Bp. Fulton J. Sheen
Title: The Priest is not his Own

TO MARY:

Who mothered Christ--both priest and victim, and who mothers all priests
both offerers and offered with her Divine Son:
This Book is Dedicated-That she may, through these pages, whisper to us as at Cana, "Whatsoever
He shall say to you, do ye."

CONTENTS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.

Introduction
More Than a Priest
The Priest Is Like Jacob's Ladder
Spiritual Generation
The Holiness of the Priest
The Holy Spirit and the Priest
The Spirit and Conversion
The Spirit of Poverty
The Spirit and Preaching and Praying
The Spirit and Counselling
The Priest as Simon and Peter
The Return to Divine Favor
Melchisedech and Bread
Judas and the First Crack in His Priesthood
Why Make a Holy Hour?
How to Make the Holy Hour
The Eucharist and the Body of the Priest
The Priest and His Mother

INTRODUCTION
Most books on the priesthood may be grouped under three categories:
theological, pastoral and sociological.

The theological treatises emphasize the priest as the minister and
ambassador of Christ; the pastoral is concerned with the priest in the
pulpit, the priest in the confessional, the priest at prayer, etc. The
sociological, which is the latest type, refrains almost entirely from the
spiritual, and is concerned with the statistical reaction of the study of
the faithful, the unbelievers, and the general public to the priest. Is
there room for another?

Such a possibility presented itself in writing our "Life of Christ." In
that book, we tried to show that unlike anyone else, Our Lord came on
earth, not to live, but to die. Death for our redemption was the goal of
His sojourn here, the gold that He was seeking. Every parable, every
incident in His life, even the call of the Apostles, the temptation, the
Transfiguration, the long conversation with the woman at the well, were
focused upon that salutary Death. He was, therefore, not primarily a
teacher, but a Savior.

The dark days in which that Life was written were hours when ink and gall
did mix to reveal the mystery of the Crucifix.

More and more that vision of Christ as Savior began to illumine the
priesthood, and out of it came the thoughts in this book. To save anyone
from reading it through, we here state briefly the thesis.
We who have received the Sacrament of Orders, call ourselves "priests." The
author does not recall any priest ever having said that "I was ordained a
'victim,' " nor did he ever say, "I am studying to be a victim." That
seemed almost alien to being a priest. The seminary always told us to be
"good" priests; never were we told to be willing victims.

And yet, was not Christ the Priest, a Victim? Did He not come to die? He
did not offer a lamb, a bullock, or doves; He never offered anything except
Himself.

"He gave Himself up on our behalf, a sacrifice breathing out fragrance as
He offered it to God." EPHESIANS 5:2
Pagan priests, Old Testament priests, medicine men, all offered a sacrifice
apart from themselves. But not Our Lord. He was "Sacerdos-Victima."

This being so, just as we miss much in the life of Christ, by not showing
that the shadow of the Cross cast itself even over the crib and the
carpenter shop, as well as His Public Life, so we have a mutilated concept
of our priesthood, if we envisage it apart from making ourselves victims in
the prolongation of His Incarnation. There is nothing else in this book,
but that idea. And if the reader would like to hear that chord struck a
hundred times, he may now proceed.

1. MORE THAN A PRIEST
The priesthood of Christ was different from that of all pagan priests, and
from the Levitical priesthood of the family of Aaron. In the Old Testament
and in pagan religions, the priest and the victim were distinct and
separate. In Our Lord, they were united inseparably.
The Jewish priests offered bullocks, goats and sheep, victims that were
less a part of themselves than the robes they wore. It is easy to shed
someone else's blood, as it is easy to spend someone else's money. The
animal lost its life, but the priest who offered it lost nothing. Often, he
did not even have to slaughter the victims. Except in the case of national
offerings, when they were killed by the priest, the one who offered a

victim himself slew it (LEVITICUS 1:5). This provision foreshadowed the
part Israel itself would later play as the executioner of the Divine
Victim. But it applies to us too; in a deeper sense, every sinner must
regard himself as putting the Savior to death.
Pagan people, without knowing it explicitly, sensed the truth that "unless
blood is shed, there can be no remission of sins" (HEBREWS 9:22). From the
earliest times, through the kings and priests, they offered animals, and
sometimes even humans, to turn away the anger of the gods. As in the
Levitical priesthood, however, the victim was always separate from the
priest. The sacrifice was a vicarious one, the animal representing and
taking the place of the guilty humans, who thus sought to expiate their
guilt in the shedding of blood.

But why, it may be asked, did the pagans, without the help of revelation,
reach the conclusion expressed by St. Paul under Divine inspiration that
"without the shedding of blood there was no remission of sins"? The answer
is that it is not hard for anyone who ponders on sin and guilt to
recognize: first, that sin is in the blood; and second, that life is in the
blood, so that the shedding of blood expresses appropriately the truth that
human life is unworthy to stand before the face of God.
Sin is in the blood. It can be read in the face of the libertine, the
alcoholic, the criminal and the assassin. The shedding of blood, therefore,
represented the emptying of sin. The Agony of the Garden and its bloody
sweat were related to our sins which the Lord took upon Himself, for
"Christ never knew sin, and God made him into sin for us." II CORINTHIANS
5:21

That no creature is worthy to appear before the face of God was made known
to man at a very early date. Adam and Eve found it out when they tried to
cover their nakedness with fig leaves, after they had sinned.
"Then the eyes of both were opened, and they became aware of their
nakedness; so they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves girdles "
GENESIS 3:7

But fig leaves could not cover their nudity, either physical or spiritual,
for the leaves soon dried up. What then was required? The sacrifice of an"
animal, the shedding of blood. Before they could be clothed with the skins
of animals, there had to be a victim. And who made the skins which covered
their shame? God did!
"And now the Lord provided garments for Adam and his wife, made out of
skins, to clothe them." GENESIS 3:21

This is the first hint in the Scriptures of the spiritual nakedness of man
being covered up through the shedding of the blood of a victim. As soon as
our First Parents lost the inner grace of soul, external glory was needed
to make up for it. It is ever true that the more rich a soul is on the
inside, the less need it has of luxuries on the outside. Excessive
adornments and an inordinate love of comforts are a proof of our inner
nakedness.

The Bible contains many incidents which suggest that a vicarious sacrifice
of blood was necessary for our salvation. Typical are the accounts of the
healing of the leper and of the expulsion of the scapegoat in Leviticus. In
both cases there is a sacrificial victim, though (as in all pre-Incarnation
sacrifices) the victim is separate from the priest.
The ritual connected with the healing of a leper clearly prefigures our
purification from the leprosy of sin.
These are, two living birds. . . . One of the birds must have its blood
shed over spring water held in an earthenware pot; the one which is left
alive must be dipped ( together with the cedar wood, the scarlet stuff, and
the hyssop) into the dead bird's blood, and with this the priest must
sprinkle the defiled man seven times, to effect his due cleansing."
LEVITICUS 14:4-7

The living bird was let loose in the open fields to symbolize the carrying
away of the leprosy; but this freedom and release seems to have been
purchased by the cleansing power of blood and water of the bird that was
slain. The priest offered a sacrifice, but the oblation was distinct from
himself.

Here we have a hint of vicarious redemption through blood. Our Lord, on the
contrary, cured the leprosy of sin by no holocaust other than His own
obedient will, through which we won the glorious liberty of the children of
God.
The ceremony of the scapegoat, another example of priesthood and
victimhood, is described in Chapter 16 of Leviticus. The priest had to wash
himself completely--and not merely his feet--before the ceremony,
foretelling that the great High Priest, Christ, would be "undefiled"
(HEBREWS 7:26); the priest also had to put on white linen and golden
garments. As two birds were used in the former ceremony, two goats were now
chosen, one to be slain and the other released. The ritual preceding
release seems almost an anticipation of the "Hanc Igitur" at the Mass, for
the priest lays his hands over the goat.

"He must put both hands on its head, confessing all the sins and
transgressions and faults Israel has committed, and laying the guilt of
them on its head. And there will be a man standing ready to take it into
the desert for him; so the goat will carry away all their sins into a land
uninhabited, set at large in the desert." LEVITICUS 16:21, 22
As the sins of the Israelites were carried off by the scapegoat, so our
sins are cleansed by no effort of our own, but only by our incorporation
into Christ.

The scapegoat was driven away into a land of separation, or a wilderness,
to teach us how effectively our sins have been borne into oblivion by
Christ.
"I will pardon their wrongdoing; I will not remember their sins any more."
HEBREWS 8:12

INCARNATION

When the Son of God became man, He introduced something entirely new to the
priesthood. Our Lord differed from the priests of the Old Testament, not
simply because He came from a lineage other than that of Aaron, but also
because, unlike all others, He united in Himself both priesthood and
victimhood.
The consequences for all priests are tremendous, for if He did offer
Himself for sins, then we must offer ourselves as victims. The conclusion
is inescapable.

Scripture abounds in references to- the complete identification of the
offices of priest and victim in Christ.
"A victim? Yet he himself bows to the stroke; no word comes from him."
ISAIAS 53:7

The Epistle to the Hebrews quotes Psalm 39, saying that the words of the
Psalm were used by our High Priest as He entered the world.

"As Christ comes into the world, he says, No sacrifice, no offering was thy
demand; thou has endowed me, instead, with a body. Thou hast not found any
pleasure in burnt-sacrifices, in sacrifices for sin. See then, I said, I am
coming to fulfil what is written of me, where the book lies unrolled; to do
thy will, 0 my God." HEBREWS 10:5-7
The version of the Psalm quoted in the Epistle to the Hebrews is that of
the Septuagint:
"Thou hast endowed me, instead, with a body," as if implying the
Incarnation. Similarly, David foresaw the kind of sacrifice God would
eventually ask for sins when he declared: "Thou hast no mind for sacrifice,
burnt-offerings." PSALM 50: 18

The victimhood of our High Priest should not, however, be thought of as a
tragedy in the sense that He had to submit to death, as the lambs had to
submit to the knife of the Old Testament priests. Our Lord said:
Nobody can rob me of it [my life]; I lay it down of my own accord. I am
free to lay it down, free to take it up again; that is the charge which my
father has given me." JOHN 10:18

Our Lord came to die. The rest of us come to live. But His death was not
final. He never spoke of being our sin-oblation without speaking of His
glory. His Resurrection and Ascension and His glorification at the right
hand of the Father were the fruits of His voluntary offering as a Priest.
"And now, His full achievement reached, He wins eternal salvation for all
those who render obedience to Him. A high priest in the line of
Melchisedech, so God has called Him." HEBREWS 5:9, 10

The perfection of His humanity and His eternal glory as a priest resulted
from His having once been in the state of a victim. His perfection came not
so much from His moral stature as from His quality of a priest-Savior. It

was by His interior devotion and obedience that He acquired glory, and not
just by the sacrifice considered as a shameful death.
Describing the meekness of the Lamb led to the slaughter, Scripture says

"Christ, during his earthly life, offered prayer and entreaty to the God
Who could save Him from death, not without a piercing cry, not without
tears; yet with such piety as won Him a hearing." HEBREWS 5:7
There is a Jewish saying to the effect that three kinds of prayers can be
distinguished, each loftier than the preceding one: prayer, crying and
tears. Prayer is made in silence; crying with a raised voice, but there is
no door through which tears do not pass. The prayer of the Victim in
Gethsemane was such that it rose to a poignant cry and beyond that to the
sweat of tears:

"His sweat fell to the ground like thick drops of blood." LUKE 22:44
We find a symbolic representation of the union of the Priest and Victim in
the very position of the cross suspended between earth and heaven, as if
Jesus was rejected by man and abandoned by the Father. Yet He united God
and man in Himself through obedience to the Father's Will and through a
love for man so great that He would not abandon him in his sin. To His
brethren He revealed the heart of a father; to His Father He revealed the
heart of every son. Our Lord, therefore, is always priest and victim. No
victim was worthy of priesthood save himself. Christ, moreover, was a
victim not only in His body, but in His soul, which was sad unto death. No
external nor internal sacrifice could be more united.

Two Scripture texts present paradoxical aspects of the priesthood and
victimhood of Christ.

"He was counted among the malefactors." LUKE 22:37
"Such was the High Priest. . . . holy and guiltless and undefiled, not
reckoned among us sinners." HEBREWS 7:26

Actually, the statements are not contradictory; they are complementary. He
was reckoned with sinners, because He was the victim for their sins. But He
was separated from sinners, because He was a priest without sin. He ate and
mingled with sinners, shared their nature, and took on their sins. But He
was separated from them by His innocence. One with sinners through sharing
their nature, His sacrifice had infinite value, because He was not only
man, but God.

PRIESTS OR PRIEST-VICTIMS?
How often are we like the Galatians, bent on returning to the Old Law, in
the sense that we see ourselves as priests but not victims? Do we offer
Mass as if we presented a victim for sin who was totally unrelated to us,
like the scapegoat or the bird? Do we ascend the altar as priests and not
as victims? Do we offer the Christ-Savior to the Father, as if we were not
dying with Him? Is our priesthood a two-story house to indicate our
apartness, our reluctance to be a victim for others?

On the first floor is a family suffering physically, disturbed mentally,
lacking food and drink. On the second floor, we live. Through intermittent
acts of charity, we descend to their misery from time to time to relieve
it; but do we go back right away to the relative comfort of our own
lodging?

Not so with Christ, the Priest. When He went into the depths of human
suffering and sin, He never went back--not until all of its misery and
guilt were relieved. Once He crossed that line, there was no thought of a
return until Redemption was complete.
"It is not as if our High Priest was incapable of feeling for us in our
humiliations; He has been through every trial, fashioned as we are, only
sinless." HEBREWS 4:15
". . .in God's gracious design He was to taste death, and taste it on
behalf of all." HEBREWS 2:9

If the priesthood and victimhood in Christ were one, how can they be dual
in us? Rather,
"You, too, must think of yourselves as dead to sin, and alive with a life
that looks towards God, through Christ Jesus our Lord." ROMANS 6:11
We cannot escape reproducing in our souls the mystery enacted on the altar.
"Age quod agitis." As Our Lord immolated Himself, so do we immolate
ourselves. We offer our repose of body, in order that others may have peace
of soul; we are pure, in order to recompense for the excesses of the flesh
committed by sinners.
"With Christ I hang upon the Cross." GALATIANS 2:20

THE EUCHARIST REMINDS US THAT WE ARE VICTIMS
The Eucharist commits us to both life and death, priesthood and victimhood.
As regards life, it is clear beyond question that in the Eucharist we
commune with it.
"You can have no life in yourselves, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of
Man, and drink His blood." JOHN 6:54

But this is only half the picture. Is there not a catabolic as well as an
anabolic process in nature, a breaking down into elements as well as a
building up into organisms? In nature, death is the condition of life. The
vegetables which we eat at table have to be sacrificed. They must yield
life and substance before they can become the sacrament, the holy thing
nourishing the body. They must be torn up from their roots and subjected to
fire, before they can give the more abundant life to the flesh. Before the
animal in the field can be our meat, it must be subjected to the knife, to
the shedding of blood, and to fire. Only then does it become the strong
sustenance of the body. Before Christ can be our life, He had to die for
us. The Consecration of the Mass precedes Communion.

The ultimate heresy of the Reformation was the divorce of sacrifice and
sacrament, or the transformation of the sacrifice of the Mass into a
"communion service," as if there could be giving of life without death. Is
there not in the Eucharist not only a communion with life but also a
communion with death? Paul did not overlook this aspect:

So it is the Lord s death that you are heralding, whenever you eat this
bread and drink this cup, until He comes." I CORINTHIANS 11:26

If we at Mass eat and drink the Divine Life and bring no death of our own
to incorporate in the death of Christ through sacrifice, we deserve to be
thought of as parasites on the Mystical Body of Christ. Shall we eat bread
and give no wheat to be ground? Shall we drink wine, and give no grapes to
be crushed? The condition for incorporation into the Resurrection and
Ascension of Christ and into His glorification is incorporation into His
death.
"Those who belong to Christ have crucified nature, with all its passions,
all its impulses." GALATIANS 5:24
As priests we offer Christ in the Mass, but as victims do we offer
ourselves with Christ in the Mass? Shall we tear asunder that which God
hath joined, namely, priesthood and victimhood? Does not the intimate
connection between sacrifice and sacrament also tell us that we are not
priests alone but victims as well? If all we do in our priestly life is to
drain chalices and eat the Bread of Life, then how shall the Church

"fill up those sufferings that are wanting to the Passion of Christ."
COLOSSIANS 1:24

Do we lift up Christ on the cross at the moment of elevation, while present
as mere spectators at a drama in which we are intended to play the first
role? Is the Mass an empty repetition of Calvary? If so, what do we do with
the cross we were bidden to take up daily? How can Christ renew His death
in our own bodies. He dies again in us.
And the people of God? Do we teach them that they must not only "receive"
Communion but "give" too? They may not accept life while giving no
sacrifice. The communion rail is a place of exchange. They give time and
receive eternity, they give self-denial and receive life, they give
nothingness, and receive all. Holy Communion commits each to a closer union
not only with Christ's life but also with His death--to greater detachment
from the world, to surrender of luxuries for the sake of the poor, to death
of the old Adam for rebirth in Christ, the new Adam.

FIRST APPLICATION: THREE KINDS OF PRIEST-VICTIMS
The Canon of the Mass enumerates three kinds of victim who by prefiguring
the sacrifice of Christ, became models for all priests. They were, in
order, the offerings of the just son, Abel; the sacrifice of our patriarch,
Abraham; and that which the High Priest Melchisedech offered. Abel offered
a blood sacrifice, Abraham a voluntary sacrifice and Melchisedech a
sacramental sacrifice. A priest may be victim in each of these ways.

Abel offered to God the choicest lamb of his flock, while his brother Cain
offered only the fruits of the earth (GENESIS 4:3,4). God looked with favor
on Abel and on his blood sacrifice, but He rejected the sacrifice of Cain,
as though it implied that sin could be forgiven without the shedding of
blood. The blood sacrifice of Abel is thus a model for the missionaries who
are martyred for their faith, for the priests who are victims of anti-God
persecution, and for all the faithful who suffer unto death rather than
deny the faith.
The sacrifice of Abraham serves as a model for the sacrifice of many in our
days, those who endure all the stages of martyrdom under Communist tyranny
yet are denied the formal crown of the shedding of their blood. It is for
such especially that the figure of Abraham's sacrifice was intended. For
them was it emphasized that the sacrifice received its full reward even
though the blood of the victim was not poured out (HEBREWS 11:19). This is
the assurance for all who undergo a thousand martyrdoms by not being
permitted to die by their persecutors, for those who are brain-washed and
who spend their lives in prison or labor camps. They share in the promise
and in the reward bestowed on Abraham because he was willing to sacrifice
his own flesh and blood, his son, Isaac.
The third kind of priest-victimhood is that of Melchisedech. It is offered
by all priests who live the mystery they enact sacramentally in the Mass.
But how? By understanding the secondary meaning of the words of
consecration. The primary meaning is clear and needs no elaboration. The
mystery of transubstantiation takes place as we pronounce the words of
consecration. There is, however, a secondary meaning, because we are
priest-victims. When I say "This is My Body," I must also mean: "This is my
body"; when I say "This is My Blood," I must also mean: "This is my blood."
"Thou, 0 Jesus, art not alone in the Mass," the consecrating priest must
pray in his soul. "On the Cross Thou wert alone; in this Mass, I am with
Thee. On the Cross, Thou didst offer Thyself to the Heavenly Father; in the
Mass, Thou dost still offer Thyself but now I offer myself with Thee."
The consecration is then no bare, sterile repetition of the words of the
Last Supper; it is an action, a re-enactment, another Passion in me. "Here,
dear Jesus, is my body, take it; here is my blood, take it. I care not if
the 'species' of my life remain--my particular duties in school, parish, or
office; these are only the 'appearances.' But what I am, in my intellect,
my will--take, possess, divinize, so that I may die with Thee on the altar.
Then the Heavenly Father looking down will say to Thee and to me in Thee:
"Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased." MARK 1:11

When I come down from the altar I will then, more than ever, be in Mary's
hands as when she took Thee down from the Cross. She was not a priest, but
she could say the words of consecration in a way no priest ever said them
of that Body and Blood. As she held Thee she could say, as at Bethlehem:
'This is my Body; This is my Blood.' No one in all the world gave Him body
and blood but me."

May she who was a victim with her Son teach us never to go to Calvary
without having our hearts pierced with a sword. Woe indeed to us, if we
come down from Calvary with hands unscarred and white! But glorious shall

we be as priests and victims, when the Lord will see in our hands the marks
of His Passion, for of such He said:

"Why, I have cut thy image on the palms of my hands." ISAIAS 49:16

SECOND APPLICATION: BE A VICTIM IN THE BREAKING OF THE BREAD
An unchanging ritual of the Mass is the Breaking of the Bread to remind us
each time we celebrate, that the Lord was "broken" for our sins as a
victim. The Old Testament already foreshadowed Christ's offering of Himself
in the bread that was broken, for it was prescribed that the bread which
the priest was to offer was to be "cut up into small pieces" (LEVITICUS
2:6). Even the Hebrew word for cakes of bread used in this passage is
derived from a verb which meant "pierced" or "wounded." In this, the bread
prefigured the condition of the victim which it symbolized:

"Nay, here is one despised, left out of all human reckoning; bowed with
misery, and no stranger to weakness; how should we recognize that face? How
should we take any account of Him, a Man so despised?" ISAIAS 53:3
As the bread was crushed, so too would Christ be crushed:

"Ay, the Lord's will it was, overwhelmed He should be with trouble." ISAIAS
53:10
What was the sign by which the disciples on Easter Sunday afternoon knew
the Risen Christ?
"They recognized Him when He broke bread." LUKE 24:35

St. Paul's account of the Eucharist stressed this victim state of Our Lord:

". . . and gave thanks, and broke it." I CORINTHIANS 11:24
Our priesthood must be like the pitchers which Gedeon's army of three
hundred carried into battle. Inside of each was a lighted candle (JUDGES
7:18-20). The light was there, but it did not shine forth to confound and
defeat the enemy until the pitchers were broken. Only when we are "broken"
do we shed the light of Christ to defeat the forces of Satan. It is not
just the soul and mind of the priest that are involved in the exercise of
his ministry: it is also his body, the body broken, mortified and made a
victim.
"Your bodies . . . are meant for the Lord, and the Lord claims your
bodies." I CORINTHIANS 6:13
Can we think that God will be any more satisfied with us, if we are only
offerers and not also offered, than He was with the priests of the Old
Testament? Did He not express disgust when they offered something apart and
separate from themselves?

"What do I care, the Lord says, how you multiply those victims of yours? I
have had enough and to spare. Burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of
stall-fed beasts, and the blood of calves and lambs and goats are nothing

to me. ISAIAS 1:11
Will He not complain that our priesthood is incomplete, unless we "break
the bread" which is our body? What is it then that He wants from us? It is
the offering of ourselves.
"I appeal to you by God's mercies to offer up your bodies as a living
sacrifice, consecrated to God and worthy of his acceptance; this is the
worship due from you as rational creatures." ROMANS 12:1

The role of the body is so often forgotten. True, the body can be the
occasion and the instrument of sin, but it is also an occasion and an
instrument of merit. Can it be so vile as some old spiritual writers
suggested, if it is "meant for the Lord (I CORINTHIANS 6:13), if what is
sown a natural body, rises a spiritual body (I CORINTHIANS 15:44), and if
through the Eucharist it has been endowed with immortality? It is not our
soul that prays; it is the person, the composite of body and soul. In
sacrifice, in particular, the body is important. It is through its
exhaustion in priestly ministrations, its constant use in preaching,
teaching and converting, that it becomes a "living sacrifice."
Each time that priests "break bread" during the Mass, not only will they
recognize the sacrifice of Christ for them, as did the disciples at Emmaus,
but also He will recognize them. No unbroken bread, no unbroken bodies,
will the High Priest accept from our hands. Was not the wheat already
broken to become bread? Were not the grapes already crushed to become wine?
Even nature suggests victimhood as inseparabe from the priesthood of
offering bread and wine at table.

St. Paul was merely stressing once again the inseparability of priest and
victim when he wrote to the young priest, Timothy:

Then, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus, take thy share of hardship. . .
. We are to share His Life, because we have shared His Death. II TIMOTHY
2:3, 11

THIRD APPLICATION: VOCATIONS AND VICTIMHOOD

Seminarians say: "I am studying for the priesthood." How often does a
seminarian say or even think, "I am studying to be a priest-victim?" We
insist on the dignity of our priesthood by quickly reprimanding those who
show us disrespect. But do we ever insist on the indignity of our
victimhood? We boast that our High Priest is Offerer and Offered. We say
that we offer Mass, but do we ever think that we are offered in the Mass?
Our Lord wants no more bullocks or goats; He wants those who "have
crucified nature, with all its passions, all its impulses (GALATIANS 5:24).
St. Augustine said there is no need to look outside oneself for a sheep to
offer to God. Each has within him that which he can crucify.
Could it be that one reason for the fewness of vocations is our failure to
stress sacrifice? The young have a sense of victimhood which we
underestimate. They want a mission, a challenge! When we follow the type of
advertising appeal used by Madison Avenue to sell toothpaste, when we use
commercial techniques in our vocation literature, do not the hearts of the

young spurn our distance from the Cross? Do we not recruit fruits of
propaganda rather than fruits worthy of penance?
Could it not also be that our failure to be victims discourages those who
enter the seminary from persevering and becoming priests? We tell them that
they cannot hope to be good priests unless they make a meditation each
morning before Mass, but are there times when we ourselves jump direct from
the bed to the altar? Does not this scandalize seminarians? On the other
hand, how they are edified when they see their professors at early
meditation with them and at their spiritual exercises! Lacking this
example, they easily come to think of spirituality as something to be
practiced only until the day of ordination.
A survey among 300 youths to determine what kind of
most revealed that the first preference was for the
second, for those who concerned themselves with the
apostolate among the workers. The point is that the
or sacrificial priest.

priest inspired them
foreign missionary; the
poor; the third, for an
young prefer the heroic

Vocations are more plentiful than many suspect. Of 3,500 boys under the age
of fifteen questioned in a survey in one South American country, 1,800 said
they felt that they had a vocation. And yet not more than forty young men
are raised to the priesthood in that country each year. What happens to the
others? Worldliness, the flesh? Yes. But it is proper to ask: Have we shown
forth Christ Crucified to them? Those young people who feel called to a
life of sacrifice, will they not draw back when they see that their ideal
is not realized in us? But what encouragement is given them when they say:
"That is the kind of priest I want to be." One reason why missionary
societies attract the young is because their members give a living witness
to their zeal for Christ. The hardships they endure, the souls they
convert, the complete trust in God despite poverty and even persecution,
these make the young love their priesthood through their victimhood. A
survey among a group of seminarians revealed that 60 per cent of them had
been inspired to enter the seminary by contact with mortified and saintly
priests.

It is so easy for us to be ready, like Peter at Caesarea Philippi, to
confess the Divine Christ, but far from ready to accept the suffering
Christ. It was the same Peter who said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of
the Living God" ( MATTHEW 16:16), and who "drawing Him to his side, began
remonstrating with Him; Never, Lord, he said; no such thing shall befall
Thee (MATTHEW 16:22).
Because of this, Our Lord called him Satan, for it was Satan who at the
beginning of the public ministry tempted Him to reject the way of suffering
by offering him three short cuts to His Kingdom without the Cross (MATTHEW
4:1-11). The denial of His victimhood appears to Christ as something
satanic.

When "Satan sits enthroned" (APOCALYPSE 2:13) at the end of time, Our Lord
said that he would appear so much like Him "that if it were possible, even
the elect would be deceived" (MATTHEW 24:24). But if Satan works miracles,
if he lays his hands gently on children, if he appears benign and a lover
of the poor, how will we know him from Christ? Satan will have no scars on
hands or feet or side. He will appear as a priest but not as a victim.

We recognize fathers and sons, brothers and sisters, by family
resemblances. In no other way will Our Lord know us and we Him. Our
preparation for the day of His coming must accordingly consist of deepening
our affinity with the Priest-Victim:

"In this mortal frame of mine, I help to pay off the debt which the
afflictions of Christ still leave to be paid, for the sake of His Body, the
Church." COLOSSIANS 1:24

KENOSIS AND PLEROMA

Two words in Scriptures are often considered separately, when actually they
are related as cause and effect. The two words, which represent another
phase of the offerer-offered relationship, are "kenosis" and "pleroma,"
that is to say, "emptying" and "filling." It is almost as if mountains were
made by the emptying of valleys. St. Paul in a classic description of the
humiliation and exaltation of Our Lord writes:

"He dispossessed Himself, and took the nature of a slave, fashioned in the
likeness of men, and presenting Himself to us in human form; and then He
lowered His own dignity, accepted an obedience which brought Him to death,
death on a cross. That is why God has raised Him to such a height, given
Him that Name which is greater than any other Name; so that everything in
heaven and on earth and under the earth must bend the knee before the name
of Jesus, and every tongue must confess Jesus Christ as the Lord, dwelling
in the glory of God the Father." PHILIPPIANS 2:7-11
Because He emptied Himself, He was exalted. Because there was Calvary,
there was the sending of the Holy Spirit. Because His physical Body was
broken, His Mystical Body grows in age and grace and wisdom before God and
men.
Applying this principle to the priesthood, the emptying of self for the
people of the parish produces the spiritual prosperity of the parish. The
de-egotization of our lives prepares for the guidance of the Holy Spirit;
the "vacancy" sign on our heart makes Christ come knocking at the entrance.
He breaks down no locked doors. He will come in only if we open to Him. A
box which is full of pepper cannot be filled with salt; a priest who is
full of his own desires cannot be filled with the "power of the Holy
Spirit" (ACTS 1: 2). St. Paul singled out Timothy from among his friends as
the one who was always interested in others and least concerned with self.
In him, "pleroma" was complete because of the "kenosis" of egotism.

"I have no one else here who shares my thoughts as he does, no one who will
concern himself so unaffectedly with your affairs; one and all have their
own interests at heart, not Christ's." PHILIPPIANS 2:20-21

SHEPHERD-LAMB
To change the figure, we priests are not only shepherds but also lambs. Was
not Our Lord Himself both the "Good Shepherd" and the "Lamb of God" (JOHN
1:29)? As the Offerer, He is the Shepherd. As the Offered, He is the Lamb.

It is this dual role of Christ which explains why He spoke at certain times
during His trial and at other times was silent. He spoke as the Shepherd;
He was silent as the Lamb.
The priest, too, is not only the Shepherd who cares for his sheep; he is
also the Lamb who is offered in caring for them. This caring is what
distinguishes Him from the hireling. One who cares for another assumes the
weight of the other's condition on his own heart and bears it in love. The
parishioners are not disturbers; they are our heart, our body, our blood.
The priest playing the role of a shepherd often goes to his death as a
Lamb. The shepherd who would give more abundant life to the lost sheep is
bound to have wolves howling about him and thus be led ultimately to his
death. It was only the sight of the Shepherd crucified that made the sheep
realize how much the Shepherd cared. It is interesting that St. Peter
described Our Lord as "your Shepherd, who keeps watch over your souls" (I
PETER 2:25).
The shepherd's primary duty is to search out the lost sheep and stay with
it once found. This is what distinguishes the true shepherd from the
hireling, the intellectual from the intelligentsia Both are degreed,
learned and scholarly. The difference lies in their relation to the people.
The intellectual never loses that compassion for the multitude which
characterized the Word Incarnate. The intelligentsia, on the contrary, live
apart from tears and hunger, cancer and bereavements, poverty and
ignorance. They lack the common touch. Only the cream of bookish learning
and not the milk of human kindness flows through their veins.
So with the priest. Contact with people for Christ's sake is the victimhood
which makes the priesthood. Only by also being a lamb offered through
forgetfulness of worldly superiority does the priest become the shepherd of
souls.

2. THE PRIEST IS LIKE JACOB'S LADDER
Every priest knows himself, by Divine election, to be a mediator between
God and man, bringing God to man and man to God. As such the priest
continues the Incarnation of Jesus Christ Who was both God and Man. Our
Lord was not Priest because He was begotten eternally of the Father. He was
a Priest because of the human nature He assumed and offered for our
salvation. Thence derived the fullness of all priesthood, or to use the
magnificent phrase of St. Thomas Aquinas, He became "fons totius
sacerdotii."
St. Paul had already used an equally definitive expression to indicate our
sacerdotal relationship to Christ on the one side, and to the people on the
other :
"That is how we ought to be regarded, as Christ's servants, and stewards of
God's mysteries." I CORINTHIANS 4:1
As Christ's servants, we are as dependent on Him for our powers as are the
rays of light dependent on the sun. But Paul insists simultaneously that we

are also the stewards of God's mysteries to indicate that we remain bound
to our fellow men.
Every priest is like another Jacob s ladder. Exiled from home, fleeing from
a resentful brother, the wandering son of Isaac made his evening couch on
the ground, a stone slab his pillow. Man is most helpless when asleep, and
it was while he was in that condition that God appeared to Jacob.

"He dreamed that he saw a ladder standing on the earth, with its top
reaching up into heaven; a stairway for the angels of God to go up and come
down. Over this ladder the Lord himself leaned down, and spoke to Jacob, I
am the Lord, He said, the God of thy father Abraham, the God of Isaac "
GENESIS 28:12, 13
Jacob forthwith changed the name of the place where he had this vision from
Luza to Bethel. The name Luza originally signified "separation," while
Bethel meant the "House of God" (GENESIS 28:19). We, likewise, called to
mediate between God and man, become worthy priests of the House of God only
by separating ourselves from the spirit of the world. God makes up for
every abnegation by a greater blessing. The condition of serving "Bethel"
is "Luza," detachment from the world.
The ladder is a simple and charming picture of the priest hood of Christ:
"I am the way." JOHN 14:6

It is through His Death, Resurrection and Ascension to the right hand of
God that Christ has become the Mediator and re-established relations
between God and Man.
Certain details of the vision are particularly noteworthy:

1. The ladder was set upon the earth. Thus was the link between earth and
heaven established through Christ becoming incarnate, taking human flesh,
walking our earth and being lifted up on Calvary.

2. The ladder reached up to heaven, symbolizing that Christ risen and
glorified is at the right hand of the Father.
3. Angels ascending and descending represent one of the functions of the
priest whose task it is to carry sacrifices and prayers to heaven and bring
back graces and blessings to earth.
The cross, the ladder of mediation, was set up on the earth. It was of
earthly origin, in the sense that Pilate's soldiers fashioned it; but it
was not of earthly origin as a means of atonement in so far as it came
forth out of history and the Divine counsels Its top reaches to Heaven, for
the divine Mediator sits at the right hand of the Father. As Our Blessed
Lord said: "No one has ever gone up into heaven; but there is One who has
come down from heaven" (JOHN 3:13). He is the ladder on which we ascend to
God; no one goes to the Father except by Him
Inasmuch as every priest is an "alter Christus," each of us is another
Jacob's ladder--having vertical relations to Christ in heaven and
horizontal relations to men on earth.

THE TOP OF THE LADDER: VERTICAL RELATIONSHIP TO CHRIST IN HEAVEN
Of the many ways in which we are related to Christ, our High Priest in
heaven, two call for mention here:

1. Our vocation derives from Him: "His vocation (that of the priest ) comes
from God, as Aaron's did; nobody can take on himself such a privilege as
this" (HEBREWS 5:4).
2. All the effectiveness of our priesthood comes from Him: the sacraments
we administer, the truth we preach, the grace by which lost sheep are
rescued, the youths whose vocations we foster, whatever supernatural work
we perform.
What is the glorified Christ doing in heaven as we exercise our priesthood?
"He lives on still to make intercession on our behalf" ( HEBREWS 7:25) .
Using human words to describe Divine things, we can say that each time we
offer Mass, Our Lord shows His Heavenly Father the scars in His hands, His
feet and His side; for this very reason He kept them. At the Consecration
of the Mass, we can imagine Our Lord as saying "In My hand I have engraven
their hearts. Not for their worthiness, but for My love unto death, grant
them graces through the Holy Spirit. My wounds healed, but My scars I kept,
that I might always hold them up before Thee, 0 Father, as pledges of My
love. If Thou couldst not strike in justice the sinful people because the
uplifted hands of Abraham stood in the way, then shall not My Hands win for
them that mercy I won for them on Calvary? I am not just a 'Sacerdos in
aeternum'; I am a 'Victima in aeternum."
How did our High Priest enter into the heavenly sanctuary? Through the
rending of the veil of His flesh. The Epistle to the Hebrews (9:11)
compares the veil which hung before the Holy of Holies to the human flesh
of Christ. Only once a year, and after the shedding of blood in sacrifice,
could the High Priest pass through the veil which hid the Holy of Holies.
Only after the shedding of His Blood on Calvary could Christ the High
Priest enter the Holy of Holies of heaven.
The earthly life of Our Lord might be thought of as being led outside the
veil, as many of the ceremonies of atonement in the Old Testament were
enacted in the sanctuary outside the Holy of Holies. In yet another sense,
Our Lord's preaching and miracles were restricted to a very small part of
the world. His mission on earth was confined to Galilee and Judea. But
after His Ascension and the coming of the Spirit, His priesthood was
exercised even to the ends of the earth. His human nature was a veil, which
kept Him for a time from manifesting His full glory. That veil of the flesh
had to be rent on Calvary before He could enter into the full exercise of
His priesthood.
Good Friday saw a double rending of the veil: One was the rending of the
veil of the Temple which was torn from top to bottom. It signified that the
Holy of Holies would now be open to all men:

And all at once, the veil of the temple was torn this way and that from
the top to the bottom." MATTHEW 27:51

But when Our Lord said "It is achieved" (JOHN 19:30), the human flesh which
had been a veil hiding the Unseen from man was rent asunder by the piercing
of His flesh by the centurion's lance, and the Heart of Eternal Love was
revealed,
"bidding us cling to the hope we have in view, the anchorage of our souls.
Sure and immovable, it reaches that inner sanctuary beyond the veil, which
Jesus Christ, our escort, has entered already, a high priest, now,
eternally with the priesthood of Melchisedech." HEBREWS 6:18-20

So long as that veil of the flesh was in place, it shut out man from the
full vision of the Holy God, revealing Him only as "a confused reflection
in a mirror" (I CORINTHIANS 13:12). But the mediation and intercession
became heavenly after the shedding of blood.

