Jean Khoury
Summary: Ephesians 4:7–16 provides a fundamental theological principle for understanding ecclesial ministry: Christ gives ministers to His Church precisely so that the saints may be brought to spiritual maturity, “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”. The minister is therefore not simply a man who performs an ecclesial function. He is himself a gift (dōron) of Christ, given for the katartismos — the formation, equipping and perfection — of the saints.
This has a decisive consequence for ministerial formation. A man cannot be adequately formed for a ministry whose purpose is to lead others to the fullness of Christ if he himself has not substantially entered into that reality. The minister must know the goal not merely as an abstract theological proposition but as a reality into which he himself has been initiated and transformed by grace. He must possess sufficient spiritual maturity to recognise, discern and guide the journey of others. The minister must therefore himself be formed according to the metron towards which his ministry is directed.
This principle has profound implications for the Church’s understanding of priestly formation and pastoral planning. The finality of pastoral ministry cannot be reduced to evangelisation, catechesis, sacramental practice, community building or the multiplication of activities. These are means within a larger theological movement whose final measure is Christ Himself. John Paul II expressed this with particular clarity in Novo Millennio Ineunte: pastoral planning must be placed “under the heading of holiness” and must aim at “a genuine ‘training in holiness’”.
The Byzantine and Orthodox tradition of selecting bishops from among monks illustrates historically a similar intuition: those entrusted with the highest pastoral responsibility were sought among men whose spiritual formation had been tested and whose spirituality was considered proven. The medieval reception of Dionysius the Areopagite supplied the Latin Church with a comprehensive theological architecture of hierarchy, purification, illumination and perfection. With the historical collapse of the identification of Pseudo-Dionysius with the Areopagite of Acts, the apostolic authority of that synthesis was profoundly altered. Saint John of the Cross subsequently offers an extraordinarily developed theology of the transformation of the person through purification, contemplation, union and divine love. He may therefore provide an indispensable resource for recovering a systematic theology of the itinerary towards Christian perfection.
The central claim is consequently both theological and pastoral: if Christ gives ministers to His Church for the perfection of the saints, then the Church must form ministers who themselves know, embody and can guide others through the path towards the fullness of Christ. A pastoral Church cannot be content merely to possess activities, structures and ministers. She needs an intelligible spiritual architecture, and she needs guides who know the architecture from within.
Introduction: Christ Gives Persons for the Perfection of His Church
There is a striking progression in Ephesians 4. Saint Paul begins by speaking of grace: “But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of the gift of Christ.” He then speaks of gifts: “And he gave gifts to men.” But when Paul explains what these gifts are, he does not principally name things. He names persons: “And he himself gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers.” This is the foundation of the argument. The minister is a gift of Christ.
The priest, pastor, evangelist or teacher is not merely a Christian who happens to occupy an ecclesial function. Christ gives him to the Church for a purpose. His very person, insofar as it is configured to Christ and placed at the service of His Body, belongs to the economy of Christ’s gift.
But this immediately raises the decisive question: What is Christ giving the minister to the Church to accomplish? Paul’s answer is not vague. He gives them: “for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ.” And Paul does not stop there. He gives the temporal horizon of the ministry: “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” The minister therefore has a defined theological purpose. He is given for the perfection of others. And the perfection of others has a defined measure: the fullness of Christ.
This must be placed at the beginning of any serious theology of ministry. The Church does not give ministers merely so that religious services may be conducted, communities administered, doctrine transmitted or pastoral programmes maintained. These activities have their proper place, but they are subordinate to the theological purpose identified by Saint Paul. The minister is given for the katartismos of the saints. The saints are brought to maturity. The Body is built up. And the final measure is Christ. This leads directly to the central thesis of this study: The minister who is given by Christ for the perfection of the saints must himself possess a real and substantial participation in the perfection towards which he is called to lead them. This is not the claim that a minister must have reached the absolute eschatological consummation of Christian perfection. Nor is it the claim that a minister ceases to grow once he begins to minister. The saints themselves remain on pilgrimage. The claim is more precise and more demanding. A minister cannot adequately lead another person towards a spiritual reality of which he has no substantial knowledge or experience. He cannot be a guide to a country he has never entered. He cannot lead the blind towards a destination which he cannot himself see. He cannot build an architectural form whose plan he does not possess. And he cannot fulfil Paul’s katartismos if he has never seriously undergone the katartismos himself. Consequently, ministerial formation is not simply preparation for ecclesiastical tasks. It is formation into the kind of person whom Christ can give to others for their sanctification. This changes the entire question of priestly formation. The question is no longer merely: How do we train a man to be a priest? It becomes: How do we form a man so deeply in Christ that Christ can give him to His Church as an instrument for forming Christ in others? That is the question that Ephesians 4 places before the Church.
