peer evaluations. The faculty and staff have to be truly disinterested participants
in the work of God.
Each faculty member, therefore, must be far enough advanced in his or her own interior life to be
possessed by a holy indifference, which in turn communicates spiritual maturity and a supportive
environment to seminarians. Within such an environment of spiritual freedom, the reception of the
truth by the seminarian about himself and about his own vocation will be more readily discerned and
embraced. Men leaving the seminary after discerning their vocation to seek marriage should be as joyful
as the ones leaving seminary to return to the diocese for ordination. This joyful disposition is not ideal
or romantic; it is simply the ordinary fruit of a seminary community that places the discernment of
Gods will and an eagerness to receive the Spirits healing at the center of the seminarys mission. Within
such an environment some of the fear that possesses seminarians as a result of their continually being
assessed, evaluated, and watched will dissipate in the face of a growing trust which spiritual maturity
engenders. In such a mature environment vocations can be freely discerned and chosen.

The Heart of Formation: Christs own Pastoral Charity
Let me move now into my second major consideration: the lynchpin for spirituality being the
integrating heart of seminary formation is the seminariansown communion with the pastoral charity of
Christ.
[6]
From all eternity, the Son receives divinity from the Father and is one with Him. Jesus came
to recognize this truth, this metaphysical reality, with His intellect when He developed humanly and
reflected on His own identity. At that point He was faced with a choice: How would He live His human
life? Scripture makes it clear that Jesus chose always to live His human life in a way that flows from His
divinity, namely, by always doing the Fathers will. Thus, not only in His divinity but also in His
humanity, Jesus whole stance in life was to attend to the One Who loved Himto listen raptly and
always to obey. This human attentiveness involved listening to the Father's voice not only in the
revelation of Hebrew history but especially in quiet prayer. Thus, Christ experienced His Sonship as a
gift He received from the Father from all eternity, and He responds to this gift, not only in His divinity
but also in His humanity, by His own gift of self-surrender. Mysteriously, then, His act
of reception elicits His loving choice to surrender.
[7]

Recognizing that Jesus responded humanly to the gift He received by choosing always to obey the
Father is powerful motivation for the seminarian who strives to be like Christ, and is a key to opening
his participation in Christs pastoral charity. The seminarian, too, is faced with a choice: How will I live
out my vocation? The appropriate response is to be like Christ in living an obedient, upright life of self-
surrender, but one can live such a life happily only if it emanates from the heart. Like Christ, then, the
seminarian must listen raptly, not least in quiet prayer, and respond by surrendering his own will to the
Father out of the power and joy he receives from being in communion with Christ. This communion is
simply the result of the seminarian inviting Christ to live His Sonship over again in him. In so doing
Christ is free to live the mystery of receptivity as surrender and surrender as receptivity over again in the
seminarian, thus securing the man to the Trinitarian life of love in ever deepening ways. This
surrendered receptivity in Christ is healing, is the life of holiness; such communion is the branch being
grafted to the Vine (Jn. 15:5).
What communion with Christ means, then, is to surrender to God the Father in Christ by way of
the Spirit as an ongoing act of receiving His great love.
[8]
This forms the basic dynamic of a seminarian
developing an interior life. This communion is maintained, deepened, and fulfilled by way of an interior
life that seeks only to host the pastoral charity of Christ, not simply as one act of oblation but as the
movement of ones very being. Further, this communion is assured and secured by the very nature of its
being given within, and by way of, the sacramental reality of the Church. While still in formation, the
seminarian enters this mystery by accepting whatever the truth reveals about himself and his vocation in
the light of faith. The seminarian is to learn how to host the truth,
[9]
to suffer its coming for the sake of
his own holiness. This truth is uncovered in spiritual direction, study, fellowship, and pastoral ministry.
He is to learn how to continue receiving this truth about himself and Christ even as he follows the
daily horarium. This openness to truth, not as an abstraction but as the reception of his status before
God as son in Christ, is to become habitual. The instilling of such a habit will become the hallmark of
the new priestly formation. Communion with Christ offers the future priest an untold healing of his
affection for sin and a firmer grasp upon his true identity in Christ, repudiating any other identity
imposed upon him by the popular secular culture, limited, finite friendships, or even neurotic conditions
within which he was raised as a boy. The priestly formation process explicitly proclaims that each
seminarian is a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).
In this way all diocesan priestly formation is ordered toward the maturation of men who are
contemplatives even in action.
[10]
They draw their dynamic and developmental acceptance of their
sonship from a continual receptivity to Christs own love now alive in them. John Paul II echoes the
same insight,Those called to share Christs mission and sacrifice find in his example the incentive to
give prayer its rightful place in their lives, as the foundation, root and guarantee of holiness in
action
[11]
A life of prayer keeps open the wellspring that is the soul so that the priest can live out his
ministry from the depths of interiority, from a place of deep union with Christ. This wellspring animates
a seminarians natural gifts and talents, gifts him with healing and consolation, and invites him to
receive the call to turn from sin. Ultimately this place is the heart, formed in an ecclesial context, where
one continually hears Christs own voice sending each seminarian on mission. For a seminarian to be
ordained without knowing how to go into the heart and wait on the Lord, eager and open to receive
divine love and truth, is to have constructed a failed formation process. Without such knowledge he is
driven to cope with the burdens of ministry through functionalism.
If the first virtue of priestly life to be jettisoned is prayer, as reportedly it is, then surely the first
goal of seminary formation is to secure a love of prayer and a habit of prayer in each seminarian. If this
interior communion with Christ is secured in faith, hope, and love, then the seminarian is more likely to
acknowledge this communion as preeminent since it gives rise to a ministry that shares in Christs own
pastoral charity. Without prayer, the priest is a busy man of skilled efficiency; with prayer the priest
bears the coming of Another. The primary focus of seminary formation is to guard the inner source of
communion between the seminarian and Christ. From this interior source will flow the principle and
driving force needed to be a public minister, from such a source he becomes a man who gives witness to
the ongoing availability of Christs own charity. Pope Benedict XVI articulates this vision:

Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can give to others much more than their outward necessities; I
can give them the look of love which they craveIf I have no contact whatsoever with God in my
life, then I cannot see in the other anything more than the other, and I am incapable of seeing in
him the image of God. The saintsconsider the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta
constantly renewed their capacity for love of neighbor from their encounter with the Eucharistic
Lord, and conversely this encounter acquired its realism and depth in their service to others. Love
of God and love of neighbor are thus inseparable, they form a single commandment. But both live
from the love of God who has loved us first. No longer is it a question, then, of a commandment
imposed from without, but rather of a freely-bestowed experience of love from within, a love
which by its very nature must then be shared with others. Love grows through love.
[12]


Communion with Christ within the Seminary Staff
Pope Benedicts meditation on the relationship between receiving the love of God and loving
ones neighbor brings out clearly the need for a deeper relationship between the spiritual life and the
pastoral ministry program in any seminary. The genius of the new Program for Priestly Formation is in
stating that spirituality is the core and heart of seminary formation around which all other aspects of
seminary life are to be integrated.
[13]
Communion with Christ is the highest truth and reality of all
seminary formation. Without a specific call to the faculty and staff from the rector to enter this
communion, the four pillars of seminary formation are in danger of becoming rivals with one another
vying for time, attention, money or status. In most seminaries pride of place is given to academics, but
to have academics fill this place alone underscores the urgency of the need to re-think priestly
formation. The key is not to have any aspect of seminary formation reign but to have all faculty and
staff become imbued with an authentic love of what is holy, love of the interior life, love of congress with
Christs own Spirit. With this kind of faculty, their respective areas of expertise will both retain their own
internal rationale, logic, and methods even as they become informed with the integrating agency of
Christian and priestly spirituality. Such professors or staff members will lead the seminarians to the
source and goal of all study and pastoral formation: communion with God. One does not manipulate a
curriculum in an attempt to make it pious; one secures faculty and staff that are already dedicated to
the total formation of the seminarian.
[14]

