Min? Jien?

Pope Benedict XVI's Sunday Message on April 29, 2012

It was day to remember for 9 deacons who were ordained on this World Day of Prayer for Religious Vocations by Pope Benedict XVI in St Peter’s Basilica.

Delivering the homily, the Pope addressed the ordinands, while explaining the theme of the "Good Shepherd" which is the highlight of the 4th Sunday of Easter — when the Church celebrates the World Day of Prayer for Vocations:

The priest is called to lead the faithful entrusted to his care to true life, to life in abundance (cf. Jn 10, 10). Jesus insists that the essential trait of the Good Shepherd is that of “laying down his life”. He repeats it three times and at the end concludes with the words: “for this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father” (Jn 10, 17-18).

This is clearly the qualifying feature of the shepherd, just as Jesus interprets it in the first person, in accordance with the will of the Father who sent him. The Ordination of Priests that we are celebrating give us this orientation. The questions that I will soon be asking you, concerning the “commitments of the chosen ones”, will culminate in one that says: “Are you resolved to consecrate your life to God for the salvation of his people, and to unite yourself more closely every day to Christ the High Priest, who offered himself for us to the Father as a perfect sacrifice?”

The priest is in fact the one who is uniquely inserted into the mystery of Christ’s Sacrifice through a personal union with him, in order to extend his saving mission. This union, which happens in the Sacrament of Orders, seeks to become closer every day through the generous response of the priest himself. This is why, dear Ordinands, in a little while you will answer this question, saying: “I am, with the help of God”.

This Eucharistic and sacrificial dimension is inseparable from the pastoral dimension and constitutes the nucleus of truth and of the saving power on which the effectiveness of every activity depends. All the actions of various kinds that the Church carries out with her multiple initiatives would lose their salvific fruitfulness if the celebration of Christ’s Sacrifice were to be lacking. And this is entrusted to ordained priests. Indeed, the priest is called to live in himself what Jesus experienced personally, that is, to give himself without reserve to preaching and to healing man of every evil of body and of spirit, and then, lastly, to sum up everything in the supreme gesture of “laying down his life”, for human beings, which finds its sacramental expression in the Eucharist, the perpetual memorial of Jesus’ Passover.

Dear Ordinands, when the burden of the cross becomes heavier, know that this is the most precious time, for you and for the people entrusted to you: by renewing your “I am, with the help of God”, you will be cooperating with Christ in tending his sheep.

Following the ordination, the Pope addressed the people waiting for the traditional Sunday message:

Let us thank God for the gift of the priesthood, a sign of his faithful and provident love for the Church! And let us pray that all young people may listen to the voice of God who speaks in the depths of their hearts and calls them to leave everything to serve him. This is the purpose of today’s World Day of Prayer for Vocations. In fact, the Lord is always calling but all too often we do not listen. We are distracted by many things, by other, more superficial voices; and then we are afraid to listen to the Lord’s voice because we think he might take away our freedom.

In fact, each one of us is the fruit of love: of our parents’ love of course, but more profoundly, of God’s love. God wants us because knows and loves us (cf. Is 49, 15). The moment I realize this my life changes. It becomes a response to this love, greater than any other, and in this way my freedom is completely fulfilled.

The young men whom I ordained priests today are no different from other young men, except that they were deeply moved by the beauty of God’s love and could not but respond with their whole life. How did they find God’s love? They found it in Jesus Christ: in his Gospel, in the Eucharist and in the community of the Church. In the Church we discover that every person’s life is a love story. Sacred Scripture clearly shows us this and the witness borne by the saints confirms it to us.

Dear friends, let us pray for the Church, for every local community, that it may be like a watered garden in which all the seeds of vocation that God scatters in abundance sprout and ripen. Let us pray that this garden may be cultivated everywhere, with the joy of feeling that we are all called, in the variety of our gifts. 

May families in particular be the first environment in which we “breathe” the love of God that provides us with inner strength in the midst of the difficulties and trials of life. Those who experience God’s love in the family receive a priceless gift which, with time, will bear much fruit.