I would like to situate this year’s welcome and opening address within several contexts. We are also living in an era of synodality, where there is increasing emphasis on listening. We must be attentive to our context. I hope that you, professors and students, will commit to entering this new year with a generous heart, open and eager for theological innovation, intellectual and spiritual growth, animated by the spirit of excellence, of magis. May the Lord help us, dear professors, to realize the stakes of our task for the Church and society, which will be shaped by what our hands and minds have made of these future pastors and pastoral workers. Dear students, beyond the immediate preparation for the priesthood and in light of the joyful prospect of wearing a stole at the altar, let us ask ourselves what it means to be a priest today in Côte d’Ivoire, the DRC, Benin, Togo, Chad, Madagascar, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Senegal, the Central African Republic, and so on. What ecclesial, social, and political challenges in my particular context await me upon leaving the ITCJ, and which I must integrate into my formation and theological reflection? Dear colleagues, while thanking you for your work—without which our mission would not be possible—we invite you to greater commitment and determination in the mission that belongs to each of us. May God bless this new academic year and be at the heart of this new endeavor in the theological formation of future pastoral workers and pastors of our local Churches.