June 22, 2009
Pope's Letter on Year for Priests
"The Priesthood Is the Love of the Heart of Jesus"
VATICAN CITY, (Zenit.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of the
letter Benedict XVI sent to the priests of the world on the occasion
of the Year for Priests, which has been called to mark the 150th
anniversary of the death of St. John Mary Vianney.
On Friday, the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and day of
prayer for the sanctification of the clergy, Benedict XVI will
inaugurate this Jubilee Year for Priests during Vespers in the
Vatican Basilica.
* * *
Dear Brother Priests,
On the forthcoming Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus,
Friday 19 June 2009 - a day traditionally devoted to prayer for the
sanctification of the clergy - I have decided to inaugurate a "Year
for Priests" in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the "dies
natalis" of John Mary Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests
worldwide. This Year, meant to deepen the commitment of all priests
to interior renewal for the sake of a more forceful and incisive
witness to the Gospel in today's world, will conclude on the same
Solemnity in 2010. "The priesthood is the love of the heart of
Jesus", the saintly Cure of Ars would often say. This touching
expression makes us reflect, first of all, with heartfelt gratitude
on the immense gift which priests represent, not only for the
Church, but also for humanity itself. I think of all those priests
who quietly present Christ's words and actions each day to the
faithful and to the whole world, striving to be one with the Lord in
their thoughts and their will, their sentiments and their style of
life. How can I not pay tribute to their apostolic labours, their
tireless and hidden service, their universal charity? And how can I
not praise the courageous fidelity of so many priests who, even amid
difficulties and incomprehension, remain faithful to their vocation
as "friends of Christ", whom He has called by name, chosen and sent?
I still treasure the memory of the first parish priest at whose side
I exercised my ministry as a young priest: he left me an example of
unreserved devotion to his pastoral duties, even to meeting death in
the act of bringing viaticum to a gravely ill person. I also recall
the countless confreres whom I have met and continue to meet, not
least in my pastoral visits to different countries: men generously
dedicated to the daily exercise of their priestly ministry. Yet the
expression of St. John Mary also makes us think of Christ's pierced
Heart and the crown of thorns which surrounds it. I am also led to
think, therefore, of the countless situations of suffering endured
by many priests, either because they themselves share in the
manifold human experience of pain or because they encounter
misunderstanding from the very persons to whom they minister. How
can we not also think of all those priests who are offended in their
dignity, obstructed in their mission and persecuted, even at times
to offering the supreme testimony of their own blood?
There are also, sad to say, situations which can never be
sufficiently deplored where the Church herself suffers as a
consequence of infidelity on the part of some of her ministers. Then
it is the world which finds grounds for scandal and rejection. What
is most helpful to the Church in such cases is not only a frank and
complete acknowledgement of the weaknesses of her ministers, but
also a joyful and renewed realisation of the greatness of God's
gift, embodied in the splendid example of generous pastors,
religious afire with love for God and for souls, and insightful,
patient spiritual guides. Here the teaching and example of St. John
Mary Vianney can serve as a significant point of reference for us
all. The Cure of Ars was quite humble, yet as a priest he was
conscious of being an immense gift to his people: "A good shepherd,
a pastor after God's heart, is the greatest treasure which the good
Lord can grant to a parish, and one of the most precious gifts of
divine mercy". He spoke of the priesthood as if incapable of
fathoming the grandeur of the gift and task entrusted to a human
creature: "O, how great is the priest! ... If he realised what he
is, he would die. ... God obeys him: he utters a few words and the
Lord descends from heaven at his voice, to be contained within a
small host". Explaining to his parishioners the importance of the
Sacraments, he would say: "Without the Sacrament of Holy Orders, we
would not have the Lord. Who put Him there in that tabernacle? The
priest. Who welcomed your soul at the beginning of your life? The
priest. Who feeds your soul and gives it strength for its journey?
