Jean Khoury
Summary: The New Testament describes those entrusted with the things of God as “servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor 4:1). The image of the steward is richer than that of a custodian who merely preserves something unchanged. The steward receives what belongs to another, must understand what has been entrusted to him, allow it to bear fruit in his own life, and finally place it at the service of others. Christian stewardship therefore presupposes discipleship, reception, assimilation and transformation.
This has a profound consequence for theology and for priestly and spiritual formation. The fundamental credential of the steward is not simply academic knowledge, however necessary that knowledge may be. “Transformation is not an option; it is the credential.” The mystery must pass through the whole person—mind, will, affections, wounds, prayer, suffering and concrete existence—until Christ himself becomes increasingly present and operative through that person. The steward does not replace Christ, compete with Christ, or become another master. There is one Teacher, one Master and one Shepherd. The human steward becomes fruitful precisely to the degree that he becomes transparent to the One whom he has received.
This perspective also illuminates the priesthood. Through Holy Orders, the priest is sacramentally configured to Christ and acts in the person of Christ the Head; yet the objective sacramental character does not remove the need for personal holiness. Vatican II speaks of priests as “living instruments of Christ the Eternal Priest” and urges them to become increasingly better instruments through openness to the Holy Spirit. The priest is therefore called not merely to speak about Christ or point towards Christ, but to become, in his whole life, a living sign and instrument through whom Christ can be encountered. This is not a new sacrament in the strict technical sense; rather, it is the deepening of the priest’s conformity to Christ through grace.
The same principle applies beyond the priesthood—to catechists, evangelisers, mystagogues, theologians, spiritual directors and every Christian entrusted with a particular grace. The sequence is always the same: receive, be transformed, transmit. The new wine requires a new wineskin.
Introduction: “Servants of Christ and Stewards of the Mysteries of God”
Paul gives a remarkably precise description of Christian ministry: “People must think of us as Christ’s servants and stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor 4:1). He immediately adds the decisive criterion: “What is expected of stewards is that each one should be found trustworthy” (1 Cor 4:2). The steward therefore lives under a responsibility that does not originate in himself. He has received something that belongs to another and will ultimately have to give an account of what he has done with it.
The language of stewardship is particularly fruitful for understanding Christian formation. A steward is not the owner of what he administers. He cannot alter the master’s property according to his own preference, nor can he treat the entrusted treasure as if it were his personal possession. But neither is stewardship passive conservation. The steward must know what has been entrusted to him, work with it, make it fruitful and distribute it faithfully. The Christian steward therefore receives a mystery that must become life before it can become fruitful transmission.
This is why the question of formation cannot be reduced to the acquisition of information. A person may know a great deal about Scripture, theology, spirituality or the Fathers and yet remain insufficiently transformed by the very mystery he teaches. Conversely, the person who has truly received the mystery allows it to penetrate progressively into the whole of his existence. What is transmitted then is not merely information about God, but something of the life of God that has become incarnate in a human life.
1. The Steward Receives What Belongs to God
The first responsibility of the steward is therefore to receive. This reception is not merely intellectual. One receives with the whole being. The Word of God must enter the mind, certainly, but also the will, the affections, the imagination, the memory, the wounds, the habits, the relationships, the prayer and the concrete circumstances of life. The mystery is not truly received when it remains external to the person who studies it.
The parable of the talents provides an illuminating parallel (Mt 25:14–30). The master entrusts his possessions to his servants: to one five talents, to another two, and to another one, “each in proportion to his ability”. The first two servants do not merely preserve what they have received. The one who received five gains another five; the one who received two gains another two. When the master returns, what he praises is not simply possession but faithful fruitfulness. The gift has been received, worked upon and multiplied.
The parable of the talents should not be reduced to a simplistic equation between talent and intellectual ability. Its deeper principle is that what God entrusts to a person is meant to bear fruit. The steward must allow the gift to become fruitful through him. The same principle appears in Luke’s question concerning “the faithful and prudent steward whom the master will put in charge of his servants to distribute the food allowance at the proper time” (Lk 12:42). The steward receives in order to nourish others.
The movement is therefore not merely receive and repeat. It is receive, assimilate, allow oneself to be transformed, and then transmit fruitfully. The steward must “break the bread” of what he has received. The mystery must become digestible without being reduced; it must become intelligible without losing its depth; and it must become life without being detached from its source.