The high priest in the Old Testament might stand amazed at the beauty of
the veil, but he could not pass through it, except by blood. So with
Christ:

"It is His own blood, not the blood of goats and calves, that has enabled
Him to enter, once for all, into the sanctuary; the ransom He has won lasts
for ever." HEBREWS 9:12
And again:

"We can enter the sanctuary with confidence through the Blood of Christ."
HEBREWS 10:19
The rending of the veil of the Temple from top to bottom was not the work
of man but the act of God. So our Redemption is the work not of man but of
God become Man.

CHRIST OUR ONLY MEDIATOR
The only intercession is that of our High Priest in heaven, for there is no
other name given to men whereby they may be saved (ACTS 4:12). The sand of
the Moslem, the penances of the Hindu, the quietism of the Buddhist cannot
avail for salvation. If proof of this affirmation were necessary, one need
cite only the example of Moses.
The reason Moses was not permitted to enter the Promised Land was that he
disobeyed the Divine Command and struck the rock when directed merely to
speak to it. Two incidents involving a rock are recorded in the Bible story
of Moses. One was at Raphidim in the second year after he had led them from
Egyptian bondage. The other was at Cades in the 38th year of the wandering.
In both instances the people were suffering from great thirst and the rock
saved them, the rock which, as St. Paul says was Christ (I CORINTHIANS
10:4).
The first time the people needed water, God said to Moses, "Thou hast but
to smite that rock" (EXODUS 17:6); and immediately there flowed from it
water. Some thirty-six years later, when there again was an acute drought,
God told Moses to "lay thy command upon the rock here" (NUMBERS 20:8), that

is, "speak." Instead, speaking in an egotistic way, Moses addressed the
people:
"Listen to me, he said, faithless rebels; are we to get you water out of
this rock?" NUMBERS 20:10
Then Moses struck the rock instead of addressing it. Despite his pride, God
gave Moses the water, but He told him that as punishment he would not enter
the Promised Land.

"Why did you not trust in Me, and vindicate My Holiness in the sight of
Israel? It will not be yours to lead this multitude into the land I mean to
give them. NUMBERS 20:12

The Hebrew text uses a different word for "rock" in the two accounts. In
the earlier incident, it is "Tsur," so named to indicate its sharpness; in
the later, "sela," stressing its elevation. From St. Paul we know that the
rock was Christ. We may, accordingly, surmise that the sharp rock directed
by God to be struck was the symbol of Christ smitten in the sharpness of
the Cross from Whom would come the waters of Redemption and the Spirit
(JOHN 7:39)
The second elevated rock which was not to be smitten but spoken to or
interceded with, is it not a symbol of Christ risen and glorified in
Heaven, to whom we need only speak in order to receive the living waters
(JOHN 7:37)? Redemption is already complete. No more Calvaries are needed.
"The death He died was a death, once for all, to sin; the life He now lives
is a life that looks toward God." ROMANS 6:10
Never again will there be a Rock which, when struck, will yield the waters
of everlasting life. Redemption is only in Christ. Yet His role has not
terminated. He continues to be our Advocate with the Father, and to apply
the fruits of Redemption. In this, also, he differs from the priests of the
Old Testament.

"One who has no need to do as those other priests did. . . . What He has
done He has done once for all; and the offering was Himself. HEBREWS 7:27

How else can our sins be forgiven except through His abiding forgiveness?
There is no doubt that civil tribunals are of great use in adjudicating
disputes. But what about the great sins against God, not only in the
Church, but outside of it? For this we need Divine Redemption.
The two sons of Heli abused their office by oppression and debauchery.
They, as priests, had a right to a certain part of the animal sacrifices
that were offered; instead of being content with the parts God allotted
them, they stole meat which God had ordered to be burned. To such
disobedience the young priests added impurity and scandal which discouraged
people from coming to the house of the Lord. Their father said to them:

"If man does wrong to man, God's justice may yet be satisfied; if man sins
against the Lord, who shall plead his cause for him?" I KINGS 2:25
To that question they could have no answer.

But God in His appointed time Himself answered it, and the answer is the
Blood of the High Priest whose eternal act of love the priest has the power
to renew in the Sacrifice of the Mass. If He is not invoked, or if He is
rejected, then there is no forgiveness.
"If we go on sinning wilfully, when once the full knowledge of the truth
has been granted to us, we have no further sacrifice for sin to look
forward to." HEBREWS 10:26
"Who can be our adversary, if God is on our side? He did not even spare His
own Son, but gave Him up for us all; and must not that gift be accompanied
by the gift of all else? Who will come forward to accuse God's elect, when
God acquits us? Who will pass sentence against us, when Jesus Christ, who
died, nay, has risen again, and sits at the right hand of God, is pleading
for us? Who will separate us from the love of Christ?" ROMANS 8:31-35

Our specific relation as priests is to the top of the ladder. It falls to
us to contact the Eternal Lover in heaven Who "lives on still to make
intercession on our behalf (HEBREWS 7:25).
The priesthood of Christ in heaven is an abiding and continuing one.
Whatever man may need as man in each circumstance of effort, of conflict or
of sin, he has an effective advocacy through Christ Who pleads our cause
with the Father:

". . .if any of us does fall into sin, we have an Advocate to plead our
cause before the Father in the Just One, Jesus Christ. He, in his own
person, is the atonement made for our sins, and not only for ours, but for
the sins of the whole world." I JOHN 2:1, 2
This is the vertical side of our priesthood, whereby we contact the Holy of
Holies, and whereby we are entitled to be called "ministros Christi." At
every moment of our priesthood we are or should be in contact with the
Divine Intercessor- Too often, when someone appeals for help in trouble and
exposes to the priest his depressed soul, we tell him to pray. Certainly!
But do we intercede? We have direct communication with the Divine Advocate;
we have the privileges of an ambassador. To tell the one whom it is our
office to help that he should pray while we intercede not, is to be
unfaithful to our high office. To offer Mass from time to time for all who
"labour and are burdened" (MATTHEW 11:28) is the mark of a holy priest who
knows the way to the Holy of Holies.

THE BOTTOM OF THE LADDER: HORIZONTAL RELATIONS WITH THE PEOPLE

In order to be our priest, Christ assumed a human nature. We likewise
continue His Priesthood not alone by having contact with Him in Heaven, but
also by remaining human and speaking to Him in the name of all humanity.
Vertically we are related to Christ in Heaven; horizontally, we are related
to men on earth. As Christ took upon Himself our infirmities, and bore our
ills, so also we are representative of sinful humanity:
"The purpose for which any high priest is chosen from among his fellow-men,
and made a representative of men in their dealings with God, is to offer

gifts and sacrifices in expiation of their sins. He is qualified for this
by being able to feel for them when they are ignorant and make mistakes,
since he, too, is all beset with humiliations." HEBREWS 5:1, 2
Why is it that Our Lord chose us who are so weak? Each of us knows many who
would surely have been more responsive to the grace of ordination. It would
be an insult to Divine Wisdom to imagine ourselves the best material avail
able. Why did God not choose angels to mediate between sinners and God?
Because sympathy, the compassion, the suffering together which only one who
has suffered knows, would be lacking experimentally to the angel. Our Lord
Himself assumed the "nature of a slave" (PHILIPPIANS 2:7), in order the
more specifically to share our woes and our wounds. No one can ever say
that God does not know what it is like to suffer as he does. Even the one
thing absent from His human nature, the quality of femininity, He
compensated for to the greatest extent possible by calling "the Woman" to
share (as much as Mary could) His Passion with Him.
Even outside His Passion, whatever He did for man in His compassion for his
ills "cost" Him something. He never immunized Himself from our infirmities.
He even seemed to lose something when He healed: "a power has gone out from
Me" (LUKE 8:46). He groaned when He raised Lazarus from the dead. "And
Jesus . . . sighed deeply, and distressed Himself over it" (JOHN 11: 33 ) .
We never offer Mass or say our Breviary as individuals. That is one reason
why a server or other should assist at Mass. And though the Mass is offered
to the Heavenly Father by the Church, its intercession is not for the
Church alone but for those also who are not yet of the house of Israel, to
whom also we are sent. Such is the meaning of those words which we recite
at the Offertory when we offer in the four directions of the earth the
chalice of Salvation "pro nostra et totius mundi salute."

The priest in the Old Testament was given detailed instructions which
emphasized his bond to his people.
"And whenever Aaron goes into the sanctuary, he will carry on his breast,
on the burse that gives counsel, the names of Israel's sons, putting the
Lord in mind of them eternally. And within the burse that gives counsel
thou wilt put the touchstones of wisdom and of truth. These shall be on
Aaron's breast, when he enters the Lord's presence; as long as he is there,
he will be carrying on his breast the arbitrament of the sons of Israel."
EXODUS 28:29, 30

The names on the shoulder stones can be understood as the burden his people
represented for him, as the cross would be our burden. But the breastplate,
placed over the heart indicated that he still bore them affection and love.
Because of our horizontal relations to the world, we must bear the name of
Everyman in our hearts, and that not only in our private prayer, but
whenever we offer the sacrifice of reparation and tearful intercession to
the great High Priest in Heaven. The intentions of our Masses are wider
than those who requested them. They embrace the faithful and the world.

"Hark how the priests, that wait upon the Lord, make lament between porch
and altar, crying aloud: Spare thy people, Lord, spare them; thy chosen
people, do not put them to the shame of obeying heathen masters!" JOEL 2:17

Always touched with sympathy for human infirmities, we bear the burden of
nations in our hearts. Between the sanctuary and the tabernacle, clad in
the vestments which identify us as the representatives of Christ, we speak
for the dumb, atone for the sinful, plead for the Judases and intercede for
those "who do not know what they are doing" (LUKE 23:34)
The intercession of the priest before the throne of God must be a tearful
one. In this our High Priest has given us an example of human sympathy, for
He wept three times once for human grief, misery, desolation and death, at
the tomb of Lazarus; once for a city, a civilization, a decaying culture, a
rotting government, corrupt priests, at Jerusalem; finally, for human sin,
pride, greed, egotism, and all that catalogue of capital evils, at
Gethsemane. If we start (as we must) at the bottom of the ladder, having
compassion on all men, nothing that happens to others is foreign to us.
Their grief is our grief, their poverty our poverty. No matter whose the
souls that wax weary, no matter whose the hands that hard burdens bear, our
reaction is always the same. "My woe," we cry in the deep of our own
afflicted co-suffering spirit, "my grief, my cross!"

HOW INTERCESSION AFFECTS OUR MASS

Granted our identification with those who are ignorant and make mistakes
(HEBREWS 5:2), our thoughts will be their thoughts as we offer the Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass.
At the Offertory, for example, we will see all humanity on the paten and in
the chalice. As Our Lord obtained the first elements of His own human Body
from a woman, so for the Eucharist He takes bread and wine from the earth.
The bread and wine are thus representative of mankind. Two of the
substances which have most widely nourished man are bread and wine. Bread
has been called the marrow of the earth; wine, its very blood. In giving
what has traditionally made our flesh and blood, we are equivalently
offering all mankind on the paten.

The people no longer bring bread and wine as they did in the early church,
but their contributions to the Offertory collection permit the purchase of
the bread and wine. There would be less resistance to the collection basket
if we made more effort to present it as a symbol of the incorporation of
the entire congregation into the Sacrifice of the Mass. Similarly, we could
simultaneously edify and win the Lord's blessing if we ourselves gave
generously to every collection to which we ask the people to contribute.
Why should we be exempt from a sacrifice for the Propagation of the Faith
on Mission Sunday? "Be as generous as possible" is idle talk, if the
generosity of the pastor has not preceded the generosity of his flock.
Before the bread could be placed on the paten and wine poured into the
chalice, how many elements of the economic, financial and technical world
had to be brought into play! The wheat needed farmers, fields, sacks,
trucks, mills, commerce, finance, buying and selling. The grapes required
vineyards, bottles, winepresses, time, space, chemistry, a thousand years
of accumulated skills.

At the Offertory, therefore, we gather up the whole world into the narrow

compass of a plate and a cup. Every drop of sweat, every day of labor, the
decisions of the economist, the financier, the draughtsman and the
engineer, every exertion and invention that went into the preparation of
the elements of the Offertory are symbolically redeemed, justified and
sanctified by our act. We bring not only redeemed man, but unredeemed
creation to the steps of Calvary and the threshold of Redemption.
As the wheat Mary ate and the wine she drank became a kind of natural
Eucharist to prepare for the Lamb of God Who would sacrifice Himself for
the world, so are all material things sanctified through the Offertory of
the Mass.

In the Consecration, Christ renews His sacrifice in an unbloody manner. The
act of love that prompted that sacrifice is eternal, for He is the Lamb
"slain in sacrifice ever since the world was made" (APOCALYPSE 13:8). What
the priest does each time he speaks the words of Consecration, is to apply
Calvary and its fruits to a particular place and a particular time.
Localized at one point in space and one moment in time, Calvary is now
universalized in space and time. The priest takes the Cross of Calvary with
Christ still hanging on it, and he plants it in New York, Paris, Cairo and
Tokyo, and in the poorest mission of the world. We are not alone at altar;
we are in horizontal relations with Africa, Asia, own parish, our city-everyone.
Clinging to the chasuble of every priest, for example, are 600 million
souls in China who as yet know not Christ. When the priest takes the host
in his hand, he is looking at fingers gnarled from slavery in the salt
mines of Siberia. As he stands before the altar, his feet are the bleeding
feet of refugees tramping westward toward barbed wire beyond which lies
freedom. The flame of the candles reflects the fire of blast furnaces
tended by gaunt men who for their labor are denied economic justice. The
eyes gazing on the host are wet with the tears of the widow, the suffering
and the orphan. The stole is a sling in which the priest carries on his
shoulders living stones, the burden of the churches, the missions of the
entire world. He drags the whole of humanity to the altar where he joins
heaven and earth together. For his hands raised at the Consecration merge
into the Hands of Christ in heaven, who "lives on still to make
intercession on our behalf (HEBREWS 7:25).

In the Offertory, the priest is like a lamb led to the slaughter. In the
Consecration, he is the lamb slaughtered as the sacrificial victim. In the
Communion, he finds that he has not died at all, that he has on the
contrary really come to the abundant life which is union with Christ. The
one who surrenders himself to the material and allows himself to be
possessed by it, is like a drowning man weighed down by the water that has
entered and taken possession of his lungs. Such a one can never recover
himself. But where the surrender is to God, we get ourselves back ennobled
and enriched. We find that our death was after all no more permanent in the
Consecration than was the death of Calvary, for Holy Communion is a kind of
Easter. We give up our time, and get His eternity; we give up our sin, and
receive His grace; we give up petty loves, and receive the Flame of Love.
In this union with Christ we are not alone, for Communion is not merely the
union of the individual soul and Christ; it unites Christ to all the
members of the Mystical Body and in an extended way through prayer to all

humanity.

The one Bread makes us one Body, though we are many in number; the same
Bread is shared by all." I CORINTHIANS 10:17

Sharing the Body of Christ in Holy Communion wipes out accidental
distinctions of race, class or condition. Here we are one with the whole of
redeemed humanity, and indirectly with the earth, of which Christ described
His true followers as the salt.
But we who offer this Chalice and eat of this Bread must constantly remind
ourselves that this priestly office imposes spiritual obligations The
Israelites in the desert were fed with manna on their journey and drank
water from the rock, and yet
"for all that, God was ill pleased with most of them; see how they were
laid low in the wilderness." I CORINTHIANS 10:5
Not everyone who receives Communion is saved. It avails us not to be
priests unless we are victims, for only those who die with Him will live
with Him.

Our need to die in Christ before we can live to Christ reflects one of the
great differences between the High Priest and his human priests; He was
without sin, but we are not. Hence, the priest must offer Mass, not only
for the people but also--and this is often forgotten--for himself:

"And, for that reason, must needs present sin-offerings for himself, just
as he does for the people." HEBREWS 5:3
On the cross Our Lord, as priest, begged forgiveness for sinners: "Father,
forgive them" (LUKE 23:34); sinless, He asked no pardon for Himself. With
us, on the contrary, it is not so. We must offer the Holy Sacrifice, for
our own failings and sins.

The Old Testament priest was obligated to offer for himself a greater
sacrifice, a more expensive animal. Since his blessings were greater, his
sins also were greater.

"He will offer the bullock to make intercession for himself." LEVITICUS
16:6
The analysis of this text developed in the Epistle to the Hebrews so
impressed the author as a seminarian that he resolved to let no week of his
priestly life go by without offering a Mass in honor of Our Blessed Lady
and to the Great High Priest in reparation for his failings and sins. This
resolve he has kept for decades and hopes with God's grace to keep until
the divine Mercy finally calls him to eternal union with the Tremendous
Lover.

CONCLUSION
No priest should ever so act that Jacob's remark about himself could be
applied to his meditations on the priesthood. When Jacob arose from his

Vision at Bethel, he said:

"Why, this is the Lord's dwelling-place, and I slept here unaware of iti"
GENESIS 28:16
As Jacob failed to recognize the nearness of God, the priest often fails to
recognize the greatness of his calling. How often we sleep, unmindful of
the Eucharist, His dwelling place! Only in rare moments do we come to the
frightening realization of our vocation. We are more conscious of the
bottom of the ladder than the top. Humanity is nearer to us; we can feel
it. But the top is seen only by faith. It takes a kind of Luza, of
separation from the world to make us see Bethel, the House of God. Our
priesthood is best illumined in the fires of victimhood. We become
significant to our fellow men not by being a 'regular guy" but by being
"another Christ." Our effectiveness at the bottom of the ladder depends on
our communication with the top. Popularity is not necessarily influence.
"Woe upon you," said Our Lord, "when all men speak well of you (LUKE 6:26).
Greatest is our compassion for others and our ability to elevate them when
we have come down from heaven (JOHN 3:13). The bottom of the ladder is best
discovered from the top.

FIRST APPLICATION: SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD
Though as priests we are taken from among men and must therefore never be
unsympathetic to their afflictions, though we are in the world, we are
never of it, for our High Priest has called us out of this world. The
Epistle to the Hebrews presents a profound reason why this must be so:

"Let us, too, go out to Him away from the camp, bearing the ignominy He
bore." HEBREWS 13:13

What did "away from the camp" mean? It meant to be the rejected one of the
world. The "camp" in Scripture was the city of Jerusalem, the religious
center of the world. The Temple had expelled Him, the priests had delivered
Him Over to the Gentiles; they denied Him a place to die in the city, as
they denied Him an inn at His birth. Outside the camp was always the place
of reproach. It was there the refuse and the trash were dumped.
"And now, to make amends for his fault, . . . the skin and all the flesh .
. . he will carry away from the camp . . . and burn them over a wood fire."
LEVITICUS 4:8, 11, 12
Unless the world sees
activities and in the
use, in our dress, it
world, separated unto
priesthood.

a difference in the places we frequent, in our
pleasures in which we indulge, in the language we
will not respect our testimony. Separated from the
God--these are the negative and positive sides of our

In fact, the more success and prestige we enjoy in the world, the more
honors laid on us, the more we must refuse to avail ourselves of worldly
rewards and consolations. The temptation to be "of the world" becomes great
when a priest has popularity thrust on him because his work calls on him to
utilize the mass media, the press, television or radio. Then more than ever
must he impress on himself that it is one thing to be popular, another to

be influential. Pope John XXIII once gave thanks to God because a wellknown cleric, who had great success among all classes of people, had
suffered. This is what keeps him humble, he said. In the proportion in
which we seek what the world can give, we become unable to give what the
world needs. Great inspirations come in the desert, or away from the world.

"The word of God came upon John, the son of Zachary, in the desert." LUKE:
3:2
Silence constitutes an integral part of this isolation. It is not always
proper to speak all that we know.

"Do not cast your pearls before swine." MATTHEW 7:6
Some like to talk about religion endlessly, as Herod did until John the
Baptist introduced Herod's own moral problem. Religion is less a subject
for discussion than for decision.

"Be sure thou dost not tell any man of it." MATTHEW 8:4
"Be sure nobody hears of this." MATTHEW 9:30
Our High Priest stands between us and displays of popular applause, of
surface approbation. Like Jacob's ladder, though we are rooted in the
earth, we must be supported by heaven, else is there no ascending or
descending of the angels. At each moment of our apostolate, the world must
say of us what the Sanhedrin said of Peter and John after the Resurrection,
that they 'recognized them now as having been in Jesus' company (ACTS
4:13). If the fires which enkindle our activity are other than the flame of
the Holy Spirit, we are but "echoing bronze, or the clash of cymbals" (I
CORINTHIANS 3:1)
Every priest should meditate frequently on the two newly ordained priests,
the sons of Aaron. Aaron and Moses had offered their sacrifices and God had
shown approval by consuming them with miraculous fire. The new priests,
Nadab and Abiu, without waiting for instructions, prepared to make a return
to God for His gift by the offering of incense, which was symbolic of
prayer. But they ignited their thuribles, not with the sacred fire of the
altar (LEVITICUS 16:12) but with a strange fire which God had forbidden.

"There were two of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abiu, who took up their censers
and put coals and incense into them, to burn unhallowed fire in the Lord's
presence, not in accordance with His command; whereupon the Lord sent down
fire which devoured them, and they died there in the Lord s presence
LEVITICUS 10:1, 2
What this strange fire which they offered was, we do not know. All we do
know is that as they reached the door of the tabernacle where Moses and
Aaron were standing, they were met by a consuming blast of fire. They had
used some fire of the world, not the fire of God symbolic of the Holy
Spirit.
The scene recalls a similar one described in the Acts of the Apostles (5:110), the destruction of Ananias and Saphira, who used not the spirit of
Pentecost in their giving, as Nadab and Abiu did not use the fire of God in

their priesthood. Fire that is of our own kindling does not make a pleasing
sacrifice to God. Only the Spirit of God can provide an acceptable fire.
"Those who follow the leading of God's Spirit are all God's sons." ROMANS
8:14
The nearer men are to God, the more exposed they are to the touch of His
chastening hands. What might pass unnoted in others will be punished in
them.
The priest who does not depend upon the Holy Spirit but seeks to furnish a
fire or a spirit of himself, provokes the Lord by presumption. God accepts
only what His Spirit inspires. We must bring back to God what He has given.
He rejects all counterfeit. He will have Divine fire or none. Otherwise the
fire of Divine approval becomes the fire of Divine wrath. Strange fire was
punished with hallowed fire. God's fire quenched their censers together
with the light of their life.

Twice we are reminded that Nadab and Abiu had no children (NUMBERS 3: 4 and
I PARALIPOMENA 24: 2 ). Priests whose ministry is not inspired by the Holy
Spirit have a sterile priesthood. It is not continued through vocations. If
they lack the Spirit of Christ, so will they lack spiritual progeny. The
priestly life enkindled by the "ignis alienus" of the world cannot grow old
with the comfort of young priests whose vocations it fostered. But the
priest on fire with the Holy Spirit will never be barren. His parish, his
school will flower with vocations. Thus has every priest a measure of the
fire which blazes in his soul. The Nadabs and the Abius cannot enkindle
love of Christ, but was there ever a Paul without a Timothy?

SECOND APPLICATION: LOSS OF OUR EGO
Christ our High Priest, the Ladder of Jacob, was not a human Person, though
He had a human nature. His manhood was not the center of personality; the
human nature had no conceivable existence apart from the Eternal Word who
called it into being and made it His own.

The human nature was a garment with which He clothed His Divine Person, or
rather an "instrumentum conjunctum Divinitatis" by which He acted on
humanity. It was not a separable instrument, in the way in which a pencil
is separable from the hand of the writer, but one eternally united to the
Word, even now in heaven, as the pledge, pattern and model of our
resurrection and glory.
Through the instrumentality of this human nature, Our Blessed Lord
exercised three offices. He was Teacher, King and Priest; these three
offices which He communicated to His Church to be exercized by the human
instruments He chose to be His ministers. Consequently, in His Mystical
Body, He still continues to teach, to govern and to sanctify. What He did
through the Body He took from Mary, He does now through the Body He took
from humanity and filled with His Spirit at Pentecost.

Now if our Mediator brought together God and man, heaven and earth,
eternity and time, in the unity of His Divine Person, what does that mean
for us priests? How does it affect the ideal of the priesthood in the

Church? What it specifically does is to submerge the human personality of
the priest so that he can say: "I am no longer my own." Human personality
answers the question, "Who is it?" Our human nature answers the question,
"What is it?" The priest who continues the Life of Christ seeks to be one
with Him so completely that the personality which governs his every
thought, word and deed is the Personality of Christ Himself. As the human
nature of Christ had no human person, so the priest seeks to have no source
of responsibility other than Christ Himself. We strive to eliminate the
"Ego" and substitute the "Christus-Sacerdos-Victima."

Though the Hypostatic Union can never be repeated, every priest must try in
a distant and imperfect way to reproduce it in his priesthood. We too seek
to have "two natures in one person." One nature we have inherited from
Adam; the other "nature" is grace, by which we are made "partakers of the
Divine Nature." While, in no strict sense, are these like the two natures
in Christ, they help to point up the problem of our "ego." The ideal is so
to submerge our personality in the Person of Christ as to think with Him,
will what He wills, make Him the source of our responsibility and our
power.

If a painter felt the urge to create a beautiful picture, but had available
only a canvas that did not belong to him, he might decide that it would not
be worth the effort. The analogy is one that can be applied to the great
High Priest; if He does not own us, if He is not the directing Personality
of all our actions, He will not work through us as He works through those
who belong to Him. We operate too much through our power, not His.
I, as a person, use a pencil as an instrument. If the pencil were endowed
with its own personality, it might say: "I will not write," or "I will go
up when you want me to go down," or "I will blunt my point." There would be
little I could do with that instrument. So it is with us, if our
personality is in conflict with His; or if it has a little secret garden of
some petty love or secret sin, which He cannot enter. In such a case, the
fault of our priesthood is not in Him, but in us. Our ego "frustrates"
Divinity. He wills one thing; we will another. We become but broken rungs
on the ladder to heaven.

Maybe the Nestorian heresy is alive today--and in us? Nestorius taught that
there were two persons in Christ. Do not we sometimes live as if there were
two persons in us; the person who wishes to be rich and the Person of
Christ Who had nowhere to lay His Head? The person who seeks to escape
work, and the Person of Christ Whose greatest conversions were made when He
was tired? The person who never makes a convert, and the Person of Christ
Who is always in search of the lost sheep.
He called us as persons to the priesthood bidding us to crucify ourselves,
to de-egotize and to make ourselves empty vessels for the heavenly
treasure. That is why we are bidden to live a life "hidden with Christ in
God." Only in self-forgetfulness does Christ reign in us.
TO CHRIST CRUCIFIED
I am not moved to love Thee, 0 my Lord,
By any longing for Thy Promised Land;
Nor by the fear of hell am I unmanned

To cease from my transgressing deed or word.
'Tis Thou Thyself dost move me--Thy blood poured
Upon the cross from nailed foot and hand;
And all the wounds that did Thy body brand;
And all Thy shame and bitter death's award.
Yea, to Thy heart am I so deeply stirred
That I would love Thee were no heaven on high-That I would fear, were hell a tale absurd!
Such my desire, all questioning grows vain;
Though hope deny me hope I still would sigh,
And as my love is now, it should remain.
TRANSLATED BY THOMAS WALSH
(From the book "An Introduction to Spanish Literature," by George Tyler
Northup, University of Chicago.)
As the scientist learns the secrets of nature by being passive before it,
so we learn the mysteries of our High Priest by being passive before Him.
Nature would never unfold the pages of its laws, if the scientist imposed
his mind upon it; so neither will the High Priest confer that fullness of
power upon us, unless we are like empty vessels before Him. St. Paul says
that he kept down his self-will and was made weak in everything that
involved his personality, in order that he might increase within himself in
the power of God.

"But He told me, My grace is enough for thee; My strength finds its full
scope in thy weakness. More than ever, then, I delight to boast of the
weaknesses that humiliate me, so that the strength of Christ may enshrine
itself in me." II CORINTHIANS 12:9
There is nothing that God could not do without me. But there are many
things that He has elected to do through me, provided I am a supple
instrument in His Hand. The true continuation of the Priesthood is,
therefore, the giving of ourselves so completely to the great High Priest
that we have no other feelings, or emotions, or desires than Christ
Himself :

"Yours is to be the same mind which Christ Jesus shewed." PHILIPP1ANS 2: 5
Why when land was about to be divided among the twelve tribes did the tribe
of Levi receive none? Because it was the tribe of the priesthood. What did
they need since they possessed the Lord? What a lesson!
"That is why the Levites have no lands assigned to them like their
brethren, the Lord thy God has promised them that He himself will be their
portion." DEUTERONOMY 10:9

THIRD APPLICATION: THE IMPORTANCE OF "EX OPERE OPERANTIS"

When we act in the Church's name in dispensing the sacraments, we are
instruments of God by which grace is conferred by the simple performance of
the action, or as the Scholastics said, "ex opere operato." Sunlight is not
polluted by passing through a dirty window. God can write straight with
crooked lines. A person could be as validly baptized by a Judas as by a

Peter.

This is true of the sacraments. But the priest is bound to perform many
other duties, to console the sick, to preach the Gospel, to convert
sinners, to stir souls to penance, to foster vocations, and all these
duties require our own sacrifice, our detachment and the laborious
fashioning of ourselves to the image of Christ. The effectiveness of such
actions "ex opere operantis" requires the surrender of our personality to
Christ.

Speaking of the actions of Christ, the theologians say that everything He
did was a Divine act because He was a Divine Person, a principle they
express by the statement that "actiones sunt suppositorum." This principle
can by analogy be applied to the priest. All of the actions of his nature
are to be attributed to the Person Christ:
"Whatever you are about, in word and action alike, invoke always the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ, offering your thanks to God the Father through
Him." COLOSSIANS 3:17

We act, live, think, preach not in our name or personality, but in His. We
are only branches. He is the Vine (John 15:1-10). The vine and the branches
have the same life, are nourished by the same sap, and work together in the
production of the same fruit. They form but one being, they have one and
the same action. Our oneness in Him is so total, that we cry out with Paul:

"I hang upon the Cross, and yet I am alive; or rather, not I; it is Christ
that lives in me." GALATIANS 2:20

Our sublime dignity does not consist exclusively in the priestly character
given in Holy Orders, but in what this character also demands as its
complement, namely, Christ taking the place of our personality. Then we
grow in Christ as Mary did. Certainly, Our Blessed Mother was richer
spiritually on Christmas Day than on the day of the Annunciation; richer at
Cana than at Bethlehem, richer at Calvary than at Cana, and richer in the
Upper Room at Pentecost than on Golgotha.
The ideal is accordingly to have the Person of Christ as the single source
of our responsibility both in acts which produce their effect "ex opere
operato" and in those which are fruitful "ex opere operantis." Our sinful
life does not destroy the essential value of the former kind. When in the
confessional the priest says, "I absolve," it is Christ Who absolves; when
at Mass he says, "This is My Body," it is Christ Who offers His Body to the
Father. And so on for all the sacraments. But in the priest's other acts,
it should be Christ Who is again visiting the sick and instructing those
who seek truth. This kind of union with Christ, however, does not come
simply from ordination. It demands mortification.
The faithful see Christ in us at the altar and in the confessional and at
the font. Do they see Christ in us at the table, in the school, on the golf
course, or in the hospital? Are these places for our ego to assert itself,
or are they occasions for others to see Christ in the dining room of a
Simon or a Lazarus? Christ does not come off with the chasuble, nor is our
ordination folded in a pocket as easily as a stole. Unbelievers do not see
us in vestments; they see us in shops, in theatres, at meetings. Whether

they see Christ in us depends on whether we act like Christ.
An electric wire attached to the generator will give no light if the bulb
is burned out. One of the reasons why Christianity does not influence the
world more is that few Christians shine more brightly than those who lack
the faith. Is this not true also of many priests, in spite of the fact that
the priest should be a different person from all others, because he is the
Person of Christ?

St. Francis de Sales saw a young priest on his ordination day about to
enter the church for his first Mass. The young priest stopped as if he was
talking to someone invisible; the problem seemed to be who should pass
first. The priest explained to St. Francis de Sales: "I just had the
happiness of seeing my Guardian Angel. Previously, he always walked before
me; now that I am a priest, he insists on walking behind me."
By the surrender of our ego to the Person of the High priest we exercise an
influence like that of the eighteenth century French court preacher, Bishop
Jean Baptiste Massillon on Louis XIV. "Father," the king complimented him
one day, "I have heard many orators in this chapel and I was always very
satisfied; but every time I hear you, I am dissatisfied with myself."

Holy priests always make sinners say what the Samaritan woman said to the
menfolk of her city:
"Come and have sight of a man who has told me all the story of my life; can
this be the Christ?" JOHN 4:29

3. SPIRITUAL GENERATION
"Increase and multiply" is a law of sacerdotal no less than of biological
life. The production of new life is generation, a function that does not
pertain exclusively or even primarily to the flesh. God is the source of
all generation.

Begetting is not an impulse from below but a gift from above; rather than
an evolution from animals, it is a descent from Deity.
"What, says the Lord thy God, shall I, that bring children to the birth,
want power to bring them forth?" ISAIAS 66:9
Every mother who begets a child, every hen which hatches its young, every
mind which conceives a new idea, every bishop who ordains a priest, every
priest who fosters a vocation, all reflect that eternal act of generation
in which the Father says to his Son:
"Thou art my son; I have begotten thee this day." PSALM 2:7

The understanding of the eternal generation of the second Person of the
Trinity provided by such carnal generation is, however, very remote and
obscure. Somewhat more precise--though still of course analogical--is the
operation of the human intellect when it "conceives" ideas. Where do we get
the idea of "fortitude," "relationship" or "spirituality?" We have never

seen these concepts in the pedestrian world of oranges, sidewalks and
coins. Whence came they? The mind generated them; once begotten, they
remain distinct from the mind, but not separate from it. The fruits of
thinking, namely, ideas, do not drop from the mind like apples from a tree,
or the newborn from parents. They exist in the mind and yet with characters
of their own.

In like manner, does God as the Eternal Thinker have a Thought, a Word.
Because this Wisdom was "generated," we call God Who Thinks the Father, and
the Word or Idea Who is "generated" the Son. The Father was not first and
then the Son. An unbelieving father said to his son who asserted that the
Father and Son were equal: "I existed before you did, and therefore the
Father existed before the Son." The boy answered: "Oh no! You did not begin
to be a father until I began to be a son."

THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY AND GENERATION
Was not the Blessed Mother herself generated in the Mind of God? Before she
was immaculately conceived in the womb of her mother, St. Anne, she was
"immaculately conceived" in the Mind of God. That is why the words of
Proverbs (8:22-30) are applied to her:

"The Lord made me His when first He went about His work, at the birth of
time, before His creation began. Long, long ago, before earth was
fashioned, I held my course. Already I lay in the womb, when the depths
were not yet in being, when no springs of water had yet broken; when I was
born, the mountains had not yet sunk on their firm foundations, and there
were no hills; not yet had He made the earth, or the rivers, or the solid
framework of the world. I was there when He built the heavens, when He
fenced in the waters with a vault inviolable, when He fixed the sky
overhead, and levelled the fountainsprings of the deep. I was there when He
enclosed the sea within its confines, forbidding the waters to transgress
their assigned limits, when He poised the foundations of the world. I was
at His side, a master-workman, my delight increasing with each day, as I
made play before Him all the while.

THE APOSTLES AND GENERATION
lust as God the Father has a Divine Son and countless millions of adopted
sons by grace, so Mary had not only Jesus as her Son, but all those other
children who were, in the person of John, commended to her on Calvary.

Fecundity, generation and fruitfulness mark the teachings of the faith,
beginning with the command to "increase and multiply" (GENESIS 1:22). So it
is to the end, for the final book of the Bible declares that the Tree of
Life itself is fecund, "the tree that gives life, bearing its fruit
twelvefold" (APOCALYPSE 22:2). In the same vein, the Apostle Paul describes
his converts as the fruits of his generation: "It was I that begot you in
Jesus Christ, when I preached the gospel to you" (I CORINTHIANS 4:15).
Timothy he addressed as "my own son in the faith" (I TIMOTHY 1:2), and
again as "his well beloved son (II TIMOTHY 1:2).
So too does James assure us that God has begotten us in Truth:

"It was His will to give us birth, through His true word, meaning us to be
the first-fruits, as it were, of all His creation." JAMES 1:18
And John stresses the theme of our Redemption by reminding us that carnal
generation is as nothing compared to the spiritual generation by grace:

"Their birth came, not from human stock, not from nature's will or man's,
but from God." JOHN 1:13
God hates sterility. He punishes disobedience with barrenness When He
promises His people a blessing, it is expressed in terms of fecundity:
There shall be no unfruitfulness in thy land. EXODUS 23:26

But the one who has no spiritual children is under a curse. Only those who
walk with the Lord and yield to the Spirit are gifted with fruitfulness:
"Thou shalt be blessed as no other people is blessed; man and woman, sire
and dam shall breed." DEUTERONOMY 7:14

THE SPIRITUAL GENERATION OF PRIESTS
The priest is pledged to celibacy, not because human generation is wrong,
but because it must yield so that he can devote himself wholly to a higher
form of generation: the begetting of children in Christ by bringing to Him
those who never blew Him, by restoring to Him those lost in sin, and by
arousing in those who already love Christ the inspiration to serve Him more
fully as religious or priests. The energy which otherwise would be used for
the service of the flesh is not buried in a napkin. It is transformed so
that it serves chaste generation in the Spirit.

Too often the vow of chastity is presented negatively as the avoiding of
carnal and sinful pleasures. But is pure water only the absence of dirt, a
white diamond merely the negation of carbon? Chastity is sometimes
mistakenly called cold, but not by Francis Thompson, who proclaims it a
"passionless passion, a wild tranquility." Chastity is fire. No life is
produced without fire. Even the virginal conception of Our Lady had its
fire--not human indeed, but the Fire of the Holy Spirit. At that moment,
she undoubtedly had an ecstasy of soul surpassing the flesh ecstasy of all
humans combined Such is the joy of begetting through the Pure Love of the
Spirit.

