Convivium academicum: August 27, 2017, 7:30 p.m. St.

Vincent de Paul Seminary Chapel

Good evening and welcome to our new academic year, a year dedicated to our becoming

missionary disciples for the new Evangelization. To launch us into that calling, I will juxtapose

insights from Vita Consecrata, Hans Urs Von Balthasar's ethics, and the new Ratio. The path to

holiness given by St. John Paul in Vita Consecrata guides us first THROUGH the call of Christ

to personal TRANS-FIGURATION, which in Balthasars ethical development and the Ratios

priestly formation sequence happens through Relationships. The Popes 2nd stage, CON-

FORMATION WITH Christ, is for Balthasar receiving a New Name and an invitation to form a

New Personal Identity; in the Ratio this is the work of Discipleship during Pre-Theology. The 3rd

stage, CON-FIGURATION IN Christ with the Holy Spirit is achieved for Balthasar through

Mission, and in the Ratio through Configuration in the Theologate. The final stage, TRANS-

FORMATION, for Balthasar is becoming a Theological Person, while in the Ratio Holy Orders

TRANS-FORMS ordinary men into the sacrament of Jesus Christ and Missionary Disciples. St.

Johns Gospel introduces the mystery of Sacramental Presence in the post-Resurrection

encounters. We begin Easter morning when Jesus missions the apostola apostolorum:

John 20:13-16 She turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was

Jesus. Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for? She

thought it was the gardener and said to him, Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you

laid him, and I will take him. Jesus said to her, Mary! She turned and said to him in

Hebrew: Rabbouni, which means Teacher.

John 21:4-12 When it was already dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore, but the

disciples did not realize it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, Children, have you caught anything

to eat? (The fish event that follows makes only John realize it is the Lord) vs. 12: Jesus said

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to them, Come, have breakfast. And none of the disciples dared to ask him, Who are you?

because they realized it was the Lord.

What is consistent in post-Resurrection discipleship is non-recognition of Jesus

although he always appears in bodily form. Dialog follows through which the disciples

recognize that this human person is, in fact, Jesus although he never exchanges his

unrecognizable body for the one that the disciples identified with his historical person. John here

provides a key to how believers in every age can recognize the sacramental presence of the Lord

in diverse human persons. The Ratio describes the following process of identity transformation

through which Missionary Disciples are able to actuate Christs sacramental presence.

The TRANS-FIGURATION of personal identity begins in Relationship with God

THROUGH Jesus Christ, the New Adam. This transfiguration is totally beyond human power: a

pure gift, since we are but sinners. As Balthasar states, it is THROUGH his Incarnation that

Christ becomes a substitute "pro nobis, chooses to "become sin," to suffer, to die, and to rise as

the New Man, in order to recreate humanity IN HIM, who IS the New Covenant WITH God.

This Divine TRANS-action exchanges death for Divine Life, alienation for Divine Espousal, and

abandonment for Divine Mission. THROUGH HIM we become new beings, new figures

against ground, TRANS-figured by the very Ground of Being for a new destiny: to become

what Pope Emeritus Benedict calls an "Ecclesial We" in the image of the Divine WE.

But this is only the beginning, for Christ calls and invites each of us into a personal

friendship of mutuality, shared existence, and participation IN HIM in the very perichoresis of

Trinitarian Communion. Jesus Christ incorporates us into himself through baptism, calls each of

us by a New Name, then places into our hands and our choices the freedom and capacity to shape

a personal Identity that expresses HIM. He calls us to discipleship and to con-formation: he

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invites us 1) to form ourselves WITH HIM through the discipline of mutual, faithful relationship;

2) to train our bodies, our senses, our imaginations, our thoughts, affections, wills and spirits to

follow; 3) to master our inner resistance to life in community by submitting in the ordinary

time of daily existence to become like him, the Good Shepherd and the Divine Physician. This,

the Ratio 62,63 states, is the primary work of pre-theology: to become disciples of the Master:

The experience and dynamic of discipleship, that lasts for the whole of life, and includes all

priestly formation, pedagogically requires a specific stage in which all possible efforts are

expended to root the seminarian in the sequela Christi, listening to his Word, keeping it in his

heart and putting it into practice. . .This stage allows for systematic work on the personality of

the seminarian, in openness to the Holy Spirit. For priestly formation the importance of human

formation cannot be sufficiently emphasized. Indeed, the holiness of a priest is built upon it and

depends, in large part, upon the authenticity and maturity of his humanity.

