To the Seminarians

Speech just wrapped, and lo, like the star from the East....

The Magi set out because of a deep desire which prompted them to leave everything and begin a journey. It was as though they had always been waiting for that star. It was as if the journey had always been a part of their destiny, and was finally about to begin. Dear friends, this is the mystery of God’s call, the mystery of vocation. It is part of the life of every Christian, but it is particularly evident in those whom Christ asks to leave everything in order to follow him more closely. The seminarian experiences the beauty of that call in a moment of grace which could be defined as “falling in love”. His soul is filled with amazement, which makes him ask in prayer: “Lord, why me?” But love knows no “why”; it is a free gift to which one responds with the gift of self....

When the Magi came to Bethlehem, “going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him” (Mt 2:11). Here at last was the long-awaited moment: their encounter with Jesus. “Going into the house”: this house in some sense represents the Church. In order to find the Saviour, one has to enter the house, which is the Church. During his time in the seminary, a particularly important process of maturation takes place in the consciousness of the young seminarian: he no longer sees the Church “from the outside”, but rather, as it were, “from the inside”, and he comes to sense that she is his “home”, in as much as she is the home of Christ, where “Mary his mother” dwells. It is Mary who shows him Jesus her Son; she introduces him and in a sense enables him to see and touch Jesus, and to take him into his arms. Mary teaches the seminarian to contemplate Jesus with the eyes of the heart and to make Jesus his very life. Each moment of seminary life can be an opportunity for loving experience of the presence of our Lady, who introduces everyone to an encounter with Christ in the silence of meditation, prayer and fraternity. Mary helps us to meet the Lord above all in the celebration of the Eucharist, when, in the Word and in the consecrated Bread, he becomes our daily spiritual nourishment.

The secret of holiness is friendship with Christ and faithful obedience to his will. Saint Ambrose said: “Christ is everything for us”; and Saint Benedict warned against putting anything before the love of Christ. May Christ be everything for you. Dear seminarians, be the first to offer him what is most precious to you, as Pope John Paul II suggested in his Message for this World Youth Day: the gold of your freedom, the incense of your ardent prayer, the myrrh of your most profound affection (cf. No. 4).

Happy Friday.

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