The priest. Who will prepare it to appear before God, bathing it one
last time in the blood of Jesus Christ? The priest, always the
priest. And if this soul should happen to die [as a result of sin],
who will raise it up, who will restore its calm and peace? Again,
the priest. ... After God, the priest is everything! ... Only in
heaven will he fully realise what he is". These words, welling up
from the priestly heart of the holy pastor, might sound excessive.
Yet they reveal the high esteem in which he held the Sacrament of
the Priesthood. He seemed overwhelmed by a boundless sense of
responsibility: "Were we to fully realise what a priest is on earth,
we would die: not of fright, but of love. ... Without the priest,
the passion and death of our Lord would be of no avail. It is the
priest who continues the work of redemption on earth. ... What use
would be a house filled with gold, were there no one to open its
door? The priest holds the key to the treasures of heaven: it is he
who opens the door: he is the steward of the good Lord; the
administrator of His goods. ... Leave a parish for twenty years
without a priest, and they will end by worshipping the beasts there.
... The priest is not a priest for himself, he is a priest for you".
He arrived in Ars, a village of 230 souls, warned by his bishop
beforehand that there he would find religious practice in a sorry
state: "There is little love of God in that parish; you will be the
one to put it there". As a result, he was deeply aware that he
needed to go there to embody Christ's presence and to bear witness
to His saving mercy: "[Lord,] grant me the conversion of my parish;
I am willing to suffer whatever you wish, for my entire life!". With
this prayer he entered upon his mission. The Cure devoted himself
completely to his parish's conversion, setting before all else the
Christian education of the people in his care. Dear brother priests,
let us ask the Lord Jesus for the grace to learn for ourselves
something of the pastoral plan of St. John Mary Vianney! The first
thing we need to learn is the complete identification of the man
with his ministry. In Jesus, person and mission tend to coincide:
all Christ's saving activity was, and is, an expression of His
"filial consciousness" which from all eternity stands before the
Father in an attitude of loving submission to His will. In a humble
yet genuine way, every priest must aim for a similar identification.
Certainly this is not to forget that the efficacy of the ministry is
independent of the holiness of the minister; but neither can we
overlook the extraordinary fruitfulness of the encounter between the
ministry's objective holiness and the subjective holiness of the
minister. The Cure of Ars immediately set about this patient and
humble task of harmonising his life as a minister with the holiness
of the ministry he had received, by deciding to "live", physically,
in his parish church: As his first biographer tells us: "Upon his
arrival, he chose the church as his home. He entered the church
before dawn and did not leave it until after the evening Angelus.
There he was to be sought whenever needed".
The pious excess of his devout biographer should not blind us to the
fact that the Cure also knew how to "live" actively within the
entire territory of his parish: he regularly visited the sick and
families, organised popular missions and patronal feasts, collected
and managed funds for his charitable and missionary works,
embellished and furnished his parish church, cared for the orphans
and teachers of the "Providence" (an institute he founded); provided
for the education of children; founded confraternities and enlisted
lay persons to work at his side.
His example naturally leads me to point out that there are sectors
of co-operation which need to be opened ever more fully to the lay
faithful. Priests and laity together make up the one priestly people
and in virtue of their ministry priests live in the midst of the lay
faithful, "that they may lead everyone to the unity of charity,
'loving one another with mutual affection; and outdoing one another
in sharing honour'". Here we ought to recall the Vatican Council
II's hearty encouragement to priests "to be sincere in their
appreciation and promotion of the dignity of the laity and of the
special role they have to play in the Church's mission. ... They
should be willing to listen to lay people, give brotherly
consideration to their wishes, and acknowledge their experience and
competence in the different fields of human activity. In this way
they will be able together with them to discern the signs of the
times".
St. John Mary Vianney taught his parishioners primarily by the
witness of his life. It was from his example that they learned to
pray, halting frequently before the tabernacle for a visit to Jesus
in the Blessed Sacrament. "One need not say much to pray well" - the
Cure explained to them - "We know that Jesus is there in the
tabernacle: let us open our hearts to Him, let us rejoice in His
sacred presence. That is the best prayer". And he would urge them:
"Come to communion, my brothers and sisters, come to Jesus. Come to
live from Him in order to live with Him. ... "Of course you are not
worthy of him, but you need him!". This way of educating the
faithful to the Eucharistic presence and to communion proved most
effective when they saw him celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the
Mass. Those present said that "it was not possible to find a finer
example of worship. ... He gazed upon the Host with immense love".
