In a Saturday audience at the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV offered seminarians a warning that reaches far beyond seminary walls: Do not refuse the supernatural.
Welcoming around 50 seminarians from cities across Spain — accompanied by family members and formators — the Holy Father encouraged them to cultivate “a supernatural perspective on reality.” Without it, he cautioned, even the most active ministry risks drying up from within.
Quoting the English Catholic writer G. K. Chesterton, the Pope sharpened his point: “Remove the supernatural and you will not find the natural, but the unnatural.” A life that excludes God from daily criteria and decisions, he said, begins to “disintegrate from the inside.”
While the message applies to every Christian, the Pope stressed its urgency for men preparing for the priesthood. A seminarian or priest who behaves as though God’s presence exists only “at the level of words” but not at the core of his existence lives an interior life that is “against nature.” Nothing is more dangerous, he added, than becoming accustomed to the things of God without truly living for Him.
The timing is notable. Across Europe and beyond, seminaries are investing heavily in psychological formation, leadership training, and pastoral strategy. Leo XIV affirmed that such tools are “precious and necessary.” Yet he was clear: They can never replace a living relationship with the Lord.
To illustrate what that relationship looks like, the Pope pointed to a spiritual classic: The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection. The 17th-century Carmelite insisted that holiness is not reserved for extraordinary moments, but forged in constant awareness of God’s nearness — in kitchens, corridors, and classrooms as much as in chapels.
Who Was Brother Lawrence — and Why the Pope Reads Him?
Why the Pope likes it: Pope Leo XIV recently called the book key to his spirituality, valuing its simple message that holiness is found in ordinary duties done with love.
Leo XIV compared the supernatural outlook to water nourishing a tree. Without it, a tree may remain upright for a time yet be dead inside, dried at the core. The same can happen, he suggested, when priestly fruitfulness is confused with frenetic activity or polished appearances. External vitality can mask interior desolation.
His words land in a Church attentive to authenticity. In recent years, Catholics have called for pastors whose lives are coherent, whose public ministry flows from prayer rather than performance. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds believers that prayer is a “vital and personal relationship with the living and true God” (CCC 2558). That relationship cannot be outsourced or automated.
For seminarians, the Pope insisted, everything begins now — in ordinary decisions. Each day presents a choice: to remain with the Lord or to rely solely on one’s own strength.
Though addressed to future priests, the appeal feels universal. In a culture that prizes productivity and measurable results, the supernatural can seem impractical or abstract. Yet Leo XIV’s counsel suggests the opposite: When God is sidelined, what appears efficient may ultimately prove fragile.
