ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA

Dear Friends,
How fitting that the Tenth Annual Symposium on the Spirituality of the Diocesan Priest takes place during these days.  I am grateful to Father Richard Gabuzda, Executive Director of the Institute for Priestly Formation, and to Father Shaun Mahoney, Rector of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, for the sponsorship and support of these proceedings. 

The holy season of Lent is little more than a week old and already the Church holds up for us the example of utmost fidelity and inner strength, St. Joseph, on this the Solemnity of St. Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  In the midst of the sacrifices and austerity of Lent, St. Joseph emerges to remind us of the goal of this season:  Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh (cf. Jn 1:14). 

To describe St. Joseph, the Servant of God Pope John Paul II called on the words of Pope Leo XIII: St. Joseph is the man “into whose custody God entrusted his most precious treasures” (Redemptoris Custos, 1).  The Blessed Mother, in the passage from the Gospel of St. Luke which was just proclaimed, reveals to us one of these treasures.  As Our Lady and St. Joseph find Jesus in the temple, Mary says to Jesus, “Son, why have you done this to us?  Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety” (Lk 2:48).  Mary refers to St. Joseph as the father of Jesus.  This is a reference to the preeminent role that belongs to St. Joseph as the foster-father of Jesus.  With the full knowledge of His filial relationship with His own heavenly Father, Jesus, the Son of God, in the day to day life in the midst of His family, calls St. Joseph “father.”  This is the greatest honor that Jesus gives St. Joseph:  to call him “father.”  Pope John Paul II emphasizes: “St. Joseph was called by God to serve the person and mission of Jesus directly through the exercise of his fatherhood” (Redemptoris Custos, 8). In this role, St. Joseph is the privileged witness, along with Mary, of the mystery “hidden for ages in God” (Eph 3:9).  The humble carpenter of Nazareth is the blueprint that God the Father chose to instill in the human nature of Jesus, an image of fatherhood.  From this emerges the great dignity of St. Joseph, which inspires our devotion to him as Patron of the Universal Church.

The role of St. Joseph in the life and mission of Jesus is a role in which St. Joseph is the model to the human nature of Jesus of the paternity of His heavenly Father.  St. Joseph evokes in Jesus the fullness of love that Jesus has for His heavenly Father.  In a sense, St. Joseph represents the eternal Father to Jesus day in and day out.  Joseph is present at the birth of the Lord, at the Presentation in the Temple, during the Flight into Egypt, at the finding in the Temple, and in the hidden life of Jesus, in the home and shop of Nazareth where St. Joseph passed on the skills and discipline, the tools and trade of carpentry.  And all the while God’s wonderful design unfolded. 

God’s wonderful design is His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through grace, St. Joseph received and internalized every virtue necessary in his mission as the Guardian of the Redeemer.  As such, St. Joseph casts light on the virtues necessary in the life of the priest.  The life of virtue cannot be simply an occasional reference point for the life and mission of the priest, or for those preparing for the priesthood.  The candidate for the priesthood and the priest himself must devote themselves in docility to the internalization of the life of virtue.  The priestly virtues prepare the priest for the celebration of the Sacraments, in particular the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.  The priestly virtues are the manner in which the priest shows Jesus Christ to the world day in and day out.
 
Sacred ordination so configures the priest to the person of Jesus that, through union with the bishop, the priest is called to become a total gift of self in love.  This is the only way the priest can make sense of his identity and mission:  to be a gift of self in love.  This gift of self always takes the form of sacrifice, of a self-emptying love that makes known with joy and dedication the love of Jesus Christ.  The capacity for self-emptying love comes only from Jesus. Acting in the Holy Spirit, Jesus fills all the formation opportunities of every priest and every candidate for the priesthood with opportunities to grow in the life of virtue.  The Holy Spirit is always at work so that every facet of formation, training and the experience of pastoral ministry is a door that leads deeper into the life of priestly virtue. 

A pastoral style and ministerial skills are very important, but these must emerge from the priest’s absolute and genuine surrender to Christ.  In a very real sense, the priest must, like St. Joseph, renounce all else for Christ.  How else will the priest make room for all the treasures of Christ?  The priest cannot compartmentalize his life.  He cannot hold on to measures of personal achievement, ambition, money, status or control.  Minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, the priest must continually let go of all else so that he can be truly free to reach out to a broken world.  Only a simple style of life, such as that of St. Joseph, attracts a wounded world.  This is the profound profile of pastoral love, which is exercised in many human limitations and weaknesses but above all in the power of Christ.

Where do the capacity for self-gift, the internalization of virtue, sacrifice and a simple style of life come from?  These come only from Trinitarian love, a love that is summed up in the words of Jesus:  “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Lk 2:49).  These must be the words of every priest.  While Joseph welcomed Jesus into his home as his son, Jesus likewise welcomed St. Joseph into the house of His eternal Father.  We are called to welcome many to the Father’s house.  Our welcome must be accompanied in holiness of life.  Holiness is beautiful, and beauty attracts.  The personal holiness of the priest depends on his being, like Jesus, in the Father’s house, in the communion of the Most Blessed Trinity.  “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  The priest, like St. Joseph, steps into the plan of God and is conducted beyond everything he ever thought or dreamed possible, being led to the house of the Father.  God’s design then unfolds in the life of the priest. 

Lent is little more than one week old.  Perhaps the penances we began with good intentions have now become more difficult or burdensome to us.  Today the Church turns us to Her great Patron.  And he, Joseph, reaches out to us as he did to the Lord.  He embraces us in love and promises to guide us so that Lent becomes not our project but truly an unfolding of the plan of God.  May St. Joseph that Just Man, Patron of the Universal Church, who kept watch over the Holy Family of Nazareth, take all priests and seminarians under his special care and protection.  May he, with Mary, lead us to Jesus in the Father’s House, where the Holy Spirit forms in each of us the life of grace and virtue.  Amen.