"FATHER"

No form of address is so widely used for a priest, and none so appropriate
as "Father." it stresses precisely the priest's close relationship to God,
"The Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, that Father from whom all fatherhood
in heaven and on earth takes its title." EPHESIANS 3:14, 15

But if the priest is thus a father, then God may properly inquire of him
where are his offspring. The bishop alone, of course, has the power to

beget a priest in ordination, but every priest has the power and duty to
foster the vocation. When we go before the judgment seat of God, each of us
will be asked: "Whom have you begotten in Christ?" Woe to those who are
barren! When Our Lord comes to us looking for the fruit of our Fatherhood,
we must not be as the barren fig tree which merits only a curse.

Physical maternity is not without its labor, and to a mother in labor, Our
Lord likened His Passion: "... because now her time has come" (JOHN
16:21). But spiritual parenthood, our mission, is not without its labor
too, as Paul said of Onesimus:
And I am appealing to thee on behalf of Onesimus, the child of my
imprisonment. PHILEMON 1:10
The mother of Samuel the Prophet was, after many years of sterility,
blessed with a son who was to prove mighty in Israel because her heart was
right with God. Those who desire the glory of God, she proclaimed in
thanksgiving, will find that the life which has been barren can become
unusually fruitful:
"See how at last the barren womb bears many." I KINGS 2:5

And what above all things will assure us of begetting children in Christ,
if it be not our oneness with the Christ-victim? Having enumerated seven
miracles or signs which Our Lord worked to prove His divinity, St. John
observed that few who had witnessed the signs had been convinced by them
(JOHN 12:37). But Christ had yet another way to win souls:

"Yes, if only I am lifted up from the earth, I will attract all men to
Myself. JOHN 12:32

Miracles are not a cure for unbelief. On being informed that Lazarus had
been raised from the dead, some of the Pharisees sought to kill him and
thus destroy the evidence. But the spiritual harvest which Our Lord assured
us would come from His Cross cannot be denied. The means He proclaimed to
draw souls to Himself constitute an infallible source of spiritual
fecundity for those who live in its shadow.
CONVERT MAKING

Has administration taken precedence in the life of many pastors over
evangelization? Has organization swallowed up shepherding? Are souls to be
reckoned only on index cards? Are the sheep in the fold to be used only for
shearing, or is each member of the laity to be encouraged and helped to
develop his own specific apostolic vocation? The question s one that each
pastor can answer for himself only by searching the depths of his own
conscience. What he has to remember is that he is the father not only of
the sheep who are in the fold:
"I have other sheep too, which do not belong to this fold; I must bring
them in too." JOHN 10:16

Does not Canon Law make the pastor responsible for all souls in his parish?
Yet how many pastors devote themselves seriously to trying to incorporate

those not of the fold into the Mystical Body of Christ? Every priest should
ask him self how many adults he baptized in the past year as the fruit of
his zeal; how many fallen-away Catholics he brought back to the Father's
House. Why do some priests never make a convert while others make hundreds?
Can it be because one takes his title of "Father" seriously while the other
does not?
When I preach the gospel, I take no credit for that; I act under
constraint; it would go hard with me indeed if I did not preach the Gospel.
I CORINTHIANS 9:16
Administration is absolutely essential; to ignore it would be to overlook
the fact that each member has a specific function in the Mystical Body. But
the Holy Spirit has not called us to be mere bankers, real estate men or
blueprint experts. Such activities are at best incidental to a primary
function which the Apostles understood. The Spirit was not given them to
sit at counting tables:

"It is too much that we should have to forego preaching God's word, and
bestow our care upon tables." ACTS 6:2
On the other hand, it is not enough to be "sacristy" priests devoutly
beseeching the Lord to send souls to us, while ignoring His command:
"You must go out to the street-corners, and invite all whom you find
there." MATTHEW 22:9

All around us potential converts abound. The tragedy is not only that they
lack faith, but that we seldom ask them to embrace it. A non-Catholic
lawyer was asked on his death bed by his Catholic partner of twenty years,
"Now, that you are nearing your end, how about coming into the Church?" the
dying man raised his eyebrows. "If your faith meant so little to you during
the twenty years you have known me," he replied, "it cannot make that much
difference now."

Conversions are not more difficult in our times than before; but the
approach must be different. Today, people are looking for God, not because
of the order they find in the universe, but because of the disorder they
find in themselves. They are coming to God through an inner disgust, a
despair that may be called creative.
"Out of the depths I cry to Thee, 0 Lord." PSALM 129:1
Religion is sometimes said to be losing its influence in the world. To the
extent that such is the case, part of the reason undoubtedly is that we do
not appear to the unbeliever as different from anyone else. The missionary,
the priest who lives in the slums, the saintly priest who spends himself
with souls--these always inspire, and they inspire because they reveal
Christ and Him Crucified.

Doubting Thomas must not be judged too harshly for the conditions he laid
down before he would believe. All he asked for was fair evidence.

"Until I have seen the mark of the nails on His hands, until I have put my
finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into His side, you will

never make me believe." JOHN 20:25
No deep conviction is aroused in the incredulous until they see the scarred
hands and the broken heart of the priest who is a victim with Christ. The
mortified priest, the priest who is detached from the world--these inspire,
edify and Christify souls.
Being a father of many children requires work. Our Lora made His two
greatest converts when He was tired. The eight-hour day, five-day week is
not prescribed in the Scriptures. God gave Moses hundreds of details about
the tabernacle, but one piece of furniture was not mentioned. The
tabernacle lacked a chair. Altar, laver, table, lamp, censers and drapes
are all listed, but there was no place for the priest to sit down. When are
we meant to sit down in the sense of resting from our priest-victimhood?
Our Lord "sat" after He had spent Himself for our Redemption:

"whereas He sits for ever at the right hand of God, offering for our sins a
sacrifice." HEBREWS 10:12
We also read of Him "standing" in heaven. When Stephen was stoned, he saw
"Jesus standing at God’s right hand" (ACTS 7:55), suggesting that when His
Church is persecuted, Our Lord stands in heaven. If such is the symbolic
meaning, the High Priest surely stands today to strengthen the third of the
people of the earth who groan interiorly under the beating of the hammer
and the cutting of the sickle of Communism!

Certainly for the priest, work is his lot while on earth: "Finish your
journey while you have the light" (JOHN 12:35). It was no oversight on
God's part to omit a chair when furnishing the tabernacle. The priest was
not ordained to be a sitter. Christ's promise is that those who overcome
will "sit" with Him at the Heavenly Banquet.
The earthly father must work for and be with his family; the spiritual
father in like manner, must work for and be with souls. Our Lord gave us
the example:

"There they crucified Him, and with Him two others, one on each side with
Jesus in the midst." JOHN 19:18

In the great moment of redemptive love, He is found in the midst of saved
and sinners, among good thieves and bad thieves. His mediators and
ambassadors can no more isolate themselves from sinners than He did. We are
separated from them as holy priests, but one with them as victims for their
sins. Nor do we go amongst them to convince them of their error so much as
to break bread for their starving souls.
The spirit of the true father is less canonical than evangelical. Canon Law
concerns the relations of the Church and is members. The Gospel concerns
the mission of the Church to the world. The parish or the diocese is not
the limit of our fatherliness. As Our Lord got closer to the cross, He had
more and more dealings with those who were not Jews. After the cross, His
message was to the world. Two things always seem to go together in a bishop
or a priest: love of conversions and love of the foreign missions. The
Catholics close to us we must indeed sanctify, but souls in distant lands
who have never heard the good tidings, must also be redeemed.

CONVERSION IS VICTIMHOOD

Can it be that the Communists excel us in their zeal to spread their
beliefs? Zeal unfortunately is not always in direct proportion to truth.
Fire has two qualities: light and heat. Light is truth. Heat is love. We
have the truth, but sometimes not the zeal or love; we have the light, but
not always the heat. But the Communists have the heat and not the light,
the zeal and not the truth.
There is a dangerous tendency among many in modern times who call
themselves Christians to divorce Christ and the cross.

And what would Christ be without the cross? Another teacher like Buddha or
Lao-tse; a sociologist spreading whipped cream on socially disapproved
behavior; a psychoanalyst reducing guilt to a complex and banishing sin as
a "hangover" from savagery; a preacher too polite to mention hell or
divorce; a reformer for whom all discipline is masochistic and who
proclaims self-restraint and moderation as unnatural and in conflict with
the biological urge to self-expression.

And who picks up the cross without Christ? The Communists! Into a
disordered and falsely liberal world, they introduce order, law, obedience,
discipline, study, conformity to the all-holy will of the Party, detachment
from Western excesses, and above all, a crushing of the ego for the sake of
the kingdom of earth. But as the Christ without the cross would be a weak,
effeminate Christ unable to save us from sin, so the cross without Christ
is tyranny, dictatorship, concentration camps, slavery and Sovietism.

Are we living in a world distinguished by an abundant outpouring of the
anti-Pentecostal spirit? Has part of the earth caught fire with the flames
of hell, while the fires of Pentecost sputter in our hands like little
candles incapable of setting the world ablaze?
To suggest that the fires of Pentecost are dying would be not only
blasphemy but a denial of proud facts; for the hope and glory of our age
are to be found in the endurance of the Church of Silence and the unveiling
of new fires by our missionaries. Yet is there not many an individual
priest who should sadly contrast his own smugness with the zeal of the
Communists, and ask himself why some who want to be good and who profess
the truth, still lack a passionate conviction for Christ. The Lord said to
Moses :
"The fire on the altar must burn continually. Never must the altar be empty
of this perpetual fire." LEVITICUS 6:12, 13
Under the Law of Moses the priest had each morning to feed the fire with
fresh logs and carry the ashes away from the camp (LEVITICUS 6:10, 12). The
morning fires of meditation, the self-denial which carries from the heart
the dead things of the world--these are the conditions of the perpetual
fire which burned in St. Paul for the conversion of the entire human race:

"Thus nobody has any claim on me, and yet I have made myself everybody's
slave, to win more souls. ... I have been everything by turns to

everybody, to bring everybody salvation." I CORINTHIANS 9:19, 22
FOSTERING VOCATIONS

Another aspect of the role of the father in begetting spiritual children in
Christ is the fostering of vocations. It is accordingly appropriate for the
priest to ask himself what contribution he is making. It is often said that
there is a decline in vocations, but it is necessary here to distinguish
between vocation and response. God calls. That is the Divine side. We
respond. That is the human side. Pius XII in the Encyclical "Menti Nostrae"
said :
"The Church will never lack priests sufficient for its mission."

Every study of vocations reveals that many youths under fifteen feel the
call. One survey indicated that 40 per cent of students in secular schools
and 50 per cent of students in Catholic schools thought of a vocation after
they were twelve. In another survey, 60 per cent of boys in normal school,
23 per cent in professional schools, 37 per cent in technical schools and
66 per cent in classics affirmed that at some time in their life they hoped
to become priests or religious.

Many who have felt the call just wander away. Rather than a deliberate
turning aside, there is compromise or straying. Youths with vocations, like
sheep in a field, look around the world instead of up to heaven; and before
they know it, they have lost sight of the Good Shepherd. The reasons are
many, but often one of them is the failure of the priest to talk to an
altar boy about the priesthood, to neglect to thank him when he gets up to
serve the early Mass. A cutting reprimand for a trivial misdemeanor may
alter a young man's plans--for such a cause Tito left the Church.
"Now, son of man, prophesy doom to . . . the shepherds of my flock. This be
thy message from the Lord God: Out upon Israel's shepherds, that had a
flock to feed, and fed none but themselves." EZECHIEL 34:2
We must surely hope that we do not fall under this Divine Judgment.
Nevertheless, as God's word, it must urge us to greater care of the young:
"The milk drank, the wool wore, the fat lambs slaughtered, but pastured
these sheep of mine never at all! The wasted frame went unnourished, the
sick unhealed; nor bound they the broken limb, nor brought strayed sheep
home, nor lost sheep found; force and constraint were all the governance
they knew. So my sheep fell a-wandering, that shepherd had none; every wild
beast fell a-preying on them, and they scattered far and wide." EZECHIEL
34:3-5

When we appear before the Lord to be judged by the use to which we put the
chrism with which our hands were anointed, He will ask us if we have
continued our priesthood?
"I will hold them answerable for the flock entrusted to them, and they
shall have charge of it no more, feed themselves out of its revenues no
more. From their greedy power I will rescue it; no longer shall it be their
prey." EZECHIEL 34:10

What young priest and religious will then proclaim our fruitfulness? What
aid that we gave the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, or the "Opus
Sancti Petri" for educating native seminarians will be recorded in the Book
of Life? In how many Catholic homes will we have encouraged the vocations
of worthy youths by our visits? What spiritual exercises will be noted as
conducted by us for young men and women who felt drawn to the priesthood or
the religious life?

How fruitful a vineyard of vocations is the sacristy! To See a priest
making his meditation before Mass does more for an altar boy's vocation
than a thousand pieces of inspirational literature.
Being a spiritual father to future priests requires dedication. Aaron and
the priests of the Old Testament were anointed in three places: the right
ear, the right thumb and the big toe of the right foot (LEVITICUS 14:1428). The threefold anointing suggests a three-fold dedication: to be
attentive to the hearing of the Word of God, for the ear signifies
obedience (EXODUS 21:6), as Our Lord was obedient unto the death of the
Cross (PHILIPPIANS 2:8); to use his hands constantly in performing good
deeds, as Christ finished the work given to Him by the Father (JOHN 4:34;
9:4; 18:4; HEBREWS 10:5,7); and to walk always in the ways of God, for
sweet are the feet of those who spread the news of the Gospel.

"See where they bring good news on the mountain heights, proclaiming that
all is well." NAHUM 1:15

The secret of fostering vocations may be summed up in this Old Testament
ceremony, namely, the encouraging of spiritual sensitivity, of good works
and of flight from evil.

1. The young must first hear the call of God. It is then, the priest's role
to keep his soul sensitive to God's voice. As in Baptism, we touch both
ears saying, "Ephphetha" ("Be opened") so in preparation for Orders, we
keep the soul alert to God's whisper, for He does not shout a vocation.
2. The ear needs the hands to translate into good works the pious
inspiration of God. Aspirants to the priesthood therefore serve the altar,
instruct children in the faith, act as counselors to the young, thus
fitting their hands to be annointed one day by the bishop.
3. Vocations prosper through discipline, too, for the priest must walk the
narrow path to salvation, not the broad way to destruction (LUKE 13:24).
The world and the flesh have strong solicitation for youth. They must be
protected from sin as God protected the Jews in going out of Egypt:
"Thus the people had Pharao's leave to go on their way; but God did not
lead them by the nearest road, the road through Philistia. Here they would
have found themselves met by armed resistance, and perhaps, in despair of
their enterprise, returned to Egypt." EXODUS 13:17

Canon Law places an obligation on every priest, especially pastors, to
foster the signs of vocation observed in youth with whom they come in
contact.

"Dent operam sacerdotes, praesertim parochi, ut pueros, qui indicia
praebeant ecclesiasticae vocationis, peculiaribus curis a saeculi contagiis
arceant, ad pietatem informent, primis litterarum studiis imbuant
divinaeque in eis vocationis germen foveant" (Canon 1353).

One parish in the United States had no vocations in forty years. A new
pastor in a single year developed ten vocations. The difference was due to
his spirituality. His ear heard the call of the Lord of the Harvest for
vocations, his hands were busy in promoting devotions to the Sacred Heart,
and his feet visited every family in his parish.
Some years ago I was eating in a hotel restaurant when a boy about twelve,
who shined shoes for a living, began to swing on a velvet curtain at the
entrance. The headwaiter yelled at him and ordered him out of the hotel.
I followed the boy into the street. He told me he had been expelled from a
Catholic school by a pastor and a nun who assured him that he could never
again attend a Catholic school. I took him to the pastor and the nun
involved and reminded them of three other "bad" boys expelled from
religious schools: one for drawing pictures during geography class, another
for fighting too much, the third for keeping bad books under his mattress.
They were respectively Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. How different, under
God, might world history have been if their leaders had taken more pains to
reform them!

The pastor and the nun agreed to re-admit the boy. In due course he was
ordained a priest and today he is a missionary in the Arctic.

What a blessed life is ours! What a beautiful role celibacy plays when it
facilitates a higher kind of generation, when it inspires the priest to
imitate the Father in begetting the Word, to imitate the Christ Who begot
us in the Spirit as an "alter Christus!"

Our days are blessed by a deepening of liturgical devotion and an upsurge
of participation in the Eucharistic mysteries on the part of the laity.
Such developments are a tribute but also a warning to the clergy, for as
the laity become more spiritual, so must they. The Church is in danger when
the laity are more spiritual than the clergy:

"You are the salt of the earth; if salt loses its taste, what is there left
to give taste to it?" MATTHEW 5:13
Much earlier the prophet Osee had issued the same warning:
"Priest, now, shall fare no better than people." OSEE 4:9

It is not possible to create esteem for the priesthood except through an
admiration for the priest's victimhood. No mother brings a child into the
world without labor. No priest begets a vocation or makes a convert or
sanctifies a soul except under the shadow of the cross. And as an "alter
Christus," every priest must realize his ability to beget in the spirit. We
are usually conscious of our sacramental power at Mass and in the
confessional, but do we have confidence in our power to excite vocations?
When we place our hand on a boy who gives spiritual promise and say, "Some
day you will be a priest," do we believe Our Lord will support our judgment

and our blessing? Many a priest can look back on the blessing he gave a
youth who is now an ordained priest. He did not confer the vocation on the
young man, God did that. But there is such a thing as a priestly
strengthening of the vocation in the soul. As Our Lord prayed to His
Father, so must we pray confidently to the Lord:

"And He will bring honour to Me, because it is from Me that He will derive
what He makes plain to you." JOHN 16:14
How happy the death of the priest who knows that he has passed on the torch
of life which Christ ignited in his soul. And until that hour, without the
benefit of sitting down in the tabernacle of the Lord, each of us will say
with Paul to those whose vocation we have fostered:

"My little children, I am in travail over you afresh, until I can see
Christ's image formed in you!" GALATIANS 4:19

4. THE HOLINESS OF THE PRIEST
The moral and spiritual life of the priest is related in two ways to the
Mystical Body of Christ. His holiness helps to make the faithful holy. The
sanctity of the Christian community, in turn, helps to make him holy.
At the Last Supper, Our Lord gave His priests a compelling reason why they
had to be holy, holding Himself up as the example:

"I dedicate Myself for their sakes, that they too may be dedicated through
the truth. It is not only for them that I pray; I pray for those who are to
find faith in Me through their words." JOHN 17:19, 20
He sanctified Himself not for Himself alone, but for them too. They in turn
were to sanctify themselves for the Church and all future believers.
Spirituality begins at the top, not at the bottom. The mirror reflects the
light of the sun, but does not create it. Sanctity is a pyramid:

"Gracious as balm poured on the head till it flows down on to the beard;
balm that flowed down Aaron's beard, and reached the very skirts of his
robe." PSALM 132:2
God is holy; that holiness comes to earth in Christ. He bestows it on His
priests with their cooperation; they, in the measure in which they accept,
contribute to making the people holy. The people do not give the priest the
special powers to sanctify which he possesses. It is Our Lord who gave
these powers, and He gave them to enable the priest to make the people
holy. From the mountain, where One communes with God, sanctity descends:

"So Moses went down again to the people, and rid them of defilement."
EXODUS 19:14
For the sake of the Church, Our Lord came into the world and (as He said)
He sanctified Himself. But what precisely does this expression mean? How
can one consecrate him self? Could Aaron consecrate himself? Could I
consecrate myself? But He could consecrate Himself, because He is a "high

priest, now, eternally with the priesthood of Melchisedech" (HEBREWS 6:20).
He could sanctify Himself, because He was both priest and victim:

"Order your lives in charity, upon the model of that charity which Christ
shewed to us, when He gave himself up on our behalf, a sacrifice breathing
out fragrance as He offered it to God." EPHESIANS 5:2

In Biblical usage, to dedicate or sanctify meant to set apart as an
offering to God, a sacrifice.
"Thou shalt set apart for the Lord thy God all the firstborn of thy cattle
and sheep." DEUTERONOMY 15:19

"There is no ransoming the first-born of ox or sheep or goat; they are set
apart for the Lord." NUMBERS 18:17

All Old Testament sacrifices were holy to the Lord as types of the "first­
born" (LUKE 2:7) who, in a special way became sanctified, that is, was set
apart as a sacrifice for our salvation, on Good Friday. His own official
sanctification, as He affirmed the previous night, was the meritorious
cause of His priests and people being sanctified. St. Paul understood this
clearly :
"Christ shewed love to the Church when He gave Himself up on its behalf. He
would hallow it." EPHESIANS 5:25, 26

THE HIGH PRIEST'S "OUR FATHER"
From the foregoing it is clear that Our Lord made Himself "holy" or
"priestly" or "saintly" for our sakes. To reproduce this holiness in us
priests, the help of heaven is needed. The night of the Last Supper He
spoke to the Heavenly Father in our behalf, saying His own "Pater Noster."
Previously, He had said to the apostles, when they asked how they were to
pray:
"And He told them, When you pray, you are to say, Father." LUKE 11:2

Our Lord never said "Our Father" of Himself and us together, but "My
Father" and "Your Father," because He is the Natural Son; we, the adopted
sons. His sacerdotal prayer of Holy Thursday night, like the prayer He had
given the apostles on the earlier occasion, contained seven petitions. The
first "Our Father" was for everyone, but this "Our Father" is for priests
alone. It sums up the virtues that distinguish the priest.
1. Perseverance: "Holy Father, keep them true to Thy name" (JOHN 17:11).

2. Joy: "That My joy may be theirs, and reach its full measure in them"
(JOHN 17:13).
3. Deliverance from evil: "That Thou shouldst keep them clear of what is
evil" (JOHN 17:15).
4. Holiness through sacrifices: "Keep them holy, then, through the truth"
(JOHN 17:17).

5. Unity: "That they may all be one; that they too may be one in Us, as
Thou Father, art in Me, and I in Thee" (JOHN 17:21).

6. His Constant Companions: "This, Father, is my desire that all those whom
thou hast entrusted to Me may be with Me where I am" (JOHN 17:24).
7. Enjoy His glory in heaven: "So as to see My glory" (JOHN 17:24)

How often the note of joy and glory and happiness is struck! And everything
is conditioned on being "with Him"; this was His purpose in choosing them
as His priests. But before He offered that prayer, He told us that we would
never be immune from trial. The "joy" set before us is similar to that with
which He embraced the Cross. But the victory is certain. We have already
won! Only the news has not yet leaked out!

"In the world, you will only find tribulation; but take courage, I have
overcome the world." JOHN 16:33

WHAT HOLINESS INVOLVES
Our Lord sanctified Himself for our sakes, and that--as has been indicated-involved sacrifice. He immolated Himself, just as whatever was dedicated
to the Lord under the Old Testament was immolated.
As the shepherd, so the sheep; as the priest, so the people. Priest-victim
leadership begets a holy Church. What the priests are in the parish, the
diocese and the nation, that likewise will the faithful be. As multitudes
got the bread at Capharnaum through the disciples, so the faithful get the
sanctification of Christ through our sanctification. Seeing this goal
reached, the last outburst of Our Lord's sacerdotal soul was: "It is
achieved" (JOHN 19:30). The tens of thousands of lambs who shed their blood
as types were no longer needed. The Lamb of God had immolated Himself.
Every priest must perform a like act of self-oblation, and then pass on its
fruits to the whole people: "Do this for a commemoration of me" (LUKE
22:19).

The specific thing Christ directed every priest to repeat and renew was the
sacramental symbol of His death. The living out of this death is
sanctification.

But why must the Cross be taken up daily? Because there is a ransom price
on every soul. Some of them cost much. They require a great sacrifice. It
is not that Christ withholds His Mercy, but that He has willed to dispense
it through our hands And unless the hands of the priest are scarred hands,
Christ's mercies do not so readily pass through them. Blessings, power,
healing, influence get clogged by worldliness.
The Church makes no impression in the world so long as those outside see it
only as a "sect" or an "organization" or "one of the great religions." Our
Lord made His impact through His Cross (JOHN 12:32) The wounded Christ
redeemed; and only a wounded Church can effectively apply that Redemption.
When the Church is making progress, where conversions are numerous, there
Christ is poor again, tired again from missionary journeys, a victim once

again in His saintly priests.
Every worldly priest hinders the growth of the Church; every saintly priest
promotes it. If only all priests realized how their holiness makes the
Church holy, and how the Church begins to decline when the level of
holiness among priests falls below that of the people! God still thunders
to His priests:
"I have set watchmen, Jerusalem, upon thy walls, that shall never cease
crying aloud, day or night; you that keep the Lord in remembrance, take no
rest, nor let Him rest neither, till He has restored Jerusalem, spread her
fame over all the earth." ISAIAS 62:6, 7

Watchmen are we, who have been put on the walls of the Church by the High
Priest. Day and night we must pray and preach without ceasing so as to
merit the description given by St. Augustine: "aut precantes aut
praedicantes."
Our dedication to the people is not only on Sundays, or at Mass once a day,
or hearing confessions on Saturdays. We are told to do two things: (1)
"Take no rest"--strange as it may seem. No chairs! Remember? (2) "Give God
no rest." Did we ever tell a beggar who wanted money, "Ask me for it when I
cross the street; if I do not give it to you, follow me and seize my coat;
if that does not get you what you want, throw a stone at my window at
midnight." But God does say: "Wrestle with me, as Jacob did. Give me no
rest. Like the importunate widow who aroused the judge, so we are to cry to
the Priest-Victim in the face of the enemies of the Church:
"Give me redress against one who wrongs me." LUKE 18:3

"I tell you, even if he will not bestir himself to grant it out of
friendship, shameless asking will make him rise and give his friend all
that he needs."
LUKE 11:8

What we are, the Church is; what the Church is, the world is. The world and
all it contains is finally a highway on which the Bride, the Church, goes
to meet the Bridegroom for the heavenly nuptials. Politics does not
ultimately determine war and peace. What is decisive is the spiritual state
of the Church living in and leavening the world. To read the Old Testament
is to recognize that history is the hand of the Lord who blesses and
punishes nations according to their deserts. What we do to sanctify
ourselves sanctifies the world. When the shepherd is lazy, the sheep are
hungry; when he sleeps, they are lost; when he is corrupt, they grow sick;
when he is unfaithful, they lose their judgment. If the shepherd is not
willing to be a victim for his sheep, the wolves come and devour them.
Each morning we priests hold in our hands the Christ Who shed blood from
His veins, tears from His eyes, sweat from His Body to sanctify us. How we
should be on fire with that love, that we may enkindle it in others!

Do we suffer for the wandering sheep? Do we warm ourselves by a fire
talking to maidservants as Peter did, while the Lord is crucified again in
the souls of sinners? Do we adopt an intransigent position with the enemies
of the Church, forgetting that a Saul was made a Paul? We dress in black;
but it is not to mourn Christ, for He has conquered. We are in mourning for

those who bar their doors against our knock, for those still unwilling to
believe though one should rise daily from the dead, for those who reach us
vinegar as we cry "Sitio!" (JOHN 19:28). Night and day, giving God no rest,
we will utter over and over again:
"I dedicate Myself for their sakes, that they too may be dedicated through
the truth." JOHN 17:19

HOLY CHRISTIANS GUARANTEE HOLY PRIESTS

Holiness descends in the Church from the all Holy God through Christ, His
bishops and His priests, to the entire community which is the Mystical
Body. But there is simultaneously an ascending movement of holiness from
the Christian community to the all Holy God. Particularly is this true of
vocations to the priesthood and the religious life.
There is no priest who does not go through the motions of urging the
faithful to pray for vocations. But too often, the phrases are formal. They
are what is expected of one. In the priest's mind, they are a part of the
announcements, on a level with the card party for the Ladies Auxiliary or
the CYO skating meet.
These other activities are, of course, not to be sneered at. They, too,
foster a Christian life and therefore stimulate vocations. But can we put
them in the same category as prayer? Out of hundreds of possible ways of
fostering vocations, prayer was the single one Our Lord specified:

"The harvest, He told them, is plentiful enough, but the laborers are few,
you must ask the Lord to Whom the harvest belongs to send laborers out for
the harvesting." LUKE 10:2

What prompted these words? Luke says that Christ spoke them on the occasion
of choosing seventy-two disciples (LUKE 10:1). Matthew sketches the
background in more detail. It was after a long journey, he noted, and the
Lord's heart was touched by compassion for the masses who hungered for
knowledge of heaven but did not know where to search for what they lacked:

"Yet still, when He looked at the multitudes, He was moved with pity for
them, seeing them harried and abject, like sheep that have no shepherd.
Thereupon He said to His disciples, The harvest is plentiful enough, but
the laborers are few, you must ask the Lord to Whom the harvest belongs to
send laborers out for the harvesting." MATTHEW 9:36, 37, 38

Not only those already in the Church but equally those outside it make Him
yearn for laborers, lest the plentiful wheat rot in the fields.
His compassion for the multitude was twofold. Because they were hungry, He
miraculously fed the five thousand. Because their souls suffered, sheep
without a shepherd, He was moved with pity.
Every true priest has the same heart-tearing pity as he flies over a great
city, Paris, New York or London. Down below he sees with Christ's eyes
millions of souls unfed by the Eucharist, unhealed by penance, living in
houses built on sand because they know not the Rock. He sees in them what

Our Lord saw when He looked at the multitudes--danger of eternal loss! Here
are countless acres ripe for harvesting, but how few the laborers to
gather !
Our Lord indicates that this harvest of souls is convertible. He is
enthusiastic about the prospects of winning souls, and His words are
intended to project that enthusiasm to His priests. He made a similar
expression of confident anticipation when the crowds streamed out of
Samaria to hear His words:

"Why, lift up your eyes, I tell you, and look at the fields, they are white
with the promise of harvest already." JOHN 4:35
As wheat does not oppose the sickle, so the masses will not oppose us. One
wonders if we do not underestimate the possibility of conversions. The
failure may simply be in our defective preparation and approach. The
unbelievers will not go to hear philosophers, but they will go to hear
saints, priests who work in the slums amid the outcasts report that they
rarely meet with an insult. Like the wheat, the masses will bend only
before a certain kind of harvester. Not finding us as we should be, they
turn their backs on us. But when they encounter a priest whose life
expresses the message he brings, they are ready to be harvested.

What Our Lord asked us to pray for was laborers. He did not say: "My Father
is Almighty; He can make the few accomplish much." He knew the extent of
His Father's power, but He was also one with His Father in the divine plan
to sanctify man with the aid of human means. In the Incarnation, His human
nature was "instrumentum conjunctum divinitatis." In the prolongation of
His Incarnation, He uses us as instruments. Though He could reap the
harvest without men, He will not.

But only laborers and not idlers are acceptable instruments. The priest
must study to perfect his mind, not wearying the people with stale
repetitions. It is true that "words will be given you when the time comes"
(MATTHEW 10:19); but what Our Lord here promised was not inspiration for
those who do not prepare their message, but the help of the Spirit for
those persecuted beyond human resource. In the designs of Providence, the
gift of final perseverance may depend for a priest not only on the amount
of evil he has done, but on the good he has left undone.
The laborers must go into the harvest fields, to the masses, to the
unbelievers, to the abandoned, the rudderless. Is it not possible that the
Lord withholds many vocations from dioceses and mission societies because
of the growing use of priests in strictly secular activities? Why
specifically does God call a man to the priesthood? It is not easy to
justify the placing of a priest in insurance, building, accountancy,
banking, publicity and promotion, when the need is so grave for convert­
makers, for missioners to search out the lost sheep and lead them gently to
the fold of Christ. Do we lack dedicated and reliable laymen able to do
such tasks as well or better? If the Lord was so particular about the
fragments of bread, which He ordered gathered up, then will He not insist
jealously that His priests do precisely that for which He called them?
Why did Our Lord, when He spoke of vocations, single out precisely the
word, "Pray!"? Because prayer is the expression of the Christian community

and the yearning of the Church. As the Church gets the kind of Pope she
deserves, so she gets the kind and number of priests she deserves. Why do
Ireland and Holland have so many vocations? Because the Catholic people of
these small but intense countries, rich in their faith, want priests, and
they pray to be given the priests they want. Why do some countries have so
few? Because few people, even few parents, pray for priests. Ask and the
gift will come" (LUKE 11:9). Can we hope to receive, if we do not ask?
There are probably hundreds of thousands of vocations hanging from heaven
on silken cords; prayer is the sword that cuts them. The laborers are
available potentially in the heart of Christ; it is our petitions that
actualize them. "... And I was never consulted?" (ISAIAS 30:2).
Are there prayers in Church for vocations? Do mothers pray for vocations
for their children? Do the faithful pray the Lord "to send laborers out for
the harvesting" (MATTHEW 9:38)? Do school children pray-for the call of
God?
What the Christian community wants ardently, the Lord of the Harvest will
grant. That is why Our Lord told us to pray. The command was intended for
all, but it was given directly and specifically to the apostles and the
disciples, as His ambassadors and co-workers among the people. Prayer in
the Church is alone primary; publicity and its methods are secondary. The
search for vocations begins on our knees. One bishop had no candidates for
the priesthood in two years. He began a campaign of prayer in the schools
of his diocese and without any other publicity he had activated forty
vocations at the end of one year.
The original Greek word (ekballo) for "sending" laborers into the fields is
stronger than the Latin (MATTHEW 9:38). It means that the Lord of the
harvest would thrust them out, or propel them forward. The same Greek word
is used by MATTHEW (8:31) for the expulsion of a devil out of a man (though
different words are used in describing the incident in MARK 5:8 and LUKE
8:29); it takes a great power to drive the priesthood into a man. This
power Our Lord said He would exercise, if we prayed. It even suggests that
from totally unexpected and impossible places, He would inspire vocations.
EFFECT ON COMMUNITY ON SAINTLINESS OR SINFULNESS

Every slightest failing on our part brings the community under the judgment
of God. Every least increase of priestly e brings it blessing.

When the Israelites took Jericho (JOSUE 6:1-21), God ordered that the city
be destroyed and its wealth given to Him as the fruit of victory. But one
Israelite disobeyed. Yielding to temptation, Achan appropriated to himself
a garment and some precious ornaments, violating the Divine command (JOSUE
7:1). Later, when Josue was routed in battle, the Lord revealed that the
reason for his defeat was the secret sin of Achan. The evil of one brought
destruction and death on his entire community.

Personal sins, even the most secret, have repercussions on all the Church.
A cut finger pains the whole man. The ripple caused by a stone thrown into
a pond touches every point on the shore. A hidden violation of Christ's law
by any of His members reverberates through and disturbs the equilibrium of
the entire Mystical Body.

Josue, under the inspiration of God ordered the destruction of Achan and
the stolen goods:
"And there Josue said, Thou hast brought trouble on us, and now it is the
Lord's turn to bring trouble on thee." JOSUE 7:25
Now, if the sin of one layman so affected the "ecclesia" of Israel, how
much more must the failings of one priest affect the "ecclesia Dei!" But
the influence of one good soul, one saint, works to the good of the whole
community. God was willing to spare Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of a
few just men. Abraham stopped at ten and the cities were destroyed (GENESIS
18:16--19;28). But God does not necessarily stop at ten. Blessings,
vocations and conversions abound, and judgments are averted, because of the
few who are good. For Jacob's sake, God multiplied the flocks of Laban
(GENESIS 30:27). Out of respect for Joseph, God prospered the house of
Potiphar (GENESIS 39: 5). The wicked city of Segor was saved because of the
prayer of Lot:

"Once again, said he, I yield to Thy entreaty; I will not overthrow the
city Thou pleadest for." GENESIS 19:21
Because of Paul, 276 souls were saved in a violent storm at sea (ACTS
27:24, 34)

Before God sent Jerusalem into captivity as a punishment, He told Jeremias
that one good man would save it:

"Go the rounds of Jerusalem, search the streets of it with hue and cry; and
if you find one man there that faithfully does his duty, and keeps troth,
then the city shall be pardoned." JEREMIAS 5:1

After He had inflicted judgment on Jerusalem, He gave the reason:
"Who would close the breach, intercede with Me to spare the land from ruin?
Never a man was found! What wonder if I have poured out My vengeance, burnt
them up in My anger? It was but their deserts I gave them, says the Lord
God." EZECHIEL 22:30, 31
Finally, when the Last Judgment comes, the days of vengeance,

"there would have been no human creature, if the number of those days had
not been cut short, but those days will be cut short, for the sake of the
elect." MATTHEW 24:22

It could well be that God's wrath--and let us not forget that the
Apocalypse (6:16) speaks of "ira Agni"--is withheld from cities because of
saintly souls among the clergy and the religious and the laity. God could
not strike as long as Moses stood between Him and the people.
"So the Lord relented, and spared His people the punishment He had
threatened." EXODUS 32:14
What converts could prayer win in Mission lands! The materialism of Japan
would fragment, like the shell of an egg, to reveal the life within, did we

but pray for Japan. How slight would be the sacrifice, yet how much would
it mean to the Vicar of Christ, if every priest who lives in comfort sent
even a few of his Mass stipends to the Holy Father through his Society for
the Propagation of the Faith!
0 blessed intercessors are we! The salt of the earth! The lights of the
world! Without good men, the world would be corrupted and in darkness. We
sanctify ourselves not for us as individuals but for all as God's people.
We do not save our soul alone; either we save it in the context of our
neighbors and of the Mystical Body, or we lose it. No cell of my body can
live normally outside my body, but my body can live without any given
individual cell, "in toto Christo" we live and work.

To neglect intercession is to sin against God.
"Never may I offend the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, and pointing you
to the good paths, the right paths." I KINGS 12:23
If we priests lack a heart to sigh and cry for the abominations and
miseries of others, great is our reason to fear for ourselves. We cannot
speak of unbroken fellowship with Our Lord without unbroken fellowship with
the Church and the world.

"God has proved His love to us by laying down His life for our sakes; we
too must be ready to lay down our lives for the sake of our brethren." I
JOHN 3:16

CHOOSING CANDIDATES FOR THE PRIESTHOOD
Since the holiness of the priest in God's designs makes the Church holy,
those who seek the priesthood but are wanting in holiness must be purged.
"Have you never been told that a little leaven is enough to leaven the
whole batch? Rid yourselves of the leaven which remains over, so that you
may be a new mixture, still uncontaminated as you are." I CORINTHIANS 5:6,
7

When public relations techniques are used to promote vocations, with
advertising in religious publications and direct mailings designed to
encourage young people to join a given Society or community, the danger is
always present that stress will be placed on numbers to the neglect of
quality. St. Thomas insists that the weeding out of the unfit is an
obligation of those charged with the selection of candidates.
"Deus numquam ita deserit Ecclesiam suam quin inveniantur idonei ministri
sufficienter ad necessitatem plebis, si digni promoverentur et indigni
repellerentur. Et sic non posset tot ministros inveniri, quot modo sunt,
melius est habere paucos ministros bonos quam multos malos" (Supp. q. 36,
art. 4, ad I).