This total formation is laid out by the Program of Priestly Formation, and is to be integrated by
spirituality. Therefore, seminary personnel ought to be open to securing this integration by promoting
priestly spirituality from within all the pillars of seminary formation. In the end, it will be the re-
thinking of faculty formation that really develops priestly formation.
[15]
As some seminaries continue to
find benefit in a seminarian spirituality year, it may not simply be the seminarians who need such; it
may be seminary personnel. If the new Program for Priestly Formation is to take root, all seminary
staff and faculty should be invited to receive communion with Christ in a new wayin and through their
professional studies. Where will such a school of prayer open its doors? What seminary or university will
take up the challenge to form a new generation of doctoral students whose formation structurally
includes the guarding of interior communion with Christ? Those seminary personnel who let Christ
reach them from within, therefore, can concur with Bede Jarrett, OP:

It is perfectly obvious that if I am so blessed by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, that I find my reason,
will and emotions perceptive of divine currents previously lost to me, I can hardly help acting in a
new way. The vision has come; it cannot simply open my eyes to new things in life without
thereby altering that very life itself. It is clear, therefore, that the gifts will not leave me where I
was before, but will influence my actions as well as alter my vision.
[16]


These altered actions and visions animated by the Spirit of Christ
[17]
ought not to stay as
private, spiritual memories within seminary faculty members hearts but ought, instead, affect the way
one teaches, mentors, and guides each seminarian. All seminary specializations are harmonized by one
object: to make future priests true shepherds of souls under the direction of faculty and staff
who teach students how to live in intimate and unceasing union with God.
[18]
Establishing such a
faculty is the key to a priesthood that ministers to the parish out of a living communion with the pastoral
charity of Christ. The faithful expect only one thing from priests: that they be specialists in promoting
the encounter between man and God. He is expected to be an expert in the spiritual
life.
[19]
Pope Benedict XVI states with his usual clarity, True prayer is never egocentric, but is always
centered upon the other. As such, it trains the one who prays in the ecstasy of charity, in the capacity
to come out from oneself in order to become neighbor to the other in humble and disinterested
service.
[20]
This insight from Pope Benedict XVI is dramatic in its concentration and summation of the
truth that all seminary formators are invited to behold. The seminarys mission is to bring the
seminarian to ecstasy. The seminary formation processes are to tutor the seminarian to stand outside
of his own concerns and delight, instead, in serving lay holiness and dwelling with God in
contemplation as he offers such service. Pastoral charity, then, is not born of skills learned in a class or
in field education. Pastoral theology, and associated disciplines, can assist the seminarian to enact
crucial human virtues such as kindness, hospitality, compassion, reflective listening, and prudence.
These are all essential for the seminarian to possess if he is to become a man of communion and not
division. These skills, habits, and virtues, however, will not fuel his ardor to be present to the suffering
indefinitely; only a transcendent source will heal him and, through him, the people he serves until his
death. To draw from a transcendent source to continue in ministry is not a nod to pragmatism or
utilitarianism: You better pray; it makes you more effective in dispensing charitable service. Rather,
priesthood is to be ordered toward pastoral charity born of union with Christs own compassion. Here
one stands not on the ground of effective ministry but on the ground of fidelity to a call. Christ
compassion is to be readily discerned in the priest by the ones he serves. Any measured effectiveness will
come from parishioners turning to Christ singularly or en masse. In the end the effectiveness of the
priest is known only when his people turn from sin and toward a deeper participation in the paschal
mystery.
Consequently, the ecstasy of charity is received throughout formation as the faculty turns the
seminarian toward the healing heart of Christ, a heart that, in concert with psychological therapy,
spiritual direction, theological study, and apostolic action, dissipates any sense of entitlement in the
seminarian or other sinful preoccupations with the self. This is why it is crucial to have a mature faculty
looking only for conversion from the seminarian. The mature faculty finds its emotional satisfaction,
deep friendships, and recreational diversions with other peers and family, not in any possessive
friendship with seminarians. Many know of the horror stories of parents who try to become friends
with their children; in so doing whose needs are really being met? If the faculty is fascinated with Christ
and, as a result, treasures priesthood for the sake of the Churchs holiness, then in their professional
capacity they will point the seminarian away from themselves and toward Christ and the Church. One of
the deeper spiritual meanings of being a faculty member is this call to ascetical, disinterested service.
This, of course, does not mean that the faculty suppresses affection for their students since seminarians
are present in the community intentionally looking toward the faculty as older and wiser brothers and
sisters in Christ. Certainly, enjoying the fellowship of seminarians in recreational and informal social
settings is acceptable and needed. An eremitical faculty does not help seminarians mature in Christ;
availability to seminarians is crucial in forming them to be men of charity, but it is availability
for their needs, not the affective needs of the faculty.
By way of such a mature faculty, their fascination with Christ and the needs of His Church can
emerge as the core of the seminary mission. In this mission, seminary personnel wish to assist the
seminarian in rendering his heart available to Christ so that He can affect it with His own charity. This is
done, of course, through the ordinary matter of seminary life, but it is mediated through the
extraordinary grasp that Christ has upon the hearts of the faculty and staff. If the ecstasy of charity is to
rule the consciousness of the seminarian, faculty members must not be afraid to take the students where
Christ has already taken them: into an understanding of study that is suffused with Divine encounter
and not simply information.
Christs pastoral charity, then, is already given to those in formation by way of baptism and an
ongoing sacramental life in the context of a continual and ever-deepening contemplation of the Paschal
Mystery. This charity of Christ will be received in a new way upon ordination. At its heart to receive the
charity of Christ means that one is empowered to love those in need with the same love with which
Christ loves. It is the life of God in us, the indwelling Holy Spirit which has been poured out into [their]
hearts (Rom. 5:5). This love is a different quality of love than one that arises from moral virtue
exhausted in the willing of the good of the other. It demands a different set of practices to make its
presence known and appropriated in each seminarians heart. Pastoral charity, then, is more about
surrender to the Presence within than a work of the will in the face of need. It is about the
transformation wrought by the Living Spirit Who elicits a love for self and the poor out of ones own
reception of the love of God. To truly give Christs love free reign within the heart, each seminarian
needs to be immersed in a seminary conspiracy of hospitality toward interiority. If this is a hallmark of
the seminary, then the future priest will learn that his healing power does not depend upon his own wit
and usefulness but upon his courage in allowing Christs love to refashion his character according to
holiness.
This hospitality toward Christ is partly encouraged by the formation facultys agreement that all
seminarians must learn how to discern, embrace and endure the truth. Without the desire to receive
truth from all quarters of formation, the seminarian will never learn how to live fully in love of truth as a
priest. Only a priest who loves the truth can welcome the charity of Christ as the emblem of his life and
ministry. For the seminary to be a place where men come to receive and bear the truth about
themselves, doctrine, the Paschal Mystery, and the meaning of the lay vocation signals that such men
will be able to charitably order their parishes toward such truth as well. In and through such men, others
will be able to bear the truth of their lives by way of the pastoral charity that has taken up residence in
the heart of the pastor. This emblematic modeling does not exhaust the pastor-parishioner relationship
since the laity are called to echo the voice of the Samaritans in John 4:42: We no longer believe because
of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world. To
be able to hear for themselves, however, means that someone, hopefully the pastor, has led parishioners
into a life of interiority.

