BE NOT AFRAID!
Reflection of Mother Adela to Seminarians at S. John Maria Vianney,
Archdioceses of Miami
January 20-2006
© Only for personal use

It is with such a great joy and gratitude to the Lord that I take this opportunity to speak to you, seminarians of S. John Maria Vianney. It is such a gift to see the faces of those for whom I pray and all the sisters pray everyday. I have recently had the grace to be before the remains of St. John Vianney in the Basilica at Ars. There, I prayed for each one of you and for all of you. I also did, in your name (and I am sorry for not having asked you before, but love has no limits in prayer)- the act of love written by this saint. I brought with me some cards with this prayer for you to have.

When Fr. Rios called last week to invite me to come, he told me: share with them Mother whatever the Holy Spirit puts in your heart. While praying, the Lord reminded me that in all my dealings and relationships with seminarians, I have many times found a “common denominator”: fear. I do not know if this is also your reality, but, in case it is, I would like to tell you: “Be not afraid”. Fear is caused, many times, by understanding the measure, the height, the depth of the vocation and gift you have received and also the measure of the response which the gift demands. I do not intend to give you a conference but rather to speak from my heart and invite you not to be afraid.

Do not be afraid!

1. To leave everything for Christ and to generously embrace the vocation you have received.

A vocation is a mystery of divine election, of God́s call to your heart.. to you, personally.. He has called you by name, He chose you from among many : “ You did not choose me, but I chose you” (Jn 15,16).
• This election needs to be pondered in your hearts... you have been chosen by God to a personal, intimate relationship with him and participation in His priestly heart, life and mission. Your vocation is not an accident, something that you can take lightly or superficially, because as the Lord says in Jer 1,5: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you”
• Why have you been chosen? I do not know... and you do not either. It is part of the mystery of love. Love, as Pope Benedict said in Cologne, “ knows no why, it is a free gift to which one responds with the gift of self”. You have given a gift of love, to which you can only respond with the totality of your love.
Jesus has invited you to leave everything in order to follow him more closely. One day you heard the voice of Christ in your heart telling you: follow me and leave everything for me. It is a call to renounce other options in life and to chose this path of closeness and intimacy with Him, but it is not an empty renunciation.. It is a call to leave something good for something greater, for a life in which you will find complete personal fulfillment, a life in which your human and spiritual potentials will be expanded for the service of the kingdom of God and for the good of humanity.

JPII asked seminarians and priests in his book “gift and mystery”: “ Could there be any greater fulfillment than to one day be able to re-present everyday in persona Christi, the redemptive sacrifice of the Cross? Could there be any greater human accomplishment than to become fully identified with Christ, the God-made man, and to become ministers of the priesthood of Christ?” What a great calling you have received!

Yes, you are called to leave everything but to gain it all. To lose your life as to find it... to give it all to receive the All. You have to responsibly and maturely know what you are renouncing, thus you can truly embrace a life style that represents clearly what you have left behind, but at the same time you must maturely and visibly represent the life that you have found.

Your eyes are not to be fixed in what you left but in what you have been given and on the treasure you will find. As S. Paul told the Phillipians 3,8:“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ”

2. Of your inadequacy for such a sacred vocation

Every vocation to the priesthood is a great mystery!. A mystery of the love of God for man, as I said before, a mystery of divine election. A mystery to be pondered, lived and treasured throughout your entire lives. How do you live with a mystery? As S. Joseph lived: with a heart of prayer and recollection, of silence and of total availability to God́s will. Just before Christmas, Pope Benedict XVI directed our gaze to the figure of S. Joseph. It seems to me, that his words are an inspiration to you, as you learned to live with the mystery of your own vocation:

• “it is particularly fitting to establish a kind of spiritual dialogue with St. Joseph so that he helps us live to the fullest the mysteries of faith. The silence of St. Joseph does not demonstrate an empty interior, but rather the fullness of faith that he carries in his heart, and that guides each of his thoughts and actions. A silence through which Joseph guards the Word of God; a silence interwoven with constant prayer, a prayer of praise, adoration, contemplation of his Will and of boundless confidence in his providence.”

To live with the mystery of your vocation, you must develop a life of prayer, of pondering God´s Word; a life of Eucharistic adoration, of contemplation of his works, and of total trust in Him, in his grace, providence and power. Jesus, I trust in you!!!
You are to become like S. Joseph, guardians of the great treasures of the Church. And the priesthood is one and a very important treasure. Without priests there is no Eucharist. Without priests we can not experience the healing of reconciliation; without priests, the Priesthood of Christ can not be extended through history. PDV, “ priests are called to prolong the presence of Christ, the one high priest, embodying his way of life and making him visible in the midst of the flock entrusted to their care”. (15)