"All good works, taken together, do not equal the sacrifice of the
Mass" - he would say - "since they are human works, while the Holy
Mass is the work of God". He was convinced that the fervour of a
priest's life depended entirely upon the Mass: "The reason why a
priest is lax is that he does not pay attention to the Mass! My God,
how we ought to pity a priest who celebrates as if he were engaged
in something routine!". He was accustomed, when celebrating, also to
offer his own life in sacrifice: "What a good thing it is for a
priest each morning to offer himself to God in sacrifice!"
This deep personal identification with the Sacrifice of the Cross
led him - by a sole inward movement - from the altar to the
confessional. Priests ought never to be resigned to empty
confessionals or the apparent indifference of the faithful to this
Sacrament. In France, at the time of the Cure of Ars, confession was
no more easy or frequent than in our own day, since the upheaval
caused by the revolution had long inhibited the practice of
religion. Yet he sought in every way, by his preaching and his
powers of persuasion, to help his parishioners to rediscover the
meaning and beauty of the Sacrament of Penance, presenting it as an
inherent demand of the Eucharistic presence. He thus created a
"virtuous" circle. By spending long hours in church before the
tabernacle, he inspired the faithful to imitate him by coming to
visit Jesus with the knowledge that their parish priest would be
there, ready to listen and offer forgiveness. Later, the growing
numbers of penitents from all over France would keep him in the
confessional for up to sixteen hours a day. It was said that Ars had
become "a great hospital of souls". His first biographer relates
that "the grace he obtained [for the conversion of sinners] was so
powerful that it would pursue them, not leaving them a moment of
peace!". The saintly Cure reflected something of the same idea when
he said: "It is not the sinner who returns to God to beg his
forgiveness, but God Himself who runs after the sinner and makes him
return to Him". "This good Saviour is so filled with love that He
seeks us everywhere".
We priests should feel that the following words, which he put on the
lips of Christ, are meant for each of us personally: "I will charge
my ministers to proclaim to sinners that I am ever ready to welcome
them, that my mercy is infinite". From St. John Mary Vianney we can
learn to put our unfailing trust in the Sacrament of Penance, to set
it once more at the centre of our pastoral concerns, and to take up
the "dialogue of salvation" which it entails. The Cure of Ars dealt
with different penitents in different ways. Those who came to his
confessional drawn by a deep and humble longing for God's
forgiveness found in him the encouragement to plunge into the "flood
of divine mercy" which sweeps everything away by its vehemence. If
someone was troubled by the thought of his own frailty and
inconstancy, and fearful of sinning again, the Cure would unveil the
mystery of God's love in these beautiful and touching words: "The
good Lord knows everything. Even before you confess, He already
knows that you will sin again, yet He still forgives you. How great
is the love of our God: He even forces Himself to forget the future,
so that He can grant us His forgiveness!". But to those who made a
lukewarm and rather indifferent confession of sin, he clearly
demonstrated by his own tears of pain how "abominable" this attitude
was: "I weep because you don't weep", he would say. "If only the
Lord were not so good! But He is so good! One would have to be a
brute to treat so good a Father this way!". He awakened repentance
in the hearts of the lukewarm by forcing them to see God's own pain
at their sins reflected in the face of the priest who was their
confessor. To those who, on the other hand, came to him already
desirous of and suited to a deeper spiritual life, he flung open the
abyss of God's love, explaining the untold beauty of living in union
with Him and dwelling in His presence: "Everything in God's sight,
everything with God, everything to please God. ... How beautiful it
is!". And he taught them to pray: "My God, grant me the grace to
love You as much as I possibly can".
