Saturday After Epiphany
Discernment Retreat
St. Mary’s Seminary
January 10, 2026
It is a pleasure to be with you this morning. Thank you for taking time to participate in this discernment retreat, a time of prayer, reflection, inspiration – and we hope clarity and grace. To see so many of you here is very encouraging and I pray that you will experience the presence of the Lord as you reflect on how to give your life in love to him and to others.
In today’s Gospel, John the Baptist and Jesus are side-by-side. They are in the same region and both are baptizing. There is no dispute between Jesus and John, but the disciples of each are squabbling. It is John who clarifies matters. He makes clear that he is not the Christ, not the Messiah. It is Jesus, the One he proclaimed and baptized: he is the Christ. John adds these memorable words: “He must increase; I must decrease.”
Those are words to live by. In fact, they are a good description of what priestly formation is. It’s a process that accelerates and intensifies the transformation of our lives that was begun in baptism – a decrease in egotism and self-centeredness and an increase of Christ’s truth and love in every dimension of our lives. But right about now you might be saying, “Hold the phone! I have either just made application to the vocations program or I am considering whether to do that – and here you are, Archbishop, already talking about priestly formation. Well, as a matter of fact, I am.
Because, you see, when you are seriously discerning, you don’t necessarily consider the steps you’d be taking in strict chronological order . . . Our minds and hearts race ahead. You naturally wonder what the seminary would be like. You naturally wonder what kind of a priest you’d make. And you do this before you fill out the first form for Fr. Roth. So let’s think a little more about how John the Baptist’s words – “He must increase, I must decrease”- apply to you, and to every seminarian in formation & to every priest in ongoing formation.
First, to reiterate, the disciples of Jesus and John, at times, were rivals, but Jesus and John the Baptist were not. John was the forerunner; Jesus was the One sent by the Father. So, when John said that he must decrease while Jesus must increase, he was not speaking like a politician conceding defeat. He was fulfilling his God-given vocation, namely, pointing to the beloved Son of the Father in the flesh, pointing to the One in whom the fullness of God resides bodily. It is up to us to accept John’s testimony as the foundation of our life. Just as John the Baptist accepted Jesus as Lord and Messiah, so too, we must open our hearts widely to Christ, to encounter him in love, to follow him wholeheartedly. Priestly formation has a lot to do with becoming a disciple of Jesus, coming to know him more deeply, believe in him more ardently, and follow him more and more completely. Every disciple is not a priest but every priest must be a disciple.
Second, no one else will ever replace John the Baptist – his vocation in salvation history was unique. But his words – ‘He must increase, I must decrease’ – these words apply in a special way to every priest who is ordained to speak and act in the Person of Christ the High Priest. For, you see, a priest is a follower of Christ who is also Christ’s representative, an “alter-Christus” who brings forth sacramentally for the people of God all that Christ said and did to bring about our salvation. The Word proclaimed by the priest is the Word of Life. The Sacrifice celebrated by the priest is Jesus’ saving death & resurrection. The Bread and Wine consecrated by the priest are Christ’s Body and Blood. The Absolution a priest given by the priest is Christ’s power of over sin.
To speak and act in the name and person of Christ, Christ must live in me; he must inhabit my entire being, body and soul. Sacramentally, Holy Orders transforms the priest into an alter Christus. But the Sacrament of Holy Orders – to be received and lived worthily – demands that that the priest’s mind and heart be conformed to Christ’s. And take it from me, that’s the project of a lifetime.
St. John, the Beloved Disciple, develops this point further in today’s first reading where he talks about our need of conversion – the need to allow the grace of God so to work in us that we overcome all forms of sin – anything and everything that can substitute for God in our lives. Priestly formation puts the future priest on a lifelong path and commitment of cooperating with God’s grace – through prayer, the sacraments, spiritual direction, study – and the development of a human heart, open to God & the needs of others. As that happens, Christ increases and one’s ego decreases . . .anger gives way to joy, grasping gives way to generosity – and thus we become the persons God meant us to be in the first place.
Let me thank you again for being here and I look forward to meeting with each of you throughout the day. I know you’re here because you’re serious about finding God’s will for your life. Let me recommend two qualities of mind and heart to ask for: First, is humility – for only a humble heart truly seeks God. Second is docility – for only a docile heart says ‘yes’ to God. I pray that the time you are spending in discernment will bear good fruit and, yes, I pray that many of you will someday become the priests that Jesus wants and needs to gather in his harvest. God bless you and keep you always in his love!