I. Ephesians 4:7–16: The Measure of the Ministry
The Greek of Ephesians 4:7 reads: Ἑνὶ δὲ ἑκάστῳ ἡμῶν ἐδόθη ἡ χάρις κατὰ τὸ μέτρον τῆς δωρεᾶς τοῦ Χριστοῦ. “But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of the gift of Christ.” Three words already establish the fundamental structure: charis, metron and dōrea. Grace is given. It is given according to a measure. And the measure belongs to Christ’s gift. Paul then develops this in verses 8–11. The risen Christ distributes gifts to His Church: καὶ αὐτὸς ἔδωκεν… “And he himself gave…” The emphasis falls upon Christ Himself as giver. He gives apostles (apostoloi), prophets (prophētai), evangelists (euangelistai), pastors (poimenes) and teachers (didaskaloi). The Church’s ministers therefore originate in Christ’s initiative. They are Christ’s gifts to the Church. But the decisive question is why they are given. Paul answers: πρὸς τὸν καταρτισμὸν τῶν ἁγίων “for the katartismos of the saints.” The noun katartismos derives from katartizō: to put in order, restore, prepare, equip, make fit or bring something into proper condition. The traditional “perfecting” therefore captures something essential. The ministers are given so that the saints may be made fit for their proper fulfilment. Then: εἰς ἔργον διακονίας “for the work of ministry”. And: εἰς οἰκοδομὴν τοῦ σώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ “for the building up of the Body of Christ.”
The three expressions are not independent pastoral objectives. They describe a single movement. The saints are perfected. They are equipped for ministry. The Body is built up. And then Paul gives the goal: μέχρι καταντήσωμεν οἱ πάντες… “until we all attain…” The endpoint is: εἰς ἄνδρα τέλειον “to a mature man”. And then the decisive expression: εἰς μέτρον ἡλικίας τοῦ πληρώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ. “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
The recurrence of metron is theologically significant. Verse 7 speaks of: to metron tēs dōreas tou Christou “the measure of the gift of Christ”. Verse 13 speaks of: to metron … tou plērōmatos tou Christou “the measure … of the fullness of Christ”. The ministry begins from Christ’s gift and moves towards Christ’s fullness. Christ is both the giver and the measure. The minister is a gift of Christ. The saints are formed towards Christ. The Body grows towards Christ. And Christ Himself is the measure of the growth.
This means that the finality of ministry cannot be defined merely by its immediate functions. The apostle, pastor, evangelist and teacher are not ultimately given to produce activity. They are given to produce Christiform maturity. The Church’s pastoral work therefore possesses an objective telos. It is not simply “doing ministry”. It is bringing persons towards teleiotēs — maturity, completeness, perfection — according to the measure of Christ.
II. The Minister Must Know What He Is Called to Communicate
Here the central thesis becomes unavoidable. If the minister is given for the katartismos of the saints, then his own formation cannot be conceptually separated from the reality of the katartismos he is called to accomplish in others. The minister cannot be merely an external technician. He must be a witness and guide. Luke 6:39 supplies Christ’s stark image: “Can a blind man lead a blind man?” The question is not whether God can work through a blind man. God can work through anyone. The question is whether a person is fit to exercise the ministry of leading others when he himself lacks the vision required for that ministry. That is precisely the issue of idoneitas. A minister must be idoneus: suitable, fit, properly disposed for the work entrusted to him. The deeper the ministry’s purpose, the deeper must be the formation required for its exercise. And what ministry could have a deeper purpose than bringing the saints towards the fullness of Christ? Saint Paul’s own apostolic pattern makes this explicit: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” The apostle does not say merely, “Understand what I teach.” He says, in effect: Follow the form of Christ that has become visible in me. This reaches its theological centre in Galatians 2:20: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” And again in Galatians 4:19: “until Christ be formed in you.” The apostolic ministry therefore possesses an extraordinary interior logic: Christ formed in the minister → Christ communicated through the minister → Christ formed in those whom he serves.
The minister is not the source. Christ is. But the minister must become sufficiently transparent to Christ that his own person does not obstruct the gift he is called to mediate. This is why purification is not an optional ascetical embellishment to ministerial formation. It belongs to the substance of the question. The minister must undergo the passage from the old man to the new. He must learn to live according to the Spirit. He must become sufficiently detached from disordered self-love, ambition, possessiveness and dependence upon created things that Christ can increasingly act through him. The theological question is therefore not whether ministers remain sinners. They do.