Emerging New Design
If communion with the pastoral charity of Christ is to define the spiritual lives of seminarians,
then priestly formation must dedicate itself more specifically to the task of promoting this
communion.
[21]
With Pastores Dabo Vobis and the Program for Priestly Formation, the principles of
formation are clearly stated. Now, the day to day shape of the seminary needs to emerge to assure these
principles come alive in the Spirit and not simply in the mind of the authors of these works.
Scripture teaches that God is doing something new (Is. 43:19); since so much is demanded of
seminary personnel, many of whom carry three titles, the eagerness to discover this newness is often
diminished by daily demands. When new ideas on priestly formation come forth, most professors cling
forcefully to their notes and power point presentations: nothing will change in my classroom, thank
you. I am busy enough. Into these fears, however, is spoken an awakening truth: The renewal of priestly
formation is not concerned with more to do but with more to receive. Within new seminary structures
that facilitate the truth that seminary is a spiritual force and not simply a social institution we can begin
to orient the processes of formation to flow from communion with Christ.
The Decree on Priestly Training, Pastores Dabo Vobis, and Program for Priestly Formation are
all simply the beginning of the renewal needed. These documents must be placed in conversation with
the restoration of the Diaconate and the crucial, but still largely dormant, power of the universal call to
holiness of the laity (Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, Lumen Gentium, and Gaudium et Spes).
This call, as of late, has simply led to the development of intra-ecclesial lay ministry programs. All of
these realities and sources coalesce carrying with them the potential to bring about a new Pentecost of
priestly formation. This Pentecost bears with it a commitment to regain interiority as the wellspring of
communion with the pastoral charity of Christ. But such interiority is only secured in a Eucharistic
community that carries priestly formation into the depths of relationship with the vocation of lay
holiness, the still-emerging mystery of the diaconate as clergy who live a lay life, and the central role of
the bishop in the lives of his future priests. Msgr. Charles Murphys statement that even though the
Second Vatican Council drew to a close [over] forty years ago the proper shape of formation of future
priests is still in the experimental stage,
[22]
is especially true in light of what is known of seminary
history after the Council of Trent.
The Council of Trents vision of priestly formation in the 17
th
century was carried by the Spirit
through the prayerful desires of emerging congregations of religious and priests such as the Jesuits,
Eudists, Sulpicians, and Vincentians. Immediately after the Council of Trent, a reform movement of
priestly formation was enfleshed in humble, retreat-like processes that bloomed into massive, all-
encompassing programs over the ensuing three hundred years. If history does indeed rhyme, then we
can acknowledge that we are only a mere 40 years out from the closing of the Second Vatican Council
and its pastoral summons to reform. What gift is still unfolding from Vatican II that our successors in
priestly formation will receive in three hundred years? The Spirit is still breathing His truth into the
hearts, consciences, and prayer of many bishops who now actively search for better ways to secure the
Churchs mission through the formation of seminarians in holiness.
For now, then, how can seminary personnel assist the seminarian in becoming spiritually
vulnerable and elicit from him the desire to be affected by and available to a sustainable communion
with Christs own pastoral charity? Short of establishing new doctoral or licentiate programs for future
seminary professors, and before we re-establish the horarium in ways that can better guard the inner
source of communion with Christ is there an interim solution for the present time? As a limited but real
beginning, the faculty can begin to recognize where and how their field of expertise is porous to
communion with Christ. Once identified, the seminarian is invited by the faculty to become conscious of
these porous content elements in both studies and class lectures.
[23]