2. Before Becoming a Teacher, One Must Become a Disciple
This leads to a fundamental Christian principle: before becoming a teacher, one must become a disciple. Jesus warns his disciples against assuming the title of master or teacher: “You have only one Master, and you are all brothers” (Mt 23:8); “you have only one Teacher, the Christ” (Mt 23:10). Christian teaching therefore remains subordinate to the one Teacher. The Christian teacher is not an alternative source of revelation. He is one who has first sat at the feet of the Master.
Jesus makes the same point in Luke: “A disciple is not superior to his teacher; but fully trained he will always be like his teacher” (Lk 6:40). The goal of discipleship is not simply to know what the teacher knows. The fully trained disciple becomes like the teacher. This is already a transformation language.
Ordinary academic learning can increase information without necessarily changing the person. Christian discipleship is different. The Christian receives Christ himself. One does not simply acquire propositions about Christ; one enters into communion with Christ. Consequently, authentic formation must aim at conformity to the Master rather than merely at mastery of information about him.
3. Contemplation Is Transformation
This also clarifies the nature of contemplation. Contemplation is not simply an especially profound form of listening or learning. At its deepest level, contemplation is allowing oneself to be transformed by what one receives. The Word of God transforms the person; the Eucharistic Christ transforms the person; grace progressively conforms the person to Christ. In the language of the Christian East, this can be described as divinisation or theosis: participation by grace in the life of God.
If there is no transformation, something essential is missing. A person may have had an extraordinary intellectual encounter with theological ideas, may be highly educated and may possess an impressive vocabulary of spiritual concepts, while still not having been deeply transformed by God. The experience of God is authentic to the degree that it bears the fruit of conformity to Christ.
This is why “Transformation is not an option; it is the credential.” Degrees, diplomas, academic titles and canonical qualifications have their legitimate place. Knowledge is necessary, and the Church rightly requires intellectual formation. But none of these, by themselves, proves that the mystery has become life in the person who transmits it. The deeper question is: What has this mystery done to the person? What has Christ done in him? Has the Word become flesh in his existence? Has grace altered the way he thinks, loves, chooses, suffers, prays and serves?
4. The Mystery Must Pass Through the Whole Person
The mystery cannot remain confined to one faculty of the human person. The mind must understand it, but the will must consent to it; the affections must be purified by it; the wounds must be touched by it; prayer must become an encounter with it; suffering must be transformed through it; and daily life must progressively become its expression.
This is why the steward cannot simply reproduce formulas. He must have assimilated what he teaches. The Word must have passed through his own humanity. Only then can he truly break the bread of the Word for another person. His teaching can then possess a quality that is not reducible to eloquence or scholarship: it comes from a mystery that has been received, lived and suffered.
The steward therefore becomes a kind of passage through which the mystery can reach another person. The more completely the person is transformed by Christ, the less the transmission depends upon the personality, ingenuity or originality of the transmitter. This does not mean that personality disappears. Rather, personality becomes an instrument through which Christ can act.
5. The Steward Receives Christ Himself
At the heart of Christian stewardship is an even more radical truth: what the steward ultimately receives is not merely a collection of teachings but Christ himself. The mystery is personal because Christianity is communion with a Person.
Jesus’ words in Matthew 23 therefore have particular importance for every Christian ministry. There is one Teacher, one Master and one Christ. The human teacher remains a disciple. His authority is derivative and ministerial. He teaches because he has first been taught by Christ.
This also explains the necessity of transparency. The mature steward increasingly allows Christ to be seen through him. The purpose is not self-display—“look at me, I am showing you Christ”—but something much deeper: through the transformed person, the other person can encounter Christ.
6. “I Myself Will Shepherd My Sheep”: The One Shepherd
The Old Testament gives the decisive theological background. In Ezekiel 34, God condemns the false shepherds who have failed the flock and then declares: “Look! I myself will search for my sheep and examine them” and, more radically, “I myself will pasture my sheep; I myself will give them rest” (Ezek 34:11, 15). God does not ultimately delegate away his shepherding. He himself remains the Shepherd.
Then comes the astonishing promise: “I will establish over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will shepherd them; he will tend them himself and will be their shepherd” (Ezek 34:23). The promise reaches its fulfilment in Christ, who declares, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (Jn 10:11). He also speaks of the other sheep whom he must bring into the one flock: “there will be only one flock and one shepherd” (Jn 10:16).
