Seminarian Seminar 2013
Bishop Glen John Provost
Bishop of Lake Charles
Assumption Chapel, Tabor Retreat House
Friday, August 9, 2013
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Matthew 16:24
Most of us have used a GPS. This is a convenient gadget. We can, of course, have problems with them, such as when the GPS malfunctions. We reach an important fork in the road on an interstate highway and the GPS gives us the wrong direction. This happened to me recently.
Driving in unfamiliar territory in a large city, the GPS told me to go left when I thought for sure it should be right. As the traffic drew closer to the turn-off, I realized a decision had to be made. If I made the wrong decision, I would be faced with a dilemma. Traveling on an unknown highway, with cars and trucks whizzing by at incredible speeds, facing a road where the next exit might be miles off track, and knowing that my GPS had been wrong before, I had to make a prudent choice based on what I knew to be correct. I did. The GPS was wrong, and I made the right choice. So much for faith in the perfectibility of technology!
I thought of this little experience when I read the Gospel assigned for today’s Mass. Speaking to His disciples, Jesus says, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). Jesus tells us we have a choice to make. Life reaches a fork in the road, and we must make a decision. We go right or we go left. Jesus illustrates this choice with one of those brilliant paradoxical statements He so often used. “[W]hoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25). Jesus is saying that this choice is a matter of life and death. Unlike a choice of one turn or another on a highway, where we can always turn around and correct our error, with this choice we either live or die. On the highway, making a wrong turn can cost us a few hours of delay. In life, an error can bring death.
The historic Didache, one of our earliest apostolic instructions outside of the New Testament, begins with these words: “Two Ways there are, one of Life and one of Death, and there is a great difference between the Two Ways” (#1). The earliest preaching of the apostles and their disciples, continued by the Fathers of the Church, speak of the decision we must make between life and death. In the Christian life we are offered a choice, and that choice must be oriented to our proper end, which is God himself. As a priest, this choice becomes even more imperative, because as priests you will be responsible for leading others to Christ, helping them make their choices. Thus, your formation becomes very important.
Speaking as a bishop to his seminarians, I would humbly like to give you some advice. Your years in the seminary are not a hiccup in your formation as priests. I remember the days when some would speak of the seminary as a “necessary evil.” They did so with a straight face. This was a sad and mistaken judgment. Sadly, in those days, there were some in charge of seminary formation who thought this way. They thought that the seminary was something to be endured, until you “got ordained” and then you returned to the “real” world and learned what priesthood and ministry in the parish really were. Somehow they created a dichotomy that should not exist, a division between preparation and life. Do doctors and lawyers think of their professional schools as superfluous? I haven’t met one yet who did. As we know, there are four pillars of seminary formation for a reason. They are not independent. They work in tandem. To speak of the “pastoral” priest apart from the “spiritual” priest or the “intellectual” priest is skewed. The Church needs the most integrated and mature priests that she can possibly have. This means that we need to know the good, think the truth, and choose the right. As Pope Benedict XVI said when people look to a priest they want an expert in the spiritual life. What he meant was a priest who has something to offer the troubled soul and knows how to communicate effectively the truth of Jesus Christ. As Pope Francis has reminded us, we need to reflect the joy of being a Christian. This does not mean driving around in the latest car or wearing a fashionably tailored suit. It means bringing Christ to others. This takes a priest who is well put together humanly, spiritually, intellectually and pastorally. This will not happen with a priest who is fragmented, who has shortchanged his spiritual formation or not developed his gifts intellectually or cut off his path to maturity. Not to take advantage of every opportunity offered by God to deepen our lives is a serious mistake.
The reason I say this is because you are being prepared to make a choice. You certainly have already made one by entering the seminary, but now in seminary formation the choice is being offered and re-offered to you, packaged in different ways, under the guidance of wise directors and the tutelage of competent teachers. This is our prayer. As seminarians, we hear the whisperings of God’s promptings in subtle ways. Occasionally, they are more like claps of thunder than gentle breezes, but they are sent to be acknowledged, not ignored. They mean something. These movements of God’s grace beckon us to response. What does it mean “to take up [one’s] cross and follow [Jesus Christ]” (Matthew 16:24)? Only the one who has come to the fork in the road, prudently considered the choice, made a decision in conformity to God’s will, and allowed himself to be formed by God’s grace, can know for sure.
Now more than ever in this topsy-turvy world we are presented with the consequential choice of life and death. Death lurks at every exit on life’s journey—the exit that leads to a self-centered, egotistical, and selfish way of life, a death that seeks the comforts of this life more than anything else and leads to disobedience and the misery of self-absorption. This way to death is lined with addictions such as pornography and drugs, attractive enticements, and unbridled passions. Our people are crying out to be released from this enslavement to self.
The Way of Life, however, embraces the Other. The Way of Life accepts the cross and its victory. The Way of Life recognizes the paradox of the Way Jesus taught. The Way of Life recognizes that in these seminary years you are being given an opportunity to grow in God’s grace in a way that you could not anywhere else. Don’t miss one second of this opportunity!
When I was asked what topic should be considered for the seminar, I responded immediately with the Cardinal Virtues. Prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance are needed to choose the Way of Life. For this reason each of the four presentations in this seminar has considered one of these virtues. In describing the role of the Cardinal Virtues in our lives, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states the following: “The human virtues are stable dispositions of the intellect and the will that govern our acts, order our passions, and guide our conduct in accordance with reason and faith. They can be grouped around the four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance” (#1834).
Without these pivotal hinges upon which the doors to Life open or close, we cannot be fully what God is calling us to be. With these virtues, however, when we reach the fork in the road, we choose Life. Our acts are governed, our passions ordered, and our conduct accords with reason and faith. When the GPS tells us to go in the wrong direction, we can make a choice based on what we know to be right. These virtues ultimately accompany us on our way to God and to Jesus, His Son, the Way, the Truth, and the Life.