Priesthood is a gift which infinitely transcends the individual: a gift that transcends you, a gift that is in you but is greater than you. This reality will be experienced throughout the course of your lives: facing the greatness of the gift with a sense of your own inadequacy, of your own incapacities and limitations. But always remember that his grace is sufficient for you and that his power is revealed in weakness (2 Cor 12,8). Recognizing the greatness of the priestly vocation and your littleness, will move you to live in humility. JPII, said in “gift and mystery”, that when he spoke of his priesthood and gave witness to it, he was always moved to do it with great humility, knowing that he had received a gift beyond himself. He said that those called to the priesthood must remember the words of S. Paul: “God has called us with a holy calling, not in virtue of our works but in virtue on his own purpose and the grace which he gave us” (2 Tim 1:9)

To live in this humility but total confidence in the grace of God, you have a great model before your eyes: the patron saint of this seminary. He is a witness to this reality. In him we can see the power of grace working through human limitations. This simple, humble and powerful saint is considered to have caused a spiritual revolution in a difficult moment for the Church in France. He made himself “a prisoner of the confessional”, spending hours confessing, long times of adoration before the Eucharist and dedicating himself to teach catechism and directing those who sought his guidance. From a very small church in the middle of France, grace was flowing for the whole Church. All it takes, dear seminarians, is generosity and dedication to fulfill the mission the Lord has entrusted you with!

3. To be formed and transformed to become another Christ.

JPII said about the priesthood: “The priestly vocation is a wondrous exchange between God and man. A man offers his humanity to Christ, so that Christ may use him as an instrument of salvation, making him as it were into another Christ”.

Each one of you offers his humanity to Christ for him to transform you into his priestly image. S. Paul says in 2 Cor 4: “ we carry this treasure in earthen vessels..” You are to recognize, with humility, honesty and also with hope, that the treasure of your vocation is deposited in an earthen vessel, in a fragile, weak and imperfect vessel, but at the same time, a vessel that has received the grace to become another Christ. By the power of the Holy Spirit and by a strong human, spiritual, intellectual and ascetic formation, your earthen vessel can be transformed into the image of Christ even to the point of saying with S. Paul: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”. (Gal 2,20)

Therefore, formation has the purpose of transformation. To be formed is not simply to “be informed” with new ideas. It is rather to acquire a “new form”, a new life, “until Christ be formed in you” (Gal 4:19). It means a transformation of the entire person: way of thinking, feeling, loving, reacting, acting, serving and relating to others. This formation is not only provided by your formators, it must be a personal decision of each one called to the priestly vocation. It must begin by your personal and clear understanding of your identity and the values of the priesthood: “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of they mysteries of God. Now it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy” (1 Cor 4: 1-2) You are servants of the gift received and stewards of the graces of salvation for others.

The priestly vocation commits men to a way of life inspired by the Gospel, by the way of life of Christ: the sentiments of his heart: his sacrificial love, his poverty, his purity, his obedience, his holiness and missionary zeal. "I will give you shepherds after my own heart" (Jer. 3:15). To become one with Christ, after his own heart, you must first know him, contemplate him... enter into the depth of His Heart.

This identification with the heart and life of Christ, can only be acquired in prayer: JPII: “prayer makes the priest and through prayer the priest becomes what he is”. A man called to the priesthood must first of all be a man of prayer, of communion with God, .convinced that the time spent with the Lord is always spent in the best way possible. If the SVC speaks of the universal call to holiness, in the case of those called to the priesthood speaks of special call to holiness. You are to form yourselves and allow your formators to guide you into this path of holiness: the Church and the world need holy priests. You can one day become guides and teachers to the extent that you become authentic witnesses.

4. To know and live by the Truth

Truth is not an imposition, as love, it is a gift freely given to be freely accepted. Truth is an act of love because is the communication of light. It is an act of love because it’s the act of a loving Father who wants to communicate it to his children. Truth being an act of love is in essence an invitation to freedom, because Jesus said: "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (Jn 8:32).
• Truth makes us free, not sad, not overburdened, but joyful. Truth brings joy to our hearts and to our lives because it brings salvation, restoration, healing and guidance. As the angel told the shepherds at Bethlehem: “be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people” (Luk 2)
Jesus said in Jn 14:16: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”: I am the Map with clear directions to find abundant life. So His truth is the way to have abundant life: not a mediocre life, not a half-dead life..not an sterile life, but an abundant, intensively lived life, a very fruitful life.

Truth is light: illumines our darkness.... the areas of our hearts, minds, personality and behavior that are not fully reflections of his love. Truth is the Light that illumines our errors. We are not to be afraid of truth but rather or error. Would you like to drive a car with no breaks? With an error in its mileage or gas marker? Would you like to have a checking account with an erroneous amount? Would you like to take a wrong map to initiate your travel to an unknown city, or take the wrong plane to go to your desired destination ?

Do not be afraid to be illumined, directed, confronted and even corrected by the truth of Christ manifested to us in Sacred Scriptures, Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church. Do not be afraid to open your hearts and minds to the Truth for it shall make you free and lead you to an abundant life.

5. To love

Love is the definite force and the reason of for the institution of the priesthood and for you having been called. So, it must be the force and the reason for you to embrace it. You were called out of love, to a vocation of love and to find the fullness of love in this vocation. The priestly vocation is rooted in love.