This provides the correct framework for understanding every human shepherd. There is ultimately only one Shepherd. A priest, spiritual director, catechist or Christian leader does not become an autonomous shepherd alongside Christ. He participates in the shepherding of Christ. His ministry becomes authentic to the extent that Christ himself can shepherd through him.
The human shepherd is therefore called to become increasingly transparent to Christ. This is the mystery behind genuine Christian ministry: Christ is the Shepherd, and the human minister is an instrument through whom the Shepherd continues to seek, feed, heal, gather and lead his sheep.
7. The Priest: A Living Instrument of Christ
This principle reaches a particular intensity in the priesthood. Vatican II teaches that through the sacrament of Orders priests are conformed to Christ the Priest in such a way that they can act in the person of Christ the Head. The Council describes priests as “living instruments of Christ the Eternal Priest” and explicitly connects the fruitfulness of their ministry with holiness and openness to the Holy Spirit.
The distinction between sacramental configuration and personal holiness is essential. The priest acts sacramentally in persona Christi Capitis by virtue of the sacrament, not because he has achieved a particular level of personal holiness. The Eucharist is valid because Christ acts through the sacramental ministry of the priest, not because the priest has already become a saint. Yet the same priest is called to become personally conformed to the Christ whom he sacramentally represents. Objective sacramental configuration and subjective transformation therefore belong together without being confused.
Presbyterorum Ordinis makes this especially clear when it says that priests are made living instruments of Christ and that holiness makes them better instruments of fruitful ministry. The Council even invokes Paul’s words: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). The priest should progressively become a more transparent instrument of Christ—not only at the altar, but throughout his existence.
This is why the priesthood cannot be reduced to the performance of sacramental functions. The priest is called to be a living sign of the Shepherd whom he serves. His preaching, his prayer, his relationships, his charity, his suffering, his patience, his way of receiving people and his manner of exercising authority should progressively manifest the dispositions of Christ.
8. Not Merely Pointing to Christ, but Becoming Transparent to Christ
There is an important distinction here between pointing to Christ and becoming transparent to Christ. A person may say, “Christ is there; follow him,” while remaining personally distant from the reality he announces. Christian ministry calls for something deeper. The minister must himself become increasingly conformed to the One whom he announces so that, through his humanity, others can encounter Christ.
This is not a denial of human personality. The priest does not cease to be himself. Grace does not erase individuality, temperament, history or wounds. Rather, Christ takes possession of these realities and progressively orders them towards himself. The person remains fully human while becoming more deeply conformed to Christ.
This is why it is helpful, with due theological precision, to speak of the priest as a “living sacrament” of Christ in the broad, analogical sense of a living sign and instrument. The priest is not thereby being called a sacrament in the strict sense in which the Church speaks of the seven sacraments. Rather, his whole existence is meant to become a transparent sign through which Christ is encountered. His life should increasingly say, in effect: Christ is alive here.
9. Imitation Is Not Yet Transformation
The distinction between imitation and transformation is crucial. Imitation can begin with a genuine desire to reproduce the behaviour of Jesus: to speak as Jesus spoke, serve as Jesus served, forgive as Jesus forgave and suffer as Jesus suffered. Scripture itself can speak positively about imitation: “Take me for your model and follow Christ” (1 Cor 11:1). But Christian maturity goes further than external reproduction.
Paul can say, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). He also prays that believers may have “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16) and exhorts them to have “the mind that was in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5). Jesus himself says, “Remain in me, as I remain in you… Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:4–5).
The difference is therefore between acting like Christ from outside and allowing Christ to live and act from within. Imitation can be an important stage; transformation is the goal. The mature Christian does not merely reproduce Christ at the level of behaviour. Christ increasingly becomes the principle of his behaviour.
10. Francis and the Logic of Conformity
St Francis of Assisi can serve as a powerful illustration of this movement, provided that his stigmata are not treated as a theological proof or as the measure of Christian maturity. Francis began with a radical desire to follow and imitate Christ. Yet his entire vocation progressively became a participation in Christ’s poverty, obedience, love and Passion. The stigmata can be understood as an extraordinary sign of a much deeper conformity that had already taken place in his life.
The point is not that every Christian should seek extraordinary mystical manifestations. The point is that Christian holiness aims at conformity to Christ. The external form may differ completely from one person to another; the inner principle is the same: Christ increasingly lives in the person.
