Papal Letter to Clergy
VATICAN CITY, 18 JUN 2009 (VIS) - The
Pope has sent a Letter to the priests of the
world for the occasion of the Year for Priests,
which has been called to mark the 150th
anniversary of the death of St. John Mary
Vianney.
Tomorrow, 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.
The Letter has been published in Italian,
French, Spanish, English, German, Polish and
Portuguese. The complete text of the English
language version is given below:
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!
