The Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization in the Vatican, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle encouraged future Pontifical Urban College missionary priests to train themselves to listen to God’s will.
During the Mass he presided over on 7 January at the Pontifical Urban College, he said, “the formation of seminarians and the ongoing formation of priests, nuns and teachers must be a pilgrimage that prepares us to be docile and available to listen to the will of God.”
Cardinal Tagle also reminded those present of the Jubilee Year of Hope, which began on December 24, and told them that “the pilgrimage of hope indicates the benevolence and initiative of God who leads us to Jesus” and read a quote from the Gospel of St. John (6, 44a): “No one can come to me, unless the Father who sent me draws him.”
In this sense, the cardinal encouraged everyone to be pilgrims on the way to Jesus, like the Three Wise Men who were guided by the Star of Bethlehem. Like them, he said, it is necessary to persevere on the path of faith and vocation, so as not to fall into the temptations of the world as power, and he exhorted: “Please, do not return to Herod!”
The Cardinal’s request is part of the Epiphany of the Lord, celebrated the day before, when the three Wise Men are warned not to return to King Herod, who, seeking to maintain his earthly power, wanted to know where the Child Jesus was, whom he considered a threat, in order to kill him.