Beginning with the End in the Life and Formation of the Parish Priest
Jean Khoury
Introduction: What Is a Parish Priest Ultimately For?
The life of a parish priest is extraordinarily demanding. He celebrates the Eucharist, hears confessions, preaches, baptises, marries, accompanies the sick and dying, teaches, administers, counsels, visits families, works with schools, collaborates with lay people, manages finances and buildings, responds to emergencies, and carries the burdens of countless people entrusted to his care.
The danger is obvious: a priest can become so occupied with what he must do that he gradually loses sight of what he is ultimately for.
The question of priestly renewal must therefore begin one level deeper than pastoral activity: What is the priest ultimately seeking? What are we forming a priest for?
If the answer is simply “to run a parish well,” the horizon has already become too small. “To serve the people” is better, but still incomplete. “To administer the sacraments” touches something essential, but still does not express the ultimate end.
The priest is ultimately ordered towards God Himself — union with God in Christ and the perfection of charity. His priestly configuration to Christ and his sacramental ministry exist within this ultimate teleological horizon.
The parish is not the final destination. Neither is the apostolate, nor pastoral success, nor even the continuation of the parish itself. The priest, and those entrusted to him, are ultimately ordered towards God. This is where the principle of beginning with the end becomes decisive for priestly formation.
1. The Parish Priest as an Archer
Imagine an archer before a circular target. The target may be large, but the archer is not aiming at the whole board — he is aiming at one precise point: the centre. Everything depends on knowing where that centre is. He must see it, fix his gaze on it, orient the arrow towards it, draw the bow, and release with enough strength and precision to reach the mark.
The spiritual life has the same structure. The priest needs to know the centre towards which his whole life is ordered. That centre is God.
His priesthood is not an alternative to the universal Christian vocation to holiness; rather, the sacramental priesthood gives that vocation a particular configuration and mission. The order can be expressed as a single line:
God → union with God → perfection of charity → priestly configuration to Christ → pastoral ministry → particular parish apostolate.
The direction matters. The parish exists for the Church. The priestly ministry exists for the people of God. The people of God are ordered towards Christ. And Christ leads everything to the Father.
If this order is reversed, pastoral ministry can gradually become an end in itself. The priest begins by serving the parish, then begins to live for it, then measures himself by it, until he experiences the parish almost as the centre of his identity.
But the parish is not the centre. Christ is the centre. The priest is not ultimately called to be a successful administrator; he is called to become another Christ in the midst of his people — configured to Christ the Priest and Shepherd — so that his whole existence becomes an instrument of the Father’s work.
2. The Great Danger: Confusing Ministry with the End
Priestly ministry is genuinely good. The danger is not that the priest does bad things — it is that good things can gradually occupy the place of the highest Good.
A priest can become completely absorbed in the Sunday schedule, the catechetical programme, the parish council, the building project, the school, the finances, safeguarding requirements, the pastoral plan, sick calls, funerals, weddings, administrative demands. None of these is opposed to holiness. But none of them is the Goal — they are means. And the moment a means becomes functionally detached from the End, the priest can become extraordinarily active while becoming progressively less contemplative.
He can become a very efficient priest without becoming a more deeply transformed one. He can administer a parish without allowing Christ to administer his own soul.
This is why the first question of priestly formation cannot be “How do we train priests to manage everything they have to do?” It must be:
“How do we form a man so deeply united to Christ that everything he does flows from that union?”
3. The Arrow: The Goal and the Journey
Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross offer an extraordinary paradigm here. An arrow has two essential parts: the point, directed towards the centre, and the body or shaft, which gives it trajectory and carries it there. The same structure applies to formation.
The point is the Goal. The body is the journey towards the Goal.
St Teresa’s Interior Castle gives us the arrow in a striking form. The Seventh Mansion represents the summit — profound union with God, spiritual marriage, transformation in charity, and the resulting availability for God’s action. The First Mansion is not disconnected from the Seventh; it is the beginning of the same journey whose fulfilment the Seventh represents. The whole Castle is one arrow: the Seventh Mansion its point, the preceding mansions its trajectory.
John of the Cross does something complementary in the Spiritual Canticle and the Living Flame of Love, tracing the journey towards union and then opening before us the soul transformed in divine love. The “flamings” of the Living Flame glimpse what happens when the human spirit is deeply transformed by the Holy Spirit. Again: the tip is the Goal; the body is the journey.
This is an extraordinary pedagogical achievement. Teresa and John did not merely tell Christians that holiness exists — they showed them where the arrow is pointing and how it travels. This is precisely what priestly formation needs.
4. What Is the “Point” of Priestly Formation?
The point cannot simply be “a competent priest,” or even “a good parish priest.” Both are necessary but not ultimate.
