We must give candidates the model of Christ the Priest, Good Shepherd
Today’s secular society, which denies absolute truth and wholesome models of conduct, has prompted a short course in Rome to help seminary formation directors instill Christian virtues into candidates.
The five-day course, called “Personal Spiritual Formation in the Seminary,” was aimed at the problem of “affective fragility,” and was meant to bolster the physical and affective maturity of priestly candidates, and the importance and aims of spiritual direction in seminaries. The instruction could well be applied to all in religious formation, however.
Candidates must overcome society’s ills
“Fragility, immaturity, inconsistency of spirit is something present in many of our young people and adolescents,” said Bishop José María Yanguas of Cuenca, Spain, who presented the topic Feb. 7-11 at the Center for Priestly Formation, held at the Pontifical University of Santa Croce. “It is manifested as a lack of harmony between the intellectual, volitional and affective spheres of the person, creating instability, frequent changes of the state of mind,” and other signs of immaturity, the bishop said.
The bishops comments, carried in a Zenit news service interview, said that is is proper to put candidates in contact “with true priestly figures who have embodied and embody the priestly ideal of love and total self-giving to God….”
“That is why it is necessary to propose with renewed vigor to candidates to the priesthood the model of Christ the Priest, Good Shepherd, to motivate them with this image, so that in its light the whole task of formation makes sense, forging their own personality.”