The question is whether the new man has gained sufficient primacy that the minister’s own life has become a credible and effective instrument of the reality he is called to communicate. This is the theological meaning of formation.
III. The Pastoral Consequence: The Church Needs a Plan of the Whole Mountain
Once the finality of ministry is understood in this way, the consequences for pastoral theology are immediate. If the summit is the fullness of Christ, then the Church must know the summit. If the summit is known, she must understand the path. If there is a path, she needs guides. And if she needs guides, she must form men who know the path. The alternative is a pastoralism that begins without a sufficiently determinate conception of its final form (headless pastoralism). One can organise evangelisation programmes, catechetical courses, youth groups, sacramental preparation, parish missions, retreats, charitable works and countless other activities without possessing a coherent account of how these activities contribute to the transformation of a person into the fullness of Christ.
Such pastoralism may be extremely active. But activity is not architecture. It is possible to climb without a map. It is possible to construct without a complete plan. It is possible to evangelise without knowing how evangelisation is to culminate in mature Christian existence. And this is precisely why the phrase metron hēlikias tou plērōmatos tou Christou must return to the centre of pastoral thought. The Church has been given a summit. She must therefore recover the path. And the path must be entrusted to guides who know it.
IV. Novo Millennio Ineunte: Pastoral Planning Under the Heading of Holiness
John Paul II’s Novo Millennio Ineunte can be read as a remarkable modern reaffirmation of this Pauline principle. The Pope explicitly calls for pastoral planning to be subordinated to holiness. He writes: “To place pastoral planning under the heading of holiness is a choice filled with consequences.” The sentence is programmatic. Pastoral planning is not rejected. It is reordered. Its heading — its governing principle — must be holiness. John Paul II then calls the Church to propose again: “the high standard of ordinary Christian living.” And he speaks explicitly of: “a genuine ‘training in holiness’”. The Italian expression, “una vera e propria pedagogia della santità”, is even more revealing: a genuine pedagogy of holiness. The Pope therefore moves from telos to pedagogy. Holiness is the goal. Formation is the means. Pastoral planning must organise the means according to the goal.
This is precisely the architecture implicit in Ephesians 4. Paul gives the telos. John Paul II asks for the “pedagogia”. The Church therefore needs both. She must know what holiness is and how people are led towards it. John Paul II makes prayer central to this formation: “This training in holiness calls for a Christian life distinguished above all in the art of prayer.” This is entirely consistent with the great spiritual tradition. Holiness is not produced by pastoral activism. It is the fruit of grace received, cooperated with and brought to maturity. The Pope therefore insists that the programme already exists in Christ and the Gospel, while acknowledging the need for concrete pastoral planning in each local Church. Pastoral planning is consequently not the invention of a new destination. It is the intelligent organisation of the Church’s means towards the destination already given by Christ.
V. The Byzantine Episcopate: Spiritual Provenance as a Criterion for Ministry
The Byzantine and Orthodox episcopal tradition gives historical expression to a principle that is remarkably consonant with this theology. For centuries, bishops were traditionally selected from among monks. The reason was not simply administrative convenience. Monastic life was understood as a context of ascetical and spiritual formation in which a man could be tested through prayer, obedience, renunciation and spiritual struggle. The monk was not necessarily a candidate for episcopacy. Rather, the tradition recognised that men who had undergone serious spiritual formation could possess precisely the kind of interior maturity required for ecclesial responsibility. The underlying intuition is important: those entrusted with leading others towards spiritual maturity should themselves be men whose spirituality has been proven. The Byzantine tradition therefore provides a concrete ecclesial analogue to the principle we find in Ephesians 4. The minister is not chosen solely because he can perform a task. His spiritual provenance matters. His manner of life matters. His purification matters. His prayer matters. His proven capacity to live the Gospel matters. His knowledge of God matters. This is particularly striking in the case of the bishop because the bishop’s ministry is itself one of spiritual fatherhood and oversight of the Church’s life. The tradition thus embodies a theological instinct: ecclesial authority should be accompanied by spiritual maturity. The question is not whether every bishop selected from a monastery was already perfect. The question is what the Church considered relevant evidence of fitness. And the answer included proven holiness and proven doctrine.