In his time the Cure of Ars was able to transform the hearts and the
lives of so many people because he enabled them to experience the
Lord's merciful love. Our own time urgently needs a similar
proclamation and witness to the truth of Love. Thanks to the Word
and the Sacraments of Jesus, John Mary Vianney built up his flock,
although he often trembled from a conviction of his personal
inadequacy, and desired more than once to withdraw from the
responsibilities of the parish ministry out of a sense of his
unworthiness. Nonetheless, with exemplary obedience he never
abandoned his post, consumed as he was by apostolic zeal for the
salvation of souls. He sought to remain completely faithful to his
own vocation and mission through the practice of an austere
asceticism: "The great misfortune for us parish priests - he
lamented - is that our souls grow tepid"; meaning by this that a
pastor can grow dangerously inured to the state of sin or of
indifference in which so many of his flock are living. He himself
kept a tight rein on his body, with vigils and fasts, lest it rebel
against his priestly soul. Nor did he avoid self-mortification for
the good of the souls in his care and as a help to expiating the
many sins he heard in confession. To a priestly confrere he
explained: "I will tell you my recipe: I give sinners a small
penance and the rest I do in their place". Aside from the actual
penances which the Cure of Ars practised, the core of his teaching
remains valid for each of us: souls have been won at the price of
Jesus' own blood, and a priest cannot devote himself to their
salvation if he refuses to share personally in the "precious cost"
of redemption.
In today's world, as in the troubled times of the Cure of Ars, the
lives and activity of priests need to be distinguished by a forceful
witness to the Gospel. As Pope Paul VI rightly noted, "modern man
listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does
listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses". Lest we
experience existential emptiness and the effectiveness of our
ministry be compromised, we need to ask ourselves ever anew: "Are we
truly pervaded by the Word of God? Is that Word truly the
nourishment we live by, even more than bread and the things of this
world? Do we really know that Word? Do we love it? Are we deeply
engaged with this Word to the point that it really leaves a mark on
our lives and shapes our thinking?". Just as Jesus called the Twelve
to be with Him, and only later sent them forth to preach, so too in
our days priests are called to assimilate that "new style of life"
which was inaugurated by the Lord Jesus and taken up by the
Apostles.
It was complete commitment to this "new style of life" which marked
the priestly ministry of the Cure of Ars. Pope John XXIII, in his
Encyclical Letter "Sacerdotii nostri primordia", published in 1959
on the first centenary of the death of St. John Mary Vianney,
presented his asceticism with special reference to the "three
evangelical counsels" which the Pope considered necessary also for
priests: "even though priests are not bound to embrace these
evangelical counsels by virtue of the clerical state, these counsels
nonetheless offer them, as they do all the faithful, the surest road
to the desired goal of Christian perfection". The Cure of Ars lived
the "evangelical counsels" in a way suited to his priestly state.
His poverty was not the poverty of a religious or a monk, but that
proper to a priest: while managing much money (since well-to-do
pilgrims naturally took an interest in his charitable works), he
realised that everything had been donated to his church, his poor,
his orphans, the girls of his "Providence", his families of modest
means. Consequently, he "was rich in giving to others and very poor
for himself". As he would explain: "My secret is simple: give
everything away; hold nothing back". When he lacked money, he would
say amiably to the poor who knocked at his door: "Today I'm poor
just like you, I'm one of you". At the end of his life, he could say
with absolute tranquillity: "I no longer have anything. The good
Lord can call me whenever he wants!". His chastity, too, was that
demanded of a priest for his ministry. It could be said that it was
a chastity suited to one who must daily touch the Eucharist, who
contemplates it blissfully and with that same bliss offers it to his
flock. It was said of him that "he radiated chastity"; the faithful
would see this when he turned and gazed at the tabernacle with
loving eyes". Finally, Saint John Mary Vianney's obedience found
full embodiment in his conscientious fidelity to the daily demands
of his ministry. We know how he was tormented by the thought of his
inadequacy for parish ministry and by a desire to flee "in order to
bewail his poor life, in solitude". Only obedience and a thirst for
souls convinced him to remain at his post. As he explained to
himself and his flock: "There are no two good ways of serving God.
