From: [D]@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, August 20,
2011 4:13 PM
To: Eric
Subject: Article of interest...
Pope calls upon seminarians
to become saints
By David Kerr
Madrid, Spain, Aug 20, 2011 /
02:35 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI
has told over 4,500 students for the priesthood that they should spend their
years of study becoming saints as well as priests.
“We have to be saints so as
not to create a contradiction between the sign we are and the reality that we
wish to signify,” said the Pope at a special World Youth Day Mass for
seminarians at Madrid’s Cathedral of the Almudena.
“Looking at you, I again see
proof of how Christ continues to call young disciples and to make them his
apostles, thus keeping alive the mission of the Church and the offer of the
Gospel to the world.”
The young seminarians'
enthusiasm for the Pope was evident from the moment of his arrival outside the
Cathedral just after 10am. Glimpsing the Pope on television monitors, those
inside spontaneously began to chant “Benedicto! Bendedicto!” and
“El Papa! Viva!” amid youthful cheers and applause.
Immediately before Mass a
young Spanish seminarian, Pablo Lamata Molina,
welcomed the Pope on behalf of the several thousand students who were drawn
from seminaries around the world.
In his homily the Pope noted
how each of them had been called by Jesus. “You have followed his voice and,
attracted by his loving gaze, you now advance towards the sacred ministry,”
said the Pope, before outlining how they should live life at seminary.
“First of all, they should be
years of interior silence, of unceasing prayer, of constant study and of
gradual insertion into the pastoral activity and structures of the Church.”
The Pope also said that that
a seminarian's heart “must mature while in seminary, remaining completely open
to the Master” so that “this openness, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit,
inspires the decision to live in celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven
and, leaving aside the world’s goods, live in austerity of life and sincere
obedience, without pretense.”
He also told them always to be faithful to the teachings of the Church,
to “meditate well upon this mystery of the Church” as a divine institution, and
only to proceed to the priesthood if they were “completely determined to
exercise it in obedience to the Church’s precepts.”
All of this will prepare the
seminarian to be a “servant, priest and victim” who will rely on the love of
Jesus Christ and “not be intimidated by surroundings that would exclude God and
in which power, wealth and pleasure are frequently the main criteria ruling
people’s lives.”
The Pope, who recently
celebrated his 60th year as a priest, reassured the seminarians that whatever
challenges may arise after ordination, “God gives the right grace to face and
overcome those challenges with love and realism.”
Thus, said the Pope, the
ministry of the priest will bring many people to Christ, the Church, and ultimately
to Heaven.
“Through Christ we know that
we are not walking towards the abyss, the silence of nothingness or death, but
are rather pilgrims on the way to a promised land, on the way to him who is our
end and our beginning.”
Both seminary staff and students
reacted warmly to the Pope's remarks.
Father Pedro Rivero, seminary rector for the Spanish Diocese of
Tenerife, told CNA that the Pope “said several very important, fundamental
things about our Catholic life and about priestly formation, such as the need
for study, the need to be near to the poor and sick people and the importance
of sanctity.”
Meanwhile an Iraqi seminarian
who read one of the prayers of intercession during the Papal Mass told CNA he
was moved by all he saw and heard.
“I was very happy to meet the
Pope and to pray with him and happy that he prayed for our Church and for
peace,” said Deacon Raed Fadhil
Khadhur of the Mosul Archdiocese.
“I was also glad the Pope
encouraged us seminarians to continue praying and to carry the faith in their
hearts and to witness in the world.”
The Mass concluded with Pope
Benedict declaring the 16th century Spanish priest, St. John of Avila, a Doctor
of the Church. After his proclamation, the congregation sang an anthem to Our
Lady of the Almudena, the patron of Madrid.