Seminary formators have to receive their own dignity; they are not university professors
practicing their craft in exile. Their responsibility toward theology is one ordered toward the goal of
seminary formation: to form emotionally mature priests who are receptive to the gifts of the Holy Spirit,
in love with orthodoxy, and compelled to deepen these realities in a contemplation which elicits pastoral
desire. But even this is not sufficient. The professor must also explicitly order his teaching and writing
toward the goal of priestly life by assisting seminarians to bring forth a fascination with the holiness of
God, the God Who wishes to transform lay life. The priest is not his own; he gives his life for lay
holiness. Pope John Paul II writes, First of all, I have no hesitation in saying that all pastoral
initiatives must be set in relation to holiness. Prayer can progress, as a genuine dialogue of love, to the
point of rendering the person wholly possessed by the divine Beloved, vibrating at the Spirit's touch,
resting filially within the Fathers heart. This is the lived experience of Christ's promise: He who loves
me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him (Jn. 14:21).
[24]
If
professors teach in the light that all pastoral initiatives must be set in relation to holiness, they will
elicit a desire within seminarians to be affected by the pastoral charity of Christ through real and
sustained prayer. The regeneration of seminary formation is just beginning, particularly as the
integrating power of spirituality (i.e., communion with Christ) affects and orders the academic, pastoral,
and human formation facets of priestly education. As this gift is received more and more by many
seminary personnel, the transformation of seminary life, future priestly ministry, and lay holiness will
be palpable. But in this epoch we are only pioneers, just as the Sulpicians, Jesuits, Eudists and
Vincentians were at the time of their birth in service to priestly formation.