The priest must be formed towards holiness in priestly configuration to Christ — increasingly united to Christ the Priest, Christ the Shepherd, Christ the Bridegroom, Christ the Servant. His priestly identity cannot be reduced to a function. He does not merely perform priestly actions; he is sacramentally configured to Christ.
Priestly formation, then, must seek the transformation of the whole person: mind, memory, will, affections, desires, prayer, suffering, pastoral charity — an entire existence increasingly belonging to Christ. This is why the priest must ultimately become a spiritual theologian in the deepest sense: not someone who merely possesses academic information about the spiritual life, but someone who understands its dynamics because he is himself seriously engaged in them. He is called to lead others towards God, and so must know the road — not merely theoretically.
5. The Body of the Arrow: What Priestly Formation Must Contain
Once the Goal is clear, the diversity of priestly formation can be properly ordered. Philosophy, Scripture, dogmatic and moral theology, canon law, liturgy, pastoral theology, human formation, spiritual formation, pastoral skills — each has its place, but none is a disconnected subject. Each is part of the body of the arrow, and its value is determined by its relationship to the point.
The question is therefore not simply “What should a priest know?” but:
“How does what a priest knows contribute to his transformation and his capacity to lead others towards God?”
This is the distinction between information and formation. A priest can acquire enormous theological knowledge without becoming a theologian of his own existence. He can study prayer without becoming a man of prayer, teach holiness without pursuing it, preach the Cross without letting it transform him, speak of Christ without becoming configured to Christ.
Formation must integrate the scientific, theological, sapiential, and spiritual dimensions. Knowledge must become wisdom. Wisdom must become life. Life must become pastoral charity. And pastoral charity must lead others towards God.
6. The Parish Is Not the End: It Is the Field of the Arrow
The parish priest’s ministry places him in contact with nearly every dimension of human existence. He receives people at birth, accompanies them through childhood and adolescence, prepares them for marriage, hears their confessions, anoints their sick, stands beside their families at death, celebrates the Eucharist, preaches the Gospel, teaches the faith, comforts the suffering, confronts sin, encourages the discouraged, helps people discern God’s will.
In all of this he is dealing with one fundamental reality: the human person’s journey towards God. The parish is the field in which the arrow flies — not the target.
This distinction can transform pastoral ministry. A baptism is not merely an event to organise; it is the beginning or deepening of a journey towards God. A homily is not merely a weekly speech; it is an opportunity to place the Word before a person so that he may encounter Christ and be transformed. Confession is not simply the administration of a sacrament; it is participation in Christ’s work of restoring the sinner to communion with God. The Eucharist is not simply the centre of the parish timetable; it is the sacramental participation of the Church in Christ’s offering to the Father. A funeral is not merely pastoral care at a moment of grief; it is an encounter with the mystery of death and the hope of eternal life.
Once the End is recovered, the whole of parish ministry is reinterpreted.
7. The Priest Must Himself Be on the Road
The priest cannot simply stand at the end of the road pointing others towards God — he must himself be travelling. His authority as a spiritual guide depends profoundly on the authenticity of his own journey.
This does not mean a priest must have already reached the summit before he can minister to others. He remains a pilgrim. But he must be genuinely pursuing the Goal, because the person who is no longer seeking God will eventually struggle to lead others in the quest for Him.
This is why priestly spiritual formation cannot end at ordination. Ordination is not the conclusion of formation but the beginning of a new mode of configuration to Christ. The parish priest needs continuing formation precisely because he remains on the journey. The arrow continues to fly.
8. “Begin with the End” in Seminary Formation
This principle should shape formation from the very beginning. A seminarian should encounter the summit of priestly life early — not because he is expected immediately to possess it, but because he needs to know what he is being formed for.
He needs to see the priest not merely as someone who celebrates Mass, hears confessions, and runs a parish, but as a man transformed by Christ and deeply united to Him: a man of God, a man of prayer, a man configured to Christ, capable of carrying the suffering of others because he has entered into the mystery of Christ’s Cross — a man whose pastoral charity flows from contemplation, whose ministry is an extension of his union with Christ.
This is the priestly equivalent of showing the seminarian the Seventh Mansion. It is not asking him to pretend he is already there. It is telling him: this is where the arrow is pointed.
9. The Parish Priest Needs the “High Thoughts”
Teresa’s “high thoughts” become particularly relevant here. A priest needs a sufficiently high understanding of his vocation to sustain him through the ordinary and extraordinary demands of parish life.
If he sees his vocation primarily as a job, he will eventually be exhausted by the job. If he sees it as a professional function, he will become trapped within it. If he sees it as an ecclesiastical career, he will begin measuring his life by ecclesiastical categories.
