MESSAGE TO THE SCHOLASTICS - Fr Ralph Da’Costa SJ

The successive changing historical moments in the Church, society and cultural surroundings demand for us in India a rethinking of our ideas on the priesthood. Priesthood is the” being” of the priest, more than his “doing”; and while in the past it was doing the cultic, the sacred, officiating as the man of the temple, today in a secularized world which has lost the sense of the transcendent the emphasis is on doing works of love, assistance, caring in the various areas of human need in our interactions with others. It is caring for the whole human person, drawing the transcendent out of the temporary moment, rendering the spiritual assistance that enables the person to be fully alive, to cope with reality, and as the child of God to find him present and active in his life and in his world, so that the priest treats others as brother/sister and help reveal the glory of God in a world that hardly finds place for God, for Christ, for Gospel values. The life, being of this priest , which is manifested in all his personal involvements, his relationships with persons and things, is to be a witnessing of the love that

Priesthood is a grace, a gift of God that we cannot claim, nor merit, nor monopolize but which draws us into a unique, intimate personal relationship with the Christ who as High Priest is always compassionate, merciful and trustworthy. Iit is not only to celebrate Eucharist as a ritual, but to be “Eucharist”, the redemptive gift of the Father to the world in all its needs, reconciling and revealing the tenderness of Christ’s love to those who are helpless, and in need. This would mean living a life in which we build bridges, break down barriers, cross frontiers that the world creates to separate humans, on grounds of faith, language cultures, social standing, talents, wealth etc. Such a ministry offered in the Eucharist after being lived throughout the day draws the priest into an intimacy of personal communion with Jesus Christ and with his people for whom he gives himself and for whom and with whom we give ourselves back to Christ. Thus the priest’s life is the continuation of the Mass celebrated daily which is the source of one’s life.

The priesthood is to be inserted into our life style, and flow from a life that is evangelical, (effective poverty, sharing, openness, availability, transparent witnessing in prayer and in finding God in all things). It is to enable us in all things to be “servants of Christ’s mission” having no personal projects to achieve, but only the reconciling work that the Father sent Jesus to accomplish in his living with us, dying for us, and rising from the dead to be with us till the end of time.

To be a Jesuit priest is to be one in the spirit of the “Kingdom”, the”Two Standards” and the “Contemplation to attain God’s love” – a life liven entirely in the service of Christ’s mission in a world that has become secularized, de-sacralized yet longing for a transcendent presence that gives meaning to all its quests, its search for permanence.

My feeling about what is required in our Assistancy of those in formation for the priesthood is that we being the most numerous Assistancy in the Society demands that we make ourselves at all levels, available, in a high level of competence, expertise, truly grounded in our own culture and Ignatian spirituality interpreted and lived out of our own culture, to the worldwide Society for its different ministries.

For this our priests must be

1. men convinced of their Jresuit calling from the very beginning of their Jesuit life, and of their call to Jesuit priesthood right through their formation in a deep, personal and intimate communion with the Christ of the Exercises, our High Priest; men of a universal outlook and availability who have transcended in themselves and their way of thinking and acting the restrictive frontiers of caste, tribe, language, ethnic origin and can sincerely say that they belong as Companions to the universal Society and to Christ the High Priest who shed his blood for the redemption of all.

2. men who understand and integrate the genuine spirituality of Ignatius the contemplativus in actione as in the Constitutions, complementary Norms, SPiirtual exercises, GC Decrees and writings of Frs General, so that each one prepares himself personally to help spiritually our contemporaries to become more human and more divine, the image of God in Christ here on our earth.

3. men who are competent in their field with the spirit of magis and a creative fidelity that makes them relevant to involve themselves in the traditional and newly sprouting and varied ministries of the Society to witness the Gospel values in all situations that offer themselves to us in a rapidly changing world that sets aside God and finds both him and the transcendent disposable while it pursues values that satisfy the senses, but leaves the depths of the human spirit a dry vacuum

4. men who are capable of listening to the Spirit of the Risen Christ breathing and speaking in the various fields of human endeavour and in the groaning of all creation for its liberation as the children of God.

5. men who take their formation at all levels seriously, integrating it into theirlives through those values that define our Jesuit priestly identity, do that with confidence and courage they are prepared to serve the mission in whatever way the CHruch and the Society asks us to cooperate as servants of

6. men who do not set before their eyes a goal to be attained, or a profession, or a career, but only that Jesus Christ be better known and loved in an ever more generous service.

7. men who are not merely priests “of the Temple” but compassionate men and the servants of God seeking to reconcile all human beings and all things to the Father in sharing the sacrifice of Christ by living I in their life and their works.

To be a Jesuit priest is to make the Eucharist the centre of my life and the source of my being and ministry. The daily celebration of the Eucharist is the daily celebration of life – my life, that of those of my ministry, all all absorbed into and transformed by that of Christ. In this the priest lives his life in an unselfish and humble manner, because that s how Jesus lived his life to the glory of the Father.