Reverend Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P. Collection [16 Books]

Description

ref:413.15 discusses spiritual paternity and maternity:

The renouncement of the material fecundity of marriage for God’s sake receives its hundredfold even in this world; for virginity becomes the principle, or at least the condition, of spiritual fatherhood and motherhood, and the life it transmits lasts not merely for sixty or seventy years but forever. Our Lord founded no family of His own because He came to found the Church, an immense family lasting throughout time and eternity. Together with the apostles, every priest participates in the priesthood of Christ and receives from it his spiritual fatherhood for transmitting the life of grace to souls.