Love Christ with all your heart: He called you to a intimate communion with His Heart and His love. To you he repeats the invitation he made to the first priests at the Last Supper: “remain in my love” (Jan 15,9). He wants your heart, he wants your love and the total dedication of your being to Him, to His life, to His Church and to the extension of his Kingdom on earth. He wants your love, the potentials of your heart, of your whole being to be invested “in higher things”.... in His things. “give him the gold of your freedom, the incense of your ardent prayer, the myrrh of your most profound affection” (JPII)

A priestly vocation is born as an invitation to love Christ and in his love, to love others. You need to find the beginning of your own calling in the dialogue between Jesus and Peter: “Do you love me? Lord, you know that I love you. Feed my lambs.. Feed my sheep”. If you love him, you will follow him wherever he leads you and your heart will be expanded to love generously and sacrificially those who he will entrust to your care.

Without love, no sacrifice is possible, at least not a lasting one. No one can give the totality of his life without love. Only love is eternal, so only love sustain your faithfulness, and give you the strength to do things, to offer your life to a degree that maybe you never imagine, as S. Maximilian kolbe did in the concentration camp. Why did he give his life in place of another? for the simple reason he stated when asked by the nazi commander: “I am a catholic priest”. A priest is called to give his life, to love to the extreme as Jesus did. To love and give his life so that others may have it.

Love conquers fear!. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” says S. John in his first letter, 4. Let the love of Christ conquer in you heart.. Nothing can separate you from his love... nothing or no one.. No situation, even the most difficult one: “What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or the sword ? . No, in all this things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us”(Rom 8, 34)
In times of fear and in fearful situations: choose always love- the most loving thing to do. Let love conquer in your heart. Conquering fear is the first and indispensable step in your lives if you are to open wide the doors to Christ, first of your own hearts, then of the hearts of the people you will serve.

Someone may teach you the path to not be afraid: The Blessed Mother

“Here is the secret of your vocation and your mission” said Pope Benedict to the seminarians in Cologne, “the secret is kept in the Immaculate Heart of Mary who watches over each one of you with a motherly love”
Why is the secret of your vocation in the Maternal Heart of Mary? We may find the answer in PDV, 36: “The creature who more than any other has lived the full truth of vocation is Mary the virgin mother, and she did so in intimate communion with Christ: No one has responded with a love greater than hers to the immense love of God”. She knows what it means to love God with the totality of her being, to offer her life for God to accomplish in her and through her his designs of salvation.

Your vocation is a seed planted in your heart, but this seed must grow, mature and develop. In the process you need to know that you have a Mother, a motherly heart, a mother's presence, to whom your vocation has been entrusted to. Your vocation has been placed by Christ, on the Cross, under her maternal care: “Woman, behold your Son; Son, behold your Mother”. When he offered his own life as a High Priest on the Cross, he entrusted S. John, and in him all those who were called to the priesthood, to the maternal care, guidance, protection and formation of the Blessed Mother.

Mary, is the Mother and Teacher of your priestly vocation. Therefore, it is important for you to have a Marian dimension in your spirituality. You are to take her, as St. John did, into your home, into your hearts, into your vocation. JPII said in MR, 35 that the words: “ Behold your son! fully show the reason for the Marian dimension of the life of Christ's disciples. This Marian dimension of a disciple of Christ is expressed in a special way precisely through this filial entrusting to the Mother of Christ, which began with the testament of the Redeemer on Golgotha. Entrusting himself to Mary in a filial manner, every disciple like the Apostle John, brings the Blessed Mother into his home, into everything that makes up his inner life, that is to say into his human and Christian I.”

Entrust yourselves to her maternal care of Mary so she can be your Mother and also your teacher. As JPII said in PDV, 82:“ Mary was called to educate the one eternal priest, who became docile and subject to her motherly authority. With her example and through her intercession the Blessed Virgin keeps vigilant, watching over the growth of vocations and priestly life in the Church”.

With her maternal guidance and with the power of the HS, she can form you in the image of Jesus. Who better than her knows the resemblance of Her Son? Who better than her contemplate it the priestly heart of Christ and his self-offering for the salvation of the world? In the School of her Heart learn to contemplate the mysteries of the priestly heart of her Son? What heart has fully participated in the mysteries of Christ?

JPII told us in his apostolic letter on the Rosary: “Christians sit at the school of Mary and are led to contemplate the beauty of the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love”.

How many wonderful things happen in the hearts of seminarians when they entrust themselves to the Maternal love and guidance of the Blessed Mother. I have seen many great things! The seminary is not so much a place, said Pope Benedict, but a significant time in the life of the follower of Jesus. The seminary is a time of formation, of communion, of intimate dialogue with Christ, of preparation for the mission. It seems to me that we could call the seminary, the time of Nazareth. And if it is, what better way to spend it than in the same way that Jesus did, under the maternal care of Mary.

Ending prayer of the Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis:
O Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ and Mother of priests, accept this title which we bestow on you to celebrate your motherhood and to contemplate with you the priesthood of, your Son and of your sons called to share in his priesthood.
Accept from the beginning those who have been called, protect their growth, and through their lives accompany your sons, O Mother of Priests. Amen.