Tag Archives: St John Paul II

Formation in Christ

Christ teaching the apostles

Before the apostles were sent out to evangelize, he spent time in their formation.

 

 

We are called to live out our faith and share it with others, to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. To do this effectively in a society which is increasingly ignorant of and even hostile to Christian values we need formation. In this meditation we consider how:

  • Christ spent time forming the apostles before sending them out to all nations
  • We too are called to go out and help others find God and to make our culture more Christian
  • For this we need  a deep spiritual, doctrinal, human and apostolic formation
  • Pope St John Paul II writes of the need for formation in his Apostolic Exhortation “Christifideles laici“
  • We can receive this formation in a variety of ways

Love for the priesthood

Icon of Christ the eternal high priest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We can sometimes take our priests for granted, or even complain about them. In this meditation we look at what our priests do for us and how we can help them. We consider:

  • Jesus Christ, the eternal high priest, instituted the priesthood to continue his priestly ministry down the ages
  • Priests do so much for us: celebrating the sacrifice of the Mass in order to offer this pure sacrifice to the Father, to leave Christ in the tabernacle and give him to us in holy Communion; forgiving our sins, anointing us when we are in danger of death, teaching us the faith…
  • St John Vianney, the Cure of Ars, has beautiful things to say about the priesthood
  • St John Paul II wrote wonderfully about what people expect from priests
  • We should give thanks for our priests and pray for them so that they will be holy and faithful
  • We should pray too for seminarians, for young men considering a priestly vocation and for families, the seedbed of vocations