There is only one: serve him as he desires to be served". He
considered this the golden rule for a life of obedience: "Do only
what can be offered to the good Lord".
In this context of a spirituality nourished by the practice of the
evangelical counsels, I would like to invite all priests, during
this Year dedicated to them, to welcome the new springtime which the
Spirit is now bringing about in the Church, not least through the
ecclesial movements and the new communities. "In his gifts the
Spirit is multifaceted. ... He breathes where He wills. He does so
unexpectedly, in unexpected places, and in ways previously unheard
of, ... but he also shows us that He works with a view to the one
body and in the unity of the one body". In this regard, the
statement of the Decree "Presbyterorum Ordinis" continues to be
timely: "While testing the spirits to discover if they be of God,
priests must discover with faith, recognise with joy and foster
diligently the many and varied charismatic gifts of the laity,
whether these be of a humble or more exalted kind". These gifts,
which awaken in many people the desire for a deeper spiritual life,
can benefit not only the lay faithful but the clergy as well. The
communion between ordained and charismatic ministries can provide "a
helpful impulse to a renewed commitment by the Church in proclaiming
and bearing witness to the Gospel of hope and charity in every
corner of the world". I would also like to add, echoing the
Apostolic Exhortation "Pastores Dabo Vobis" of Pope John Paul II,
that the ordained ministry has a radical "communitarian form" and
can be exercised only in the communion of priests with their bishop.
This communion between priests and their bishop, grounded in the
Sacrament of Holy Orders and made manifest in Eucharistic
concelebration, needs to be translated into various concrete
expressions of an effective and affective priestly fraternity. Only
thus will priests be able to live fully the gift of celibacy and
build thriving Christian communities in which the miracles which
accompanied the first preaching of the Gospel can be repeated.
The Pauline Year now coming to its close invites us also to look to
the Apostle of the Gentiles, who represents a splendid example of a
priest entirely devoted to his ministry. "The love of Christ urges
us on" - he wrote - "because we are convinced that one has died for
all; therefore all have died". And he adds: "He died for all, so
that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for Him
Who died and was raised for them". Could a finer programme be
proposed to any priest resolved to advance along the path of
Christian perfection?
Dear brother priests, the celebration of the 150th anniversary of
the death of St. John Mary Vianney (1859) follows upon the
celebration of the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of Lourdes
(1858). In 1959 Blessed Pope John XXIII noted that "shortly before
the Cure of Ars completed his long and admirable life, the
Immaculate Virgin appeared in another part of France to an innocent
and humble girl, and entrusted to her a message of prayer and
penance which continues, even a century later, to yield immense
spiritual fruits. The life of this holy priest whose centenary we
are commemorating in a real way anticipated the great supernatural
truths taught to the seer of Massabielle. He was greatly devoted to
the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin; in 1836 he had
dedicated his parish church to Our Lady Conceived without Sin and he
greeted the dogmatic definition of this truth in 1854 with deep
faith and great joy". The Cure would always remind his faithful that
"after giving us all he could, Jesus Christ wishes in addition to
bequeath us His most precious possession, His Blessed Mother".
To the Most Holy Virgin I entrust this Year for Priests. I ask her
to awaken in the heart of every priest a generous and renewed
commitment to the ideal of complete self-oblation to Christ and the
Church which inspired the thoughts and actions of the saintly Cure
of Ars. It was his fervent prayer life and his impassioned love of
Christ Crucified that enabled John Mary Vianney to grow daily in his
total self-oblation to God and the Church. May his example lead all
priests to offer that witness of unity with their bishop, with one
another and with the lay faithful, which today, as ever, is so
necessary. Despite all the evil present in our world, the words
which Christ spoke to His Apostles in the Upper Room continue to
inspire us: "In the world you have tribulation; but take courage, I
have overcome the world". Our faith in the Divine Master gives us
the strength to look to the future with confidence. Dear priests,
Christ is counting on you. In the footsteps of the Cure of Ars, let
yourselves be enthralled by Him. In this way you too will be, for
the world in our time, heralds of hope, reconciliation and peace!
© Copyright 2009 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