One cannot fail to be struck by the symbolic significance of the
instructions God gave Gideon to identify the shock troops of his army:
"Separate those who lap the water like dogs, and those who go down on their

knees to drink." JUDGES 7:5
And who were marked for elimination? Those who made themselves comfortable
by lying flat on the ground and drinking leisurely. And who were taken?
"But the Lord said to Gideon, These three hundred men who lapped the water
shall win you deliverance." JUDGES 7:7
Great truths are revealed to and placed in the custody of the few who are
dedicated to the battle of faith. The imposing appearance of great numbers
may blind us to the need for God's help, may make us overlook the necessity
of training seminarians to be priest-victims. Hence the advice of St. Paul
to Timothy:

"As for the imposition of hands, do not bestow it inconsiderately, and so
share the blame for the sins of others." I TIMOTHY 5:22
To present candidates for ordination without due judgment, is to risk being
held responsible for the subsequent defaults of those who fail the great
High Priest. The priest must, therefore, avoid the methods of the world in
promoting vocations. It is possible to win customers in business by
publicity techniques, but vocations require a different approach. We may
never be many, we may never be wise in the eyes of the world, but whatever
we do must be done through the foolishness of the Cross.
"Consider, brethren, the circumstances of your own calling; not many of you
are wise, in the world's fashion, not many powerful, not many well born. .
. . no human creature was to have any ground for boasting, in the presence
of God. I CORINTHIANS 1:26, 29

VALUE OF PRAYERS FOR VOCATIONS IN THE FAMILY

Every family is a church within a church. "Greet the brethren at Laodicea,
and Nymphas, with the church that is in his household" (COLOSSIANS 4:15).
The classic example of the prayers of a mother for a vocation is Anna. Anna
was barren. "Why had the Lord denied her motherhood?" (I KINGS 1:5). She
promised God that if He would send her a son, she would consecrate him to
God as a priest. In prayer, three times she humbly called herself the
handmaid of the Lord, addressing Him as the ''Lord of hosts" (I KINGS
1:11). The Magnificat hearkens back to the prayer of Anna. So fervently did
she pray, that Heli the high priest thought she was drunk saying: "Wilt
thou always be at thy cups? Give thy stomach a rest from the wine that so
bemuses thee" ( I KINGS 1:14).

Anna, however, was not drunk. She was only pouring out her soul to the Lord
(I KINGS 1:15). In due time, her prayer was answered and she called the son
Samuel, "in token that he was a gift she had won from the Lord" (I KINGS
1:20).
Anna had not just asked for a son, but a son whom she might dedicate to
God. She puts him at the service of the temple where "as he grew he
advanced in favour both with God and with men" (I KINGS 2:26). Later, there
was a formal unfolding of Samuel's vocation, when three times "the Lord's

call came to Samuel" (I KINGS 3:4). Each time Samuel thought it was Heli
who called, running to him each time saying:
"I am coming, he answered; then ran to find Heli, and said, I am here at
thy summons. . . . Till then, Samuel was a stranger to the Divine voice;
the Lord had not made any revelation to him." I KINGS 3:5, 7
Samuel mistook God's voice for Heli's, but Heli told him the next time he
heard the voice to say: "Speak on, Lord; thy servant is listening" (I KINGS
3:9).

God calls His servants to tasks which are manifested only by degrees. Too
often we say: "Tell me first what you want me to do, and I will see whether
I want to." But the advice of the old priest to Samuel was "Put yourself in
God's hands. He will show you your work." St. Paul was told to go to
Damascus and his vocation would be revealed. When we open our ears, God
opens His lips. We know God's truth when we do His will. Later on Samuel
was called to re-create Israel as Moses had created it.

The point of the story is that a vocation comes through prayer, often that
of a mother, even when all seems hopeless. In a survey of a group of
seminarians, three out of four indicated that their mothers were a major
inspiration in the

development of their vocation. St. Paul had already noted the influence of
a mother and a grandmother in fostering vocation of Timothy.
"That faith dwelt in thy grandmother Lois, and in thy mother Eunice, before
thee; I am fully persuaded that it dwells in thee too." II TIMOTHY 1:5

St. Paul praises the faith of this young priest and finds the instrumental
cause in a pious family background. It was the third generation of this
faithful family which bore the fruit of a vocation. Origen conjectured that
they were relatives of St. Paul. Like the celebrated mothers of Augustine,
Chrysostom and Basil, and like the mother of many a priest today, their
sincerity and unfeigned faith produced a heritage for the Church. Lord
Shaftesbury once said: "Give me a generation of Christian mothers and I
will change the face of the earth in twelve months."

The decay of the home is often blamed for the fewness of vocations in our
times. While this is true, forget not Christian homes! We can too easily
become like Elias bemoaning the corruption of Israel.
"See how the sons of Israel have forgotten Thy covenant, thrown down Thy
altars, and put Thy prophets to the sword! Of these, I only am left, and
now my life, too, is forfeit. Ill KINGS 19:14

The Lord told him, nevertheless, that he had been more faithful than he
suspected :

"Yet I mean to leave Myself seven thousand men out of all Israel; knees
that have never bowed to Baal." Ill KINGS 19:18
There is much good, did we but seek it out. What Pascal said applies
equally to vocations and to converts: "There are only two classes of men

who can be called rational--those who serve God with all their hearts
because they know Him, and those who seek Him wholeheartedly because they
know Him not." ("Pascal's Pensees," "Apology," No. 2106, translated by H.
F. Stewart, D.D., Pantheon Books, Inc., 1950.) We can easily be too severe
on others. When James and John suggested to Christ that He punish the
Samaritans who would not receive Him, they drew this rebuke:
"You do not understand, He said, what spirit it is you share. The Son of
Man has come to save men's lives, not to destroy them." LUKE 9:55

Few are the priests whose level of service to their flocks is such as to
merit the tribute paid by the Galatians to St. Paul, when they described
him "as God's angel, as Christ Jesus" (GALATIANS 4:14); but the opportunity
is at every moment present for every priest to feel his greatness and his
littleness, his power and his nothingness.
0 sacerdos! Tu quis es?
Non es a te, quia de nihilo.
Non es ad te, quia es mediator ad Deum.
Non es tibi, quia soli Deo vivere debes.
Non es tui, quia es omnium servus.
Non es tu, quia alter Christus es.
Quid ergo es? Nihil et omnia,
o sacerdos!

5. THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE PRIEST
Since the priest is an "alter Christus," he must know the role the Spirit
played in Christ's life.
At every moment of His life on earth, the Savior was completely under the
guidance of the Spirit. Even as the breath of God stirred over the waters
in the first dawn of creation and the Lord said, "Let there be light"
(GENESIS 1:3), so did the Spirit inspire Mary in the very moment of the
Incarnation.
"The Holy Spirit will come upon thee, and the power of the most High will
overshadow thee. Thus this holy offspring of thine shall be known for the
Son of God." LUKE 1:35
At His Baptism, there was seen:
"The Spirit like a dove, coming down and resting upon Him." MARK 1:10
He returned from the Jordan

"full of the Holy Spirit and by the Spirit He was led on into the
wilderness, where He remained forty days, tempted by the devil." LUKE 4:1,
2
While the chords of His Heart are still vibrating in response to a voice
from heaven, He is summoned by the Spirit into the wilderness. Was not
Saul, in the morning of his life in Christ, sent for three years to Arabia?

Is not character compacted through struggle direct and personal, with the
forces of both good and evil? "No one shall be crowned unless he has
struggled. . ."He was led, by the Spirit's direction, into a wilderness
for a trial. As Moses in Median, as David around Bethlehem, as Elias around
Horeb, so the Spirit draws the Savior into retreat. David must meet Goliath
alone before he can meet the hosts of the Philistines. Each priest must
first win the spiritual victory alone and within himself, before he can
repeat that victory in the lives of others.
Next, the endowments for His mission on earth were communicated to Him from
the same source. As Isaias foretold:
"One shall be born, on whom the Spirit of the Lord will rest; a Spirit wise
and discerning, a Spirit prudent and strong, a Spirit of knowledge and of
piety, and ever fear of the Lord shall fill His heart." ISAIAS 11:2, 3

After He had put the tempter to flight, He returned to His home town of
Nazareth and in the synagogue He read the appointed lesson of the day,
paraphrasing ISAIAS (61:1, 2), and showing by His first words that His
every action, especially His preaching, was the work of the Spirit. He had
emerged from the conflict, not weakened but strengthened.
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me; He has anointed Me, and sent Me out to
preach the gospel to the poor, to restore the broken-hearted; to bid the
prisoners go free, and the blind have sight; to set the oppressed at
liberty, to proclaim a year when men may find acceptance with the Lord, a
day of retribution." LUKE 4:18, 19

Later on, it is by the Spirit that He vanquishes the mightiest of foes:
"When I cast out devils, I do it through the Spirit of God." MATTHEW 12:28

Evil is conquered by the Spirit, not by complaining and ranting. And to
attribute such victory to any other power is blasphemy against the Spirit.
Then comes the role of the Spirit in the Crucifixion--a sublime truth often
forgotten.

". . . the blood of Christ, who offered Himself, through the Holy Spirit,
as a victim." HEBREWS 9:14
He is both Priest and Sacrifice, through the Spirit, Who alone makes that
unity, either in Him or in us. It is also the Spirit which gives the
sacrifice an eternal efficacy. The Spirit helps us over the difficulty
created by the fact that Our Lord's sacrifice took place on a hill, and yet
belongs to a heavenly sanctuary. It is the Spirit, independent of time and
place, which makes our daily renewal of Calvary possible.

The Spirit too played a role in His Resurrection and descent into Limbo.

"In His mortal nature He was done to death, but endowed with fresh life in
His Spirit, and it was in His Spirit that He went and preached to the
spirits who lay in prison." I PETER 3:18, 19
The same Holy Spirit is operative in communicating the merits of Redemption
to mankind, and particularly through the priesthood. Even the pre­

announcement of our salvation was effected through the Spirit. St. Peter
looking back on all of the prophecies says that they looked forward to
Christ through the Spirit:
"Salvation was the aim and quest of the prophets, and the grace of which
they prophesied has been reserved for you. The Spirit of Christ was in
them, making known to them the sufferings which Christ's cause brings with
it, and the glory that crowns them; when was it to be, and how was the time
of it to be recognized?" I PETER 1:10, 11
Thanks to the Spirit, the prophets pre-announced Christ; thanks to the
Spirit, the Apostles reported Him. Those who have the Spirit know Christ to
be the center of the universe; that all history up to the moment of the
Incarnation looked to Him, and that all history since the moment of the
Ascension is a preparation for His second coming. Some modern scholars find
only a "myth" in the Scriptures; Peter bids us recognize in them the
Spirit. As the Spirit functioned in announcing Christ, so the Spirit
functions in continuing Christ. The night of the Last Supper, Our Lord told
His priests that the Father would send the Spirit in His name (JOHN 14:26).
After the Resurrection, He breathed on them saying:

"Receive the Holy Spirit." JOHN 20:22

It almost seems that in the mystery of Redemption, each Person of the
Blessed Trinity hides behind the other. The Son hides behind the Father,
for it is the Son Who reveals the Father. Similarly, we would never know
the Love of the Father, if He had not sent His Spirit. The Son in turn,
hides behind the Holy Spirit, for it is through the Holy Spirit that we
understand that Jesus is the Lord. Jesus Himself insisted on this aspect.
He stressed that it was the Holy Spirit who would reveal Him.
At the Last Supper, Our Lord explained the role of the Holy Spirit in the
lives of His priests. He had just been telling His disciples that they
would be persecuted as He was persecuted. Now He tells them that though the
Spirit would not manifest Himself visibly in a human form, as He had done,
the Spirit would make them understand what He, Jesus, had said to them:

Well, when the truth-giving Spirit, who proceeds from the Father, has come
to befriend you, He whom I will send to you from the Father's side, He will
bear witness of what I was." JOHN 15:26

It is the Spirit who tells the priest the whole scope of his pork as days
roll on, as new problems arise, and as new enemies hate. New dimensions of
meaning in Christ s life, of which we never dreamed before, will become
clear. This inner witness of Christ's depth and worth will be our support
in a hostile world. Our grasp of the Life of Christ will not be confined
within the narrow limits of Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
And He will bring honor to Me, because it is from Me that He will derive
what He makes plain to you." JOHN 16:14

To glorify or honor Christ means to manifest His hidden excellence when His
human nature was admitted into the full participation of the power and
glory of the Father. This the human mind cannot conceive or apprehend; to
enter into this mystery is the work of the Spirit of the Glorified Christ.

Those who say they want only the "Jesus of the Gospels" forget that the
Gospels speak of the full revelation of Our Lord through His Spirit. He
proclaimed the very incompleteness of His words, insisting that fuller
knowledge would come later.

Had Our Lord remained on earth, He would have been just an example to be
copied. By abandoning the earth for heaven, He becomes a life to be lived.
That is why it was better that He should go.

THE SPIRIT REVEALS CHRIST
A priest often meets a man, a good man, but one to whom God has not given
the priceless gift of faith. That man will evaluate Jesus Christ. He will
be fair to Him within the limitations of his own human judgment. Christ was
a great thinker and a holy man, he will say, equating Him with Buddha,
Confucius, Socrates and Plato. St. Paul, however, tells us:

"It is only through the Holy Spirit that anyone can say, Jesus is the
Lord." I CORINTHIANS 12:3
They who have not the Spirit call him "a great man," "a teacher," "a
master"; but to see Him as the Lord of heaven and earth, as the Son of the
Living God, comes only through the Holy Spirit.

This being so, may it not be that our failure to read the Scriptures, to
preach redemption, to inspire converts, to give better spiritual direction,
to convert sinners, is because we have not sufficiently pondered and
absorbed the counsels given us by the Lord at the Last Supper?
Why do some feel uncomfortable in the Presence of God? Is it because of an
excessive love of comfort, a spirit of envy and jealousy, a pleasure in
their status as clerics, a kind of sword-activism in place of prayer and
watching? May this want of the Spirit of Christ not explain a reluctance to
appear more often and more joyously in His Eucharistic Presence? Would not
a person who hated mathematics be unhappy at a convention of
mathematicians? The soul that hated truth (to speak in inadequate human
terms) would suffer more in heaven than in hell; analogically speaking, the
want of the Spirit of Christ makes us shrink from His companionship.

"Tryst there must be, if friends will meet and journey together." AMOS 3:3
The priest must not postpone this union with the Holy Spirit to a more
convenient season (ACTS 24:25). If he neglects growth, decay sets in. There
comes a time when it is too late to repent, even to ask for a drop of water
to "cool my tongue" (LUKE 16:24).

Baptism makes every Christian a new creature and an ambassador of Heaven.
Ordination intensifies these spiritual attributes in the priest. But though
we dispense holiness, we are not automatically holy. It is the Spirit who
makes us more priestly day by day, because He takes the things of Christ
and reveals them to us, bringing to remembrance al the words of Christ
(JOHN 16:14; 14:26). Becoming a holy priest is not completed the day of
ordination, nor do the blessings of the Spirit flow to us without great

effort on our part. We are "workers together with God." We stand in need of
knowledge if we are to communicate it to others, if we are to bring our
bodily appetites into subjection (I CORINTHIANS 7:29-31), and if we are to
be patient under the pressure of work, loving every human being with that
charity which flows from the consciousness that Our Lord died for them too.
All these qualities are progressive, and it was one who himself had made
that uphill fight who best expressed what it means:

"And you too have to contribute every effort on your own part, crowning
your faith with virtue, and virtue with enlightenment, and enlightenment
with continence, and continence with endurance, and endurance with
holiness, and holiness with brotherly love, and brotherly love with
charity. Such gifts, when they are yours in full measure, will make you
quick and successful pupils, reaching ever closer knowledge of our Lord
Jesus Christ; he who lacks them is no better than a blind man feeling his
way about; his old sins have been purged away, and he has forgotten it.
Bestir yourselves then, brethren, ever more eagerly, to ratify God's
calling and choice of you by a life well lived." II PETER 1:5-10

THE ROLE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN INTENSIFYING CONFLICT
Every priest, though ordained to be a Peter, retains within him the frailty
of the Simon-nature. St. Paul describes the resulting civil war between
Peter and Simon.
"Inwardly, I applaud God's disposition, but I observe another disposition
in my lower self, which raises war against the disposition of my
conscience, and so I am handed over as a captive to that disposition
towards sin which my lower self contains. Pitiable creature that I am, who
is to set me free from a nature thus doomed to death? Nothing else than the
grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. If I am left to myself, my
conscience is at God's disposition, but my natural powers are at the
disposition of sin." ROMANS 7:22-25
Even before Paul, Plato had observed that there is a war in each of
against himself. Anyone who does not take up the sword against that
nature is destroyed by it. Sin first takes possession of the flesh;
once entrenched there, it attacks the mind and finally displaces it
its position of authority.

us
lower
and
from

A man may have priestly powers and yet be governed by nature, for the grace
of ordination does not destroy the flesh:

"To live the life of nature is to think the thoughts of nature; to live the
life of the Spirit is to think the thoughts of the Spirit; and natural
wisdom brings only death, whereas the wisdom of the Spirit brings life and
peace." ROMANS 8:5, 6
The priest is like a mountain climber. The Holy Spirit bids him go higher,
but below him are the abysses. What the Holy Spirit does in the soul of a
priest is not only to make him more aware of the conflict within himself,
but also to make him more conscious of sin. Divine grace does not so act as
to prevent a man absolutely from sinning, but the Spirit takes the fun out
of it. It is not possible for a priest to love a human being with the full

powers of his soul, precisely because he has already fallen in love with
the Perfect, namely, Christ through His Spirit. All other love is
dissatisfying and bitter.
A sin committed by a priest, consequently, pains him more intensely than
does the same sin to one not a priest. This is because of the greater gift
of the Spirit. Imagine two men marrying two shrews who were identical in
their disgruntled nature. One had enjoyed the love of a beautiful and
devoted wife who died; the other was married for the first time.

Which of the two suffers the more? Obviously the one who knew before the
better love. So with the priest. Having enjoyed the ecstasy of the Spirit
of Love, he can never be satisfied with human substitutes.
At the Last Supper Our Lord told those He had chosen as His first priests
how the Spirit would intensify the conflict.

"He will come, and it will be for Him to prove the world wrong, about sin .
. . JOHN 16:8
No man really understands sin who thinks of it merely as the breaking of
the law. This is a defect which results from basing moral theology
exclusively upon the Commandments. To do so is to develop in the young an
attitude which makes them ask, "Is this a mortal or a venial sin? How far
can I go without committing grievous sin?" The full understanding of sin
comes only through the Holy Spirit, and until He enlightens the soul, it is
blind to our sinfulness. No matter how great our powers of reasoning, we
can produce real conviction of sin only through the Spirit.

But what does the Spirit do in the soul? Our Lord said the Holy Spirit
would convict men of sin because "they have not found belief in Me" (JOHN
16:9). By not believing in Him, men crucified Him. Hence, it is the
crucifix that brings to the soul the profound consciousness of guilt. It
becomes for each his autobiography. The skin of Christ is the parchment,
His Blood the ink, the nails the pen. There we see written the story of our
life. This close relationship between the sense of sin and the crucifix
enabled St. Peter to win three thousand souls for the Lord on the day of
Pentecost. He reminded his hearers that they had crucified Christ (ACTS
2:36). To sin against faith thus means to refuse to believe in Christ to
the point of rejecting and crucifying Him.
Unless the Spirit has mastery in this war of Simon and Peter, the priest
remains but a child in the nursery, not an ambassador in the sanctuary. The
Lord gives him milk, as St. Paul gave the Corinthians

"not meat; you were not strong enough for it. . . . Nature still lives in
you." I CORINTHIANS 3:2

As some acorns sprout, yet never become great oaks, so Some ordinations
make only spiritual saplings, not trees planted by the waters of life. The
spiritually undeveloped priest has two characteristics:

1. A protracted infancy. There is a full assent to the Creed, but there is
wanting the beauty of priestly holiness through the indwelling of God's
Spirit. Because of this long infancy, there is a continual oscillation of

sin and amendment, of failure and re-establishment in grace, of pettiness
and the domination of the priest-state. There is a confession of individual
sins, but no facing up to the fact that he is presuming on God's mercy and
that he is living in a worldly state. The flesh is the rule of life and not
the Spirit.

2. The second mark of this carnal life is that it renders the priest unfit
for receiving more spiritual truths; never being won away completely from
the flesh, he never has that emptiness which is essential for receiving the
Spirit. A man can be empty in soul like the Grand Canyon, but such
emptiness is unprofitable. The fruitful kind of emptiness is that of a
nest, which the dove of the Holy Spirit can fill, or the emptiness of a
flute, through which the breath of the Holy Spirit can pipe the joyful
tunes of being one with Christ.

THE SPIRIT AND REPARATION FOR SINS
Because the Holy Spirit deepens our sense of sin in relation to the
Crucifixion, the practical result should be to engage the priest in
constant reparation for his sins. The Epistle to the Hebrews (5:3) bids the
priest do precisely this; in our language, it tells him to offer Mass
sometimes for himself Our sins are more serious than the same sins in the
laity, which is why God ordered greater sacrifices for priests. The
ordinary people could offer a kid for their sins (LEVITICUS 4:28). Even a
ruler of a nation could do the same. But the priest had to offer a bullock.

Such a transgression, if it be committed by the high priest then in office,
brings guilt upon the whole people, and he must make amends for it by
offering to the Lord a young bullock without blemish. LEVITICUS 4:3
Responsibility is in proportion to privilege. The priest represents the
people, and therefore his sin affects the whole Church. He is the
embodiment of the people's sanctity as a community of worshippers.

It would be quite wrong to imagine that those who do not live by the Spirit
do not experience remorse, or that conflict is absent from their lives. Sin
which does not come out properly in confession to be washed away by
contrition and absolution, often comes out abnormally in complexes, such as
imputing evil motives to others, hypercriticism, or a love of distracting
pleasures. Such a condition can easily lead to despair. The devil then
pounces gleefully on his prey. The Apocalypse (12:10) calls the devil, "the
accuser of our brethren." Before the sin, Satan assures us that it is of no
consequence; after the sin, he persuades us that it is unforgivable. Before
the sin, he represents himself as the friend of man urging him on to
revolt; after the sin, he smothers the soul in a false belief that
deliverance is impossible.
To doubt forgiveness is the beginning of hell. Scripture tells us that Cain
found no place for repentance, though with tears he sought it (Genesis
4:13). Remorse, not contrition, brings unavailing tears, as it did to Saul
over the loss of his kingship, Judas over the loss of his apostleship, and
Cain over the loss of his apostleship. But the Holy Spirit sees guilt in
relation to Calvary to give us urgent hope and then pardon, for on that
hill we hear the cry:

"Fatherj forgive them; they do not know what it is they are doing." LUKE
23:34

This awakening of a sense of sin through the Spirit applies not only to the
priest but to the faithful whom he shepherds. Sermons on hell fire awaken
fear, but unless the Spirit is with the preacher, the fear is servile, not
filial. Souls are led to repentance only through "the Sword of the Spirit,
God's Word" (EPHESIANS 6:17). Now what does this Sword of the Spirit do in
souls? It heightens the conflict between the body and soul, between the
spirit of the world and the spirit of Christ.
God's Word to us is something alive, full of energy; it can penetrate
deeper than any two-edged sword, reaching the very division between soul
and spirit, between joints and marrow, quick to distinguish every thought
and design in our hearts. HEBREWS 4:12

Sinners are melted into contrition through the Spirit; they see the civil
war in their own souls through the Spirit; the Spirit reveals the hidden
sins which they hoped no one could detect; the Spirit shows that man is a
fallen creature and needs power from on high. The Spirit will convince
atheists of their unbelief. No evil can be crucified until it is recognized
and diagnosed, and brought into the light. Self clothes itself in so many
disguises that nothing but the Spirit can compel it to reveal its true
sinful character. A priest with the Spirit of Christ will get a sinner to
confession in circumstances in which the priest without the Spirit will
fail. Scolding a sinner in the confessional may drive him away, but lifting
him up in the Spirit of Christ will make of him a true penitent. Even a
priest who is naturally a poor speaker can through the Spirit of Christ
make his words effective beyond his orative talents:

Human indeed we are, but it is in no human strength that we fight our
battles. The weapons we fight with are not human weapons; they are divinely
powerful, ready to pull down strongholds. Yes, we can pull down the
conceits of men, every barrier of pride which sets itself up against the
true knowledge of God; we make every mind surrender to Christ's service. .
. ."II CORINTHIANS 10:3-6

THE SPIRIT AND LOVE OF SOULS
Every priest, when he goes before the Lord for judgment, will be asked:
"Where are your children?" The vocation of the priest is primarily to beget
souls in Christ. Shall we mount the pulpit and denounce unnatural birth
control in the flesh, while we practice it in the spirit? Shall mothers be
blamed for not having more children when our baptismal records show no
souls begotten in Christ in years? The limits of our parish and the
boundary of our duty are not the faithful alone, but "other sheep too,
which do not belong to this fold" (JOHN 10:16). Every soul is our
responsibility and many would enter the Church, did we but ask them. The
error of many priests is that they are concerned more with the
administrative than with the evangelical.

Do we organize for soul-saving with the same zeal as we organize for
"drives"? When money is needed, a priest thinks nothing of organizing a

door-to-door canvas; but how often does he make a door-to-door canvas for
converts? Are we having our parish continually replenished by souls that
come to tell what God has done for them? Where the Holy Spirit is, there
are conversions:

"And each day the Lord added to their fellowship others that were to be
saved." ACTS 2:47

Our conversions per priest per year in the United States are fewer than
three. But who among us does not know many who have left the One Fold and
One Shepherd, because of broken vows, lust for a second or third marriage,
sophomoric pride, or any one of the seven pallbearers of a soul, commonly
called the seven capital sins? Do we have catechetical centers and use them
to train the laity to be apostles and to live out the full responsibilities
of the Sacrament of Confirmation? Every parish should be a nursery of souls
that are not of the fold; every priest, a shepherd in search of lost sheep;
every Mass, a proclamation that redemption must be spread to the world:

"What, cry they of Jacob, is the Lord so easily offended?" MICHAEAS 2:7

Is the Holy Spirit less bountiful to save souls now than at Pentecost? Is
the tenor of our priestly life holding in check those fires and mighty
winds of conversion? Why do the Pentecostal fires burn so brightly in the
mission lands and so feebly in our parish? Has the tide of the Spirit run
out of our harbors? The fault is not in the Spirit, for "God does not
repent of the gifts He makes" (ROMANS 11:29). The rushing of the mighty
winds has not calmed and stilled itself into stagnancy or sterility. The
Holy Spirit is still ready to overshadow our priesthood, so that we may
bring forth those who are holy.
The priest acts from without, the Holy Spirit from within. We wish one
another blessings; He gives blessings. He alone can plant in a heart, by
His divine husbandry, the seed that will blossom into a "new creature in
Christ" (II CORINTHIANS 5:17). The selfishness and sloth which make us
shrink from searching for souls can be consumed by His Spirit. All round
about us, in our parishes, in our daily contacts with men, are countless
masses of souls that are like gold ingots covered with dross. And we, if we
but had the fire of the Spirit, would burnish them into jewels of the
Kingdom of God!

6. THE SPIRIT AND CONVERSION
As the Spirit does not fail, but is given to those who ask, souls are no
more difficult to convert now than at any other time, The approach must be
different, as the approach to the Roman was different from that to the Jew.
In psychological terms, every conversion starts with a crisis, moral or
spiritual. The moral crisis begins with a moment or a situation involving
some kind of suffering, physical, emotional or spiritual; with a dialectic,
a tension, a pull, a duality, or a conflict. The crisis is accompanied, on
the one hand, by a profound sense of one's own helplessness, and on the
other hand, by an equally certain conviction that God alone can supply what
the individual lacks.

If there were only a sense of helplessness, there would be despair,
pessimism, eventual suicide. This is, indeed, the condition of the post­
Christian pagan: he feels the total inadequacy of his own inner resources
against the overwhelming odds of a cruel universe and falls into despair.
He has one-half of the necessary condition for conversion--namely, a sense
of crisis--but he fails to link up his powerlessness with the Divine Power
which sustains and nourishes the soul. In such a situation, paganism gives
place to what might be called creative despair: "despair," because the man
recognizes his spiritual disease; "creative," because he knows that only a
Divine Physician can bring healing.
The crisis of conversion is sometimes spiritual rather than moral. This is
frequent among those who have been seeking perfection, but are not yet
possessed of the fullness of the faith and sacraments. Some such souls have
led a good life on the natural plane; they have been generous to the poor
and kind to their neighbors and have furthered at least a vague fellowship
with all peoples. Others have had a smattering of the supernatural life;
they have led as Christ-like a life as they knew how, living up to faith in
Him as they saw His light. The crisis in their souls begins at the moment
when they either recognize that they have tremendous potentialities not yet
exercised or begin to yearn for a religious life which will make greater
demands on them.
Up to that moment of crisis, they have lived on the surface of their souls.
The tension deepens as they realize that, like a plant, they have roots
which need greater spiritual depths and branches meant for communion with
the heavens above. The growing sense of dissatisfaction with their own
ordinariness is accompanied by a passionate craving for surrender,
sacrifice, and abandonment to God's will. The shift from mediocrity to love
may be occasioned through the example of a saint, the inspiration of a
spiritual book, the desire to escape from mere symbols to divine reality.
However it comes, there is a duality present from the moment the soul hears
Christ saying:
"But you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." MATTHEW
5:48

Conversion is the introduction of a new Spirit. The unconverted man has an
incompatible spiritual Rh factor in his human nature, which is corruptive;
it is overcome by making him "share the Divine Nature" (II PETER 1:4)
through a blood infusion of Calvary and Pentecost. Conversion, therefore,
is totally different from proselytism, which is only a change in group
membership, or the putting on of a new label. But conversion is a
"metanoia," a change of character, the becoming a new man.
THE SPIRIT MAKES CONVERTS, NOT US
The work of conversion is accomplished by the Holy Spirit, through the use
of human means. The Spirit may place a rod in the hands of a shepherd. His
action may induce an awareness of the absence of God in the soul, or it may
create a sense of God's presence and of His actual grace working in the
soul. In all instances, the Holy Spirit illumines the mind to see a truth
not visible before, and strengthens the will to do things never before
attempted. Job speaks of one way in which the Spirit touches the soul in
suffering:

"Sometimes in visions of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men as they
lie abed, He speaks words of revelation, to teach them the lesson they
need. This is one means by which He will turn a man away from his designs,
purge him of his pride; and so the grave is disappointed, the sword misses
its prey. Or else He will use the pains of the sick-bed for a man's
correction, and leave his whole frame wasted with disease." JOB 33:15-19

The priest must never think that his preaching and zeal won the convert.

"Lydia listened to Paul, but the Scripture says, and the Lord opened her
heart so that she was attentive to Paul's preaching." ACTS 16:15
Here was a woman already religious, described as a woman of prayer; yet her
mind needed the tuition of the Holy Spirit in order to understand what she
had heard. Incidentally, Lydia was the first convert in Europe and it was
from her house that the evangelization of Europe began.
Sometimes the revelation of the Spirit is gradual, as with the woman at the
well. She first called Our Lord a "Jew" (JOHN 4:9), then a "man" (JOHN
4:12), then a gentleman when she addressed Him as "Sir" (JOHN 4:15), then
"a prophet" (JOHN 4:19), then the "Messias" (JOHN 4:25), and finally
"Saviour of the world" (JOHN 4:42).

The
and
The
one

jailer at Philippi was the second convert in Europe (ACTS 16:27-34),
he was moved by the Spirit through fear and through the word of Paul.
Ethiopian treasurer illustrates how the Holy Spirit directs a priest to
whose conversion is divinely willed:

"The Spirit said to Philip, Go up to that chariot and keep close by it."
ACTS 8:29

The Ethiopian already had some concept of religion, for he was reading the
fifty-third chapter of Isaias. The Holy Spirit moves even souls dedicated
to sorcery and magic. Such souls in their darkness may be searching for the
truth. A sorcerer named Elymas had tried to turn the Proconsul, Sergius
Paulus, from the faith, the rudiments of which he had received through the
preaching of Paul. "Then Saul, whose other name is Paul, filled with the
Holy Spirit, . . . ." (ACTS 13:8) blasted the sorcerer. Incidentally, this
is the first time that the Scriptures give Saul the Roman name of Paul.
Denouncing Elymas as a son of the devil, Paul struck him blind--his first
miracle. One wonders if Paul recalled that he himself was struck blind at
the time of his conversion. Was it in order that the temporary blindness
might give light, as did his own? Venerable Bede says, "The Apostle
remembering his own case, knew that by the darkening of the eye, the mind's
darkness might be restored to light." Sergius Paulus then became
strengthened in his faith. It was the first appearance of Christianity
before a Roman aristocrat and official.

No soul is beyond conversion. The Lord assures us through the prophet Joel
that He will make good the bad years.
"Profitless years, when the locust ravaged you, Gnaw-all and Ruin-all and
Spoiler, that great army of mine I let loose among you, they shall be made
good." JOEL 2:25

Converting souls in keeping with our vocation to be "fishers of men" is not
easy, because each catch takes its toll of effort. But losing is the
condition of gaining in the realm of the Spirit. We never profit another
without being "inwardly aware of the power" that has proceeded from us, as
Our Lord was when He healed the woman with the issue of blood (MARK 5:30).
But who are the energetic priests? Are they not the zealous priests?
Nothing is as fatiguing as boredom. Filled with the Spirit of Christ, a
priest working with souls is like the burning bush which was aflame/but
did not burn out (EXODUS 3:2). Every exhaustion of spiritual energy by a
priest creates a vacuum for a richer endowment of the Spirit, until souls
become his passion:

"It is He Who gives the weary fresh Spirit, Who fosters strength and vigour
where strength and vigour is none. ISAIAS 40: 29
Every pastor should from time to time go through the baptismal record and
see how many sheep have been brought to the Shepherd in the course of his
ministry. How often does he find a name inscribed in the Book of Life with
his own name listed in the column which reads: "Baptized by ----- "? A
parish can wither without converts for years, as for fifteen years the
House of God lay unfinished, until God spoke to the people saying:
"The Lord of hosts bids you put heart into the work; is not He, the Lord of
hosts, at your side?" AGGAEUS 2:5
So in a parish without spiritual stone being added to spiritual stone, the
Lord bids us work. There can be no work apart from strength. We supply the
work, God the power. It is comfort that makes us shirk the work of
conversion. We are clothed, but are we warmed by the fire of Pentecost? The
wages we earn--are they put into a bag with holes, or are we laying up the
richer treasury of souls and covering up the mountain of our own failings?
Saving souls is the assurance of our salvation.

"My brethren, if one of you strays from the truth, and a man succeeds in
bringing him back, let him be sure of this; to bring back erring feet into
the right path means saving a soul from death, means throwing a veil over a
multitude of sins." JAMES 5:19, 20
We priests are only spiritual farmers; we till the soil, God drops the
seed. We make no converts. We must never count up our converts or we will
one day begin to think that we, not the Lord, made them. The same divine
energy that wrought Creation and Redemption saves souls.

THE SPIRIT AND INSTRUCTION

Instructing is not arguing. One can win an argument and lose a soul. The
priest must be patient with bigots. If we believed the lies they believe
about the Church, we would hate it a thousand times more than they.
The priest must try to discover if the objections against the faith
expressed by an enquirer are in fact intellectual, or if instead they are
basically moral, that is, if they are rooted in some improper behavior. Socalled "reasons" are sometimes rationalizations to justify the way people
live. It is important to find out not only what people say about Christ and

His Church but why they say it. This was the technique used by Our Lord
with the woman at the well. She introduced a theological problem when her
real problem was a moral one, namely, her five husbands. He, nevertheless,
did not cast her aside even though He saw through her pretence. Instead, He
showed her what her real problem was, and she was converted.
The priest's best approach to enquirers is neither to prove they are wrong,
nor to prove that he is right, but simply to offer bread to the hungry and
drink to the thirsty. Our Faith is the satisfaction of the soul's desire,
not the didactic presentation of a syllogism. The priest must prepare
himself carefully for every discussion with an enquirer. Before starting to
instruct, he should spend an hour in thinking up analogies, examples, and
answers to possible objections.

To save souls we must be holy. The Lord does not use dirty tools. How can
we go to sinners if they say: "Physician, heal thyself" (LUKE 4:23)? Nor
can we bid fallen-aways to return to the obedience they owe the Church if
they are able to question our own way of living and acting:

"An errand these prophets ran, but none of Mine; a message they gave, but
not of My sending. Privy to My design had they been, ah, then they should
have uttered My own warnings, and so I might have turned My people aside
from false paths, and erring thoughts!" JEREMIAS 23:21, 22
Instruction to the enquirer should be so formulated as to prove that we
love what we believe. If we show little enthusiasm for the sublime truth we
communicate, how shall the convert learn to love that truth?

