Showing posts with label Cardinal Lazarus You Heung-sik. Show all posts

Thursday, April 2, 2026

At Chrism Mass, all priests called "friends of the Lord" and were thanked for their ministry

Thousands of priests joined Pope Leo XIV for the Chrism Mass in St. Peter's Basilica

Vatican

Cardinal You Heung-sik calls all priests 'friends of the Lord'

Cardinal Lazzaro You Heung-sik, Prefect of the Dicastery for Clergy, pens a letter to all priests, deacons, and seminarians throughout the world for Holy Thursday, thanking them for bringing Christ close to His people through their ministry.

By Deborah Castellano Lubov

"Thank you for your daily fidelity, often silent and hidden. Thank you for your 'yes,' renewed each day, even amid hardships, loneliness, and misunderstandings. Thank you because, through your ministry, Christ continues to draw near to His people, to heal, to forgive, and to nourish them."

Cardinal Lazzaro You Heung-sik, Prefect of the Dicastery for Clergy, along with Dicastery's Secretary, Archbishop Carlo Roberto Maria Redaelli, expressed this appreciation in a letter sent to priests, deacons, and seminarians for Holy Thursday.

As the Church commemorates the institution of the Eucharist and the ministerial priesthood, Cardinal You said they wished "to reach all of you, in every part of the world, with a thought of profound gratitude, fraternal affection, and sincere encouragement."

Priests are friends of the Lord

He recalled that the Church contemplates the Lord Jesus, who, washed out of love the feet of the disciples and gives Himself in the breaking of bread, saying that "from this love, our vocation is born, and to this love we are continually called to conform our entire life."

Cardinal You thanked priests for their immense love and friendship with the Lord.

"The Holy Father Leo XIV, during the Holy Year of Hope," he recalled, "reminded us that 'the priest is a friend of the Lord, called to a personal and trusting relationship with Him, nourished by the Word, the celebration of the Sacraments, and daily prayer," and that friendship with Christ is the spiritual foundation of the ordained ministry.'"

With this in mind, the Cardinal reminded priests that being a priest is not merely a role to be performed, but a gift to be safeguarded with a grateful heart and filled with wonder.

He added that priests are not defined simply by what they do, as much as by "the infinite love with which Christ loves us."

Eucharist is the source and summit of our existence

In the letter, the Cardinal reflected on priestly sacrifice and service.

Sacrifice, in its deepest truth, he clarified, is not first of all renunciation but a gift. "It is," he said, "offering one’s life so that it may be wholly oriented to the love of God and of our brothers and sisters."

"We are called to live as men given over, consecrated, who find in the Eucharist the source and summit of our existence," he continued. "It is at the altar that we allow ourselves to be conformed to Christ, receiving the strength to accompany, to forgive, and to console."

Service, he explained, is the concrete form of this love.

The final recommendation Cardinal You offered priests is to not be discouraged by the difficulties of our time. "Even when the soil seems barren and the seed struggles to grow, the Lord continues to act," he reassured. "He has chosen us, He has consecrated us, and He never abandons us."

"Therefore," he said, "be priests with open hearts, capable of closeness, listening, and compassion; men of communion, credible signs of a synodal and missionary Church; joyful witnesses of the Gospel, even when this entails sacrifice."

Safeguard the joy of your calling

Cardinal You also thanked all permanent deacons, who, "through their generous and discreet service, make visible the charity of Christ the Servant."

The Cardinal Prefect insisted that the ministry of deacons is "precious and necessary for the life of the Church, today more than ever."

And finally, he turned to all seminarians preparing for the priesthood.

"Do not be afraid," the Cardinal encouraged, "to give your entire life to the Lord."

He urged all seminarians to safeguard the joy of their calling and allow themselves to be formed each day by His love, for the Church needs their authenticity, enthusiasm, and faith.

Finally, the Prefect and Secretary of the Dicastery for the Clergy concluded by entrusting all priests, deacons, and seminarians to the Blessed Mother, and wishing them a fruitful Holy Triduum in deep union with the Lord Jesus

Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Clergy conference (mostly priests) underway in Rome

Priests at Mass on World Day of Consecrated Life, 2 February 2024

VATICAN

Clergy conference kicks off in Rome

A five-day conference on the ongoing formation of priests - involving prayer, presentations, and small synod-style listening groups - gets underway in the Vatican.

By Joseph Tulloch

Around a thousand priests from sixty countries around the world have gathered in Rome for a conference on clerical formation.