Deacon James Keating, Ph.D. is Director of Theological Formation in the Institute for Priestly
Formation at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska (USA). Previous to this appointment he was
Professor of Moral and Spiritual Theology at the Pontifical College Josephinum, Ohio,
(USA). jameskeating@creighton.edu





[1]
An earlier version of this essay under the title of Sharing in the Pastoral Charity of Christ appeared
in Seminary Journal 14:3 (2008). This essay continues and deepens a previous work, Priestly
Spirituality, Seminary Formation, and Lay Mission in Seminary Journal 13:2 (2007), especially pages
78-84.
[2]
MURPHY, Charles. Models of Priestly Formation (New York: Crossroad, 2006) 9.
[3]
VATICAN II, Decree Optatam Totius (On Priestly Training), n. 8 (emphasis added).
[4]
JOHN PAUL II, Post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Pastores dabo vobis, 25 March 1992, n. 57.
[5]
BENEDICT XVI. Address to Clergy, Freising Cathedral, 2006.
(http/Stjamescatholic.org/2006/09/popes)
[6]
JOHN PAUL II, Pastores Dabo Vobis, n. 57.
[7]
See, LAIRD, Peter. Obedience Transfigured (Rome: Academia Alfonsiana, 2006) 228ff.


[8]
Walter Kaspers work, Theology and Church (New York: Crossroad, 1989) is also of help in trying to
understand what is meant by communion with Christ. Communion with Christ is entered upon only
through the mystery of faith. The word commnuio does not originally mean community at all. It
means participationparticipation in the good things of salvation conferred by God: participation in the
Holy Spirit, in new life, in love, in the Gospel, but above all, participation in the Eucharist (p. 154).
Scripturally, argues Kasper, the meaning of communion goes back to the apostle Paul where we read
The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we
break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ (1Cor.10:16f)? (p. 154).
[9]
Human formation at the seminary has to become increasingly focused upon the ability of each
seminarian to host the truth about himself, and then to appropriately explore any interior resistance to
such receptivity. Exactly how human and spiritual formation coalesces needs to be further examined.
[10]
See CORETH, Emerich SJ, In Actione Contemplativus in Zeitschrift fur Katholische
Theologie 76 (1954) 55-82.
[11]
JOHN PAUL II, Priesthood in the Third Millenium: Addresses of Pope John Paul II (Princeton:
Scepter, 1994) 58.
[12]
BENEDICT XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus caritas est, 25 December 2005, n.18 (emphasis added).
[13]
UNITED STATES CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS, Program of Priestly Formation, n.115.
[14]
Program of Priestly Formation, n. 351.
[15]
I explore this idea further in my book, Resting on the Heart of Christ: The Vocation and Spirituality
of the Seminary Theologian (Omaha: IPF Publications, 2009).
[16]
JARRET, Bede OP, An Anthology of Bede Jarrett, ed. Jordan Aumann (Dubuque: Priory Press,
1961).
[17]
VATICAN II, Decree Optatam Totius (On Priestly Training), n. 1.
[18]
VATICAN II, Decree Optatam Totius (On Priestly Training), nn. 4, 8.
[19]
BENEDICT XVI, Meeting With The Clergy, Warsaw Cathedral, 25 May 2006; See also, TOUPS,
David. Reclaiming our Priestly Character (Omaha: IPF Publications, 2008) for a sustained treatment
on the identity of the priest.
[20]
BENEDICT XVI, Ash Wednesday Homily, 2008.

[21]
We can develop how contemplation of Jesus' pastoral charity helps the seminarian participate in this
mystery by utilizing the basic horarium of seminary life and by promoting a deep commitment to
praying with Scripture in ways described by George Aschenbrenner, SJ in his article, Becoming Whom
We Contemplate in The Way Supplement (Spring 1985) and his book, Stretched for Glory (Chicago:
Loyola, 2004).
[22]
MURPHY, Models of Priestly Formation, 85.
[23]
See my article, How Can Catholic Spirituality Be More at the Heart of Priestly Formation?
in Seminary Journal, (Winter 2005), pp. 43-53, for a fuller explication of this point.
[24]
POPE JOHN PAUL II, Apostolic Letter Novo Millenium Ineunte, 6 January 2001, nn.30, 33.