VI. Dionysius: The Medieval Church’s Comprehensive Map
The same concern appears on another level in the medieval reception of Dionysius the Areopagite. The author of the Dionysian corpus wrote under the name of the Dionysius converted through Saint Paul’s preaching in Athens. The medieval Church believed that this was indeed the Areopagite of Acts 17. That belief profoundly affected the reception of his theology. Dionysius was not treated simply as another theologian. His writings were received as possessing an extraordinary proximity to the apostolic age. Consequently, his synthesis acquired enormous authority. The importance of this cannot be understood merely in terms of authorship. The more fundamental issue is what his corpus provided. Dionysius gave Christianity a comprehensive theological architecture of sacred order and ascent. His Ecclesiastical Hierarchy (Ἐκκλησιαστικὴ Ἱεραρχία) interpreted ecclesial structures, sacramental mysteries and ministries within a movement of divine illumination and transformation. The term hierarchia itself — ἱεραρχία — denotes sacred order. The Church is therefore not merely a collection of offices. She is ordered towards God. And within this order Dionysius repeatedly works with the great triad: purification — illumination — perfection (katharsis — photismos — teleiōsis). The significance is enormous. The Church possessed not merely a theology of doctrine and institution, but a theology of movement. There was an intelligible ascent. There was a beginning. There was progression. There was purification. There was illumination. There was perfection. The sacramental and hierarchical structures of the Church could be understood within this larger divine economy. This was an architecture.
And because medieval Christianity believed that Dionysius was the disciple of Paul, the architecture carried an authority that was effectively apostolic in the consciousness of the period. Modern scholarship has established that the author was in fact a Christian theologian of the late fifth or early sixth century, influenced by late Platonism. That historical discovery is important and should not be denied. But it does not eliminate the theological-historical question. If Dionysius provided the medieval Church with a comprehensive map of sacred order and ascent, what became of that map when the apostolic identity attributed to him collapsed? This is the deeper question.
VII. From Dionysius to John of the Cross: Recovering the Interior Itinerary
One should not say that John of the Cross simply replaced Dionysius historically. He did not. The two theologians answer different but complementary questions. Dionysius provides a vast architecture of divine order, hierarchy, liturgy and ascent. John of the Cross provides one of the most profound accounts in the Christian tradition of the interior transformation through which a person is brought to union with God. For this reason John may possess particular significance for the recovery of a theology of the itinerary. His vocabulary is the vocabulary of movement: purificación — purification; desasimiento — detachment; contemplación — contemplation; unión — union; transformación — transformation; matrimonio espiritual — spiritual marriage. The goal is not merely moral improvement. It is transformation in divine love. The Ascent of Mount Carmel provides a structured account of the purification required for union. The Dark Night describes the deeper purifications in which God Himself acts upon the soul. The Spiritual Canticle describes the movement towards union. The Living Flame of Love describes the soul transformed by the living fire of divine love. John therefore gives the Church an extraordinarily developed account of the interior journey towards perfection. And here the connection with Ephesians 4 becomes especially fruitful. Paul gives the measure: metron … tou plērōmatos tou Christou. John explains in extraordinary detail what transformation into divine likeness entails within the person.
Paul gives the summit. John gives an extended theological description of the ascent. Dionysius gives the architecture of sacred order and divine mediation. John gives the architecture of interior transformation. Together they allow a profound synthesis to emerge. The Church needs both the architecture of the ecclesial order and the architecture of the transformed person. Without the first, spiritual experience risks becoming detached from ecclesial and sacramental reality. Without the second, ecclesial structures risk becoming detached from the transformation they exist to serve.
VIII. The Minister Must Himself Be Formed According to the Goal
The argument can now return to its central point. The minister is Christ’s gift. The gift has a purpose. The purpose is the katartismos of the saints. The saints are to attain maturity. The maturity has a measure. The measure is the fullness of Christ. Therefore the formation of the minister cannot be indifferent to that measure. A man being prepared to lead others towards holiness must himself be seriously initiated into the reality of holiness. A man being prepared to teach contemplation must himself know something of prayer beyond theory. A man being prepared to guide souls through purification must understand purification from within. A man being prepared to discern spiritual growth must possess spiritual discernment. A man being prepared to form Christ in others must allow Christ to be formed in himself. This is why theological education, while indispensable, is not sufficient.