11. The Martyr: The Ultimate Transparency
The martyr provides perhaps the most striking image of this transparency. In the ancient Christian accounts of martyrdom, the martyr’s suffering is sometimes described in a way that allows the reader to perceive Christ’s own Passion continuing in the member of his Body. The martyr does not cease to be an individual person; rather, the Passion of Christ becomes visible through a particular human life.
This is the extreme form of the steward’s vocation. The martyr receives Christ so profoundly that, even in suffering and death, the Church can see Christ at work in him. The martyr therefore becomes a supreme witness to the truth that Christian ministry is not fundamentally self-expression. It is participation in the life and mission of Christ.
Martyrdom also prevents us from reducing transformation to psychological improvement or moral efficiency. The Christian is not simply becoming a better version of himself. He is being conformed to Christ, including conformity to Christ crucified.
12. The New Wine Requires a New Wineskin
Jesus’ saying about new wine and new wineskins gives us another decisive image: “No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and then run out, and the skins will be lost. No; new wine must be put into fresh skins” (Lk 5:37–38).
The new wine is not simply new information. It is the newness of Christ and the life of grace. If the person who receives that newness remains governed by the old man, there is an incompatibility. The new wine requires a new wineskin.
Paul expresses the same reality in Ephesians: “You must put aside your old self… and you must put on the new self that has been created in God’s way, in the goodness and holiness of the truth” (Eph 4:22–24). The mind must be renewed; the person must become new.
This has enormous implications for Christian formation. We cannot pour the new wine of Christ into people while leaving their fundamental structures of life untouched. Formation must therefore be transformative. The old man must progressively become the new man. Otherwise we risk giving people Christian content while leaving the human vessel incapable of carrying it.
13. The Deposit of Faith Must Be Guarded and Transmitted
Transformation does not mean innovation. The steward remains bound to what has been entrusted to him. Paul tells Timothy to “take as your pattern the sound teaching you have heard from me” and to “guard this rich deposit of faith with the help of the Holy Spirit that dwells in us” (2 Tim 1:13–14).
The steward therefore stands between two dangers. On one side is sterile conservation: preserving formulas without allowing the mystery to become life. On the other side is uncontrolled personal creativity: changing the deposit according to one’s own preferences. Authentic stewardship holds together fidelity and fruitfulness. The mystery remains the Lord’s mystery, yet the steward must allow it to become fruitful in the circumstances of his own life and in the lives of those whom he serves.
The steward is therefore neither owner nor passive container. He is a faithful servant who receives, assimilates, lives, explains, breaks open and transmits.
14. Why the Tradition So Often Links Spiritual Authority with a Transformed Life
The history of Christian spirituality repeatedly illustrates this principle. Many of the great teachers of the spiritual life were not first known as academic specialists but as people formed through prayer, asceticism, Scripture, Eucharistic life, community, obedience and suffering. The Fathers, monastics and spiritual writers often became teachers precisely because the mystery had first been worked into their own lives.
This does not create an opposition between scholarship and holiness. The Church needs both. The danger arises when intellectual qualification is treated as if it were sufficient evidence of spiritual authority. The deepest authority of the Christian teacher comes when knowledge and life converge: what the person teaches is something he has received, prayed, suffered, discerned and lived.
The great spiritual teacher is therefore not someone who has escaped the human condition but someone in whom Christ has progressively transformed the human condition.
15. The Priesthood and the Unity of Life
Vatican II’s teaching on priesthood is especially important here. Presbyterorum Ordinis describes priests as disciples of the Lord and brothers among their brothers, called to seek “the things of Jesus Christ, not the things that are their own”. It teaches that priests should hear and receive the Word they are entrusted to preach: “If at the same time they are ready to receive the word themselves they will grow daily into more perfect followers of the Lord” (PO 13).
The Council also identifies the Eucharistic sacrifice as “the root and centre of the whole life of a priest” and insists that the priestly soul must make its own what takes place on the altar (PO 14). The Eucharist is therefore not simply something the priest celebrates for others. It must penetrate the priest himself. The self-offering of Christ must progressively become the form of his own life.
This is the foundation of priestly pastoral charity. The priest’s ministry cannot remain external to his spiritual life. His pastoral action must flow from union with Christ, and his union with Christ must shape his pastoral action. This is what can be called the unity of life: the priest does not have one life for prayer and another for ministry. The same Christ whom he encounters in prayer and sacrament becomes the Christ who acts through his pastoral charity.
