What makes a good priest? Friendship with Jesus Christ

Denver, Colo., Mar 7, 2015 / 06:08 am

For Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver, the biggest challenges to priestly formation today can be overcome through divine friendship with Christ and the practice of Christian love.

"The priest is to be a man of charity because he must know himself as a beloved son in the Son," the Denver archbishop said in a Feb. 20 address, adding that the priest should be someone who "lives in deep communion and friendship with Christ."

"Human formation finds its fulfillment in that friendship with Christ, which is at the heart of spiritual formation," he said. "In other words, human formation finds its fulfillment in charity."

The archbishop spoke at a symposium for the Institute for Priestly Formation, co-sponsored by the Archdiocese of Denver's Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary, which hosted the Feb. 19-21 event.

Priestly formation is "one of the most demanding and important tasks that the Church must carry out," he explained, taking guidance from St. John Paul II's 1992 apostolic exhortation on the priesthood, Pastores dabo vobis.

Archbishop Aquila stressed the importance of the virtue of charity in both human and divine friendship. The archbishop stressed the importance of spiritual formation that is "all about living in intimate and unceasing union with God and the mysteries of Christ." Its core is "friendship with God."

"To abide in Christ means to enter into a relationship of friendship with him that is analogous to the relationship between God the Father and the Son. Jesus is the Way. Becoming sons in the Son, we are inserted in the very life of the Trinity."

Just as Christ's love for God the Father is manifested in his "obedience unto death" and "gift of self" for the Church, priests' love for Christ is shown in their obedience and "gift of self" to Christ and the Church.

"Sheer obedience does not create friendship, let alone this supernatural kind of friendship," Archbishop Aquila explained. Rather, obedience is the expression of this supernatural friendship.

He said the priest should have "a hidden life in Christ" in order to "to taste the intimacy that friends enjoy."

"If we tell our secrets to Christ in prayer, he will tell us his," the archbishop said.

"In this hidden life in Christ, the priest, as a man of charity, is called to think with the mind of Christ, to have the same feelings as Jesus, to freely will what Christ wills, and to educate accordingly his thoughts, feelings, and desires."

The archbishop reflected on the nature of gifts, which are "gratuitous" and given "without intention of payback."

"For this reason, one gives something for free to another, because one wants the good for him," he added. The gift of one's love is "the first and foremost gratuitous gift that a person offers to another."

The archbishop said priestly formation faces "serious challenges." Families once offered a solid human formation that was a basis for seminary formation, but this is no longer the situation in many cases. Seminary candidates often lack sufficient catechesis and knowledge of the faith and have been affected by "worldliness" such as broken families, a lack of maturity, and pornography and a sex-saturated culture.

However, he said, these challenges can be faced with hope through formation in the Holy Spirit and through the person of Jesus Christ, who is "rich in mercy."