Over the last day or so, our discussion about the sacrament of the anointing and the sick

has covered a wide range of topics, both philosophical and theological.

But this morning we turn to the subject of how a priest must become a man who himself knows the meaning of suffering from personal experience.

If he is to, because he is commissioned for the pastoral care of those who are in pain

or who suffer the misery generated by the harsh realities

that come into everyone's life.

Physical pain is a part of our consideration, of course,

but our particular concern is for the inner sufferings

of mind and heart

that afflict every Christian person,

regardless of one state in life or strength of character.

Following the wisdom of the angelic doctor,

who teaches that humans suffer

when we are not able to be who we ought to be,

in other words when we're not able to realize our full potential,

and when we are kept from the desires of our hearts,

all human suffering touches the deaths of the person. It can sear the soul.

Penance, a patience and purification in the title of this presentation, refers not to the patience and purification that the priest must teach or evoke from the suffering Christian,

but the patience and purification to be found in the priest himself.

The fruits of personal suffering in the priest are in part, the virtue of patience,

and the deep interior removal of obstacles to union with God that result from egoism, self-love,

and what I would call the softness that often marks the clerical lifestyle in our time,

...