Components of Formation: Pastoral Formation

Seminary / Components of Formation: Pastoral Formation

 

“Formation in its different aspects must have a fundamentally pastoral character. The Council’s decree Optatam Totius states so clearly when speaking of seminaries: ‘The whole training of the students should have as its object to make them true shepherds of souls after the example of Our Lord Jesus Christ, teacher, priest, and shepherd’.” (PDV #57, Optatam Totius #4).

 

It is not enough that candidates for Holy Orders be humanly, spiritually, and intellectually mature. These attributes have to be placed at the service of others. Hence formation must inculcate a pastoral charity that will enable the priest to be the “living image of Christ.”

 

The ultimate aim of pastoral formation is ‘the ever-deeper communion with the pastoral charity of Jesus” (PDV #57). According to Optatam Totius, this “pastoral concern ought to permeate thoroughly the entire training of the students” (#19). It is not merely a question of equipping future priests with some pastoral skills or practical techniques, but rather imbuing them with the very sentiments and behavior of Christ the Good Shepherd: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5).

 

What the seminarian has learned by study will be integrated with what he has learned by experience. Hence, the field education program, whose purpose is to initiate the candidate into the sensitivity of being a shepherd through the cooperation of diocesan and religious priests and lay people will be built upon by pastoral formation in the seminary through the following goals: to assist students in developing a life style that is consistent with the Gospel; to understand more fully the nature of the Church and Her mission; to become more deeply committed to the Church’s mission; to develop the habit of reflecting theologically on experience; to acquire a beginning professional competence for priestly ministry, which involves appropriating the role of spiritual leaders and public persons in the Church, and to develop the skills needed for effective priestly ministry.