(CNA/EWTN News) In his weekly general audience on March 26, Pope Francis continued his catechesis on the Sacraments, devoting his discourse to those who receive Holy Orders, referring to it as a vocation of “service.”
Emphasizing again the priest's role as servant, the Pope expressed that their lives should be full “of passionate love for the Church, for whose purification and holiness the Lord gave himself completely.”
They ought to devote “all of their being and love to the community,” he continued, “which they should not consider as their property,” because “it is the property of the Lord, whom they should serve.”
The Pope encouraged all present to pray for “the Church's ministers,” particularly “those most in need of our prayers” who experience “difficulty or need to recover the value and freshness of their vocation.”
“We ask also that we our communities never lack” holy, generous, merciful and “authentic shepherds, according the Heart of Christ,” he prayed.
Read full text: Holy Orders fosters a passionate love of the Church, Pope notes