16. Consequences for Priestly Formation
If this vision is taken seriously, priestly formation cannot be primarily informational. Intellectual formation remains indispensable, but it must be integrated into a formation of the whole person. The seminarian must learn, certainly, but he must also become a disciple. He must receive the Word, pray it, discern it, suffer it, obey it and allow it to reshape him.
This means that formation should ask not only, “What does this man know?” but also, “What is happening to this man?” Is he becoming more free? More truthful? More capable of self-giving? More capable of listening? More patient? More united to Christ? More capable of carrying suffering without becoming bitter? More capable of receiving the Word before transmitting it? Is his prayer changing him? Is the Eucharist becoming the form of his life?
Formation should therefore include serious attention to the gradual transformation of the old man into the new man. Academic assessments and canonical requirements remain necessary, but they cannot exhaust discernment. The deeper question is whether the candidate is becoming a living instrument increasingly open to the Holy Spirit.
Presbyterorum Ordinis expresses precisely this movement when it teaches that holiness makes priests more fruitful ministers and urges them to become consistently better instruments. Pastores Dabo Vobis similarly presents the goal of formation as becoming, through Orders, “a living image of Jesus Christ, head and shepherd of the Church”. Formation is therefore not preparation for ministry understood merely as acquiring skills. It is preparation for a life in which Christ himself becomes increasingly operative through the person.
17. Prayer Is the School of Reception
If the steward’s first responsibility is to receive, then prayer cannot be treated as an optional supplement to formation. Prayer is where the disciple receives Christ. Lectio Divina, Eucharistic prayer, adoration, silent prayer, the Prayer of the Heart and the whole life of the Church become places in which the Word is allowed to enter the person.
The decisive issue is not simply the amount of prayer but whether prayer is transforming the person. Prayer must progressively move from an activity performed by the person to an encounter in which the person allows God to act. The disciple sits at the feet of the Master and receives.
This also explains why spiritual direction is fundamentally concerned with transformation. The spiritual director does not merely help another person organise religious activities. He helps the person discern what God is doing, cooperate with grace and progressively become the new person in Christ.
18. The Stewardship of Every Christian
The principle is not restricted to priests. Peter writes: “Each one of you has been given his own share of spiritual gifts, so, as good stewards responsible for all the different graces of God, put yourselves at the service of others” (1 Pet 4:10). Every Christian who receives a grace is, in some sense, a steward.
Catechists, evangelisers, mystagogues, theologians, spiritual directors, parents and all Christians who transmit the faith therefore face the same fundamental question: has what I received become life in me?
The answer will not be measured only by eloquence or productivity. The authentic steward becomes fruitful because the grace entrusted to him has first borne fruit in him. “There shall be one flock, one shepherd”, Jesus. (John 10:16)
19. Discernment and the Danger of Arbitrary Practice
There is also a necessary place here for discernment. If transformation is misunderstood as simply “doing something different”, the result can be arbitrary behaviour. The new man is not invented by the individual. He is formed by grace in conformity with Christ and within the life of the Church.
This is why discernment must grow along the path of spiritual life. The disciple learns progressively to recognise what comes from God, what comes from the self and what may come from other influences. Lectio Divina is particularly important because it keeps transformation anchored in the Word rather than in subjective spiritual impressions. The Word received in the Church, prayed with the Church and interpreted within the living Tradition becomes a criterion for authentic transformation.
The more a person advances, therefore, the more discernment is needed—not less. Growth in spiritual freedom is growth in the capacity to recognise and cooperate with the action of God.
20. Martyrdom and the Supreme Form of Foolishness
There is an apparent paradox at the heart of the Gospel: the very steward who becomes transparent to Christ may be led into what the world considers foolishness. The Cross appears as failure, weakness and even absurdity. Yet for the Christian, martyrdom can become the supreme witness to the fact that Christ is more real than self-preservation.
This does not mean that martyrdom should be sought indiscriminately or romanticised. The Church requires discernment, and Christian prudence does not consist in manufacturing opportunities for suffering. Rather, when fidelity to Christ genuinely leads to the gift of life, the martyr reveals the final logic of stewardship: the gift received from God is returned entirely to God.
The martyr therefore embodies the movement of the talents at its most radical. Nothing is retained as private property—not even life itself. The steward gives back everything because everything was first received.
