Homily for the Rite of Acceptance for Candidacy

June 10, 2025
St. Peter Catholic Church
Lindsay, Texas

Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8
Psalm 24:1bc-2, 30, 4ab, 5-6
1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23
John 1:45-51

Those who are to be formally accepted as candidates for Holy Orders today find themselves at a pivotal stage in their priestly formation. They have completed the propaedeutic and discipleship stages and with this Rite of Acceptance of Candidacy for Holy Orders will formally enter the configuration stage of priestly formation. Our reflection upon this stage of configuration and the associated need of prayers for our four seminarians and soon to be candidates: Carson Kitaif, Eric Hernandez, Alex Jansen, and Evan Lang, can begin with the Scriptures proclaimed in our first and second readings.

Isaiah, who before hearing and accepting his call from the Lord with an enthusiastic, “Here I am, send me,” cries out in fearful awareness of his unworthiness to enter into the ineffable presence of God, “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Isaiah’s woe proclaimed in the first reading is coupled with a different type of “woe” as proclaimed in the second reading. Saint Paul exudes to the Corinthians, “If I preach the Gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it.”

Isaiah’s woe is born of a deep awareness of his own unworthiness to be the prophet of the Lord and that this vocation is beyond his fallen human condition to achieve. Paul’s woe is born of an abiding awareness of the priceless gift of a vocation from the Lord that he cherishes and desires and that were he to refuse the command of the Lord, even out of a correct sense of his own unworthiness, he would die of “woe.” Paul has come to realize that God has predestined him through His Grace to conduct his apostolic vocation on the Lord’s terms.

The sense of “woe” experienced by Isaiah and the sense of “woe” experienced by Saint Paul result in a dilemma that seems on the terms of the fallen human condition to be irresolvable: woe suffered if one accepts the call and woe if one refuses the call. Our seminarians who have completed the propaedeutic and discipleship stages have been brought to the woeful dilemma not by some cruel trick of God, but to prepare them to pass through this dilemma by entering the sacrificial stage of configuration to Christ in preparation for their ordination to the priesthood. This can only be accomplished through union with Christ crucified and with prayerful perseverance in the life of grace. The centrality of Christ in our lives spare each of us from reducing this stage of priestly formation to the functional completion of a checklist of tasks.

The configuration stage of formation is a time in the life of a seminarian when he is called to empty himself of egotism more than to fill himself with knowledge of skills. This self-emptying on the part of the seminarian is in itself the graced process of configuration to Christ — what the theologians refer to as “kenosis.” It is what Saint Paul conveys in his letter to the Philippians where he writes, “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”

To complete this stage of formation requires a willingness to come to terms and acceptance of the ways in which the residue of original sin still adheres to one’s soul and then pray for the willingness to surrender that to Christ in configuration to Him. It is a grateful acceptance of the thorn in the flesh that no man can remove from himself and that God can remove or choose to use for His glory and the sanctification of others. In many ways, this stage of configuration continues throughout one’s priestly ministry and life and is accompanied by a more intimate relationship with Christ who called you not because of your worthiness but because He loves you and desires you to share in His merciful plans for your life and the salvation of the world. Just as Christ emptied Himself of all Divinity to take on our humanity, so in this time of configuration in your priestly formation you empty yourself of the fallen human condition by a gradual but complete reliance on Christ’s Grace and fraternal love for you.

This is what forges the Christological character undergirding priestly ministry. As Saint Cyril of Alexandria wrote in his Commentary on the Letter to the Romans, “This is why the Divine Word Himself, who as God holds all creation in being and is the source of its well-being, appeared in the flesh and became man. He came into the world in human flesh not to be served, but, as He Himself said, to serve and to give His life, as a ransom for many.”

Here is the nub of the issue. Even if we grant that Christ came into the world to be its Savior, too often Catholics and other Christians reduce Christ’s principal mission of salvation to a type of cultivation of a vigorous sense of self-esteem among His admirers. As if the Gospel brought about by the self-sacrifice of Christ as our ransom from death could be summed up in the therapeutic moralism: “God is nice. God wants me to be nice. Above all, God wants me to feel good about myself.” Such an approach to the Gospel and to priesthood is gutted of sacrifice, void of love, and aches for the truth. It ignores Christ because it dodges the Cross except as a decoration.

Many years ago, during my seminary formation, a classmate of mine and I were assigned to a parish for a summer apostolate. The pastor, who was highly esteemed by our formators as a model of parish priesthood for us to emulate, told us, “My job as a pastor is to empower the laity. My job is to call a meeting, put on the pot of coffee, then get out of their way.” I found this to be incredible, if not ludicrous. Despite the fact that he would be evaluating us at the end of the summer, I decided to ask directly, “Then why was your education, your formation, your ordination and your assignment by the bishop necessary?”

It was a long summer.

Dear Sons, the gift of yourselves in the configuration stage requires you to follow the example of Nathaniel in today’s Gospel. Nathaniel, without duplicity, was converted to Christ by a simple meeting with Jesus whose words to him were neither lofty nor trite. In this meeting, Nathaniel, because he was without duplicity, found Christ to be credible. This encounter with Jesus and hearing His simple and direct words prompt Nathaniel to make the startling profession of Jesus to be the Son of God. The words of Jesus in themselves do not bring Nathaniel to love and to commitment — rather it is Jesus Himself who, in His own self-emptying, takes Nathaniel by the heart and gives him the grace to follow Him on the way of the Cross that ultimately leads to the empty tomb.

In some sense, each of us can say similar things — there is no discursive reason to explain satisfactorily our respective vocations — simply an encounter with Jesus that is unique and takes us by our heart to give of ourselves in union with Jesus’ gift of self. We have found Christ to be credible among the incredulous drivel of this world. It is configuration to Christ and His Cross that will make you, not perfect, but credible. It is this configuration through humble love and self-emptying that Christ will use to make us together be the priests needed by His People wounded by the scandal of the faithlessness of clergy.

Pope Leo XIV spoke recently to his newly ordained priests in the Archdiocese of Rome, “Known lives, legible lives, credible lives! We are within the people of God, to be able to stand before them, with a credible testimony. Together, then, we will rebuild the credibility of a wounded Church, sent to a wounded humanity, within a wounded creation. We are not yet perfect, but it is necessary to be credible.”

As your bishop, I ask you to strive to be so configured to Christ that you not merely survive a woeful existence, but that you find the fullness of life in being sacrificed in the loving manner that the priesthood demands — that you might be credible. As your bishop, along with the priests of the Diocese of Fort Worth, we pray for you that we might one day welcome you into our presbyterate when your seminary formation is completed and I call you to Holy Orders.