Systematic work on the personality of the seminarian in openness to the Holy Spirit has

introduced the seminarian to John Pauls second stage in discipleship: that of con-formation

WITH Christ. Con-formation emphasizes our efforts to discipline and shape ourselves humanly,

intellectually, pastorally and spiritually as disciples of and WITH Jesus. Insofar as we have

become "co-formed" WITH Christ in Pre-Theology and the Theologate, we long for his Holy

Spirit to embrace and assume our efforts to be and act like God. In the third stage, the Spirit of

Love, in each Eucharistic act, "con-figures" and con-corporates us with our brothers and sisters

IN HIM, to be spouses of Christ and of his Bridal Church. In receiving the holy things of

creation as his holy people, each is given unique gifts, charisms in the Spirit. So equipped,

each is Missioned to build up the Body in Love, as Balthasar says, under the sacrament of the

Brother. This stage of con-figuration in the Eucharist through the Holy Spirit is, says the

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Ratio, the time of the seminary or seedbed of the Ecclesial WE. In this "seedbed" the seed of

personal identity must undergo death in order to rise again as Spousal Priestly Identity, for

spousal identity exists only at the price of unintegrated ego identity.

R69: The stage of Theological Studies, or of configuration, is aimed above all at the spiritual

formation proper to the priest. Gradual configuration to Christ causes the sentiments and

attitudes of the Son of God to arise in the life of the disciple. . . This stage allows the gradual

grounding of the seminarian in the likeness of the Good Shepherd The content of this stage is

demanding and requires a great deal of commitment. It asks for a constant responsibility in living

the cardinal and theological virtues and the evangelical counsels. It demands a docility to the

action of God through the promptings of the Holy Spirit, according to an authentically priestly

and missionary mindset. It also calls for a gradual rereading of ones own personal history in the

light of pastoral charity, which animates, forms and motivates the life of the priest. (Ratio 69)

Personal gifts received must be given in service to the Church which, in turn, exists to

serve the world. Spousal priestly identity means to be sent as an ecclesial, public person

committed to living in reciprocal communion; a man who knows and embraces the margins as

home. Spousal identity is to be the "presence sacrament" of Jesus the Christ the Bridegroom,

for his Spouse the Church. St. John reminds us they will not know him, and then, paradoxically,

they will know him. The post-resurrection Jesus reveals himself in many bodily forms through

his personal identification with each member of his Body. IF and INSOFAR AS we become

configured to him, our people like the apostles and Mary Magdalen will also recognize Jesus

and know that he is with them and for them. As Monsignor Toups states in Reclaiming our

Priestly Character, The priest has been sealed and ontologically changed through ordination for

a specific purpose: so that he can make Christ sacramentally present to the faithful. (155)

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 The Spirits work of configuration and spousal mission prepares and capacitates the

Church as a Eucharistic Body for the final TRANS-FORMATION into Missionary Disciples --

or what Balthasar calls Theological Persons: those who witness to the ethos of disponability.

Mary, the Theotokos, or God-bearer, is the Archetype of the theological person: a person who

lives by God-logic; a person whose ear is open to the Word of God; choosing what God wants.

To the Father in the Spirit Mary responds: "Be it done unto me according to your Word!" Marys

Son prays to his Father in that same Spirit: Not my will but thine be done." God-logic and

Missionary Discipleship mean total self-gift, self-emptying into the other, kenosis by free,

perpetual, daily choice. Only in that Spirit of disponability can a man be Order-ed to the

Holy; to make present "The Obedient One," for the salvation of the world.

Called THROUGH HIM we are TRANS-FIGURED and receive a new Relationship with

God; in baptism we are signed with a New Name and are invited to form a New Identity for/with

others. Accepting friendship WITH Christ, we CON-FORM our persons to his Priestly Identity.

By being good shepherds, we meet his people where they are; call them and lead them step by

step to be identified WITH HIM. Acting as the Divine Physician, we are healed with them,

THROUGH his words and actions. IN HIM, we are together CON-FIGURED by the SPIRIT IN

EUCHARISTIC SPOUSAL LOVE as Bridegroom and Bride for Total Self-Gift. Christ TRANS-

FORMS us into MISSIONARY DISCIPLES and sends us to the peripheries to witness as Theo-

logical Persons a life of Disponabillity to God's will and awaken others to Christs call to live

"pro nobis" in a Communion of Love, as an Ecclesial WE in the image of the Divine WE.

THROUGH HIM, WITH HIM, AND IN HIM may we, as MISSIONARY DISCIPLES

(i.e. as MDs for the world) consecrated through the offering of Jesus Christ once for all

respond: "A body you prepared for me; Behold I come to do your will!" (Hebrews 10:5-7)