THE SPIRIT AND LOST SHEEP
Our love of souls must be persistent. We get used to reading the Parable of
the Good Shepherd, but do we understand that for us priests it is a
spelling out of our obligation to seek the lost sheep. Leaving a dinner,
breaking an evening's entertainment, interrupting a siesta, all such
efforts are summed up in leaving
"those ninety-nine others on the mountain-side, and go out to look for the
one that is straying." MATTHEW 18:12

Nothing unspiritual is sacred in the face of a spiritual need. Even the
"banished" ones, those outside the Church through bad marriages, those who
spurned the Sacred Heart though He spurned them not--are not these part of
our ministry?
Never a soul will God suffer to be lost in the reckoning; still He busies
Himself with remedies to save the life of him who is banished." II KINGS
14:14

The banished son of the Church remains a son and the true priest grieves as
long as he is away from his home. How many are the couples in invalid
marriages who are ready to live as brother and sister, if only this
possibility were properly presented to them? God's love is active on behalf
of even the worst and the unworthiest of souls. Grace is given to many who
were written off by priests of little faith, for God has said, the sinner's
death is none of My contriving!" (EZECHIEL 33:11). Is not God a Father and

is not the priest a "father"? We must never imitate the elder brother who
would not receive back the prodigal. Here were two sons who lost the
Father's love: one because he was "too good" and the other because he was
"too bad"; but the latter it was who found that love again (LUKE 15:11-32).
As His servants, we have confidence in His power:

"There is a stronger power at work in you, than in the world." I JOHN 4:4

Our zeal for conversions will go through three stages: a heavenly prayer,
exhausting identification with others, and finally, the healing of the
soul. St. Mark tells us (7:34) that Our Lord, when confronted with a deaf
and dumb man, likewise performed the miracle of curing him in three steps.
". . .He looked up to heaven, and sighed; He said, 'Ephpheta,' (that is,
Be opened)."
The condition of all apostolate is a realization that Heaven grants it. To
look in the first instance anywhere else, for example, to publicity or
organization, is to miss the source of power. If we make this mistake, we
can next anticipate that costly pity and compassion in which we are one
with the ignorant, the dull and the deaf. Only then is the eye opened to
faith, the ear to the sound of the word of God. No one can give sight to
the spiritually blind unless he gazes into heaven. What we give depends on
what we receive.

How often Our Lord's sighs are mentioned in Scripture, for example, at the
sight of the hardness of hearts and unbelief, at the sight of a leper, a
hungry multitude, in the face of hostility and over the dead body of
Lazarus! All the ills and evil of man's fate and conduct weighed on His
priestly Heart. So the worth of our efforts is in proportion to the expanse
of sympathy and feeling we have for unconverted souls, The depth of a
priest's compassion is the measure of his apostolic success.

Here, too, it is pertinent to meditate on the relation between the love of
the Holy Spirit and the Eucharistic Presence on the one hand, and our
sympathy for souls on the other. The gaze and the sigh went together in Our
Lord, Likewise, the look at the tabernacle and the sympathy for the sick
are twins. He who prays, sympathizes; he who has the Spirit has a body that
takes up a cross daily for his people; he whose eyes sweep the heavens for
the Spirit, has the keener gaze for the lost sheep of earth. The habitual
communion with God is the root of the priest's compassion. Pity is second;
Our Lord is first.
When the Spirit seeks to work in us for souls, our nature shrinks from the
task. But it is something like swimming: it becomes a joy after the shock
of the first plunge. We grow weary, of course, but God is unwearied in
giving us new strength. Age is not the determining factor. The young who
lack the Spirit tire more quickly than the old who have it.

"Youth itself may weaken, the warrior faint and flag, but those who trust
in the Lord will renew their strength, like eagles new-fledged; hasten, and
never grow weary of hastening, march on, and never weaken on the march."
ISAIAS 40:30, 31
The natural man steadily tends to exhaustion. All life lived on the

creature level digs
God does not follow
in mind before they
loss of the Spirit.
Master, tired after
account a converted
4:32). Grace abhors
that was not filled

its own grave. But the man who trusts in the Unwearied
the earthly law of fatigue. Unzealous priests are tired
are tired in body. Their exhaustion is ennui due to the
But the true apostle, though he may sit like his
His journey, by the well" (JOHN 4:6), can nevertheless
soul as "food to eat of which you know nothing" (JOHN
a vacuum, as nature does. The empty house of the Gospel
by the Spirit was occupied by seven devils.

Thanks to the Spirit, though the priest grows older in years, he becomes
younger through ascent to the altar of God where youth is renewed. Exertion
without the Spirit is impatience; impatience, touched by the Spirit, is
zeal for souls. As the diamond cutter works diamonds and the sculptor
stone, so the priest works souls.

"Like a shepherd He tends them, gathers up the lambs and carries them in
His bosom." ISAIAS 40:11

In the parish, in the school, the priest will watch that not one such soul
is plucked out of his hands (JOHN 10:11-28). Authority over the Church and
its souls was not given to Peter until he had made a triple promise to
love. Any authority the priest excercises has the same foundation. The
priest will be as tender in love to his people as Jacob was to his flock:
"I may lose a whole herd if I overdrive them." GENESIS 33:13

THE SPIRIT AND THE SCRIPTURE

It has been said that a characteristic gesture of many priests, when they
take the Bible from a shelf (after looking for it for several minutes), is
to tap it with the hand to knock the dust off. This may explain why pulpit
orators are so fond of a few routine texts, such as: "Come you that have
received a blessing from My Father" (MATTHEW 25:34), or "Come to me, all
you that labored and are burdened" (MATTHEW 11:28); and on Mission Sunday:
"Go out, making disciples of all. nations" (MATTHEW 28:19). Why is it that
the less prepared the preacher is, the more he is inclined to find fault
with his parishioners? And the less he examines his own conscience in
meditation, the more he resorts to moralistic nagging.
The saintly priest, on the contrary, tells his flock: "We are Christ's
ambassadors, then, and God appeals to you through us (II CORINTHIANS 5:20).
But if God appeals, He does so through His Word: "I preached God's Gospel
to you" (II CORINTHIANS 11:7).
The preacher will do well to ponder on the technique used by St. Paul at
Thessalonica :
"Over a space of three sabbaths he reasoned with them out of the
scriptures, expounding these and bringing proofs from them that the
sufferings of Christ and His rising from the dead were fore-ordained; the
Christ, he said, is none other than the Jesus whom I am preaching to you."
ACTS 17:2, 3

When he spoke to King Agrippa, Paul used exactly the same method of
preaching:

"Yet there is nothing in my message which goes beyond what the prophets
spoke of, and Moses spoke of, as things to come; a suffering Christ, and
One Who should shew light to His people and to the Gentiles by being the
first to rise from the dead." ACTS 26:22
St. Peter uses the Scriptures in exactly the same way to develop the truths
of the faith:
"Salvation was the aim and quest of the prophets, and the grace of which
they prophesied has been reserved for you. The Spirit of Christ was in
them, making known to them the sufferings which Christ's cause brings with
it, and the glory that crowns them; when was it to be, and how was the time
of it to be recognized?" I PETER 1:10, 11

Can the preacher today do better than Peter and Paul? Regardless of how
many times people hear the Scriptures, they can always find something new
in them. St. Paul has set out the reason why this is so:

"Everything in the scripture has been divinely inspired, and has its uses;
to instruct us, to expose our errors, to correct our faults, to educate us
in holy living, so God's servant will become a master of his craft, and
each noble task that comes will find him ready for it."
II TIMOTHY 3:16, 17
The Scriptures are not merely a record of historical events that have
passed. They constitute for every age a revelation of God's mind and will
to each individual. Many of the incidents recorded in the Old Testament
provide a perspective to give us a fuller understanding of events that
occurred later and are described in the New Testament. Genesis 21:10-12,
for example, recounts a quarrel in Abraham's family. Ishmael, his child by
Agar, mocked and insulted his younger child Isaac, the son of promise,
whose mother was Sara. Sara sided with Isaac and decided that Agar and
Ishmael should be driven out of Abraham's house. Such family quarrels and
maternal revenge may not seem to have much pertinence until we read
Galatians 4:30, where St. Paul explains that the casting out of the
bondwoman and her son was to show that they were yet in bondage to the Law,
and were consequently not entitled to share in the inheritance of the
Gospel.

Not only does Scripture derive its inspiration from the Spirit, but the
Spirit alone makes its meaning clear. Before his conversion Paul was versed
in the Scriptures, yet could not see in them that the Lord was the Christ.
Our Blessed Lord told the Pharisees that they poured over the Scriptures
but did not realize that they referred to Him (JOHN 5:39). Whatever
beneficial effect was produced on the listener always came through the Holy
Spirit.
"Our preaching to you did not depend upon mere argument, power was there,
and the influence of the Holy Spirit, and an effect of full conviction." I
THESSALONIANS 1:5

When St. Paul recalled the effect of his preaching on the Corinthians, he
probably had in mind his lack of success in Athens. St. Paul had given a

very learned talk at Athens, quoting several of the Greek poets, but the
effect was limited to one or two conversions. St. Paul thereupon left
Athens for Corinth. During the forty-mile trip, he must have meditated on
his want of success and tried to determine why he had failed. Later on,
when he wrote to the Corinthians, he contrasted preaching by philosophy and
eloquence, and preaching by the power of the Spirit.

"So it was, brethren, that when I came to you and preached Christ's message
to you, I did so without any high pretensions to eloquence, or to
philosophy. I had no thought of bringing you any other knowledge than that
of Jesus Christ, and of Him as Crucified." I CORINTHIANS 2:1-3
There are two kinds of knowledge about Christ: the speculative and the
practical. The former is obtained by study, the latter only through the
Holy Spirit who leads us to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.

7. THE SPIRIT OF POVERTY
Poverty is not an economic but a spiritual condition. The vow of poverty
not only allows for what is necessary to provide for one's material needs,
but permits a man to live according to his state of life. Poverty, in
relation to the priesthood, is a spirit. That is why Christ said:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit." MATTHEW 5:3
All men are poor in the sense that they have no natural claim to what is
essential for the Kingdom of Heaven. Of themselves, they do not even know
what they lack. Only when the Spirit takes possession of them, so that they
become poor in spirit, do they recognize that they are destitute and blind
and naked. That is why the beatitude referring to poverty in spirit is
followed closely by one designed to console those who mourn. As poverty
implies helplessness, so mourning implies a sense of guilt and corruption.
The two are related like humility and patience, as ISAIAS (66:2) points
out :
"Nothing you see about you but I fashioned it, the Lord says; My Hand gave
it being. From whom, then, shall I accept an offering? Patient he must be
and humbled, one who stands in dread of My warnings."

The priest who is poor in spirit is a "mendicus" rather than a "pauper."
His most conscious moments testify to his emptiness, his dependence on God
and his unworthiness. Only they will enter the Kingdom of Heaven who have
cast off self-will, self reliance, economic security as a substitute for
Divine trust. The two attitudes are set out in sharp contrast in the
message to the angel of the church of Laodicea recorded in the Apocalypse
(3:17), a message which we, in the richest nation in the world, can well
take to heart. To those in the church of Laodicea who glory in their own
success, saying
" 'I have come into my own; nothing,
directed to say: 'And all the while,
who art wretched, thou who art to be
naked, and my counsel to thee is, to

now, is wanting to me,' the angel is
if thou didst but know it, it is thou
pitied. Thou art a beggar, blind and
come and buy from me what thou

needest; gold, proved in the fire, to make
to clothe thee, and cover up the nakedness
too, upon thy eyes, to restore them sight.
correct and chasten; kindle thy generosity

thee rich, and white garments,
which dishonors thee; rub salve,
It is those I love that I
and repent.' "

Poverty of spirit is based on the example of Our Blessed Lord.

"You do not need to be reminded how gracious our Lord Jesus Christ was; how
He impoverished Himself for your sakes, when He was so rich, so that you
might become rich through His poverty." II CORINTHIANS 8:9

He was a child of a poor mother born on a journey, first cradled among
animals. His poverty was voluntary. He who had made the waters, asked for a
drink; He who had made the beasts, borrowed one for a procession; He who
had made the trees, borrowed a Cross. Satan offered Him all the riches of
the world--the short cut to popularity--and He refused them, even though
worn out by a forty-day fast. Joseph found Him a cave in which to be born;
and another Joseph, a cave in which to lay His broken Body--for birth and
death were equally alien to Him as God.

If such was the poverty of spirit of Christ, it is obvious that the priest,
the "alter Christus," has no choice but to cultivate a like spirit. The
priest is already rich--rich with the grace of vocation, the grace of
ambassadorship, the grace Of Orders. Being rich in Christ, he has no need
of being rich in Mammon. The Bible records that the tribe of Levi received
no land, because the Lord was the riches of those chosen to be His priests:
"This, too, the Lord said to Aaron: You are to hold no lands, no portion is
to be assigned to you, among your fellow-Israelites. I am all thy portion;
these others have their several possessions, thou hast Me." NUMBERS 18:20

THE RICHES OF THE PRIEST
Far greater is the wealth of the priests of the New Testament who enjoy the
familiarity of the Incarnate Lord and the riches of the Spirit: "... how
rich is the glory He bestows" (ROMANS 9:23); "So rich is God's grace, that
has overflowed upon us in a full stream" (EPHESIANS 1:8).
The Catholic priest ought to be remarkable for his detachment
things just as much as for his love of chastity. . . . avarice
Holy Spirit calls the root of all evils, can lead a man to any
priest who allows this vice to get hold of him, even though he
short of crime, is making common cause, whether he knows it or
the enemies of the Church, aiding them in their evil designs."
Encyclical on the Catholic Priesthood, December 20, 1935

from worldly
which the
crime. The
may stop
not, with
PIUS XI,

What abundance the priest possesses! He dispenses the pardon of Christ to
those who repent of their sins. He has at his disposal the richness of the
wisdom of Christ! Sitting at His Feet, the priest hears what Plato could
not teach and what Socrates never learned.
Why do the few who are rich rarely support the missions? Why does the
Church so often have to struggle against poverty, and why do conversions
multiply more rapidly in poor countries, like Vietnam, than in prosperous

countries? The reason is that there is a kind of balance struck beneath the
wealth of heaven and the wealth of earth.

"Thou didst receive thy good fortune in thy life-time, and Lazarus, no
less, his ill fortune; now he is in comfort, thou in torment." LUKE 16:25
Heaven, too, has its economics. The cruelest words in Scripture will be
pronounced on the last day against those who got all the worldly things
they wanted:

"They have their reward already." MATTHEW 6:16
Appealing to his brethren everywhere, St. James confirms that rich pockets
often have poor hearts, that poor pockets have hearts full of the riches of
faith :

"Listen to me, my dear brethren; has not God chosen the men who are poor in
the world's eyes to be rich in faith, to be heirs of that kingdom which he
has promised to those who love him?" JAMES 2:5

Our Blessed Lord insisted that His love of the poor and His efforts to save
them were evidence of the truth of His claim to be the Messias:
"The poor have the gospel preached to them." MATTHEW 11:5
"But woe upon you who are rich; you have your comfort already. Woe upon you
who are filled full; you shall be hungry. Woe upon you who laugh now; you
shall mourn and weep. Woe upon you, when all men speak well of you; their
fathers treated the false prophets no worse." LUKE 6:24-26
Poverty of spirit draws the priest to a closer union with the Person of
Christ. A function of all ownership is to extend personality. A man is free
on the inside because he has a soul; he is free on the outside, or
economically, because he owns property. The human personality becomes
enriched through things.

The priest, however, has another way to extend his personality: not by
acquiring stocks and bonds, but by a greater reproduction in himself of the
Hypostatic Union. He crushes his ego and its desires, so that in him there
are two "natures" in one person: on the one hand, his human nature; on the
other, his "participation in the Divine Nature" through grace and the
losing of his human personality in the Person of Christ. Being less
dependent on things, he becomes more and more an "instrumentum
Divinitatis."

"It is Christ that lives in me." GALATIANS 2:20

Crucified to the external extension of personality, the priest grows
internally and becomes the extension of the Person of Christ. The less
staffs the priest has to lean on--and staffs which pierce his hands--the
more the Lord leans on him. Poor in himself, he is rich in Christ. The
parishioners then do not see the human person in him: they see Christ,
living, teaching, visiting, consoling, renewing Calvary. The instinct of
parishioners is infallible: they know in whom Christ lives. Of one priest,
they say: "He's a good Joe"; of another, "He is another Christ."

To the extent to which the wealth of a priest consists in the things of the
Spirit, to the same extent the need for an outside complement to perfect
his personality is reduced. The priest's confidence, as he confronts life,
is derived less from the power of what he holds in reserve, than from his
total reliance on Providence and on the Goodness of the Heavenly Father.

PROSPERITY UNFAVORABLE TO PRIESTLINESS
Yet another reason for being poor in spirit is that temporal prosperity is
unfavorable to spiritual advancement. Take the case of Solomon. He stepped
downward, Scripture informs us, through multiplication. First, he
multiplied gold and silver for himself; then he multiplied horses which he
bought from Egypt; next, he multiplied wives. There is here a definite hint
that carnality followed a love of wealth. Finally, he adored the false gods
of his concubines. Confucius says that lust is the sin of youth, power the
sin of middle age, and avarice the sin of old age. Avarice in the old can
even represent the sublimation of the lusts of their youth.

"So the Lord was angry with Solomon for playing Him false." Ill KINGS 11:9
The suggestion is that God was angry precisely because of the great
blessings He conferred on Solomon, for every sin is aggravated by the
mercies we have received. How much more, therefore, is sin aggravated after
the gift of a vocation? Our Lord said that if He had not come and spoken to
His people, they would have been comparatively without sin (JOHN 15:22).
Hoarding, on one occasion recorded in the Bible, received a terrible
punishment. After the Jews had crossed over the Jordan, Josue won a victory
and then set out for Hai where he was ignominiously routed. The defeat
threw Josue and his people into despondency, and Josue complained to the
Lord :

"Better had we remained at our old post beyond the Jordan. 0 Lord my God,
that I should see Israel turn their backs before their enemies!" JOSUE 7:7,
8

Thereupon the Lord explained the reason for the reverse, they were being
punished because of the violation of a Divine command that no Jewish
soldier should take for his own use any of the spoils of Jericho. One man,
however, had violated the command; tempted by the sight of a costly
Babylonian garment, some silver, and a bit of gold, he secreted them for
his own use.
Though only one man in the entire army was guilty, the whole army was
punished with defeat. The sin was imputed to and visited upon the entire
nation:

"But the Lord said to Josue, Rise up; why dost thou lie there, face to
ground? Guilt rests on Israel; they have transgressed My Covenant, by
taking forfeited plunder for their own use; it has been stolen away
secretly, and hidden among private goods." JOSUE 7:10, 11
If the sin of one, who was not even a priest, affected all of Israel, will

not the greed of a priest affect the parish? If the army was defeated at
Hai because of such avarice, will not building projects and social
organization suffer defeat because of the material aggressiveness of a
servant of God? The guilt of one, even personal and hidden, can bring down
Divine judgments on the whole parish. Did not Saul's violation of the
agreement he made with the Gabaonites occasion much later a famine that
lasted three years (II KINGS 21:1)? Did not David's obstinacy in taking a
census which he had been warned not to take, occasion a pestilence to the
destruction of seventy thousand of his subjects (II KINGS 24:10-15)?
The greed of Josue's soldier, Achan, was hidden; but God had witnessed the
sacrilegious robbing of gold and silver He had ordered appropriated to His
own use in the sanctuary. The crime had, moreover, been committed
immediately after the celebration of the Passover, relating it even more
closely to the altar and cult. To appropriate what belongs to the altar of
God is more serious in God's eyes than the sinner always realizes.
Without naming the person, God revealed the fact and left it to the church
of Israel to discover the offender. Justice took its course, and the
sentence was executed. Achan with his children and his cattle were stoned
to death; afterwards his tent, the stolen property and all his belongings
were consumed by fire.

THE PRIEST NOT ONLY BEGS BUT ALSO GIVES
When the priest in the pulpit asks the people to contribute to a diocesan
expansion plan, does he first reach into his own pocket? When on Mission
Sunday he urges the parishioners to make a sacrifice to spread the Church
in Africa, Asia or elsewhere, does he play his primary role in sacrifice?
It is not fitting to ask others to give to a cause without setting the
example. Can the Lord look on us with more favor than He looked on Achan,
if we hide our bank accounts when the needs of the world are so pressing?
And what blessings does He bestow on priests who give until it hurts, and
then a little more? Fortunately, such priests are more numerous than is
sometimes recognized. The Achans make the headlines, the scandalous
hoarders become notorious; but there is a great army of priest-victims
whose identity will become public only on the day of the great revealing.
Poverty of spirit does not begin with an act of the will to do with less;
it begins with the Spirit of Christ in us. External poverty follows the
internal Indifference to the accumulation of possessions follows zeal for
Christ. The greater the concern with material things, the lesser is the
dedication to the spirit. Some priests may exhibit the externals of
poverty, or what passes for such. They may be careless about the way they
dress and act, soup on the vest, torn cassock, unswept aisles in the
church--but these things have no relation to poverty of spirit. They may
reflect simply a lack of dignity and culture, a lust for saving, or a
general carelessness about the dignity of one's person. To be unconcerned
about being dirty impairs personality; poverty of spirit exalts it.

Three aspects of priestly poverty can be distinguished. In his personal
life, poverty directs the priest to limit himself to the strictly necessary
In his apostolate, poverty of spirit inspires him to use spiritual means to
attain his apostolic goals. In his use of resources, poverty obliges him to

count only on God. As St. Augustine said, the poor in spirit are those who
have hope only in God.
The priest can convince an incredulous, perverse and luxurious generation
only by the acts of virtue opposed to those vices. That is why of all the
virtues, the virtue of poverty seems the one most needed in our days. Pius
XI stated that its practice was essential to defeat Communism.
The American priest lives at a level of material comfort higher than that
of his brother priests anywhere in the world, but it does not necessarily
follow that every American priest is attached to his comforts. Many would
leave them tomorrow, if circumstances made it necessary. The growth of the
missionary spirit among priests in the United States demonstrates this
fact. But the temptation is always present, and the priest who allows his
soul to become possessed of a desire for wealth, can cause the gravest
scandal. The danger of giving scandal is particularly great in the case of
the diocesan priest He cannot hide his lust behind a corporation, a
society, or a group. Violations of the individual vow of poverty can
sometimes be hidden behind a corporate selfishness. But the diocesan priest
has no such facade. If he loves luxury, it shows, it shocks, and it
scandalizes. On the other hand, his example is all the greater when he
shows the detachment demanded by his station and office.
POVERTY OF TIME AND TALENT

But the spirit of poverty is not to be understood merely in terms of
material things. The Spirit beckons us to seek other, not less important
goals. The priest must seek in particular a spirit of poverty in regard to
time and in regard to self-satisfaction.
Time can become an object of hoarding, just like stocks and bonds. The
priest may set up a schedule for rest, siesta, sleep and recreation, and
routine can become a habit to the extent that anyone who disturbs it is in
danger of judgment. But the neighbor has claims; hunger has claims;
bereavement has claims. Our Lord had His rest disturbed, for He could not
be hid. Two of His outstanding converts were made when He was tired,
another conversion resulted from an interruption. Siesta time is not
sacred; the "day off" is not sacred. These legitimate recreations are
expendible, if a soul can be saved. As St. Paul said, we are to redeem the
time,

". . . hoarding the opportunity that is given you, in evil times like
these." EPHESIANS 5:16

Many priests have taken a resolution never to waste a minute of time,
particularly when the welfare of a soul is concerned. Keeping visitors
waiting in the parlor, delaying a sick call, complaining because a penitent
is late--these are all forms of avarice.
"Let us practice generosity to all, while the opportunity is ours, and
above all, to those who are of one family with us in the faith." GALATIANS
6:10

The pastor who believes that being made a shepherd of souls dispenses him

from hearing confessions or administering the Sacrament of the Sick, shows
that greed of time which St. Peter felt came on with age, and against which
he warned:
"Look anxiously, then, to the ordering of your lives while your stay on
earth lasts." I PETER 1:17
God insists on "Today" (HEBREWS 3:13). The devil says: "No more of this for
the present" (ACTS 24:25), as Felix put off listening to Paul.

The lazy priest always has less time than the zealous priest, because the
former is thinking in terms of the interruptions to his leisure, while the
latter seeks the opportunity to be another Christ. The priest's time is not
his own; it is Our Lord's. The more we enrich ourselves with time, the more
we impoverish the Kingdom of God.
The virtue of poverty is too rich in content to be limited to money. The
saying that time is money takes on a new meaning when we understand what is
meant by poverty of time. No priest was ordained for an eight-hour day or
for five days a week. He is ordained for the Kingdom of God, which is
"opened to force" (MATTHEW 11:12). Time is for pardon.

"We are careful not to give offence to anybody, lest we should bring
discredit on our ministry; as God's ministers, we must do everything to
make ourselves acceptable. We have to shew great patience, in times of
affliction, of need, of difficulty; under the lash, in prison, in the midst
of tumult; when we are tired out, sleepless, and fasting. We have to be
pure-minded, enlightened, forgiving and gracious to others; we have to rely
on the Holy Spirit, on unaffected love, on the truth of our message, on the
power of God." II CORINTHIANS 6:3-7

POVERTY OF SELF-SATISFACTION

Not less important for the priest than poverty of time is poverty of self­
satisfaction. There is no such thing in priestly spirituality as being
satisfied because we have done our duty. It is not enough to perform the
most essential activities, to work in the chancery, to administer
cemeteries, to make converts, to fulfill one's hours on duty. On one
occasion ( MATTHEW 25:30; LUKE 17:10) the Apostles were looking for a crown
of merit before their work was done, seeking applause before their
orchestration was finished. Our Lord had to remind them that they were not
entitled to sit down at the banquet of life simply because they had
fulfilled their duties. Even when they had done all they were supposed to
do, they had still to regard themselves as "unprofitable servants." A
special reward requires more than merely to do one's duty.
"If any one of you had a
servant following the plough, or herding the
sheep, would he say to him, when he came back from the farm, Go and fall to
at once? Would he not say to him, Prepare my supper, and then gird thyself
and wait upon me while I
eat and drink; thou shalt eat and drink thyself
afterwards? Does he hold
himself bound in gratitude to such a servant, for
obeying his commands? I do not think it of him; and you, in the same way,
when you have done all that was commanded you, are to say, We are servants,
and worthless; it was our duty to do what we have done. LUKE 17:7-10

Our service is an arduous one; it involves not only labor in the fields in
the day-time, but serving tables at night. It is the mere duty of the
priest to work both morning and evening. When he is exhausted, he cannot
say: "Well, I already did my Boy Scout duty today." Rather must he tell
himself: "I am worthless, an unprofitable servant." The less there is of
self-satisfaction, the more zeal there is in His service. Counting the
converts we have made may eventually make us believe that we, rather than
the grace of God, made them. "I built three rectories; now I can retire; I
heard confessions three hours today, I have done my duty." Labor union
rules might regard that as sufficient; but we belong to a different union,
where love, not hours, is the standard. When we think of all the Lord has
done for us, we can never do enough. The word 'enough' does not exist in
love's vocabulary. It is like telling the mother tending her sick child
that she has done her duty and should take it easy.

In the parable about the unprofitable servant (MATTHEW 25:14-30 ), Our Lord
describes a frequently ignored element of the priesthood. The priest is
used to hearing himself being called an ambassador. He is reminded that he
is an unprofitable servant as seldom as he is reminded that he is a victim.
But the servitude which Christ describes is one of love, not one of duty.
Our Lord refuses to distinguish between "work" and "extra work," between
"on duty" and "standing by," between eight hours and eighteen hours. No
airs of self-complacency are Divinely permitted to the priest. No selfpity, no pluming ourselves on our administrative talent, no such thing as
saying: "I built a high school; now the bishop should make me a monsignor."
The moment we become self-complacent about our achievements, the work
spoils in our hands.
We are worthless servants when we have done our best. What are we then when
we fail to do our best? We become unworthy even to be His servants, His
priests. To our Redeemer alone belongs the merit and glory of our services;
to us belongs nothing but the gratitude and humility of being pardoned
rebels.

8. THE SPIRIT AND PREACHING AND PRAYING

Preaching is not the act of giving a sermon; it is the art of making a
preacher. The preacher then becomes the sermon.
"It is from the heart's overflow that the mouth speaks." LUKE 6:45
The preacher without the Spirit of Christ is like Giezi whom Elias sent to
revive a dead man. Although he brought with him the prophet's staff, no
miracle happened, for the virtue of the staff was negated by the hands that
held it (IV KINGS 4:25-38). One may hold the Scriptures of the Lord in the
pulpit, as Giezi held the staff in his hand, but no souls are saved. The
absence of an inner spiritual life makes sermonizing dull, stale, flat and
unprofitable.

It is possible for the priest to experience a hardening as a result of his
intimate contact with the spiritual, without becoming spiritual. Sacristans
are privileged to work close to the Eucharistic Lord, but that does not

prevent some sacristans from being perfunctory in their genuflections.
Jewelers become used to jewels. Husbands grow bored with beautiful wives,
if there is no "stirring up of the first zeal." Contact with the Divine is
a privilege that can similarly turn into indifference, unless each day one
tries to get a step closer to the Lord. Trafficking with the Word of God
one Sunday after another, without prayer and preparation, does not leave a
priest the same; it leaves him worse. Failure to climb means to slide
backward. There is no defense against "acedia," against the tragic loss of
Divine reality, except a daily renewal of faith in Christ. The priest who
has not kept near the fires of the tabernacle can strike no sparks from the
pulpit.

What answer to judgment shall the priest give who squanders hours a day on
newspapers, television and magazines, yet cannot spare half an hour of the
Lord's time to prepare his soul for the pulpit? No wonder if he produces
shoddy, cheap moralizings and ulcerous scoldings which do damage to his
espousal with the Spirit and dishonor the Christ Whose ambassador he is. Is
he not rather like the hireling who "takes to flight because ... he has
no concern over the sheep" (JOHN 10:13)? What right have we to preach to
others who "labour and are burdened" (MATTHEW 11:28), if we ourselves shirk
the burden of our calling? Is being caught up in the whirling machinery of
"busy-ness" an adequate excuse for what is in reality laziness?
"But what if sentry, when he sees the invader coming, sounds no alarm to
warn his neighbours?" EZECHIEL 33:6

And yet to each priest the Lord has said:
"Thou are My watchmen; the warning thou hearest from My lips, to them pass
on. Sinner if I threaten with death, and word thou give him none to leave
off his sinning, die he shall, as he deserves to die, but thou for his
death shalt answer to Me." EZECHIEL 33:7, 8

The priest at ordination was told to preach. The office is to be taken so
seriously as to make every priest cry out with Paul:

It would go hard indeed with me if I did not preach the Gospel. I
CORINTHIANS 9:16

If a pastor fails to feed his parishioners with the Word of God, they may
well be the first on the day of judgment, to demand his punishment for
having left them spiritually starved. Do we repay our redemption, our
vocation and our other blessings from the Lord by such disregard for His
commands? How shall we call on the rocks and mountains to cover us from His
merited indignation!
How much more our words would burn as we preach, if we prepared our sermons
before the Eucharistic Lord; if Our meditation each morning was on the
subject of next Sunday's sermon; if before preaching, we prayed for five
minutes to the Holy Spirit for Pentecostal fire; if we kept the Scriptures
ever open near us, that we might gird ourselves with their truth when
mounting the pulpit? Every person to whom we preach we shall meet again on
the judgment day. How great our joy then, if we have rectified their
consciences and elevated them to the embrace of the Sacred Heart. No wonder
that Moses, Elias and Jeremias all tried to run away from the crushing

burden of delivering the Word of the Lord.

And shall we substitute the ledger for the Bible, the begging sermon for
the penitential summons, tawdry platitudes for the scandal of the Cross? In
the Old Testament, God ordered that the fire on the altar should never go
out. Are not we ministers of the High Priest Who cast fire on the earth and
willed that it be enkindled?

THE SCRIPTURES OUR INSPIRATION
What inexhaustible subjects for sermons the Spirit gives us in the
Scriptures. There is no occasion for which the Bible lacks a fitting theme,
a pertinent application. There is, for example, the judgment on men who
defy God, such as Balaam (NUMBERS 23:7-24:25; 31:8), Goliath (I KINGS
17:10-55), Sennacherib (II PARALIPOMENA 32:1-21).
Then there are the parables of the Old Testament, for example, Balaam's
seven parables (NUMBERS 23:7, 18; 24:3; 5:20-23); Samson's (JUDGES 14:12);
the ewe Lamb (II KINGS 12:3); the wise woman of Thecua (II KINGS 14:6); the
trees choosing a king (III KINGS 20:39); the parable of old age
(ECCLESIASTES 12:1-7); the poor wise man in a little city (ECCLESIASTES
9:14).

Wonderful indeed would be the preacher who could improve on the five cries
for mercy in the Gospel: Blind Bartimeus (MARK 10:46, 47); ten lepers (LUKE
17:11-13), the woman of Canaan (MATTHEW 15:21, 22); the father of a demon­
possessed boy (MATTHEW 17:14, 15); and the rich man in hell (LUKE 16:23,
24)
What more applicable today than the story of Rahab (JOSUE 2:21 and HEBREWS
12:27), whose red string typified the long current of blood clamoring for
Redemption; the woman full of good deeds--the only person Peter ever raised
from the dead (ACTS 9:36-42); or Naaman the Leper (IV KINGS 5:1-14) who
ridiculed the idea that God should use "sacraments" to manifest His saving
power?
The lesson of the seven great intercessors is similarly pertinent to our
times: Abraham for Sodom (GENESIS 18), Juda for Benjamin (GENESIS 44:18),
Moses for Israel (EXODUS 32: 11 ), Jonathan for David ( I KINGS 20 :32 ),
Joas for Absalom (IV KINGS 14), Esther for the Jews (ESTHER 5), and Christ
for His priests (JOHN 17).

PREACHING REPENTANCE
But of all possible subjects for sermons, study of the Bible inevitably
leads to the conclusion that the most important is repentance, It was the
subject of John the Baptist's preaching (MATTHEW 3:8). Our Lord's first
sermon was on repentance (MATTHEW 4:17). Our Lord gave it as the reason of
His coming (LUKE 5:32). It was the subject of Peter's first sermon to his
fellow Jews (ACTS 2:38) and of his first sermon to the Gentiles (ACTS
11:28). It was the subject Paul said he never failed to preach before Jew
and Gentile (ACTS 20:21); it was the theme of Peter's last message (II
PETER 3:9) in which he asserted that the only reason God gave us more time

to live, was to repent. It was the subject both of Our Lord's first sermon
and of His last. "Repentance and remission of sins should be preached to
all nations" (LUKE 24:47).
The message of Our Lady at Lourdes was "Do penance"; the same words were
repeated at Fatima: "Do penance." But how often is penance preached? The
current tendency is rather to downgrade the need for penance, to reduce the
severity of the fast and the number of days of obligatory fasting. To make
religion comfortable, however, is enough to make the Angel cry out again to
any church like Ephesus:
"Repent, and go back to the old ways." APOCALYPSE 2:5

To the church of Pergamum, the same warning was sounded:

"Do thou . . . repent; or I will come quickly to visit thee." APOCALYPSE 2
: 16
Why repentance? Because it is the first act of a soul which turns back to
God, the first stroke that severs sin from the heart. The Scriptures
contain no expressions of vengeance against other sinners as terrifying as
those directed by the Spirit of God in DEUTERONOMY (29:20, 21) against
those who obstinately delay repentance.

But the preaching of terror is not essential for repentance. Souls need not
be like Dante, who went through Hell before he reached Paradise. The
lighting of sulfurous coals in the pulpit is not Our Lord's path to
repentance. St. Paul told Timothy how to woo souls from an evil life, and
meekness was the approach he urged.
A servant of the Lord has no business with quarrelling; he must be kindly
towards all men, persuasive and tolerant, with a gentle hand for correcting
those who are obstinate in their errors." II TIMOTHY 2:24, 25
Before the thunder, we see the light. But to thunder against souls without
bringing to them the light of God's truth and the love revealed through the
Sacred Heart may bring a smile to their lips. It will not, however, bring
them to their knees in repentance.

THE PRIEST AT PRAYER
Three kinds of prayer in the Spirit should be of special concern to every
priest: his unsaid prayers; his prayers made up of crosses; and his
Breviary.

1. The Priest's Unsaid Prayers.
Because the priest is never free from the infirmities of a fallen nature,
despite his sublime calling, Scripture often bids him to pray. But little
help is found in weak human nature or in spiritual books, or even in the
will itself, to inspire the necessary prayer. For one of the most neglected
aspects of priestly prayer is the role which alone the Holy Spirit can play
in its fructification.

Bad habits, acedia and lukewarmness may all conspire to prevent an increase
in the level of prayer, but the Divine Spirit can enlighten the darkest
soul and cleanse the foulest heart. The Holy Spirit is not indifferent to
the obstacles created by man's carnal nature. As a nurse gently lifts a
patient in his bed, so does the Holy Spirit sustain the priest in his
weakness.
". . . when we do not know what prayer to offer, to pray as we ought, the
Spirit Himself intercedes for us, with groans beyond all utterance: and
God, who can read our hearts, knows well what the Spirit's intent is, for
indeed it is according to the mind of God that He makes intercession for
the saints." ROMANS 8:26, 27
Often, we do not even know what we should pray for. St. Paul himself was in
this condition, when he asked for the removal of the thorn in the flesh.
When James and John asked for the right and left places alongside the
Savior, Our Lord told them that they knew not what they asked. But to
recognize that we do not know what to pray for, is already an in dication
that we are on the path to be guided by the Spirit, Too often our prayers
tend to be mere blueprints which we bring to God to rubberstamp. But when
the Holy Spirit guides, prayer immediately rises above the level of
petition.

OUR TWO INTERCESSORS
We have two intercessors: one is Christ Himself; the Other is the Spirit.
Christ speaks on our behalf. The Spirit intercedes in us that we may pray.
He puts our hearts in a praying mood, He increases our boldness to draw
nigh to the throne of grace. He suggests the things that we should pray
for, multiplies our prayers, and gives us His Power.

What is meant by the groans of the Holy Spirit (ROMANS 8:26)? Very likely
the secret workings of the heart toward God in a prayer that is without
speech or vocal utterance. Very often, in deep affliction and distress, the
human heart speaks not, but rather groans. As Christ intercedes for us in
Heaven, so does the Holy Spirit, in afflictions and trial intercede in us
on earth, revealing to us our need, creating holy aspirations, searching
our hearts to expose what is wanting to our priesthood.
The Holy Spirit turns the dissatisfaction which each priest contains within
himself into an inarticulate prayer. While creation longs for development,
the priest--feeling his weakness--sighs for salvation. His very groaning
proves a longing for the Infinite. With Augustine he knows that he was made
for the Divine High Priest and is restless until he rests m Him. Very often
we pray with the illusion that we know best what we should pray for. St.
Paul suggests that, on the contrary, we often are ignorant of what we
should pray for; hence the need of the illumination and guidance of the
Spirit.