A man can pass examinations in theology without having undergone substantial purification. He can master the history of mysticism without knowing contemplative prayer. He can teach the doctrine of grace without living deeply from grace. He can preach holiness without having developed a serious theology and practice of the spiritual life. The Church therefore needs something more comprehensive. She needs sapiential formation: formation in which theological knowledge, spiritual experience, purification, prayer, discernment and pastoral capacity converge around the final purpose of the priesthood. The priest must become not simply an expert in religious matters but a man capable of becoming, in Christ, a gift for the sanctification of others.
IX. The Consequences for the Theology of Pastoral Ministry
The first consequence is that the Church’s pastoral mission is inherently teleological. Every pastoral action must be capable of being related to the final purpose of Christian existence. The question concerning any pastoral initiative is therefore not simply whether it is useful, successful or popular. It is: How does this contribute to the formation of Christ in the person?
The second consequence is that pastoral planning requires a theology of progression. If there is a summit, there must be a path. If there is a path, there are stages. If there are stages, there are corresponding means. If there are means, there must be guides. If there are guides, they must be formed.
The third consequence is that the Church cannot afford a fragmented pastoralism in which the individual activities are not integrated into a coherent itinerary of Christian transformation.
The fourth is that the sacraments must be understood not merely as isolated rites but within the entire economy of Christian transformation.
The fifth is that catechesis must lead beyond information towards wisdom and transformation.
The sixth is that preaching must not stop at moral exhortation but must communicate the path by which grace transforms the person.
The seventh is that spiritual direction and accompaniment cannot be peripheral activities if the Church takes seriously her vocation to form the saints.
And the eighth is that the formation of priests must itself become a privileged locus of the Church’s theology of holiness. The priest cannot simply be trained to administer a system. He must be formed to guide persons towards a mystery.
X. The Full Stature of Christ as the Governing Principle
Ephesians 4 therefore offers more than a description of the Church. It offers a criterion for judging the coherence of her pastoral life. The question becomes: Is the pastoral activity of the Church consciously ordered towards the metron hēlikias tou plērōmatos tou Christou? If not, something fundamental has been lost. The Church may remain active. She may remain sacramental. She may remain doctrinally orthodox. She may remain institutionally strong. But the Pauline architecture has been obscured if the final measure of pastoral work is no longer the maturity of the Christian in Christ. This is precisely why John Paul II’s Novo Millennio Ineunte is so important. He does not invent a new pastoral programme. He calls the Church back to the fundamental programme already given in Christ. He asks her to organise pastoral life around holiness. In other words, he calls her to recover the telos. But once the telos is recovered, another question immediately follows: Where is the itinerary? And then another: Where are the guides who know it? And finally: Where are the institutions and structures that form those guides? These questions belong together.
Conclusion: The Church Needs Guides Who Know the Mountain
The deepest issue is therefore not whether the Church has enough pastoral activity. It is whether her pastoral activity possesses a sufficiently clear theological architecture. Ephesians 4 gives that architecture in concentrated form. Christ gives grace. Christ gives ministers. Ministers are given for the katartismos of the saints. The saints are formed for ministry. The Body is built up. The Church grows towards maturity. And the measure is the fullness of Christ. The minister therefore stands within this movement as a gift whose own formation cannot be separated from the goal he is entrusted with communicating. He need not be absolutely perfected. But he must have entered the reality. He must know the mountain. He must know the path. He must have climbed sufficiently far to recognise the terrain. He must know the dangers. He must know the signs of progress. And he must know that the ascent is ultimately the work of grace. This is the profound wisdom behind the ancient instinct to entrust major ecclesial responsibility to men of proven spirituality.
It is also the wisdom that can be seen, at a different theological level, in the great architecture of Dionysius and in the interior itinerary of John of the Cross. And it is the pastoral intuition recovered with remarkable clarity by John Paul II: “To place pastoral planning under the heading of holiness is a choice filled with consequences.” The consequences are indeed immense. If holiness is the heading, then pastoral planning needs an itinerary. If the itinerary leads towards the fullness of Christ, ministers must know that itinerary. If ministers must know it, they must themselves be formed within it.
If they are to guide others through it, their own spiritual formation must be sufficiently advanced that their ministry is not merely functional but genuinely transformative. The Church therefore needs more than pastoral workers. She needs guides. She needs men who know the telos, who understand the metron, who have entered into the mystērion, who have undergone katharsis, who know something of theōria and theosis, who understand teleiōsis, and who can discern the action of grace in the concrete human person. In Pauline language, the task is nothing less than this: “until Christ be formed in you.” The minister is given for that work.
And therefore the minister himself must be formed. The Church has been given the summit. The summit is Christ. She must therefore recover the path. And she must form guides who know the mountain.