When a priest has experienced the joy of truly believing in Jesus Christ and embracing him as a friend, it shows, Pope Leo XIV told priests yesterday. Source: OSV News.
“The priest’s happiness reflects his encounter with Christ, sustaining him in mission and service,” the Pope said during a meeting that was part of the Jubilee of Priests.
Hundreds of priests and people involved in priestly formation and vocations took part in a gathering at the Conciliazione Auditorium in Rome yesterday, titled, “Happy Priests: ‘I have called you friends’,” referring to Jesus’s union with his disciples in the Gospel of John (15:15).
Cardinal Lazarus You Heung-sik, prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy, welcomed the Pope, saying, “We are here because we know that a happy priest is the best proclamation of the Gospel.”
“In the heart of the Holy Year, we want to testify together that it is possible to be happy priests,” the Pope said to applause. “Their joy is rooted in Christ calling them and making them his friends: “A grace we want to welcome with gratitude and responsibility.”
Jesus’s words, “I have called you friends,” are the key to understanding priestly ministry, Pope Leo said.
“The priest is a friend of the Lord, called to live with him in a personal and trusting relationship, nourished by the Word, the celebration of the sacraments and daily prayer,” he said.
“This friendship with Christ is the spiritual foundation of ordained ministry, the meaning of our celibacy and the energy of the ecclesial service to which we dedicate our lives,” he said. “It sustains us in times of trial and enables us to renew each day the ‘yes’ uttered at the beginning of our vocation.”
Pope Leo underlined the importance of Pope Francis’s 2024 encyclical, “Dilexit Nos (He Loved Us): on the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ” for the whole Church and for their vocation.
It is from this “burning” heart that “our vocation takes its origin; it is from this source of grace that we want to allow ourselves to be transformed,” he said.
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Jesus’ call is a call to joy and friendship, Pope tells priests (By Carol Glatz, CNS via OSV News)