Pythogoras forbade his disciples to pray for themselves, because they did
not know what was expedient for them. Socrates more wisely taught his
disciples to pray simply for good things, for God knows best what sort of
things are good. Our ignorance and our feebleness are alike grounds for
asking the illumination of the Spirit to bring us into harmony with God's

Will, whether in peace or in trial. The showers of Heaven are not less
fertilizing because they fall at night; neither are the promptings of the
Spirit less real and beneficial, when they reach the soul during seasons of
spiritual gloom and ignorance. How consoling it is to know that Christ
deputes the Spirit to intercede in us on earth, while He Himself intercedes
for us in Heaven!
There is no priest in the world who does not at some time experience in an
unutterable form this longing for greater communion with Christ. It defies
all petition. In the unutterable cry, the Spirit reads a desire for
communion with Him fuller than that which has yet been satisfied. When He
makes intercession for us, it is not by direct supplication from Himself to
the Father; it is by becoming the Spirit of supplication in us. When the
Breviary becomes hard, when we struggle in prayer and the soul seems to
lose touch with God, we have reached the point where we must pray for the
Spirit of prayer. Finally, the Spirit makes us so intimate with God that we
scarcely pass through any experience before we speak to Him about it,
whether we visit the sick, preach, hear confessions, begin the office, or
listen to the woes of a caller in the parlor.

THE UNDERTONES OF PRIESTLY PRAYER
Priests are often reluctant to reveal their inner spiritual life even to
their brother-priests. They tend to hide it from others and perhaps even
from themselves, with the result that few know what goes on in their
hearts. Yet even the weakest have aspirations toward goodness unsuspected
by their critics And many of the best hesitate to be seen in prayer by
their brethren. But all the while, thoughts of holiness, or a sadness for
not being more holy, flood their hearts. These undertones need
articulation, these burdens need a wing, these mumblings need utterance;
and that is the work of the Holy Spirit.

The effort to hide saintliness from others may often arise from an
awareness of one's imperfections, so that we leave them to the Holy Spirit
to define in our solitude. Few priests like verbal or vocal prayers. This
is a fact. This is not because good priests are unprayerful. But because
their prayers are sighs, their aspirations are inspirations. They have no
sense of shouting to God across an abyss. Always conscious of their
mission, they feel the deep silent work of the Spirit within them. They
have few petitions. They rarely make a novena for something they want; they
set the people to make the novenas. Their best prayers are unspoken; their
prayers are within their prayers--the talking to the Father, as does the
Son through the Spirit Who inspires them what to say.

Thus we have the Father to Whom we pray and Who hears prayer. We have the
Son through Whom we pray, "per Christum Dominum Nostrum," and we have the
Holy Spirit in Whom we pray, Who prays in us according to the Will of God
with such deep, unutterable sighings. The intercession of the Holy Spirit
within us is as Divine as the intercession of Christ above. Our very
weakness, our humiliation and the grossness of our flesh provide the sphere
of operation for the Holy Spirit, Who awakens the soul to come out and meet
its Lord. As we grow in the knowledge of the Spirit dwelling within us, in
the reality of His breathing within us, we begin to recognize how much
beyond all our theology is that divine hunger by which He draws us

heavenward.
How different the priesthood becomes when we start with the principle that
we do not know what we want! Then we pray to the Spirit that we may
properly understand our needs. Before a school or convent is built, before
the parish makes plans for a social affair, the first prayer is to ask the
Holy Spirit if the project is in conformity with God's Will. We often lose
the benefit of prayers by proposing to ourselves improper ends. As St.
James said:
"What you ask for is denied you, because you ask for it with ill intent."
JAMES 4:3

Scripture assures us that the true mark of participation in the divine
Nature is the following of the Spirit:
"Those who follow the leading of God's Spirit are all God s sons." ROMANS
8:14
As Christ carries on His intercessory work in Heaven, He applies it through
the Spirit Who could not come until He was glorified (JOHN 7:39). The work
that the Blood of Our Lord effected in Heaven when He entered beyond the
veil, now continues to be applied through His Spirit, so that Christ's
prayers become ours and ours are made His. But His Spirit is ours not only
in time of prayer but in every moment of life.

2. Our Crosses
The priest devoted to the Spirit has an answer when trials, injustices,
betrayals, disappointments, broken health or temptations assail him: he
knows that the Spirit has prepared them. He immediately recalls that

"by the Spirit, He was led on into the wilderness, where He remained forty
days, tempted by the devil." LUKE 4:1
The grouchy old pastor to whom an assistant has been assigned, the indolent
television-viewer whom the zealous pastor has no choice but to accept-these and other such apparently diabolical trials are permitted by the
Spirit, just as the Spirit led Our Lord to the devil. Under the guidance of
the Spirit every trial enriches the soul of the priest. He best heals
wounds who has felt a similar wound.
The priest never complains against either his bishop, his brother-priests,
or his people, if he sees that the Spirit is the author of his trials. Look
at poor Jonas, and yet see how much God had to do with his mission to
preach penance! His trials seemed to arise from purely natural causes, and
yet the Lord had decreed each and every one of them: "But now the Lord sent
out a boisterous wind over the sea. ..." (JONAS 1:4); "At the Lord's
bidding, a great sea-beast had swallowed him Up. ..." (JONAS 2:1); "And
now, at the Lord's bidding, the sea-beast cast Jonas up again. ..."
(JONAS 2:11); ". . .at God's bidding a worm . . . struck at the plant's
root and killed it" (JONAS 4:7); ". . . at the Lord's bidding the sirocco
came ..." (JONAS 4:8) .

Once we understand that all trials come from the Lord, they lose their

bitterness and our heart is at peace. When such trials arise, we must beg
the faithful to fight with us through their prayers. A measure of the value
we set on prayer is the insistence with which we ask the flock entrusted to
our care to pray for us. St. Paul in prison wrote the Philippians that he
will have no further worry over his sours health if he has them "to pray
for me, and Jesus Christ to supply my needs with his Spirit (PHILIPPIANS
1:19). He knew he could not work without the intercession of his converts.
He valued Lydia's prayers and those of her household; he valued the
jailer's prayers; he desired the prayers of Euodias, Syntche and Clement;
and to the Ephesians he wrote:
"Pray for me too, that I may be given words to speak my mind boldly, in
making known the Gospel Revelation, for which I am an ambassador in
chains." EPHESIANS 6:19, 20

The priest may claim the prayers of his people, for through their prayers
he receives from the Spirit whatever he needs. Yet how few are the parishes
which place primary stress on prayer when a high school is being built or a
mission being preached! Fund-raising campaigns are organized to get the
money and telephone canvassers are enlisted; but are prayers presented as
the first priority in order to draw down the blessing of God? The priest
can save souls without eloquence, but he cannot move them without prayer
and the Holy Spirit To build a church we need "stones that live and breathe
(I PETER 2:5), but what are the living stones compacted in charity" if not
the Christian community united in prayer? To build a church we need
holiness, but whence comes holiness save from the Spirit? How many
parishioners ever pray for the pastor or his assistants? If some do not,
may not the reason be that from our prison cells of spiritual need, we
priests have not urged them to pray for us, as did Paul the Philippians?

3. The Breviary

Few like to admit that they are bored by something they are expected to
enjoy. The Breviary belongs in this category. Priests are expected to rave
about their love of it, but many of us are like those affected people who
pretend to love the opera, when they neither enjoy nor understand it. Why
not admit the truth about the Breviary: many of us find it "strange talk"
(JOHN 6:61). But when asked if we will go away, we have the courage to
refuse, and to repeat with Peter: "Lord to whom should we go?" (JOHN 6:69).

Maybe the Breviary was meant to be difficult for the average priest. Could
it not be a wrestling with God like that of Jacob (GENESIS 33:24)? If we
learn to see it in this light, it may still be a constant struggle, but it
will fall into the category of incessant and prolonged intercession. We
pray it then as Our Lord prayed in the Garden, with drops of blood
crimsoning the earth, as the friend who kept knocking at the door in the
night for a loaf of bread, as the widow who was resistless in her pleading
to the judge, as the Syro-Phoenician woman who would settle for the crumbs
that fell from the Master's table. Importunity means not dreaminess, but
sustained work. If "laborare est orare," then is it not sometimes true of
the Breviary that "orare est laborare?"

Our faith clings to the Breviary as the poor woman from the land of Tyre
and Sidon clung to the Lord (MATTHEW 15:21-28). She had three handicaps to
overcome: Christ's silence; the resistance of the disciples; and finally

Christ's seeming rejection of her as unworthy to share His glory. Are not
these our three common difficulties with the Breviary? Our High Priest
seems to be silent; the Church makes us use a tongue which is hard; and all
too often we let ourselves become convinced that Our Lord is not very
pleased with us. Yet we struggle along, day by day, inspired by a sense of
duty and faith. And if we do, will not Our Lord say to us in the end, as He
said to that woman:
"For this great faith of thine, let thy will be granted." MATTHEW 15: 28

THE BREVIARY IS WEIGHTED
May not the Breviary also be difficult because in it we gather up not only
all the intentions of the Church, but also the unpraying, the sinners,
those who turn their backs on God, those who delay repentance? It is not
easy for us to do this any more than it was easy for Our Lord, Who was
sinless, to be "made . . . into sin" (II CORINTHIANS 5:21). Everyone would
like to have a feeling of devotion when he prays, but what if we pray for
those who have only sensibility and no devotion?

Whenever we pick up that book, we pick up Japan and Africa, two billion
unbelievers, fallen-aways, the burden of the churches throughout the world.
If millions are reluctant to pray, do we not feel their reluctance? If the
unconverted drag their feet, how can we take wings and fly? Three times
during His Agony Our Lord came back to His three Apostles seeking
consolation. The Breviary is not a personal prayer; it is an official
prayer and therefore is weighted down "with the burden of the Churches."
And until we realize that we are vocalizing the prayer of the Church, will
we understand both its beauty and its burden?
Our Lord poured forth His personal prayers to His Father on the mountain
top, but when He prayed for His enemies, He was bleeding on a gibbet (LUKE
23:34). The more His prayer was related to redemption, the more He
suffered. Easy indeed it is for us to love God solitary and alone, but
suppose we have to pray for those who do not love? Do we not take on their
lovelessness? And is this not good for us, for if all our prayers were
personal, would they not be selfish? Then we might try to bargain with God
as Jacob did:

"If God will be with me, he said, and watch over me on this journey of
mine, and give me bread to eat and clothes to cover my back, till at last I
return safe to my father's house, then the Lord shall be my God." GENESIS
28:20, 21
Jacob loved God while loving himself. But in the Breviary we are making an
act of love, not only for the Church but also for her enemies. The
Breviary, like the angel, is the test of our strength; as the angel shook
Jacob and made him reel and roll, so the Breviary tests our endurance. If
the Breviary be approached as a work, as a wrestling with God, as an
intercession on the cross, as something intended to bring us not
consolation but struggle, we shall eventually learn to enjoy the battle and
turn it to the glory of God.

Despite all our complaining, we love the Breviary. Our life has two

principal "gripes": one, the food in the seminary before we are ordained;
two, the Breviary after we are ordained. But we grow fat on the meals, and
we advance in holiness with the Breviary. We expect too much from it, at
first, as does a bride of her groom. But once we realize that when we pick
up the book," we are not mockingbirds singing for ourselves alone, that
our melody is rather the song of the angels rising to the throne of God on
behalf of the Mystical Body and the world, it becomes easier. We may not
understand every word, but God understands what we do not.
While it is true that it is only the Spirit who can make Our reading of the
Breviary fruitful, there are many things we can do to prepare ourselves for
the soft caress of His breath.

AIDS TO THE BREVIARY
1. Read the office of the day in the presence of Our Lord in the Blessed
Sacrament, a practice for which a plenary indulgence is granted.
Furthermore, since the Breviary is the Body of Christ praying, it is read
with more faith when closely united with the Head Who "lives on still to
make intercession on our behalf" (HEBREWS 7:25).

2. Advert to the fact that most of the Psalms confront us with two figures:
one is the Sufferer; the other is the King. It helps us to interpret the
suffering psalms as the Church, and the kingly psalms as Christ. That long
Psalm 118 would thus become the Church pleading its love for Christ, the
New Law. And when we come across "cursing psalms," it may be well to remind
ourselves that of all bad men, religious bad men are the worst, and that
the Judge takes sin seriously.
3. Often appeal to the Holy Spirit during the recitation. As a mother first
prays for her child even before he can know what she is doing, then teaches
him to pray so that later she may pray with him, so does the Spirit pray in
the Breviary first in us and then through us.
"Go on praying in the power of the Holy Spirit; to maintain yourselves in
the love of God, and wait for the mercy of Our Lord Jesus Christ, with
eternal life for your goal. JUDE 20, 21
4. Offer certain hours of the office for specific intentions How often is a
priest not asked to pray for someone: a boy taking an examination, a mother
before childbirth, a father going on a trip, or a young couple about to be
married? The Breviary, the Church's prayer, gathers up all these intentions
of the parish, the diocese, the nation, the world. It helps to offer a
particular psalm for a determined person.

5. The Breviary can never be properly read while listening to the radio or
watching television, or with one ear and half the mind concentrated on a
baseball game. "Magna abusio est habere os in Brevario, cor in foro, oculus
in televisifico. "
"No need for Me to prove thee a guilty man, thy words prove it; thy own
lips arraign thee." JOB 15:6
"This people does Me honour with its lips, but its heart is far from Me."

MATTHEW 15:8

Moments of mental soaring may occasionally accompany the recital of the
Breviary, but in general the vision of the Mount of the Transfiguration is
followed by the descent to the plain. Moments of exaltation are few and far
between. We must be content to go on like pilgrims, usually on foot,
sometimes with broken boots.
The Breviary is, however, not only a yoke and a burden; it is also a duty-a duty of love. The two aspects seem almost contradictory, but the test of
love is self-sacrifice, not emotion. Besides, the duty itself is a good.
When we lose faith, we lose a sense of duty. How this duty is performed
will depend upon the level of behavior. If a priest is egotistic, the
Breviary will be said out of duty alone; if he is conscious that it is the
prayer of the Church, the duty will have love in it; if he is a priest­
victim, love will fan duty into an ardor which feels no obligation. Jacob
had to toil seven years for Rachel, yet "they seemed to him only a few
days, because of the greatness of his love." (GENESIS 29:20).

9. THE SPIRIT AND COUNSELLING
Not all who visit a psychiatrist have need of his services, as some who
come to the priest have need of a psychiatrist. Catholics who are not
emotionally disturbed will sometimes consult a psychiatrist because the
pastor and the clergy have given up counselling. It used to be that the two
regular advisers, each with his own area of action, were the family
physician and the pastor. Today the doctor is often more interested in
diseases than in sick people, while too many priests rely more on their
index cards than on the Gift of Counsel. Psychiatrists occasionally fill
the void created by the want of genuine concern for the ills and woes of
people on the part of the clergy. The state has largely taken over
education; now psychology would take the soul away from the priest.

To permit this to happen would be a failure in respect to a major duty. Yet
how preserve this side of our ministry except by the Holy Spirit? Abundant
treatises on psychological counselling are of course available; but while
much assistance is to be gleaned from them, in the same way that a
loudspeaker aids the preacher, they still remain in the natural order.
Unless they are used under the guidance of the Spirit, they will avail
naught.
Not every person who is disturbed emotionally or spiritually, falls within
the province of the priest-counsellor, but the number whom he could help is
greater than generally suspected Two major causes of mental unhappiness are
a want of purpose in life and an unrequited sense of guilt. The Holy Spirit
alone can reveal the full purpose of life in Christ, and the Holy Spirit
alone can convict us of sin. It is surprising how few Catholic books on
counselling have references to the supernatural order, to grace, faith,
mortification and prayer. The stress on such aids as "keeping your chin
up," "self-confidence," "lifting yourself by your bootstraps," tends to
make the Christian overlook the unseen influences which alone are
ultimately capable of giving lasting rest to weary souls.

The concern of the priest as counsellor is solely with those souls who do
no
e ong in the domain of medicine and psychiatry. However, this does not
restrict him to the care of normal souls, for those who are abnormal
ecause °f a denial of guilt, fall equally under his jurisdiction. It is
tne task of the priest, and he enjoys the power of the Spirit, to
regenerate and progressively remould all such souls into the Divine Image.
And once restored to the heavenly inheritance, they can say with Paul:
We, after all, were once like the rest of them, reckless, rebellious, the
upes of error; enslaved to a strange medley of desires and appetites, our
+κνθν·
°f meanness and of envy, hateful, and hating one another. Then
the kindness of God, our Savior, dawned on us, His great love for man. He
saved us, and it was not thanks to anything we had done for our own
justification." Titus 3:3-5

NO CARNAL WISDOM IN COUNSELLING
The aim of all counselling is to move the person from the realm of flesh to
that of the Spirit:

To live the life of nature is to think the thoughts of nature; to live the
life of the Spirit is to think the thoughts of the Spirit." ROMANS 8:5
The therapy of the Spirit seeks "a renewal in the inner life of your minds"
(EPHESIANS 4:23).
Where does the priest get the gifts of counsel, the discernment of spirits,
the wisdom to understand human hearts? Partly from study, but principally
from prayer to the Holy Spirit:

"Is there one of you who still lacks wisdom? God gives to all, freely and
ungrudgingly; so let him ask God for it, and the gift will come." JAMES 1:5
"the Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness." ROMANS 8:26

The attitudes, judgments and values of people are determined by the spirit
that moves them. Their spirit is either of Christ or of the world (I
CORINTHIANS 2:12). What spirit is it that leads the young into lust, a
slavery to pleasure and rebellion against authority, that causes the
middle-aged to be immersed in cares, and the old to grow avaricious?

Our century may well witness a phenomenon of alarming proportions: a growth
in diabolical possession and a renewed interest in Satan. Plays, novels,
books and movies can be expected to use his name more and more, not as
something evil, but as something fascinating, to play with the flames of
hell as children will play with fire.

THE GOAL OF THE PRIEST COUNSELLOR

Priestly counsel based on natural
enemy. Diabolical possession must
priest, so that he is restless to
goodness; to disclose sin that it

knowledge alone cannot deal with such an
be met by Christ-possession in the
open to hearts the treasures of God's
may be redeemed; to leave the ninety-nine

just to seek the one that is lost; to ferret out leaders and train them in
the apostolate and the making of conversions; to wrap about them the mantle
of the Sacred Heart; to listen without interruption to the distressed,
recognizing the dignity of the person who speaks; to reconcile husband with
wife by revealing to them how they can sanctify one other, as St. Paul did
for the unhappy couples of Corinth (I CORINTHIANS 7:14); to act in such a
way that two tides meet in his priestly heart as they met at Bethlehem: the
tide of human need and the tide of Divine fulfillment; to look at the
fallen-aways as Our Lord looked on Peter and drove him to tears (LUKE
22:61); to have the same Pauline patience which restored Mark to
usefulness; to oppose himself everywhere to the awful waste and wear and
tear of sin; to pray for those who seek him out (for prayerlessness is the
insomnia of the soul); to make people think as they leave the parlor, that
they have been with Christ; to understand that the Holy Spirit gives
strength to those who spend it; to realize that as there is no beauty in
the slothful animal, so there is no power in the slothful priest; to pray
daily to the Holy Spirit to teach him to find enjoyment only in souls; to
be convinced that he cannot reach a sinner with the fingertip of parochial
organization, or raise one soul to sanctity with a lavish expenditure of
cheap advice; never to hesitate to receive a visitor for the sake of his
own comfort, knowing that God gives him no reward without the dust of toil;
in a word, to be "another Christ" and not just "another Joe."

It is all very well to tell the poor and the hungry of the parish to
register with Catholic Charities, but the priest will be held personally
responsible before God for his compassion for the poor. One may never use a
social agency to escape a priestly duty. One wonders what was in the mind
of the Jewish priest who passed by the wounded man on the road from
Jerusalem to Jericho (LUKE 10:31). As he continued on his way, did he tell
himself, to use modern equivalents, that he would tell the social center in
the next town to send an ambulance? But he is eternally recorded in the
Gospel as the one who failed his fellow man in his hour of need. In
neglecting our neighbor, we turn away our "own flesh and blood" (ISAIAS
58:7). It is not only the purse that must be drawn out to help the poor;
the purse means nothing without the heart.
"The merciless will be judged mercilessly." JAMES 2:13

SAINTLY PRIESTS ARE SOUGHT OUT BY THE DISTRESSED

The best counsellors are not the worldly wise with tape-recorders, or those
who know all the psychological tricks of interviewing, more concerned with
congenial surroundings than the presence of the Spirit. The best guides of
souls are saintly priests and priests who have suffered in union with
Christ. Through such does the Holy Spirit pour His sever gifts. Those who
live close to Christ impart Christ. As St., Augustine said: "What I live
by, I impart." Suffering brings wisdom, but books bring only natural
understanding. The priest who has been crucified and endured his passion
with patience will always be found to be the merciful priest. If there is a
long line outside one confessional on Saturday and only one or two outside
another, it is time for a priest to ask himself some questions. Holiness
draws penitents to holy priests. The attraction of such priests is the
attraction of Christ Himself.

"If only I am lifted up from the earth, I will attract all men to Myself."
JOHN 12:32
No priest sees problems so sympathetically as the priest who is standing on
the watch tower of Calvary. Like the sun, it cannot be seen, and yet it
illumines all else.

How many souls say of that great army of saintly priests: "He showed me my
heart," or "He showed me the loveliness of Christ," or "It was like talking
to Our Lord." It is not possible for a priest, at one and the same time, to
be clever and to show that Our Lord is mighty to save. With noble iteration
no less than thirty-three times does St. Paul use the expression "in
Christ." To him it is the secret of "encouragement, loving sympathy, common
fellowship in the Spirit" (PHILIPPIANS 2:1). The priest imbued with this
concept, because he has "crucified nature with all its passions and all its
impulses" (GALATIANS 5:24), always directs others in the shadow of the
Cross and the light of the Spirit.

COUNSELLING AND THE CONSCIENCE

Priestly counselling is basically the application of the Redemption to the
individual. It is not just preaching to one person instead of preaching to
a crowd; for in counselling, the individual presents his problem as does a
patient to a doctor. The priest establishes the facts, as the doctor does;
then he presents his diagnosis and treatment, always mindful of the words
of Our Lord:
"Only the Spirit gives life; the flesh is of no avail; and the words that I
have been speaking to you are Spirit and Life." JOHN 6:64

The Spirit is particularly important when the priest is dealing with a
problem of behavior rather than an intellectual one. In almost nine cases
out of ten, those who have once had the Faith but now reject it, or claim
that it does not make sense, are driven not by reasoning but by the way
they are living. Catholics usually fall away not from any difficulty with
the Creed, but from some difficulty with the Commandments. When this
happens, the priest's task is to arouse the conscience through the Spirit.
There is not much reference to the conscience alone in Scripture, but there
is abundant testimony that the conscience is aroused by the Holy Spirit.
St. Paul tells us that it was his conscience that was illumed by the Holy
Spirit, making him ready to be doomed in order to save his brethren:
"I am telling you the truth in Christ's name, with the full assurance of a
conscience enlightened by the Holy Spirit." ROMANS 9:1

It is the work of conscience to witness to our fulfillment of our duty
toward God; but it is the work of the Spirit to witness to God's acceptance
of our faith in Christ and our obedience to Him. Thanks to the Spirit, the
testimony of conscience and the declaring of Christ, in our life become
identical. Conscience alone in a person may be likened to a room that is
very poorly lighted, and in which the Commandments are printed on the wall
in small characters. When the Holy Spirit illumines the conscience, a
brilliant light is shed upon those characters. The Holy Spirit restores
consciences, so that they accept the guidance of the law of Christ. The

Holy Spirit also shows the conscience the relationship between sin and its
purging by the Blood of Christ, so that there is no more a consciousness of
sin (HEBREWS 9:14; HEBREWS 10: 2-22).

It is never enough for a priest to tell his people that they must follow
their conscience; he must constantly seek the illumination of their
conscience by the Spirit.
"The end at which our warning aims is charity, based on purity of heart, on
a good conscience, and a sincere faith." I TIMOTHY 1:5
’

One never understands the enormity of sin except through the Spirit, a
truth which Our Lord explained to His priests the night of the Last"Supper.
Sin is best treated and overcome, not solely in relation to the breaking of
a commandment, but in terms of the breaking of our bonds with the Father,
Son and Holy Spirit. Sin disrupts our ties with the Heavenly Father because
it alienates us as sons. Such is the message of the parable of the prodigal
son (LUKE 15:11-32). Sin also re-enacts Calvary:

"Would they crucify the Son of God a second time, hold Him up to mockery a
second time, for their own ends?" HEBREWS 6:6
A personal equation must be established between the soul and the crucifix.
Sins of pride are understood through the crown of thorns; sins of lust
through the torn flesh; sins of avarice through the poverty of nakedness;
and sins of alcoholism through thirst. Moreover, sin must be seen as
resisting the Spirit of Love (ACTS 7:51); as stifling the Spirit of Love (I
THESSALONIANS 5:19); and as distressing the Spirit of Love (EPHESIANS
4:30).
Conscience is always enlightened when sin is seen as hurting someone we
love. No sin can touch one of God's stars or silence one of His words, but
it can cruelly wound His Heart. Once the penitent understands this truth,
he can see why he has such emptiness and desolation in his soul: he has
hurt one he loves.

Many who approach a priest still try to conceal their conscience They offer
spurious reasons to explain their actions. The priest who remains on a
purely psychological level cannot always see through such deceits, and in
consequence he cannot help the one who has come to him. It takes a
spiritual X-ray to penetrate such a mind:
"Who else can know a man's thoughts, except the man's own spirit that is
within him? So no one else can know God's thoughts, but the Spirit of God.
And what we have received is no spirit of worldly wisdom; it is the Spirit
that comes from God, to make us understand God's gifts to us; gifts which
we make known, not in such words as human wisdom teaches, but in words
taught us by the Spirit, matching what is spiritual with what is spiritual.
Mere man with his natural gifts cannot take in the thoughts of God's
Spirit; they seem mere folly to him, and he cannot grasp them, because they
demand a scrutiny which is spiritual. Whereas the man who has spiritual
gifts can scrutinize everything, without being subject, himself, to any
other man's scrutiny. Who has entered into the mind of the Lord, so as to
be able to instruct him? And Christ's mind is ours. I CORINTHIANS 2:11-16

Thousands would flock to us every year, mail from frustrated souls would
reach our doors, the young would seek us out, hearts unnumbered would seek
comfort in our confessional, did we but realize the extraordinary powers of
direction, counselling and guidance that come from living in the Spirit of
Christ.

COUNSELLING THROUGH SYMPATHY

Compassion is identification with others, whether they be laughing or
weeping:
"Rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with the mourner." ROMANS 12:15

Such heart-unity with the woes of others, as the parable of the Good
Samaritan teaches, is independent of our natural feelings. The Psalms also
inspire us to a like sympathy for everyone we meet.
"Time was, when these were sick; what did I then? Sackcloth was my wear;
rigorously I kept fast, prayed from my heart's depths. I went my way sadly,
as one that mourns for brother or friend, bowed with grief, as one that
bewails a mother's loss. PSALM 34:13, 14

When Elizabeth, after being long childless, finally brought forth John the
Baptist, her neighbors and her kinsfolk, hearing how wonderfully God had
shewed His mercy to her, came to rejoice with her. LUKE 1:58

Did not the woman who had lost her piece of money and found it, call in her
neighbors to rejoice, as did the shepherd who found the lost sheep? Did not
Our Blessed Lord weep over His enemies whom He knew were about to stain
their hands with His Blood (LUKE 19:41)? Did He not say also that the
angels in heaven are not indifferent spectators at the conversion of
sinners (LUKE 15:7-10)? When Our Blessed Lord saw the tomb of His friend,
Lazarus, did He not weep so that the Jews exclaimed: "How he loved him"
(JOHN 11:37)?
The weddings and the funerals in the parish, the converts and the fallenaways, the faithful youths and the juvenile delinquents, the bigots and the
men of good will--to all of these the sympathy of Christ goes out in the
priest as he fulfills the words of Paul:
"Bear the burden of one another's failings; then you will be fulfilling the
law of Christ." GALATIANS 6:2

Everywhere in the Bible, the priest is pictured as binding up the broken,
bringing back those that have been driven away, carrying lambs in his
bosom, and gently leading those that are with young (EZECHIEL 34:2, 4;
ISAIAS 40:11). This is a great worry to a good priest, and he may feel the
burden so much as to cry out as Moses did:
"Lord, he said, why dost Thou treat me thus? Must I carry a whole people
like a weight on my back? I did not bring this multitude of men into the
world; I did not beget them; and Thou wouldst have me nurse them in my
bosom like a child. ... I cannot bear, alone, the charge of so many; it
is too great a burden for me. NUMBERS 11:11-14

At other times, the spiritual priest full of anxiety for his converts, will
compare his feelings with the pangs of a woman in childbirth:

"My little children, I am in travail over you afresh, until I can see
Christ's image formed in you." GALATIANS 4:19
Such a priest will express a special sympathy on sick calls to those who
suffer. No priest can sympathize who is "outside" the suffering of others.
"Crucifixion with Christ" through zeal and work and self-denial, will
enlighten others by reminding them that Our Lord carried His scars with Him
to heaven. When therefore, He lays His hand affectionately on any heart, He
leaves the impression of His nails. The sick will be assured that their
sufferings are not a punishment for their own sins so much as an
opportunity to join in reparation for the sins of the world.

The priest will show such souls that there are no accidents in life, that
the Providence of God rules the fall of a sparrow or the loss of a hair,
that He made the wind that caused Jonas to be caught, that He made the sea­
beast which swallowed him, that all sufferings that come to us even from
our friends are to be seen as coming from His hand. In the Garden did He
not say to Peter:

"Am I not to drink that cup which my Father Himself has appointed for Me?"
JOHN 18:11
Even the cup of sorrow which comes from those who should reach us the wine
of friendship, must be seen as God's gifts bitter though it be.

The priest's own life may be full of a peculiar kind of suffering "from
false brethren (II CORINTHIANS 11:26) who ridicule his zeal, criticizing
him if he interrupts a deserved rest in order to help a tortured soul, or
if he pays two visits in one week to a dying mother of seven children. But
none such barbs will make him bitter. His patient bearing of those who
break bread with him will arm him with sympathy for others. His attitude
will be like that of David when Semei took up stones to throw at David and
cursed him. One of David's generals asked if he should cut off his head.
David replied:
"Let him curse as he will; the Lord has bidden him curse David, and who
shall call him to question for doing it?" II KINGS 16:10

All things, all people, even our own brother priests, are sometimes used
for our chastening, that we may better be able to console others. Thus will
be verified in us, as in another Christ, the words of Simeon:

". . . to be a sign which men will refuse to acknowledge; and so the
thoughts of many hearts shall be made manifest. . . . LUKE 2:34, 35

COUNSELLING THE SINNER

A woman is said to have gone to confession after an absence of thirty
years. The confessor, a priest who in thirty years had never made a
meditation before Mass, barked a bitter question at her: "Why have you

stayed away from the Church for thirty years?" Her reply was a logical one.
"Because, Father, thirty years ago I met a priest just like you."
A Spanish story has it that a priest who showed little mercy to a penitent
heard a voice from the crucifix: "I, not you, died for her sins."

So jealous is God of His mercy that sometimes He permits priests to fall
into the very sins they unjustly and inordinately condemn. If there is
anything devotion to the Sacred Heart brings home to the priest, it is His
mercy and His love of sinners.

No matter how strong the grip of vice, the penitent must still be assured
that no mountain of guilt is so great as not to be removable by the Blood
of Christ. Ever mindful of the treasures of mercies he has received from
the Sacred Heart, the confessor will assure every sinner that "even lame
folk shall carry plunder away" (ISAIAS 33:23), as the people of Jerusalem
were told when victory seemed impossible.

Many sinners, particularly those guilty of sins which cause excessive
introversion, are prone to adopt the language of Cain:
"Guilt like mine is too great to find forgiveness." GENESIS 4:14
They may even curse the day of their birth, as did Job (3:1; 27:2) and
Jeremias (20:1-18), or even ask God to take away life as did Elias (III
KINGS 19:4). But did not Our Lord Himself on the Cross, shutting out the
consolations of Divinity, cry out (as He suffered for the darkness of
atheists and agnostics ):

"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" MATTHEW 27:46; MARK 15:34;
PSALM 21:2
Such souls must be assured:
"Was there ever such a God, so ready to forgive sins, to overlook faults? .
. . He loves to pardon." MICHAEAS 7:18, 19

And after all, if they had never sinned, or we had never sinned, how could
we all call Jesus "Savior"?
We come from a world where God is ever working in love, where His sympathy
never grows cold, where His mercy never tires, where His tenderness never
wearies.

"My Father has never ceased working, and I too must be at work." JOHN 5:17
He makes use of every faintest hope, waterpots at a marriage feast, loaves
and fishes in a boy's basket, a Matthew at a desk, a man sitting under a
tree, a student with Isaias in his hands--He notes them all in compassion.
The key to his apostolate is not "the human touch," but the Christ-touch.

"He held out His Hand and touched him." MAR 1:41
Close, intimate, personal contact with affliction and grief is the key to
counselling in the Spirit. The spontaneous impulse of pity breaking through

the barriers of disease and disgust is the Christ-touch continued in the
priest. He touches the leper and is unpolluted, as He took on sin and was
without sin; so the priest, like a sunbeam, passes through a fouled
humanity without stain.
Counselling is touching where there is disease or misfortune; it is not the
simple giving of advice. A shake of the hand could be more of an occasion
of grace than a meal sent superciliously from an agency. The priest takes
the hand of the diseased whom he wishes to help; he goes down to their
level, sees the old with their eyes, and the cancerous with their thoughts,
knowing all the while that he can make them holy only to the extent to
which Christ has already touched him.

10. THE PRIEST AS SIMON AND PETER
No other Apostle arouses as much sympathy as Peter in the priest's heart.
He seems very close to each of us in his conflicts and emotions, his
strength and his weakness, his resolve to be heroic and his disastrous
failure to live up to his aspiration. At one moment he is humble, at
another proud. He affirms fidelity to his Lord, then denies. He is so
supernatural, yet so very weak and natural. He extols as Divine the Master
he loves, only to be frightened by a servant girl into saying that he does
not know "the man." No chain is stronger than its weakest link, and the
weakest link in the entire apostolic chain was the first link, Peter--and
the Son of God holds on to that. Hence the "gates of hell shall not
prevail."

TWO "NATURES" OF EVERY PRIEST
Like Peter, every priest has two "natures": a "human nature" which makes
him another man, and a "priestly nature" which makes him another Christ.
The Epistle to the Hebrews identifies these two aspects. The priest is
different from ordinary men as the one who offers sacrifice in their name.

The purpose for which any high priest is chosen from among his fellow men,
and made a representative of men in their dealings with God, is to offer
gifts and sacrifices in expiation of their sins. HEBREWS 5:1

Nevertheless, the priest is like every man in his weakness.

"He is qualified for this by being able to feel for them when they are
ignorant and make mistakes, since he, too, is all beset with humiliations,
and, for that reason, must needs present sin-offerings for himself, just as
he does for the people." HEBREWS 5:2-4
An angel would not make a fitting priest to act on behalf of men. He does
not possess a body subject to temptations, nor has he experimental
acquaintance with human suffering. He would lack the weakness which makes
for sympathetic understanding. But though a priest is like men, he must
also be unlike them. He is withdrawn from among men, so that he may act in
Christ's name and appear as Christ to men.

It is significant that the first one chosen by Jesus to be a Christian
priest was given a new name to represent his new character. He did not,
however, lose his old name. Instead, he now had two names. He was at one
and the same time, Simon and Peter. Simon was his natural name; Peter was
his vocation. As Simon, he was the son of Jona. As Peter, he was the priest
of the Son of God. Peter never entirely got rid of Simon. But once called,
Simon never ceased to be Peter. Sometimes it is Simon that rules; at other
times it is Peter.
It might parenthetically be noted that Peter's brother, Andrew, was the one
who was constantly making introductions. He introduced his brother Simon to
Our Lord (JOHN 1:41). When a group of Gentiles approached Philip and asked
to meet Jesus, Philip consulted Andrew and together they went to Jesus
(JOHN 12:20-22). Andrew also introduced the lad who had the loaves and
fishes (JOHN 6:8). Andrew began his work of witnessing within the family
circle.

"He, first of all, found his own brother Simon, and told him,
discovered the Messias (which means, the Christ), and brought
Jesus looked at him closely, and said, Thou art Simon the son
shalt be called Cephas (which means the same as Peter)." JOHN

we have
him to Jesus.
of Jona; thou
1:41-42

Maybe someone in our family circle, a parent or a teacher, brought us to
Christ, who by vocation changed our name. However great the dignity of our
Christ-like office, we still bear with us the human nature descended from
our own Jona. Even as Our Lord made Peter the rock on which He built His
Church, He reminded him that he was taken from among weak men:
"Blessed art thou, Simon son of Jona." MATTHEW 16:17
We drag our physical inheritance, our congenital weaknesses, our
temperament and our body to the altar. The Simon element never leaves us,
even when we take on the role of Peter. The sinful and the sinless, the
human and the divine, the old Adam and the new, our bond to an earthly
mother and our filiation to a heavenly Mother--under both of these aspects
we ascend the altar steps, carry the Eucharistic Lord to a bedside, and sit
long tedious hours dispensing mercy and hope to sinners.
On ordination day, we wrongly imagined that the Simon-nature had
disappeared. But reality soon reasserted itself. The Simon-Peter conflict
reappeared.
"The impulses of nature and the impulses of the Spirit are at war with one
another; either is clean contrary to the other, and that is why you cannot
do all that your will approves." GALATIANS 5:17

"Of this I am certain, that no principle of good dwells in me, that is, in
my natural self; praiseworthy intentions are always ready to hand, but I
cannot find my way to the performance of them." ROMANS 7:18
The passage of the years and the growth in spiritual maturity cause certain
kinds of temptations to decline, but others take their place. The demon of
the noonday gives way to the demon of night. When Peter toward the close of
his apostolate wrote his first epistle, he suggested by the opening words
that he believed the Simon in him to be dead, for he identified himself as

"Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ" (I PETER 1:1). However, in his second
and last epistle, shortly before his martyrdom, he acknowledged the
continuing struggle of the man of the flesh against the man of God: "Simon
Peter a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ" (II PETER 1:1).