"Rekindle the Gift of God That Is Within You" is the theme of the meeting, held on February 6-10, which is sponsored by the Vatican’s Dicasteries for the Clergy, Evangelisation, and Eastern Churches.

A mission to care for the clergy

Cardinal Lazarus You Heung-sik, Prefect of the Dicastery for the clergy, opened the conference by recalling the moment Pope Francis appointed him to his current role.

“On that day,” he said, “a bishop friend of mine told me: ‘Now you are responsible for ensuring that all the priests in the world are happy.’”

These, Cardinal Heung-sik said, are “words that I have never been able to forget, and that constantly accompany me in this service of mine.”

It was this remark, the Korean-born prelate said, that had led him to organize the conference.

Many priests today, he noted, are “tired and discouraged, caught off guard by the challenges of today's society and the burdens they carry.” Thus, he said, “the importance of providing priests with the necessary support and accompaniment, and thus the need for ongoing formation, has increasingly come to the forefront.”

Synodal atmosphere

“We said from the beginning of the preparations,” Cardinal Heung-sik told participants, “that you are not coming here simply to learn, but as builders and protagonists. Each and every one of you is an expert and brings experience.”

The Cardinal quoted the Italian priest and activist Fr. Oreste Benzi, who once said, "There is no one so rich that they do not need to receive, no one so poor that they have nothing to give."

For this reason, Cardinal Heung-sik said, the conference would follow, “as much as possible, a workshop-style, participatory, and synodal approach.”

Cardinal Tagle: Formation for cultural intelligence

Cardinal Tagle, Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelisation, which is co-sponsoring the conference, also offered a few words before proceedings got underway.

He stressed, firstly, that priests must not think that their formation ends once they have been ordained. Rather, he said, it is precisely “because we are ordained to the service of God and the Church, that we need to be continuously formed.”

Secondly, Cardinal Tagle said, priests need ongoing education to overcome the “tendency to absolutize and glorify one’s culture.”

Ordained ministers, he said, must learn “the cultural intelligence to appreciate one’s culture” but also to “admit the brokenness of one’s culture” and “affirm the good elements in other cultures.”

Finally, noting that many priests are close to people who suffer, or are indeed greatly suffering themselves, Cardinal Tagle called for clerical formation that addresses “wounds and pains that could easily lead to vindictiveness, cynicism, and hatr

Wednesday, March 1, 2023

Pope Francis: look to the East

Then-Archbishop Lazzaro You Heung-sik at an ordination in 2022

POPE

Pope Francis: Church invites us to look to the East

A new book with Cardinal Lazzaro You Heung-Sik “gives voice to the Church of the East” through stories, anecdotes, and reflections, according to a preface written by Pope Francis.

By Vatican News staff reporter

“The Church, in its theological and liturgical tradition has always turned to the East, and invites us to look there,” Pope Francis writes, “because from the East rises the light, the sun of justice, the shining star that is Christ.”

The Pope’s comments come in the preface to a new book recounting stories, anecdotes and reflections by Cardinal Lazzaro You Heung-Sik, the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy.

“Lazzaro You Heung-Sik: As the lightning comes from the East” is available in Italian from publishing house Edizioni San Paolo.

“The Church always needs to be enlightened by Christ and His Gospel,” because it runs the risk of not being the Church Jesus intends, the Pope writes. “Jesus continues to be a scandal today, a sign of contradiction that challenges our securities and shakes up our hearts so that they are not paralysed by fear, imprisoned in hypocrisy, or hardened by sin.”

That, he said, is why he was happy to introduce a book “that intends to give voice to the Chuch of the East,” in the person of Cardinal Lazarus.

The Pope praises the Cardinal for his “amiable and affable manner” that “allows us to grasp the fruits of a faith sown in the land of martyrs and that have blossomed with simplicity thanks to the joyful witness of a living Church.”

A Church that is faithful to Jesus

From the story that emerges, Pope Francis says, “we can glimpse the way for all of us to remain as a Church that is faithful to Jesus and His Gospel, far from all worldliness.”

The Holy Father concludes his preface with a word of gratitude to Cardinal Lazarus and to the editors of the book, because, he says, “we all need this light form the East.” We need to listen to our eastern brothers and sisters, to journey to the East and learn from “a spiritual and ecclesial way of life that can reinvigorate our fatih.”

Finally, he says, we must remember that, even in hardship and darkness, the Lord comes like a bolt of lightning, “and desires to illuminate our lives.”

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