21. “He Must Increase, I Must Decrease”
John the Baptist gives a concise expression of the entire movement: “He must grow greater, I must grow less” (Jn 3:30). This is not the annihilation of the person. John does not cease to be John. Rather, his vocation reaches its fulfilment precisely when Christ occupies the centre.
The same principle applies to every steward. The goal is not that the disciple become impressive. The goal is that Christ become increasingly visible. The mature steward can therefore become less concerned with his own importance because his identity has become rooted in the One whom he serves.
This is the deepest meaning of transparency. The steward remains present, but Christ becomes the centre.
22. A Practical Criterion for Spiritual and Ecclesial Formation
The principle can therefore be formulated as a criterion for formation: before asking whether someone is ready to transmit a mystery, ask whether the mystery has begun to transform him.
This does not abolish academic standards. On the contrary, sound theology, Scripture, history, doctrine and intellectual discipline are indispensable to faithful stewardship. But intellectual formation should serve the transformation of the person rather than replace it.
A mature formation programme should therefore seek a convergence of knowledge, prayer, practice, discernment, human maturity, ecclesial communion and conformity to Christ. The question is not simply whether the student can reproduce correct answers, but whether he or she is becoming capable of carrying the mystery faithfully.
The true credential is consequently neither a degree nor an impressive vocabulary. It is a life progressively configured to Christ. “Transformation is not an option; it is the credential.”
Conclusion: Receive, Be Transformed, Transmit
The image with which we began can now be understood more deeply. “People must think of us as Christ’s servants and stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor 4:1). The steward receives what belongs to God. He does not possess it as an owner. He receives it with the whole of his being, allows it to penetrate his humanity, lets grace transform him, and then places what he has received at the service of others.
The steward is therefore first a disciple. There is one Teacher, one Master and one Shepherd. Ezekiel’s promise remains decisive: “I myself will pasture my sheep.” Christ fulfils that promise by declaring, “I am the good shepherd.” Human ministers do not compete with this Shepherd. They become instruments through whom he continues his shepherding.
The priest embodies this mystery in a particular sacramental way. He is configured to Christ and acts in persona Christi Capitis, but his personal vocation is to become ever more deeply conformed to the Christ whom he sacramentally represents. He is called to become a living instrument, a transparent sign, an increasingly faithful icon of the Shepherd.
The same is true, in different ways, of every Christian steward. What is received must become life. What becomes life can become fruitful transmission. The new wine requires the new wineskin. The old man must become the new man. Knowledge must become wisdom; wisdom must become life; and life must become witness.
In the end, the steward’s deepest prayer is not, “Look at what I have accomplished for Christ,” but rather, “Let Christ live in me.” The ultimate credential of the steward is therefore not that he can speak about the mystery, but that the mystery has transformed him. The goal is that, when others encounter the steward, they may increasingly encounter the Shepherd himself: Christ alive, acting, speaking, serving and giving himself through a human life.
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Selected Sources and Scriptural References
1 Corinthians 4:1–2 — servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.
Matthew 25:14–30 — the parable of the talents.
Luke 12:42 — the faithful and prudent steward.
Ezekiel 34:11, 15, 23–24 — God himself shepherds his people and promises one shepherd.
John 10:11, 16 — Christ the Good Shepherd and the one flock under one shepherd.
Matthew 23:8–10 — one Teacher, one Master, the Christ.
Luke 6:40 — the disciple becoming like the teacher.
Galatians 2:20 — “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
John 15:4–5 — remaining in Christ and bearing fruit.
Philippians 2:5 — having the mind of Christ.
1 Corinthians 2:16 — possessing the mind of Christ.
1 Corinthians 11:1 — imitation of Christ through the example of the apostle.
Luke 5:37–38 — new wine and fresh wineskins.
Ephesians 4:22–24 — putting aside the old self and putting on the new self.
2 Timothy 1:13–14 — guarding the rich deposit of faith.
1 Peter 4:10 — good stewards of God’s varied grace.
John 3:30 — “He must increase, I must decrease.”
Second Vatican Council, Presbyterorum Ordinis, especially nos. 2, 6, 9, 12–14.
John Paul II, Pastores Dabo Vobis, especially the sections on spiritual, human, intellectual and pastoral formation and the goal of becoming a living image of Jesus Christ, Head and Shepherd of the Church.