In every priest either Simon has the mastery or Peter. In the prototype, in
Simon Peter himself, Peter gradually achieved dominion over Simon thanks to
the Holy Spirit. After Pentecost, one hears less of Simon, and when the
name is mentioned, there is a reason for it. Thus, Cornelius is directed to
send for "Simon, who is surnamed Peter" (ACTS 10:5), because outsiders
would know him best by the one name, Christians by the other. James, at the
Council of Jerusalem, uses the name Simon out of an old and familiar
friendship. Elsewhere, the word is Peter. The impulsive daring that was
Simon's is changed into steadfast, bridled courage. In that last Epistle,
nevertheless, he himself repeats the name so long unused, that it must have
vanished from all but the most retentive memories. But if he reverted to
it, he did so with a purpose, to recall humbly from out the mist of years
his old unsanctified self.
The turning point in the spiritual life of a priest is not only his
vocation, his calling. It is also that moment when he becomes obedient to
the Spirit. This is a kind of second ordination, a crisis which carries him
from being a priest merely by office, into the possession and manifestation
of the Spirit of Christ.
Before Peter possessed the Spirit of Christ, the tug of war between his
earthly and his priestly nature was revealed at Caesarea Philippi, when he
confessed the Divine Christ but denied the suffering Christ. The Father had
illumined his mind to recognize and proclaim that

"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." MATTHEW 16:16

But when Our Lord announced that He would be crucified, Peter, drawing Him
to his side,
". . . began remonstrating with Him; Never, Lord, he said; no such thing
shall befall Thee." MATTHEW 16:22
Here in a vignette we have the entire paradox, which has proved for many a
stumbling stone, a scandal, of infallibility and peccability. We have
Christ's vicar Divinely guided in his office as key-bearer to the gates of
heaven and earth. We have also this same Peter, the rock, the bearer of the
keys, left to himself and without guidance, stigmatized as Satan. Paradox
it is, but also fact. What Simon-Peter is there in all the priesthood who
has not seen this scene re-enacted a thousand times in his own person: at
this moment, another Christ; at that, another Satan?
Peter was willing to confess Christ the priest, but not Christ the victim.
Men called to be rocks can become stones of stumbling. The Lord himself,
however, defined His terms of service in clear language. The priesthood
means imitation of Christ, and imitation means self-crucifixion. An
unwillingness on the part of a priest to follow Him to Calvary, can sound
to Our Blessed Lord only like the voice of the devil himself, that is to
say, the voice of Simon repeating the sentiments with which Satan at the
very start of His public life had tried to tempt Him away from the Cross.

Our Lord did not take away Peter's vocation. He contented Himself with
warning him that the flesh was with him and that in a moment of
overconfidence he would fall. Peter is thus set forth by Our Blessed Lord
as a constant reminder that it is in their strongest qualities, unless they
are periodically renewed by Divine grace, that men are most liable to fail.

THE COMPROMISING PRIEST
No man can serve two masters. The priest nevertheless, will sometimes try
to make the best of both the Simon and the Peter in him. Christ does not
want it that way. In His priest there is no place for calculated less or
more. Our Lord requires unmeasured love, but sometimes our nature asks for
a compromise. It was such a spirit Our Blessed Lord had in mind when He
urged His followers not to be satisfied with merely doing what they are
obligated to do.

"If a man . . . compels thee to attend him on a mile's journey, go two
miles with him of thy own accord." MATTHEW 5:41
Our Lord may have been referring here to the forced transport of military
baggage, not just to forced attendance on or company of someone. The
supreme example would be Simon of Cyrene, who was compelled to carry the
Cross (MARK 15:21)
St. Luke gives a vivid picture of the priest who is unwilling to do all the
Lord requires of him, of the attempt at compromise and the half-obedience
to the Divine Will. It is noteworthy that in the opening presentation, the
protagonist is described by the sole name of Simon. Here is the passage
(LUKE 5:1-6):

"It happened that He was standing by the lake of Genesareth, at a time when
the multitude was pressing close about Him to hear the Word of God; and He
saw two boats moored at the edge of the lake; the fishermen had gone
ashore, and were washing their nets. And He went on board one of the boats,
which belonged to Simon, and asked him to stand off a little from the land;
and so, sitting down, He began to teach the multitudes from the boat. When
He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, Stand out into the deep water,
and let down your nets for a catch. Simon answered Him, Master, we have
toiled all the night and caught nothing; but at Thy Word I will let down
the net. And when they had done this, they took a great quantity of fish."

After being rejected in His own home town of Nazareth, Our Blessed Lord
directed His steps to Capharnaum, which would henceforth be His base of
operations. He found Himself so pressed by the crowds that He took refuge
in a boat belonging to Simon. Floating off a little from the land, He began
to teach the people. Then, when He had finished speaking, He turned to
Simon and told him to launch out into the deep. "Let down your nets for a
catch," He directed him.
Simon, however, was far from convinced. He was not prepared to challenge
Him, but neither would he obey wholeheartedly. Even the word he used in
answering Jesus reflected the ambivalence of his attitude. "Master," he
said. It was the same word that Judas would use when betraying Him, a word
without hint of recognition of the Divine, at most an admission of His

status as a teacher, a rabbi. Simon's words reveal his thoughts. "What does
He, coming from Nazareth, know about the way to fish at Capharnaum, " he was
surely thinking. "At this time of day who would dream of catching fish? The
professional fisherman knows that night is the time to fish, and we have
worked all night yet found nothing."

Peter knew all about fishing on the lake of Genesareth. It was accordingly
as a mark of respect to the Master, as one might say, to humor Him, that he
agreed to go part way: "but at Thy word I will let down the net." Our Lord
had asked for nets; Peter compromised with a net. Our Lord asks for
complete obedience; the servant gives a begrudging response. The flesh is
not spirit; reason is not faith. Peter, relying on reason, let down a net.
He flung into the Lord's face the bitter cry of life's unfruitful hours.
But when the net caught a quantity of fishes so great that it was near
breaking, suddenly there appeared from behind the bulk of Simon the
priestly form of Peter:

"Simon Peter fell down and caught Jesus by the knees; Leave me to myself,
Lord, . . . I am a sinner. LUKE 5:8

Notice the double changes of name. Christ is no longer "Master"; He is
"Lord." Simon is no longer Simon; he is Simon Peter. The priest's nature
asserts itself over that of the man under the impact of the miracle wrought
by the High Priest for the benefit of Simon's unworthy self. It was more
than fish that Simon caught; it was the Lord. As Coventry Patmore puts it:
"In strenuous hope I wrought,
and hope seem'd still betray'd
Lastly I said,
"I have labor'd through the night,
nor yet have taken aught;
But at Thy word I will cast forth the net!"
And lo, I caught
(Oh, quite unlike and quite beyond my thought,)
Not the quick, shining harvest of the sea
For food my wish,
But Thee.
So long as we think of Our Lord as "Master," we feel that what we are doing
is enough, that we can settle for a net when He calls for nets. The moment,
however, the Holy Spirit makes us realize His Lordship, makes us understand
we are His priests through the Spirit, there comes over us the terrifying
awareness of sin. The more we recognize the holiness of the High Priest,
the more conscious we are of our own failings. The condition of all our
priestly success is not in us the workers, nor in the nets of our schools
and clubs. The worker failed, the net was near breaking. Our sufficiency is
from God. The failure to catch souls must not be ascribed to God. We fail
rather because we look upon Him only as Master, and not as Lord, or because
we render less than complete obedience to His will.

The moment that Simon Peter was struck by his unworthiness, it is likely
that Our Lord took him by the hand. So at least the last words of the
account suggest.
"But Jesus said to Simon, Do not be afraid; henceforth thou shalt be a

fisher of men." LUKE 5:10
Our Blessed Lord seems paradoxically to draw priests closest to Him, when
they are most conscious of the distance which separates them from Him. We
preach the Word of God effectively only when we have trembled at the Word.
The priests and the missionaries who make the most converts are those with
the deepest and most overwhelming sense of personal unworthiness.
If a priest complains that he cannot make converts in his parish, his city
or his mission, it is time to ask if he is relying on his own resources.
There is always a reason if the Divine guarantee, "Thou shalt be a fisher
of men" (LUKE 5:10), is not effective. I recall a parish in South America
in which only eight of the eight thousand faithful attended Sunday Mass. A
new pastor in six years raised to eighteen hundred the number of Holy
Communions on week days. He preached eighty closed retreats a year, and he
had the joy of seeing over 98 per cent of his people fulfill their
religious duties. Our Lord did not say that we would be fishers for men,
but fishers of men. Success comes through our union with Him.
PETER AND JUDAS
Every bad priest is close to being a good one; every good priest is in
danger of being a bad one. The line between sanctity and sin is a fine one.
It is easy to cross, and the one who crosses can quickly gain momentum in
either direction. St. Thomas said that everything increases its motion as
it nears its proper place or home. Saints grow rapidly in charity; wicked
men rot quickly. We can see the truth of the point if we compare Peter and
Judas. There seemed to be little difference in them for a long time, and
then suddenly all the difference between being a saint and a devil.
The two of them were called to be priests, but that was only the first of
the many points of similarity between them. Our Lord called them both
devils. He called Peter "Satan" (MATTHEW 16:23; MARK 8:33) for tempting the
Priest not to be a Victim on the Cross. Judas he called a "devil" one day
at Capharnaum (JOHN 6:71), referring to the future betrayal, when "Satan
entered into him" (JOHN 13:27) at the Last Supper.

Our Lord warned both Peter and Judas that they would fall. Peter rejected
the warning. Though others might deny the Master, he asserted with bravado
that he never would. Judas was similarly warned.
"The man who has put his hand into the dish with Me will betray Me."
MATTHEW 26:23

Putting this into terms meaningful to us, it means that Judas would accept
a "toast" from Our Lord and still "lift up his heel against Him." Judas
also knew enough Scripture to understand that his act of betrayal was being
likened to the betrayal of David by Ahitophel (II KINGS 15:31).
Both Peter and Judas carried out the betrayals which t Christ had foretold.
Peter fell when challenged by a maid servant during the night of Christ's
trial. Judas performed the nefarious deed in the Garden when he delivered
Our Lord to the soldiers.

Our Lord made a positive effort to save both from their own weakness. He
gave Peter a look.
"The Lord turned, and looked at Peter." LUKE 22:61
He addressed Judas as "friend" and accepted his kiss.

"Wouldst thou betray the Son of Man with a kiss?" LUKE 22:48
The Lord only looked at Peter, but he spoke to Judas. Eyes for Peter, lips
for Judas. There is nothing that Jesus will not do to save His priests.
Both Peter and Judas repented, though in a crucially different sense.
"And Peter went out, and wept bitterly." LUKE: 22:62
"And now Judas, His betrayer, was full of remorse at seeing Him condemned,
so that he brought back to the chief priests and elders their thirty pieces
of silver; I have sinned, he told them, in betraying the blood of an
innocent man." MATTHEW 27:3, 4

Why is one at the head of the list and the other at the bottom? Because
Peter repented unto the Lord and Judas unto himself. The difference was as
vast as that between Divine reference and self reference; as the difference
between the Cross and the psychoanalytic couch. Judas recognized that he
had betrayed "innocent blood," but he never wanted to be washed clean in
it. Peter knew he had sinned and sought Redemption. Judas knew he had made
a mistake and sought release--the first of the long army of escapists from
the Cross. Divine pardon presupposes but never destroys human freedom. One
wonders if Judas, as he stood beneath the tree that would bring him death,
ever looked across the valley to the Tree that would have brought him life.
On this difference of repenting unto the Lord and repenting unto self, as
did Peter and Judas respectively, Paul would later on comment in these
words :

Supernatural remorse leads to an abiding and salutary change of heart,
whereas the world's remorse leads to death.
II CORINTHIANS
7:10
Both lived in the same religious environment, heard the same words of the
Word, were swept by the same winds of grace, and yet the internal reaction
of each made the difference:

One man taken, one left, as they work together in the fields; one woman
taken, one left, as they grind together at the mill." MATTHEW 24:40, 41
Judas was the type who said, "What a fool I am"; Peter, "Oh, what a
sinner." It is a paradox that we begin to be good only when we know we are
evil. Judas had self-disgust which is a form of pride; Peter had not a
regrettable experience, but a metanoia, a change of heart. The conversion
of the mind is not necessarily the conversion of the will. Judas went to
the confessional of his own paymaster; Peter to the Lord. Judas grieved for
the consequences of his sin, as a single girl might sorrow over her
pregnancy. Peter was sorry for the sin itself because he wounded Love.
Guilt without hope in Christ, is despair and suicide. Guilt with hope in

Christj is mercy and joy. Judas took the money back to the temple priests.
So is it always. When we give up Our Lord for any earthly thing, sooner or
later it disgusts us; we no longer want it. Having loved the best, we can
be satisfied with nothing less. Divinity is always betrayed out of all
proportion to its due worth. And the tragedy is that he might-have-been St.
Judas.
Peter and Judas illustrate how two called to the priesthood through the
same spiritual experience of falling away from the Lord can end in a
totally different way because of the response to or neglect of grace when
the chips are down Sometimes a reconciliation is sweeter than an unbroken
friendship. Peter was always grateful for his grace. It shone in his
Epistles. Each letter a man writes is characteristic of him. The Epistles
of Paul to Timothy are notes of exhortation to be holy in his priesthood.
The Epistles of John are a call to brotherhood. The Epistle of James is a
plea for practical religion. What was the dominant note of the Epistles of
Peter? It was the value of the pardon he had received, reminding us that
our redemption was bought and paid for not "in earthly currency, silver or
gold; it was paid in the precious Blood of Christ; no Lamb was ever so
pure, so spotless a Victim" (I PETER 1:18, 19).

CAUSES OF THE PRIEST'S FALL AND RESURRECTION
During a retreat, and often in the quiet hours of meditation, a priest
grows discontent with his mediocrity, and wonders how he slipped into
spiritual indifference. A study of the history of Peter shows that the
decline can be due to a number of causes.
1. Neglect of Prayer
First in time and importance in the fall of Peter and in the fall of every
priest is surely a neglect of prayer. Entering Gethsemane, Our Lord said:
"Pray that you may not enter into temptation" (LUKE 22:40). While Our
Blessed Lord was experiencing His agony in the garden, He who had no sin
began to feel the penalty of sin, as if it were His own. He saw the
betrayal of future Judases, the sins of heresy that would rend His Mystical
Body, the militant atheism of the Communists, who (though they could not
drive Him from the heavens) would drive His ambassadors from the earth. He
saw the broken marriage vows, slanders, adulteries, apostasies, all the
crimes that were thrust into His hands as if He Himself had committed them.
While all these things were drawing the Blood from His Body, the Apostles
were sleeping in the Garden. Men do not sleep when they are worried, but
these slept.

Every soul can understand, at least dimly, the nature of the struggle that
took place on the moonlit night in the Garden of Gethsemane. Every heart
knows something about it. No one has ever come to the twenties--let alone
the forties, the fifties, the sixties or the seventies of life--without
reflecting on himself and the world round about him, and without knowing
the tension that sin causes in the soul. Faults and follies do not efface
themselves from the record of memory; sleeping tablets do not silence them;
psychoanalysts cannot explain them away. While the sun of youth shines
bright, it may blind the eye momentarily so that the outline of sin is
obscure. But then comes a time of clarity--a sick bed, a sleepless night,

the open sea, a moment of quiet, the innocence in the face of a child--when
our sins, like spectres or phantoms, burn their unrelenting characters of
fire upon our consciences. Their full seriousness may not have been
realized in the moment of passion, but conscience bides its time. It will
bear its stern uncompromising witness sometime, somewhere. It will force a
dread upon the soul, a dread designed to make it cast itself back again to
God. Such a soul experiences indescribable agonies and tortures, yet they
are only a drop of the entire ocean of humanity's guilt which overwhelmed
the Savior as if they were His own in the Garden.
While the apostles slept, the enemies plotted.

"Then He went back, and found them asleep; and He said to Peter, Simon, art
thou sleeping? Hadst thou not strength to watch even for an hour?" MARK
14:37

Our Lord came to the one whom He called a Rock, but He did not address him
as Peter. He spoke to him in his human character, in the weakness of his
flesh. "Simon," He said Simon was in a deep sleep, and that was the first
step in the fall of Peter. He neither watched nor did he pray. But it was
not that night that Peter lost the battle. His defeat had been prepared in
previous weeks. What is thought of today is done tomorrow. What we are at
twenty we are apt to be at forty. The only difference is that the real
characteristics have become more apparent. Spiritual slackness prepares the
way for the wreck.
Our Blessed Lord chose His words to stress for Peter and the Church the
double character of the priest--the spirit of the priest is of Christ, the
flesh of the man.
"The spirit is willing enough, but the flesh is weak." MATTHEW 26:41

Peter and the other priests were placed in the world and trained to resist
the forces of evil. If they were sheltered from evil, they would not need
to be watchful. Faculties which are fully and frequently employed acquire
the facility of the pianist's fingers. This is a law of nature. It applies
equally in the spiritual world. Watchfulness against the forces of evil
trains the spirit to resist. If salvation was completed by a single act,
there would be no need of constant prayer. But danger is as long as life,
and the Apostles and their successors find the strength to keep close to
Him. One wonders if Peter did not recall the exact words Christ had used
when years later he wrote:

". · · live wisely, and keep your senses awake to greet the hours of
prayer." I PETER 4:7
St. Paul similarly insisted that watchfulness was a condition for keeping
the Spirit of Christ against the inroads of the flesh:

'· · · learn to live and move in the Spirit; then there is no danger of
your giving way to the impulses of corrupt nature. The impulses of nature
and the impulses of the Spirit are at war with one another; either is clean
contrary to the other, and that is why you cannot do all that your will
approves . . . those who belong to Christ have crucified nature, with all
its passions, all its impulses." GALATIANS 5:16-24

A priest's life spent so much in public must be fortified within with
prayer and vigilance:

"Without Me you can do nothing." John 17:19
The constant giving out of self needs replenishing from above. As the
channel through which the waters of Life pass to the people, the priest
must devote unceasing care and prayer to keep himself clean and holy. To
recall St. Teresa of Avila, he who omits prayer needs no devil to cast him
into hell; he casts himself into it. Peter slept when he was called to
pray. That is the first step in the fall of a priest.

2. Substitution of Action for Prayer
Next in the spiritual decline of a priest comes the substitution of work
for prayer. He now is too busy to pray; he has no time for meditation. He
becomes so active that he loves the extraordinary. He immerses himself in
endless visits, meetings, and conferences. Too busy to be on his knees, he
is not too busy to swing swords, to blast out against public officials and
bad politics. He does exactly what Peter did in the Garden, when Judas and
the soldiers came to arrest Our Blessed Lord (JOHN 18:10, 11):
Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, and struck the high priest's
servant, cutting off his right ear; Malchus was the name of the servant.
Whereupon Jesus said to Peter, Put thy sword back into its sheath. Am I not
to drink that cup which My Father himself has appointed for Me?
As a swordsman, Peter was an excellent fisherman. The best he could do, in
his wild use of secular means, was to hack off the right ear of the High
Priest's servant. There was still a lot of his old nature in Peter. He
presumably intended to slay Malchus, but Divine Power prevented him. The
last recorded miracle of Our Blessed Lord before His Resurrection was the
healing of that ear (LUKE 22:51). It is possible that the healing of the
wound was the reason Peter was not arrested.

Peter's action that night symbolizes all priests who avoid the obligations
of their priesthood by being busy. Some lose themselves in a passion for
buildings, others in organization, others in an endless round of banquets
and speeches, committee meetings, drives. Such are the swords which take
the place of prayer. Administration, long hours in offices, theatrical
presentations, social evenings, parish feasts--they are the marks of
prosperity that can kill the Spirit.

In times of prosperity, the Church administers; but in times of adversity
the Church shepherds. A $2 million church is no sign of a $2 million faith,
nor is a poor rectory the mark of a poor priesthood. Often it is not zeal
for Christ which draws the sword of action but an empty and lonely soul.
Boredom can beget ceaseless unreflective activity.
Aristotle says one vice is the enemy of spirituality, the vice of doing too
much. When the Christ-spirit leaves, the flesh-spirit produces the
"practical priest," the "priest of action." It is then "labora," but no
"ora."

Pius XI had an extremely appropriate comment on this spirit.
"Attention must be called to the very great danger to which the priest
exposes himself when, carried away by a false zeal, he neglects his own
personal sanctification in order to devote himself unreservedly to the
external works of his ministry, however admirable these may be. ... It
will make him run the risk of losing, if not Divine grace itself, at least
the inspiration and unction of the Holy Spirit which gives such wonderful
power and efficacy to the external works of the apostolate.

Pius XII restressed the danger of sword-swinging in place of prayer:

"We cannot refrain from expressing our worry and anxiety to those who all
too often are so caught up in a whirl of external activity that they
neglect the primary duty of the priest, the sanctification of self. Those
who rashly assert that salvation can be brought to men by what is rightly
and properly called, the "heresy of action," must be called to a more
correct judgment."

3. Giving Up Mortification: Lukewarmness

After he gives up meditation and fills his day with "activism," the
priest's next downward step is to give up mortification and become
lukewarm.
". . . Peter followed Him at a long distance." MATTHEW 26:58
At the Last Supper, Peter had promised everything; quickly he begins to
give up everything. When Our Blessed Lord set His face toward Jerusalem,
Peter and the others "followed Him with faint hearts" (MARK 10:32),
dreading the prospect of the Cross. He felt, it is true, the tug of the
Passion of Christ, but a reluctance to become irrevocably involved made him
stay far behind. As a commentator of the ninth century wrote: "Peter could
not have denied the Savior if he had stayed by His side." He would have
stayed by His side, if he had not drawn his sword without orders, and if
above all he had known how to watch and pray with the Savior. Every priest
undergoes the same experience. Neglect of watching, prayer and
mortification produces an inner uneasiness about being too close to the
Lord.

When this happens, the priest's heart is no longer in his work. He
celebrates Mass and says his office, but he rarely makes a visit to the
Blessed Sacrament. He keeps the Lord at a distance. He mounts the pulpit to
plead for the missions, but gives nothing out of his own pocket. He no
longer assists at a Mass after he finishes his own. He loses the taste of
spiritual things. Saintly priests annoy him. He observes the days of
fasting and abstinence, but cuts a lot of corners. He whispers to his
conscience: "Well, if I have not done all the good that I could, at least I
did no harm."

Instead of contemplating the evil of which he has been guilty, he glories
in the sins he avoids; he compares himself not with those who are better,
but with those who are worse. He gives up spiritual reading, substitutes
the Book of the Month for the Book of the Apocalypse. His sermons are
unprepared. They are for the most part critical and complaining. All he

achieves is to project his own mediocrity to others. His soul is empty. At
most, it is confusedly aware that an ever increasing distance separates it
from Our Lord. At night, when he awakens, the words of the Master ring in
his ears:
"If any man has a mind to come My way, let him renounce self, and take up
his cross, and follow Me." MATTHEW 16: 24
Though Peter is following the Lord, he is actually walking toward a pit
into which he will fall. He who does not advance in perfection, falls into
imperfection. An untended garden becomes full of weeds. Things do not
remain the same by being left alone. White fences do not stay white; they
gradually become gray, then black. There are no plains in the spiritual
life. We go up hill, or we go down. The moment we cease to row against the
stream, the current carries us down the river.

What God said through Isaias of His people, He may also say of the priests
who follow behind:
"This friend, that I love well, had a vineyard in a corner of his ground,
all fruitfulness. He fenced it in, and cleared it of stones, and planted a
choice vine there built a tower too, in the middle, and set up a winepress
in it, and it bore wild grapes instead. ... I call upon you to give award
between my vineyard and Me. What more could I have done for it? What say
you of the wild grapes it bore, instead of the grapes I looked for? Let me
tell you, then, what I mean to do to this vineyard of Mine. I mean to rob
it of its hedge, so that all can plunder it, to break down its wall, so
that it will be trodden under foot. I mean to make waste-land of it, no
more pruning and digging; only briars and thorns will grow there, and I
will forbid the clouds to water it." ISAIAS 5:1-7

The parable represents those who have consecrated themselves to the service
of God. They are fenced in with sacerdotal graces, yet they end up neither
hot nor cold, so that God would vomit them out of His mouth (APOCALYPSE
3:16). God takes away the talent from the slothful servant and gives it to
the diligent one (MATTHEW 25:29).

4. Satisfaction of Creature Wants, Emotions and Comforts
Peter first gave up prayer, then action, then mortification. When the
moment of crisis comes, he is making himself comfortable by a fire, at
first standing and then sitting.
"Peter followed at a long distance, right into the high priest's palace,
and there sat down with the servants by the fire, to warm himself. MARK
14: 54
What a spiritual biography! Peter was the last man who should have followed
the Lord at a distance. His seniority and his position of leadership both
carried additional responsibilities. But when a man has little spiritual
satisfaction within, when the tide of his devotion has ebbed, he has to
find some compensation for his inner loneliness. For Peter, this took the
form of warming himself by a fire and of chatting with the servant girls.
To compensate for internal poverty, one seeks to be rich on the outside. It
was only after Adam and Eve had by sin lost the inner effulgence of grace

that they became conscious of the fact that they were naked. They felt the
need for clothes to cover their newfound shame; previously, their bodies
had glowed with a mantle of charity woven by the fingers of God. It is
almost universally true that excessive external display betrays an inner
poverty and nakedness of soul.

To return to Simon Peter. It was the moment of crisis, and here he was
making himself at home in an equivocal position. The Gospel narrative
underscores the ironic contrasts. St. John (18:18) observes that it was
cold, that Peter felt the need to warm himself by the fire. Peter by
placing himself a distance from the Sun of Righteousness felt cold. His
behavior was that which characterizes the bourgeois priest: comfortable,
while others suffer; an armchair strategist on the missions, but himself
doing nothing about them. Peter was now like the pastor who sits by his
fire on Saturday while his curates hear confessions, instruct converts,
take the sick calls. The warm glow of the fire in that courtyard was a "far
better parish" to Simon than the garden of Gethsemane.
His love of luxury found him bad company. The warm fires of prosperity have
overthrown many, who through want and troubles, had stood erect in grace.
The outcome is that, withdrawn from the Lord, Simon encounters an occasion
of sin. Lacking time for meditation, he yet has time for conversation.
Though Jesus was at a distance, a girl was near. The lips of Peter which
had but tasted the Eucharistic Banquet of Life already speak a lie. A short
time ago, he was ready to die with Christ; now, without Him, he lacks the
nerve to withstand a woman's curiosity.

"Thou art the Christ, the Son of God,"

JOHN 6:70

he then asserted. Now, juggling his theology, he protests like a coward:

"I know nothing of the man." MATTHEW 26:72

If Peter had stayed with Christ, no questioner could have wrung that
shameful ambiguity from him. The subtlety of Satan creeps into the
friendships of those who lack spirituality, causing them to hurt their
friends more deeply than any enemy could. To sit by the fires of the
ungodly may comfort the body, but it wrecks the Christ-principle within.
Satan did not come to Peter "roaring like a lion" (I PETER 5:8), but as a
frivolous girl indulging her curiosity. This was the moment in which the
automatic connection between watching and praying was demonstrated in the
life of Peter, as it is at some unanticipated moment in every life. The man
who fails to watch, cannot expect an answer to prayer. Admittedly, God has
the power to save whoever is falling, lest his bones be broken; but to ask
for safety without watching is to "put the Lord thy God to the proof"
(MATTHEW 4:7). God's special protection for His friends cannot be presumed
upon when we have become indifferent to His friendship. Jonas chafed
against God's word when he was told to go to Nineveh and preach penance;
instead, he set his heart on Tarshish and found a ship standing ready to
take him away from his mission (JONAS 1:3). Once the spirit of a priest
grows cold, the enemies of Christ, the world, the flesh and the devil,
quickly find a way to provide the "fire," the comfort and the company.
For every priest there is a lesson in the Gospel's observation that the
priest who follows a long distance from Our Lord calls Him "a man." It is

as if he said: I was never meant for that kind of life; I never had a
vocation." He similarly gets angry when anyone tells him that he is not
Christlike. In him, as in Peter, the tendency is strong to revert to the
Old Adam nature. One's mind conjures up Simon in his early days as a
fisherman. One can almost hear the picturesque curses whenever his nets got
snarled. While he lived in the intimate companionship of Our Blessed Lord,
such words would not so much as occur to him; yet in a few hours he has a
throwback. The curses pour from him, and this in the face of a young woman.
Others have a better understanding of what the priest ought to do, than he
himself has. The maid servant could tell Peter he was supposed to be with
the Galilean. Even those whose office is (like Martha's) to be busy with
profane things, are often scandalized at the priest's failure to recognize
that his office is to be with Christ.
The summons to be God's ambassador is no guarantee against weakness. Moses
became arrogant when God chose him to lead His people, and he struck the
rock to draw water from it (NUMBERS 20:7-12). David, the tenderest of all
hearts, is betrayed into committing murder (II KINGS 11:14-27). Solomon,
the wisest of all intellects, stoops to the folly of idolatry (III KINGS
11:4). Finally, when Peter had completed the triple denial, even nature
protested. The first thing Our Lord did was to awaken Peter's memory, and
He did it by the crowing of the cock. In that dark hour, when Peter had
even forgotten to declare the Divinity of his Master, had forgotten his
loyalty and his debtedness to the One Who called him to be the rock, one
might have expected a lightning bolt, a thunderclap, to proclaim the
enormity of the lapse. Christ settled for a sound Peter had heard a
thousand times. A familiar sound, but with a new meaning, because it was
the fulfillment of the Master's warning.

Nature is on God's side, not ours. It has
"in faith to Him . . . fickleness to me, . . . traitorous trueness, and . .
. loyal deceit ..." Francis Thompson, "The Hound of Heaven"
The fall of the priest is completed by these steps: neglect of prayer,
withdrawal to a distance from the Eucharistic Lord, dedication to a
comfortable existence, negligence concerning occasions of sin; and finally,
the substitution of a creature for the Christ.

11. THE RETURN TO DIVINE FAVOR

Horrible as is this condition, it is not necessarily final. When Our
Blessed Lord was led from the court, His face covered with spittle, He
"turned and looked at Peter" (LUKE 22:61). The Master is bound, is
insulted, is abandoned, is rejected. Yet He does not give up. He turns and
looks at Peter. With boundless pity His eye seeks out the one who had just
failed Him. He spoke no word. He just looked! But for Peter, what a
refreshment of memory, what an awakening of love! Peter might deny the
"man," but God would still love the man, Peter! The very fact that the Lord
had to turn to look on Peter meant that Peter's back had been turned on the
Lord. The wounded stag was seeking the thicket to bleed alone, but the Lord
came to Peter's wounded heart to draw out the arrow.

"And Peter went out, and wept bitterly." LUKE 22:62

Peter was filled with repentance, as Judas in a few hours would be filled
with remorse. Peter's sorrow was caused by the thought of sin itself or the
wounding of the Person of God. Repentance is not concerned with
consequences. This is what distinguishes it from remorse, which is
inspired; principally by fear of unpleasant consequences. The same mercy
extended to the one who denied Him would be extended to those who would
nail Him to the Cross, and to the penitent thief who would ask for
forgiveness. Peter did not actually deny that Christ was the Son of God. He
denied that he knew "the man," that he was one of His disciples. He did not
abjure his faith. But he sinned. He failed the Master. And yet the Son of
God chose Peter, who knew sin, rather than the beloved John as the Rock
upon which to build His Church, that sinners and the weak might never have
excuse to despair.

THE LOVE OF CHRIST FOR HIS PRIESTS

"And the Lord turned, and looked at Peter. ..." LUKE 22:61
The incident probably occurred as Our Blessed Lord, after interrogation by
Caiphas, was being led to the Sanhedrin. Our Divine Lord may even have
heard Peter raise his well-known voice, have heard the oaths and curses
assuring the bystanders that he did not know Jesus of Nazareth. Our Lord
did not say: "I told you so." No burning words of condemnation passed His
lips. Just one glance, a single look of wounded love. Such is the mercy of
Our Lord when we are unfaithful and disloyal to Him! He seeks to win us
back through added privilege and multiplied mercy! It is not only the
fevered, the paralyzed and the lepers who know the tender compassion in the
eyes of the Son Incarnate; it is above all, priests and sinners. It is not
just the glance of Christ that brings repentance; it is also our response.
The sun that shines so warmly both softens wax and hardens mud. The Divine
Mercy calling the fallen hardens them to hell, or softens them to heaven.

In the synagogue at Capharnaum, Our Blessed Lord cast blazing eyes of anger
on His baffled enemies as He wrought a miracle. With His Divine knowledge
He knew that they were not willing to believe, would not be convinced were
He to rise a thousand times from the dead. But Peter's attitude was
different. One look of sorrowful reproach brought sorrow to his soul. The
rich man who came to Our Lord was not yet prepared to go the whole way,
though he was a sincere seeker after God. The Gospel tells us:
"Then Jesus fastened His eyes on him, and conceived a love for him." MARK
10:21

The centurion recognized the Divine Majesty on the Cross and said:

"No doubt but this was the Son of God." MARK 15:39

It is the same Divinity which was recalled to Peter when Jesus turned and
looked at him. John, who was privileged to look so often on that dear Face,
was haunted by It on the Isle of Patmos after the lapse of half a century.
He spoke of how all the earth would wither away as Christ would come in
judgment :

"And now I saw a great throne, all white, and One sitting on it, at Whose
glance earth and heaven vanished, and were found no more." APOCALYPSE 20:11
That Face, too, would be the reward of all who would love Him and return to
Him as Peter did:
. God's throne (which is the Lamb's throne) will be there, with his
servants to worship Him, and to see his Face. . . . APOCALYPSE 22:3, 4
Like Peter, every priest at one time or another gets out of step with
Christ, follows behind, communes with worldly company and secular fires.
Christ, nevertheless, treats him as He treated Peter. He constantly turns
to look upon him. It was not Peter who thought of turning, but the Lord.
Peter, because he was guilty, would by preference have looked anywhere
else, but the Lord looked at him. This is the essential point for every
follower of Christ to keep in mind when he sins--the Lord turns first.

No man understands wrong fully until he sees it in the light of the Face of
Christ. He may feel mortified at the fool he made of himself, but he will
sorrow only when he sees the Beloved crucified. The man who says, "I am so
stupid" instead of "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner" is still far from
rebirth.
What a lesson of tenderness is revealed by Our Lord's refusal to blast
Peter! At such a moment, when one is teetering on the tightrope, a breath
or a glance makes all the difference. It starts the return to God instead
of plunging into the abyss of evil. As Christina G. Rossetti wrote:
0 Jesu, gone so far apart
Only my heart can follow Thee,
That look which pierced St. Peter's heart
Turn now on me.

Thou who dost search me through and through
And mark the crooked ways I went,
Look on me, Lord, and make me too
Thy penitent.

One look at Divinity convinces us of sin. Peter the denier, under the eye
of the Son of God, became at once Peter the penitent. That one look in
which Divinity searches the soul, is the beginning of personal
responsibility to God. We do not sin against abstractions or even against
Commandments only; as persons, we sin against a Person. The awfulness of
sin is not exhausted in the breaking of a Commandment; it embraces the re­
crucifying of Christ. That is why the ultimate sorrow is related to the
Crucifix, where each of us can read his autobiography. We see our pride in
the Crown of Thorns; our lust and carnality in the nails; our forgetfulness
of God in the pierced Feet, and our thievery in the riven Hands. Penitence
is to hold ourselves up in God's pure and infinite Light and let Him shine
our darkness away.
The difference between the sinner and saint is that one persists in sin,
while the other weeps bitterly. The Greek word translated as "weeping" in
the Gospel is one which implies a long and continued sorrow. Those who

cannot find time to mourn for their sins also lack time to mend. The man
gripped by remorse often takes to drink to dull his conscience. It is often
not love of liquor, but hatred of something else, that makes a drunkard.
The remorse of Judas led not to a striking of the breast in a "Mea Culpa,"
but to the taking of a life. He had no heart to pray. Neither did he seek
God's face to sue for mercy. But Peter sorrowed. He was humbled, not
hardened.
Once the tears wash the eyes, the spiritual vision becomes clearer; that is
why tears are often associated with the true understanding of sin. The
tears in Peter's eyes were a rainbow of hope after a black storm. In them
shone the entire spectrum of the radiant forgiveness of Christ's glance.
Peter's memory of that life restoring glance was surely still in his mind
when he wrote in his first Epistle:

"You had been like sheep going astray; now, you have been brought back to
Him, your Shepherd, who keeps watch over your souls." I PETER 2:25
Christ still looks on us priests with sad but hope-filled eyes. He bids
each of us, when the Simon is dominant, to resurrect our Peter vocation. No
priest ever reaches a stage when "it is all up." David cried out in his
misery and was heard. Peter, drowning after an act of rashness, was saved.
When Thomas doubted, he was offered a pierced Heart to restore his faith.
The Prodigal Son rose from swine and husks to a banquet in the Father's
house.

Did priests but realize Infinite Love has need to communicate itself! One
day a saintly soul prostrate before Jesus in the Tabernacle asked: "How
dost Thou wish that I should call Thee?" And He replied: "Mercy." If we had
never sinned, we never could call Jesus our Savior.
A religious accorded special revelations by the Sacred Heart declared that
He spoke these words: "And now lastly I address Myself to My own
consecrated ones, that they may make Me known to sinners and to the world.
"Many as yet are unable to understand what My true feelings are. They treat
Me as One from Whom they live apart, know only slightly, and in Whom they
have little confidence. Let them re-enkindle their faith and their love
trustfully in My intimacy and love."

