Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Holistic formation for candidates

As mentioned in Chapter I, Pope John Paul II writing in Pastores Dabo Vobis, asked that priestly formation – and by extension, religious formation – be holistic. He emphasized that formation needed to start with the human and also include the spiritual, the academic and the pastoral. In the evaluation at the beginning, I had mentioned that the academic formation and spiritual formation are two of the strongest features of our present formation program.
However, I had questioned the relevance of the syllabus and hence would like to suggest that the syllabus be revised so that reflection and critical thinking become part of the pedagogy that we use to impart intellectual formation.Spiritually, I would like to see a deeper connection between our prayer and our life. Special focus needs to be given to what it means for us to become a Eucharistic community. For many of our candidates today, prayer is a ‘time in the daily schedule.’ We have to work to changing this attitude, by allowing prayer and our life-experiences to intersect.However, the greatest amount of work needs to be done with regard to the human and pastoral formation of our candidates. I have already dealt with the value of experiencing the world in the different stages of formation, and would like to re-emphasize that our formation process pay due attention to the surrounding reality by fostering a broader view, more open to the world

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