But if he sees his priesthood as participation in Christ’s own priesthood, the entire meaning of his life changes. The Mass is no longer simply something he must celebrate. The breviary is no longer merely an obligation. The homily is no longer simply a weekly task. The confessional is no longer merely a place where he spends hours. The sick call is no longer merely an interruption. Everything becomes part of his participation in Christ’s priestly charity.
High thoughts do not remove the burdens. They reveal their meaning.
10. Determined Determination for the Parish Priest
High thoughts are not sufficient on their own. The priest also needs what Teresa calls “determined determination.”
Parish life can slowly wear down even a generous priest — disappointments, difficult parishioners, conflicts, administrative frustrations, pastoral failures, seasons when nothing seems to change, periods of spiritual dryness, responsibilities that seem endless, work that produces little visible fruit. At precisely these moments the priest needs the determination to continue — not merely because he made a professional commitment, or because people depend on him, but because he has fixed his eyes on the Goal.
Teresa’s words are apt here: “Begin well by making an earnest and most determined resolve not to halt until they reach their goal.”
The priest needs to renew this determination repeatedly. The goal prevents discouragement from becoming definitive; the determination prevents temporary discouragement from becoming abandonment.
11. Pastoral Charity Is the Fruit of Union
This changes our understanding of pastoral charity. It is not simply being nice to people, or availability, or compassion — it is participation in the charity of Christ the Shepherd. The priest’s pastoral effectiveness ultimately depends on his union with Christ.
The deepest pastoral formation is therefore not simply the acquisition of techniques of communication, counselling, or management. These may be useful, but the priest’s most powerful pastoral instrument is himself, transformed by Christ. This returns us to the principle: fecundity follows union.
The more deeply the priest is united to Christ, the more transparent his ministry can become to Christ. His words can carry something of Christ. His compassion can become an instrument of Christ’s compassion. His suffering can become participation in Christ’s redemptive suffering. His prayer can become intercession in Christ. His presence can become a place where another person encounters something of Christ’s presence.
This is the deepest meaning of priestly formation.
12. The Hidden Life of the Parish Priest
There is a profound connection here with Mary and the hidden life. Much of the priest’s most important work will never be visible: an hour before the Blessed Sacrament for someone whose name he never mentions; prayer for a parishioner who has abandoned the Church; the silent carrying of a family’s suffering; fatigue offered for someone else’s salvation; a weekday Mass celebrated for a handful of people.
Humanly speaking, this may appear insignificant. But if the priest is united to Christ, these hidden acts can carry a fecundity no statistic can measure. Mary’s hidden life was extraordinarily fruitful because of her union with Christ; the priest’s hidden life can likewise become the invisible foundation of his visible ministry. The world may measure a priest by numbers. God does not. The deepest measure is love.
13. From Activity to Fecundity
This distinction between activity and fecundity is crucial. A priest can have a very active parish and yet little spiritual fecundity. Another can appear to accomplish relatively little by institutional standards while becoming an instrument of profound grace. This does not mean pastoral effectiveness is irrelevant — it means visible activity cannot be the ultimate criterion. The priest’s vocation is not to produce statistics; it is to participate in Christ’s work.
This is why the Living Flame of Love matters so much for understanding priestly ministry. The deepest Christian action flows from transformation in God: the person increasingly loves with the love that comes from God, and his action becomes an instrument of divine action. The priest therefore needs not simply to become more active — he needs to become more available to God.
14. The Priest as a Spiritual Theologian
Every priest should become, in a real sense, a spiritual theologian — not that every priest needs an academic degree in the field, but that he must understand the dynamics of the spiritual life deeply enough to accompany people towards God.
He needs to know the stages of growth, understand purification, recognise the difference between psychological difficulty and spiritual trial, understand prayer and discernment, the action of grace, the role of the theological virtues, how charity grows, what impedes spiritual growth, and the Church’s great spiritual masters. And above all, he needs some experiential knowledge of the journey himself.
Otherwise the priest may become a pastoral technician rather than a spiritual father. A spiritual father needs to know something of the road.
15. Spiritual Direction and the Parish Priest
The parish priest is often the first person to whom Catholics bring serious questions about their relationship with God. They come because they are suffering, discerning a vocation, struggling with sin; because their prayer has changed, or God seems absent, or they have experienced something they do not understand; because they want to know whether they are really growing.
The priest therefore needs more than pastoral goodwill — he needs spiritual discernment, the ability to recognise where a person is on the journey and what help is appropriate. This requires formation in spiritual theology, not merely general pastoral skills. He must know the arrow: both the point and the trajectory.
16. A New Paradigm for Priestly Formation
This suggests a different paradigm. Rather than beginning with a list of competencies and adding spirituality alongside them, formation should begin from the Goal and organise the whole curriculum towards it. The question becomes:
What kind of man must this seminarian become in order to live priesthood as a participation in Christ’s own life and mission?
Then the various disciplines find their place: philosophy forms intellectual reason; theology gives knowledge of the faith; Scripture forms the mind according to God’s Word; liturgy forms sacramental participation; moral theology forms the capacity to live according to Christ; pastoral theology prepares for service; human formation develops maturity and freedom; spiritual theology teaches the dynamics of transformation; spiritual direction accompanies the personal journey. The Eucharist becomes the centre of sacramental life, and prayer the environment in which the whole formation is integrated.
All these are parts of the body of the arrow. The Goal remains the point.
17. The “Arrow” Must Remain One Arrow
There is a further danger: fragmentation. A seminarian can study philosophy in one compartment, theology in another, pastoral skills and spirituality and human formation elsewhere still — and complete every requirement without becoming one integrated person.
The arrow metaphor is the antidote. An arrow is not a collection of unrelated parts; its point, shaft, and feathers work together for one purpose. Formation must likewise be integrated around one End. Scientific knowledge must become wisdom. Wisdom must become interior conviction. Interior conviction must become life. Life must become pastoral charity. Pastoral charity must become service. Service must lead others towards Christ. The whole person must move in one direction.
18. The Renewal of the Parish Priest
This gives us a criterion for the renewal of parish life. The first question should not be “How can we make our parish more successful?” but:
“How can this parish become more profoundly ordered towards God?”
Then everything follows. How can the liturgy lead people more deeply into Christ? How can preaching awaken faith and conversion? How can catechesis lead people into a living relationship with Christ? How can the sacraments become genuine encounters with grace? How can parish life cultivate prayer? How can families become schools of holiness? How can the poor be served in Christ? How can young people discover their vocation? How can suffering become a place of encounter with Christ? How can the parish actually lead people along the road towards union with God?
These are much deeper questions than questions of pastoral efficiency. They are questions about the End.
19. The Priest Must Know the Summit
The most important consequence for formation may be expressed simply: show the seminarian the summit.
Show him what a priest can become by grace — the holiness of the saints, the priestly charity of Christ, the mystery of the Eucharist, the depths of prayer, Teresa’s Seventh Mansion, John’s Living Flame, the transformation grace can accomplish, Mary herself. Show him the priest not as a minister who performs functions, but as a man who belongs entirely to God and whose whole life has become a participation in Christ’s priesthood.
Then give him the road. Teach him to pray, to discern, to examine his life, to receive correction, to fight against sin, to practise virtue, to suffer, to love, to accompany others, to preach, to celebrate, to become a spiritual father, to remain faithful when there is no visible fruit. Give him the body of the arrow.
But never take the point away.
Conclusion: The Parish Priest Needs an Arrow, Not Merely a Toolkit
The central problem of priestly formation is not simply that priests need more formation. It is that we must ask what formation is for.
A priest does not need a larger toolkit. He needs a target, a centre, a Goal — and the arrow that can carry him towards it. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross give us an extraordinary paradigm. The Seventh Mansion and the Living Flamereveal the point; the mansions, the Ascent, the Dark Night, and the Spiritual Canticle reveal the body of the arrow. Together they show the priest — and indeed every Christian — both where he is going and how he gets there.
This is precisely what priestly formation must recover. The priest must not be formed simply to do more. He must be formed to become more deeply what Christ has called him to be.
He must not merely administer the parish — he must become a man through whom Christ can shepherd His people. He must not merely teach about God — he must himself be seeking God. He must not merely speak about prayer — he must pray. He must not merely accompany people towards holiness — he must himself be travelling towards it. He must not merely perform acts of pastoral charity — he must become increasingly transformed by the charity of Christ.
This is why the ultimate renewal of priestly life cannot come simply from new pastoral techniques, structures, or programmes.
The renewal of the priest begins when the priest again sees the centre of the target.
The higher and clearer the Goal, the stronger the desire. The stronger the desire, the more alive the hope. The more alive the hope, the greater the determination. The greater the determination, the more faithfully the priest accepts the means of transformation. And the more deeply he is transformed in Christ, the more fecund his ministry becomes.
The priest’s ministry then ceases to be something added to his spiritual life. His ministry becomes the expression of his union with Christ. This is the true logic of the arrow: the point gives meaning to the shaft; the shaft carries the point; the journey exists for the Goal; and the Goal gives the journey its power.
For the parish priest, therefore, the deepest question is not “How much am I doing?” but:
“Towards what am I living?”
And the answer must remain immovable: Towards God. Towards union with Christ. Towards the perfection of charity.
Everything else — the priesthood, the parish, the sacraments, the preaching, the pastoral charity, the service, the apostolate — is the body of the arrow. The centre remains the centre. And the priest must never stop aiming at it.