ALL OUR PRIESTLY POWERS OVER SOULS DEPEND ON OUR LOVE OF OUR LORD

The next lesson Our Lord taught Peter was that love must constitute the
basis of the pastoral office. It was the week after the Resurrection, and
the Apostles were assembled by the Sea of Tiberias. Simon Peter, the
established and accepted leader, said to Thomas, Nathaniel, James, John and
two other disciples:
"I am going out fishing." JOHN 21:3

The word Peter used implied a progressive or habitually repeated action.
Was Peter telling them that he was going permanently to his fishing
business? It seems hard to imagine, and yet it is implied in the tense. In
addition, Peter's character for all its good points, was vacillating and
impetuous. He it was who had told Our Lord he would not deny Him, only to

insist that he knew not the man. Leave your boats t behind you, the Lord
told Peter and the others, henceforth you will be fishers of men (LUKE
5:10). And here they are back at their old job.
On the Sea of Tiberias, night was the best time to fish. That night,
nevertheless, they caught nothing. Work performed at the impulse of our own
will, is futile. Then day broke and the morning light revealed the Risen
Savior standing by the sea. No, they answered His question, they had caught
nothing Cast the net on the right side, He directed them; and there
followed the catch of a multitude of fishes. Both Peter and John reacted
characteristically .
As John was first to reach the empty tomb on Easter morn, so Peter was
first to enter it; as John was first to believe that Christ was risen, so
Peter was first to greet the Risen Christ; as John was first to see the
Lord from the boat, so Peter was first to rush to the Lord, plunging into
the sea in his enthusiasm.

Naked as he was in the boat, he cast a coat about him, forgot personal
comfort, abandoned human companionship, and eagerly swam the hundred yards
to the Master. John had the greater spiritual discernment, Peter the
quicker action. It was John who leaned on the Master's breast the night of
the Last Supper; he, too, was nearest the Cross, and to his care the Savior
committed His mother; so now he was the first to recognize the Risen Savior
on the shore. Once before, when Christ had walked on the waves toward the
ship, Peter could not wait for the Master to come to him, but asked the
Master bid him come upon the water. Now he swam to shore after girding
himself out of reverence for his Savior.
The other six remained in the boat. When they came to shore, they saw fire,
a fish laid on it, and some bread, which the compassionate Savior had
prepared for them. The Son of God was preparing a meal for His poor
fishermen; it must have reminded them of the bread and fishes He had
multiplied when He had proclaimed Himself the Bread of Life. After they had
dragged the net ashore and counted the one hundred and fifty-three fish
they had caught, they were well convinced that it was the Lord. Nor did the
symbolic significance escape them. Having called them to be fishers of men,
He was offering a concrete anticipation of the size of the catch which
would ultimately be drawn into the bark of Peter.
Christ had been pointed out by John the Baptist on the bank of the Jordan,
at the start of His Public Life, as the "Lamb of God" (JOHN 1:29); now that
He was about to leave this earth, He applied the same title to those who
would believe in Him. He who had called Himself the Good Shepherd appointed
others also to be shepherds. They had just ended the meal He had Himself
prepared for them on the seashore. As earlier He had given the Eucharist
after the supper, and the power to forgive sins after He had eaten with
them; so now, after partaking of bread and fish, He turned to the one who
had denied Him three times, and demanded a triple affirmation of love. The
confession of love must precede the bestowing of authority, for authority
without love is tyranny: "Simon, son of John, dost thou care for Me more
than these others?" (JOHN 21:15).

One may properly wonder if the morning fire Our Lord had kindled reminded
Peter of another fire some ten days before, when he denied the Master.

Peter had denied by a fire; he was restored by a fire. Such is the scene of
the conversation in which Christ commissions Peter to feed the lambs and
the sheep.

AUTHORITY INSEPARABLE FROM LOVE
Authority must never be without love. Love of Our Lord precedes any
fruitful service in His Name. Such is the lesson which Christ once more
inculcates as he reinstates Peter to the Apostolic office, from which he
had fallen. Once again He addresses him as Simon, reminding him of the
critical moments when Christ had first given him a new name and new
authority (MATTHEW 16:17), and when He had warned him of his impending fall
while promising restoration through His love (LUKE 22:31). Though authority
in the Church is based on love, love in its turn is inseparable from
obedience :

"If you have any love for Me, you must keep the commandments which I give
you." JOHN 14:15
The Gospel account of Christ's triple question to Peter introduces a
curious detail. The Greek text uses two different words, both of which are
translated into English as "love." The first of these words is agapao, a
word which implies a knowledge of the preciousness of the one who is loved.
It is the word John uses to express God's love for fallen man, whom He so
loved "that he gave his only-begotten Son, that those who believe in Him
may not perish" (3:16). The other Greek word is phileo, indicating the
response of the human spirit to anything that appears as pleasurable, a
love implying some kind of friendship.

LOVING AND LIKING
The first two times that Christ asks Peter to proclaim his love for Him, He
uses the word agapao, whereas the third and final question contains the
word phileo. But each time Peter in his answer uses the same word, the word
phileo. In the New Testament, it is the less frequently used word to
describe love. Agapao, implying an awakened and higher sense of value,
occurs about 320 times; phileo, indicating a love of friendship and mutual
attraction, only 45 times. To recreate the scene in the terms and form of a
playwright might produce a result something like this:
CHRIST: Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than do these others, with
a Divine, sacrificial, victim-like and self-surrendering love?

PETER: You know, Lord, that I love You with a deep, human, instinctive,
personal affection, as my closest friend.
CHRIST: Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than do these others, with
a divine, sacrificial, victim-like and self-surrendering love?

PETER: I have already told You, Master. You know that I love You with a
deep, human, instinctive, personal affection, as my closest friend.
CHRIST: Simon, son of John, do you love Me with a human, instinctive, deep,

personal affection, as a very close friend?
PETER: How often, Lord, must I repeat my answer? For the third time, I love
You with the human, instinctive, deep, personal affection one has for one's
closest friend.
Peter's answer shows that he was hurt. He was grievously hurt. Yet the
reason is not quite as simple as might appear on the surface. It was not
just the thrice-repeated question that upset him. It was rather that the
change from agapao to phileo indicated a scaling down of Our Lord's
demands. He was no longer calling for the victim-kind of love for which He
had first asked. It is as if Our Lord were putting His hands under that
poor, weak, fragile love of Peter, just as He in fact starts with our poor,
weak, human love as a beginning of a rich apostolate. The Lord asked for a
love of devotion, and all He got was a love of emotion. But even that He
does not reject. It is not enough, He says, but it is enough to start.
During the Public Life, when Our Blessed Lord had told Peter that he was a
rock upon which He would build His Church, He prophesied also that He
Himself would be crucified and would rise again. Peter then tempted Him
away from the Cross. In reparation for that temptation which Our Lord
called Satanic, He now notified Peter that He was not only commissioning
Him with full authority to rule over His lambs and sheep, but that He was
arranging for him yet another parallel with Himself, that Peter too would
die upon the cross. "You will have a cross like that to which they nailed
Me," He told Him in effect, "the cross you would have denied me and thus
precluded My glory. Now you must learn what it really means to love. My
love is a vestibule to death. Because I loved you, they killed Me; for your
love of Me, they will kill you. I once said that the Good Shepherd gives
His life for His sheep; now you are My shepherd in My place; you will
receive the same reward for your labors as I have received--crossbeams,
nails, and then . . . life eternal."

"Believe me when I tell thee this;
As a young man, thou wouldst gird
thyself and walk where thou hadst the will to go,
But when thou hast grown old,
Thou wilt stretch out thy hands,
And another shall gird thee,
and carry thee where thou goest,
not of thy own will". JOHN 21:18
Impulsive and self-willed in the days of his youth, Peter would in his old
age glorify the Master by a death on the cross. From the day of Pentecost,
the Spirit made Peter's decisions. He was led where he would not go. He had
to leave the Holy City, where imprisonment and the sword awaited him. Next,
his Divine Master directed him to Samaria, to the house of the Gentile,
Cornelius; then to Rome, the new Babylon, where he was strengthened by the
strangers of the Dispersion whom Paul had brought into the fold; finally,
he was led to a cross to die a martyr's death on the hill of the Vatican.
At his own request, he was crucified with his head downwards, deeming it
unworthy to die like the Master. Inasmuch as he was the rock, it was
fitting that he himself be laid in the earth as an impregnable foundation
of the Church.

The man who had tempted the Lord away from the Cross was the first apostle
to embrace it himself. His acceptance of the cross redounded to his
Savior's glory more than all the zeal and impetuosity of his youth. When
Peter did not yet understand that the cross was the means of redemption
from sin, he offered his own death rather than that of the Master,
asserting that even if all the others failed to defend Him, he would stand
alone to protect Him. But after the illumination of Pentecost, he saw that
it was the Cross of Calvary that gave meaning to the cross he would
embrace. Toward the end of his life, when the cross was already in clear
view ahead of him, Peter would write:
"I am assured, by what our Lord Jesus Christ has made known to me, that I
must fold my tent before long. And I will see to it that, when I am gone,
you shall always be able to remember what I have been saying. We were not
crediting fables of man's invention, when we preached to you about the
power of our Lord Jesus Christ, and about His coming; we had been eye­
witnesses of His exaltation." II PETER 1:14-16
Humans seek the friendship of those who are above them in character and in
power, but Our Lord condescends to ask our love. He will accept it even
when it has little capacity for sacrifice and surrender. The trial of love
is ultimately between the soul and Christ. When a priest is ordained, the
bishop asks him searching questions; but the real examination is in the
heart, and the interrogator is the ever-present and ever-living Savior. It
is not recorded that Peter never again went fishing, but it is certain that
all of his life he retained a live sense of the difference in his
priesthood, between the joy of knowing the Lord and the sadness of falling
away from Him.

Love alone can make easy the pastoral task of feeding lambs and sheep. Love
it was that turned the seven years of Jacob's hard bondage for Rachel into
so many pleasant days. Even the falls can be incorporated into sanctity.
Peter is more glorious in heaven for his recovery, as Paul is more glorious
for his renewed friendship for Mark after they quarrelled. The wrath of
Moses, the lying of Abraham, the drunkenness of Noe, all are swept away in
the great and final affirmation of love.

Our Lord often complains in the Scriptures. He expresses disappointment and
surprise at the conduct of some of His followers. Yet, like Peter, He finds
us on some shore, and with quick forgiveness asks us again to love.
As the physician feels his patient's pulse to judge his heart, so Our Lord
tests the pulse of each priest's soul by his love. The test can sometimes
be wounding, but that is because our sins have been wounds to Him. There is
no mention of Our Lord having ever applied this test to anyone before His
Passion and Death, of His having challenged an individual with the question
if he loved Him. Now He acted with the assurance of one who has earned a
claim on man s affection, a claim that the sinner's heart cannot resist.

After each affirmation of love, Our Blessed Lord committed Peter to
apostolate and to service. These are the elements which keep love from
degenerating into an indulgence of sentiment. He sent Mary Magdalen from
the tomb to make an announcement to Peter, and He sent Peter from his
confession to do the work of the Church. We may not separate ourselves from
others even in the moment of the consciousness of our greatest self­

distrust. The lesson is one for all priests: it was to Peter, in spite of
his notorious betrayal, that Our Blessed Lord gave the keys of the Church.

Sympathy is the way to self-knowledge. Our own penitence deepens as we know
our brother's sins. Every brother's fall reminds us of our need of
vigilance. Nothing deepens our love for Christ like the larger knowledge of
His grace which we gain as we see souls saved by Him. Peter could bear the
better with the inadequacies of the flock, because of his recognition of
himself as a sinful brother. St. Thomas Aquinas says that God sometimes
permits people to sin in order to take them out of their pride, to awaken
in them a sympathetic love for others.
The decision was and is a very personal one. There are no multitudes in the
eyes of God. Just as He singled out from the crowd the woman who touched
the hem of His garment (LUKE 8:43, 44), so He singled out Peter. He had
acted similarly before: Adam; Where art thou?" (GENESIS 3:9); "Abraham,
Abraham (GENESIS 22:1); "Samuel, Samuel" (I KINGS 3:15); "Martha, Martha"
(LUKE 10:41); "Saul, Saul" (ACTS 9:4); "Simon, Son of John" (JOHN 21:15).

THREE FORMS OF LOVE
The measure of our priesthood is the level of our love. Love exists in
three forms: unawakened, penitent, believing. The first stage includes very
little love of Christ, because of an excessive love of the world; the
second kind is not so much love, as "fear which has torment," because of
sin; the third is the love that is "poured out in our hearts by the Holy
Spirit, Whom we have received" (ROMANS 5:5). The unawakened man performs
acts of obedience, but they are more apparent than real. The penitent's
obedience is that of a slave. But in the true lover, obedience is filial.
It produces prayer and holiness.

Rising above the multitudinous cares of the priest as pastor, his concern
over schools, convents, finances, buildings and administration, the priest
as another Christ must ultimately get back to the sublime truth that the
one reality is the soul. For this does he sanctify himself. Pere Jean
Baptiste Lacordaire, in "Letters to Young Men," wrote:
"I am of your opinion about the mountains, the sea and the forest; they are
the three great things in nature, and have many analogies, especially the
sea and forest. I am as fond as yourself of them; but as old age creeps on,
nature takes less hold upon us, and we feel the beauty of the saying of the
Marquis de Vauvenargues, "Sooner or later, we enj'oy only souls." This is
why we can always love and be loved. Old age withers the body but to the
soul that is not corrupted it gives a new youth. And the moment of death is
that of the blossoming of our minds."

When love goes out of our heart, we hate the things we are obliged to do,
or at least we cover up our deep feelings with the metallic ring of
formalism. Our sermons become scoldings. Lost sheep become interruptions to
our leisure. To minister at the altar of love with an unloving heart; to
belong to a profession of self-sacrificing love, while seeking our own
comfort; to offer but hollow words of love to suffering souls: these things
bring their own punishment.

Even if one has not yet reached the level of love which permits performance
of the duties of the apostolate without disturbing one's interior
happiness, one can always follow the advice of St. Francis de Sales:

"If you cannot pray like a soul enjoying the gift of contemplation, you can
at least make a spiritual reading and reflect on it; if not strong enough
to fast, you may at least deprive yourself of a delicate morsel; if you
cannot quit the world, you may at least guard against its spirit; if you
cannot love God with a pure love, you may love Him at least out of
gratitude; if you do not experience a lively sorrow for your sins, you can
try to get it by asking it of God; you cannot bestow many alms, but you can
give at least a drink of water; you cannot bear great insults, but you may
bear at least a little reproach without murmuring; to be despised is beyond
what you can endure, but you may bear with that little coldness manifested
by your neighbor in his behavior toward you; the sacrifice of your life is
not required of you, but you can put up with some inconvenience and
preserve patience under some little trying circumstance."

Peter, restored, is close to a fire. That other fire at which he denied
Christ is one the world made; but this fire Christ prepared. The
enthusiasm, the effort, the passion lighted by the fires of the world leave
but ashes and dust. Not so, however, when enkindled by Him Who came to cast
fire upon the earth (LUKE 12:49).

12. MELCHISEDECH AND BREAD
Why are we called priests "in the line of Melchisedech"? Why are we not
priests in the line of Aaron, to whom the priesthood belonged in the Old
Testament? The Epistle to the Hebrews (7:11) indicates the reason, namely,
that the Levitical priesthood did not represent the perfection of the
priesthood. "Now, there could be no need for a fresh priest to arise
accredited with Melchisedech's priesthood, not with Aaron's, if the
Levitical priesthood had brought fulfilment."
The reasons for the inadequacy of the Levitical priesthood were many.
1. The priesthood of Aaron was carnal, temporal, successive and perishing.
The priesthood of Melchisedech, as symbolic of that of Christ, is eternal^
The Levitical priests were personally unclean, in the liturgical sense of'
the word. They had to offer sacrifices for their sins, and death for each
of them put an end to his ministrations.

But Melchisedech is eternal. This aspect of his priesthood is expressed in
symbolic terms in the Bible:
"No name of father or mother, no pedigree, no date of birth or of death·
there he stands, eternally, a priest, the true figure of the Son of God'"
HEBREWS 7:3
The omission of any reference to Melchisedech's ancestry, birth or death,
is the Holy Spirit's way of presenting him as the type of Our Lord.
Summarizing the difference between the two priesthoods, Scripture

continues :

"Of those other priests there was a
permanence; whereas Jesus continues
unchanging; that is why He can give
Him make their way to God; He lives
behalf.
HEBREWS 7:23-25

succession since death denied them
forever, and His Priestly office is
eternal salvation to those who through
on still to make intercession on our

2. A second reason is that Our Lord combines within Himself both Kingship
and Priesthood, and this was true also of Melchisedech.
"Melchisedech, too, was there, the king of Salem. And he, priest as he was
of the most high God ..." GENESIS 14:18
Melchisedech was in his person king and priest, thereby foreshadowing the
adorable Lord, in whom justice and peace would kiss each other (PSALM
84:10). Our Lord would not have peace without justice; hence He made "peace
with them through His Blood, shed on the cross" (COLOSSIANS 1:20).

3. The "greatness" of Melchisedech was a foretelling of the greatness of
Christ. Abraham acknowledged that Melchisedech was greater than he was, by
paying him tribute:
"To him, Abraham gave tithes of all he had won." GENESIS 14:20
This the Epistle to the HEBREWS (7:4-8) applies to Our Lord:
"Consider how great a man was this, to whom the patriarch Abraham himself
gave a tenth part of his chosen spoil. The descendants of Levi, when the
priesthood is conferred on them, are allowed by the provisions of the law
to take tithes from God's people, although these, like themselves, come
from the privileged stock of Abraham; after all, they are their brothers;
here is one who owns no common descent with them, taking tithes from
Abraham himself. He blesses him, too, blesses the man to whom the promises
have been made; and it is beyond all question that blessings are only given
by what is greater in dignity to what is less. In the one case, the priests
who receive tithe are only mortal men; in the other, it is a priest (so the
record tells us) who lives on."

4. The priesthood of Melchisedech was sacramental and unbloody, not the
offering of bullocks and goats.

"And he, priest as he was of the most high God brought out bread and wine
with him ..." GENESIS 14:18
Each day in Mass we mention the sacrifice of Melchisedech as "sanctum
sacrificium immaculatam hostiam. The sacrifice was a peaceful one, offered
after Abraham had won the war against the four kings.

5. Our Lord Himself was of an ancestry distinct from that of the Levitical
priesthood. He belonged to the tribe of Juda; not, like Aaron's sons, to
the tribe of Levi. His line was different, not only because He is eternal,
but also because, as the Epistle to the Hebrews (7:14-18) insists, His
temporal generation was different:

"Our Lord took His origin from Juda, that is certain, and Moses in speaking
of this tribe, said nothing about priests. And something further becomes
evident, when a fresh priest arises to fulfill the type of Melchisedech,
appointed, not to obey the law, with its outward observances, but in the
power of an unending life; (Thou art a priest in the line of Melchisedech,
God says of him, forever)."

The historical setting of the meeting between Abraham and Melchisedech is
significant. All we know about Melchisedech is found in brief passages in
Genesis (14:18-20) and Psalm 109, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews (5:6,
10; 6:20; 7:17, 21). Genesis reports that while Lot, Abraham's nephew, was
living in Sodom, the city was attacked and taken by the armies of four
powerful kings. It is the first war recorded in the Bible. In addition to
capturing the king of Sodom, they seized Lot and his family. When Abraham
learned of Lot's misadventure, he mustered a small army of 318 servants and
gained a mighty victory. He not only recovered the spoils seized by the
invaders, but he also freed Lot and his family.
Abraham had a right to everything gained by his victory. Would he avail
himself of his right, ignoring the misfortune of others? Knowing that
Abraham might have been tempted to have enriched himself materially, God
sent help in the person of Melchisedech.

"Melchisedech, too, was there, the king of Salem. And he, priest as he was
of the most high God, brought out bread and wine with him, and gave him
this benediction, On Abram be the blessing of the most high God, Maker of
heaven and earth, and blessed be that most high God, Whose protection has
brought thy enemies into thy power." GENESIS 14:18-20
God won the victory for Abraham. The spoils therefore belonged not really
to Abraham but to God, who in addition now promised Abraham an even greater
reward. The help was accepted, and Abraham gave his tithe to the priest.

Later, when the king of Sodom came and told Abraham to keep the spoils for
himself, Abraham was able to answer:
"By this hand, which I lift up to the Lord God, the Prince of heaven and
earth, I will take nothing of thine, though it were but a thread from the
woof or the strap of a shoe. Never shalt thou say, Abram got his wealth
from me." GENESIS 14:22, 23
What noble words! He would keep nothing for himself. Because he had not
sought wealth, as Solomon did not pray for it, he was given a special
reward :
Have no fear, Abram, I am to protect thee. GENESIS 15:1

Thus does the heavenly High Priest bless those who do not seek the material
spoils of earth.
We then are priests according to the line of Melchisedech. When the
Levitical priesthood proved to be inadequate in the days of Heli and his
sons (I KINGS 1:4, 5; 2:12-17, 22), God said:

"Afterwards, I will find Myself a priest that shall be a faithful

interpreter of my mind and will." I KINGS 2:35
The fulfillment is found in Christ, whose priests we are:

"So it is with Christ. He did not raise Himself to the dignity of the high
priesthood; it was God that raised Him to it, when He said, Thou art My
Son, I have begotten thee this day, and so, elsewhere, Thou art a priest
for ever, in the line of Melchisedech." HEBREWS 5:5, 6
Since Melchisedech offered bread and wine, it is fitting to look for the
Eucharistic Bread anticipated in, the Old Testament.
BREAD OF PRESENCE

God has always been present to His Church in a way different from His
presence elsewhere. The Church of the Old Testament already enjoyed a
prototype, show or symbol of the Eucharistic Presence. The ancient
sanctuary contained two items of particular significance: the lampstand,
and the bread of presence. St. John applies both to Christ, the Light of
the World (JOHN 8:12) and the Bread of Life (JOHN 6).

THE OLD TESTAMENT
The Epistle to the Hebrews (9:2) records that "there was an outer
tabernacle, which contained the lampstand and the table and the loaves set
out before God; sanctuary was the name given to this." The so-called table
of the show-bread was important not so much for the table itself, as for
the bread placed upon it. It was the Bread of Presence, literally "Bread of
the Face." It was to this Bread of Presence that Christ referred in Matthew
(12:4) as "the loaves set out there before the Lord." The bread was meant
as a memorial placed continually in God's presence.
"The bread is to be a token-sacrifice to the Lord." LEVITICUS 24:7

Each Saturday a fresh supply of bread was substituted for the old, twelve
loaves--one for each of the twelve tribes. All were thus represented,
little Benjamin no less than royal Juda, Dan as well as the priestly Levi,
and just as much for one tribe as for another. No part of God's family was
forgotten. Each was fully represented, and they were always before Him.
"The table is to hold the loaves of bread which are to be set out
continually in My Presence." EXODUS 25:30

The bread of the Old Testament was thus the presence of the people before
the Lord, but the Bread of the New Testament is the Presence of the Lord
before the people. In the Old Testament there was never a moment when they
were out of His sight. Bread was a continuous reminder to Him of His
covenant relation to them, and of His promises to them of a Savior and
Redeemer. As the twelve tribes were made one in His Presence, so also, His
"ecclesia," His Church, so by "the one bread is made one body, though we
are many in number; the same bread is shared by all" (I CORINTHIANS 10:17).
The Bread of Presence was before His Face; that is why it was called the

continual bread.
2:4

. keep hallowed loaves set forth continually. . . ."II PARALIPOMENA

". . . the bread set forth there as always. ..." NUMBERS 4:7
The bread was to be made of the finest flour and upon each row incense was
placed to indicate that the offering was a sacrifice to the Lord.
"Put grains of fine incense upon them; the bread is to be a token sacrifice
to the Lord." LEVITICUS 24:7

Thus was prefigured the union of the sacrament and sacrifice under the New
Law.
Even a "sanctuary lamp" was provided--not that the Bread was the substance
of the Body and Blood of Christ, but only a shadow, an anticipation.

"Never must the altar be empty of this perpetual fire." LEVITICUS 6: 13
From that day to this, a lamp announces the Presence.

THE HOLINESS OF THE SANCTUARY
For the Christian who lives in the realm of grace, the demands of the
holiness of God are not less demanding than they were for the Jew under the
Old Testament. If those who rebelled in the desert did not escape judgment,
much less shall we who are privileged to live in the fullness of
revelation.
"Beware of excusing yourselves from listening to Him who is speaking to
you. There was no escape for those others, who tried to excuse themselves
when God uttered His warnings on earth; still less for us, if we turn away
when He speaks from heaven." HEBREWS 12:25
The Old Testament contains seven instances of sudden judgment in connection
with the tabernacle or the temple, its liturgy, its worship, its vessels.
Three of them had to do with the offering of incense, three with the Ark,
and one with the candlestick.

Probably the first to die in the desert were Aaron's two sons who had just
been ordained priests. God had sent down fire from heaven upon the altar of
sacrifice and directed that it be always kept burning, like a sanctuary
lamp before a tabernacle (LEVITICUS 9:23, 24). What their sin was is
uncertain, but it may have been drinking alcohol in forbidden circumstances
(LEVITICUS 10:9), but in any case, they offered a strange fire. They may
have lighted a fire themselves instead of taking it from the altar, and
they may also have mixed a strange incense which was expressly forbidden
(EXODUS 30:9, 10): "whereupon the Lord sent down fire which devoured them
and they died there in the Lord's presence" (LEVITICUS 10:2). To approach
the tabernacle with the spirit of the world in our soul, instead of the
spirit of Christ is to offer foreign fire. But whatever the sin of those
Old Testament priests was, we are bidden to "worship God as He would have
us worship Him, in awe and reverence; no doubt of it, our God is a

consuming fire" (HEBREWS 12:28, 29).
The Ark fell into the hands of the Philistines
Jews had used it as a magical charm to protect
Philistines put it in the Temple of Dagon, and
prostrate before the Ark, as those who came to
down at the mention of His Name (JOHN 18:6).

(I KINGS 4), because the
them in time of war. The
the statue of the god fell
arrest Our Blessed Lord fell

When the Philistines refused to acknowledge the power of God, great numbers
of them died with the plague (I KINGS 5:6). As the Ark was a source of
blessings to those who reverenced it, it was similarly a source of
affliction t° those who refused to recognize the power of God Who dwelt
symbolically in it. The same is true of Christ.

"We are Christ's incense offered to God, making manifest both
achieving salvation and those who are on the road to ruin; as
where it finds death, as a life-giving perfume where it finds
prove himself worthy of such a calling?" II CORINTHIANS 2:15,

those who are
a deadly fume
life. Who can
16

Everywhere the Ark went, while it was in the hands of the Philistines,
there went the punishment of God:
"No city was free from the fear of death, and God's heavy visitation; even
those who survived had shameful sores to tend, and everywhere cries of
anguish went up to heaven." I KINGS 5:12
Though we see no such manifestations of this power when the Eucharist is
profaned, may it not be that God is reserving His judgment for those who
approach it without faith? Men may plead that they have eaten in His
Presence and done wonderful works in His Name and cried "Lord, Lord," but
He will say that He knows not such workers of iniquity (MATTHEW 7:21-23;
LUKE 12:25-27).

The Philistines finally became penitent, returned the Ark, and offered
tokens of reparation for their sins; but how much more mercy they would
have obtained, if they had acknowledged God's Presence, not in terror, but
in appeal to His mercy!

If God punished the Philistines so harshly for keeping the tabernacle,
which was only a promise and prototype of the Eucharist, then what
reverence should the Eucharist itself not awaken in those who have the
reality and the substance! How terrible a thing it is to fall into the
hands of the Living God! (HEBREWS 10:31) How feeble Nabuchodonosor seemed
when he fed on grass (DANIEL 4:30)! What a contemptible "god" did Herod
appear when worms were devouring his vitals (ACTS 12:21-23)! How Balthasar
trembled with fear, his knees shaking at the sight of the handwriting on
the wall (DANIEL 5:6)! How Felix fled from enlightenment when Paul reasoned
with him about righteousness and judgment (ACTS 24:25)! Persons who are
filled with slavish fear seek to banish what causes them terror, rather
than part with the sin which alone makes God an object of dread. But to us
has been given the power to call down the Lord on our altars! Our greater
privileges should make us tremble at knowing how God punished those with
fewer talents and less light.

Another Old Testament incident which helps the priest to see how much

reverence God demands for His Sacrament is seen in the punishment that was
given to the Bethsamites. They were happy to receive the Ark back from the
Philistines, but they failed to show respect. Rather, manifesting an
unlawful curiosity, they looked into it and were smitten by God (I KINGS
6:19).

Some things are too holy to be looked upon with curious eyes. Moses was not
allowed to approach the burning bush to see why it was not consumed (EXODUS
3:5). The Old Testament had a very strict prohibition against any rude
curiosity in relationship to sacred symbols. As Moses was told, "Do not
come nearer" (EXODUS 3:5), so in relationship to the Ark, which was to be
carried by Aaron and his sons: "None must pry into the secrets of the
shrine while they are yet uncovered on pain of death" (NUMBERS 4:20).

For their sinful curiosity, "the Lord smote some of the Bethsamites
themselves, for prying into the ark of the Lord (I KINGS 6:19). The
Bethsamites being Israelites and having Levites among them, knew the laws
regarding the Sacred Ark and the reverence with which it should be treated.
Probably the reason they pried into it was to see if the Philistines had
put any gold into it, in addition to the gold offerings which they had
placed in a separate coffer, when they brought it back. So doing, they
broke the law which forbade the ordinary people even to approach the Ark,
and directed the priest to cover it with a veil.
For irreverence to what was a mere figure of the Blessed Sacrament, the
Philistines were afflicted with diseases, the Israelites visited with
death. If the penalty seems to us severe, it is because our minds have
fallen short of the reverence due to either what symbolizes His Presence,
or what is the Presence Itself. After the disaster had fallen upon them,
"Who can stand his ground, the Bethsamites asked, before a God so Holy as
this?" I KINGS 6:20

After the Ark had been kept in the house of Abinadab for some time, his two
sons, Oza and Ahio, were appointed as its drivers to prepare the way while
the oxen were driven by Oza. They had reached the threshing floor of
Nachon, when the oxen began to kick, thus tilting the Ark to one side. Oza
put out his hand and caught hold of it. The act seemed a natural one in the
circumstances, yet it was punished as a rash deed, it "provoked the Divine
anger; the Lord smote him, and he died there beside the Ark" (II KINGS
6:7).
Such was the Lord's displeasure when any irreverence was shown to the
Tabernacle. The Law was clear as to who might touch the Ark, and how it
should be carried. It was not proper to put it in a wagon as had been done,
nor was it to be touched by anyone except the priest:
"Then when Aaron and his sons have wrapped up the sanctuary and all its
appurtenances ready for the march, the sons of Caath will enter and carry
them away in their wrappings; they are not to touch the things of the
sanctuary, on pain of death." NUMBERS 4:15

The Ark should have been carried by two staves, held by priests. Oza was
not a priest and was accordingly not authorized to touch the holy thing.
This violation of God's command may have been the fruit of an habitual

irreverence induced by long familiarity with the Ark. God's action showed
that no service was acceptable to Him unless regulated by strict adherence
to His revealed Will. The utmost reverence was demanded of all who
approached Him (LEVITICUS 10:3).
How strictly the Lord enjoins His priests:
"Keep yourselves unsullied, you that have the vessels of the Lord's worship
in your charge." ISAIAS 52:11

The privilege of belonging to the Mystical Body of Christ implies both
tremendous privileges and equal responsibilities.
Nation is none I have claimed for My own, save you; and guilt of yours is
none that shall go unpunished." AMOS 3:2

Such are the judgments falling upon men in connection with the tabernacle,
or the temple, its worship, its holy vessels, or its priesthood. When all
these are taken together, one trembles at the reverence God demands for the
things that are His, and the punishment He metes out sometimes for the
least infraction of what is dedicated to His service. The altar at which
the priest stands is holy.

If the angels tremble, shall we not quake? But the Presence must not
enkindle a fear born of sin or impiety, but a holy fear begotten of love
for One Who dwells amongst us. As Leo XIII put it:
"Our Lord instituted It to call to mind the supreme Love whereby Our
Redeemer poured forth all the treasures of His Heart, in order to remain
with us until the end of time."

THE REAL PRESENCE

It is a common experience to be stopped on the street by a stranger who
asks: "Where does so and so live?" That same question through the centuries
has been asked of those who believe in God:
"Daily, I must listen to the taunt, Where is thy God now?." PSALM 41:4
To the one who is suffering, it may seem that God has vanished. But, in the
calmer moments of the New Testament, His disciples one day asked Our Lord:
"Where dost Thou live?" JOHN 1:38
John and Andrew had already heard Him speak; they had learned their
theology, namely, that He is the "Lamb of God" (JOHN 1:36,37), and
therefore, the Redeemer. There, bodily present, was the One for whom all
the ages had breathlessly panted. They began to follow Our Lord, and He
spoke the first words of His public Messianic life:
"What would you have of Me?" JOHN 1:38

Man? Teacher? Savior? Esteem? Advancement? Power? What do each of us seek
in Christ? Is it something He has, or is it He?

The response of the disciples was a simple question:

"Where dost Thou live?" JOHN 1:38
Where is His permanent Presence? Where His dwelling? We know His Power is
in the mountains; His Wisdom in the laws of nature; His Love in gravitation
pulling all things to a center. But this is not presence. These are but
effects. But Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity--"Where dost Thou live?"

We know the answer in theory. He dwells in the Eucharist. But in practice,
do we know it? Ah! that requires a special search, an extra effort, maybe
an hour to find out. That is why in answer to their question, He answered:

"Come and see." JOHN 1:39

The "come" is a visit; to "see" is to enjoy. The first words that fell from
the lips of Him Who is the Bread of Life were an invitation to seek greater
union with Him. John and Andrew called Him "Master" when they first saw
Him, but now they were urged to discover that He was the "Lord." At the
Last Supper, He was still "Master" to Judas, but to the others, He was
"Lord."

From that day to this, first-hand knowledge of Him as Lord is given to
priests who "come and see." Priests can follow, like John and Andrew.
Eucharistic devotion is something added, something extra, something special
in the understanding of Our Lord. One can know all the theology of the Lamb
of God and Redemption, and still not walk that "extra" mile to know where
He "dwells." To "come" demands leaving the rectory or the magazine; to
"see" requires being in His Presence. But once before His tabernacle we can
say with Job:
"I have heard Thy Voice now; nay, more, I have had sight of Thee." JOB 42:5
A newly ordained French priest received a visit from a strange priest of
another nationality. The visitor being unkempt, he was given a poor room in
the attic. The French priest lived to see that visitor canonized, as Don
Bosco. On learning of the canonization, he reflected: "If I knew he was a
saint, I would have given him a better room." What will be our thoughts on
the day of judgment when we reflect on the thousands of times we passed our
church or a chapel without even a quick prayer, a greeting? The innkeeper
at Bethlehem did not "see" that it was He. The capitalists of the Gerasenes
did not know it was He. The Samaritans, who refused to receive Him, did not
know it was He.

Now as we ask the question: "Where dost Thou dwell?" He points to the
tabernacle and says, "Come and see." We should do ill not to love Him when
He brings Himself so close. John and Andrew set the example:
"They went and saw where He lived, and they stayed with Him all the rest of
the day, from about the tenth hour onwards." JOHN 1:39

The "went and saw" balanced the "come and see." But there was more: "and
they stayed with Him." No priest who has ever risen from such an hour in
His Presence will ever have any other words on his lips than those of

Andrew:

"We have discovered the Messias." JOHN 1:41

Immediately after that visit, Andrew brought his brother Peter to the Lord.
The work of conversion is inseparably connected with long visits to Jesus
in His dwelling.

13. JUDAS AND THE FIRST CRACK IN HIS PRIESTHOOD
Where does a spiritual decline begin? What is the first symptom of a train
of sins? The traditionally listed enemies of spirituality are the world,
the flesh, and the devil. But are not these secondary? Is there not first a
detachment from something, before an attachment to anything, is possible?
It is often said that Judas, the supreme example of the fallen apostle, was
first corrupted through greed. The Gospel does not support this view. Greed
could conceivably have been his intent when he accepted the call of Christ
to follow Him. As it appeared in his life, it required a certain
watchfulness to avoid detection. How he must have squirmed as Our Blessed
Lord unfolded the parables of the vanity of wealth! Surely he realized that
they applied to him.

Later, greed became bold. Judas protests the wastefulness of Mary for
anointing the Feet of the Savior with costly ointment. Knowing the price of
everything and the value of nothing, Judas calculated that the cost of the
unguent would enable a man to live comfortably for a year. How disappointed
must Judas have been when earlier he had heard Zaccheus of Jericho tell Our
Lord:
"Here and now, Lord, I give half of what I have to the poor; and if I have
wronged anyone in any way, I make restitution of it fourfold." LUKE: 19:8
Judas must also have wondered why Matthew gave up a profitable post as
collector of customs to follow the poverty of the Savior. Matthew may
himself have been surprised that he was not made treasurer, because of his
familiarity with monetary transactions. Love of money was present in Judas;
this is obvious. It showed itself clearly when he saw the perfume broken
over the Lord's Feet.

What is the meaning of this waste? ... It would have been possible to
sell this at a great price, and give alms to the poor." MATTHEW 26:8, 9

Mary obeyed the instinctive impulse of uncalculated love only to be charged
for not having calculated. Lovers on earth concern themselves little about
the usefulness of their gifts. True lovers of Christ do not measure their
gifts. They break alabaster and give all. But to Judas, the cold-blooded
spectator, it was useless waste. Avarice, indeed, can be one of the great
sins of the priest, and perhaps the most insidious. It is a kind of "clean"
sin, because it parades under the guise of prudence, of "caring for old
age." Simon Magus, for example, very quickly got the idea that the laying
on of hands was a good way to make money (ACTS 8:19). The good priest lives
for his vocation; the avaricious priest lives on his vocation. When he
attends a pastoral conference, he ignores every reference to the

sanctification of the clergy, to moral and spiritual discipline, to
visitation of the sick. But when the Bishop talks about salaries, stole
fees, promotions, then he sits up and listens. He is always out to get a
"better" parish, but for him "better" simply means more lucrative.
The words of the Lord to the contrary, the avaricious man believes that he
can serve both God and Mammon. What Our Lord meant was that a man cannot
divide his heart between God and money; and if he could, God wants no part
of a divided heart. St. Paul said:

You know well enough that wherever you give a slave's consent, you prove
yourselves the slaves of that master; slaves of sin, marked out for death,
or slaves of obedience, marked out for justification." ROMANS 6:16
θίΐθη happens that those who are fond of amassing wealth are sometimes
sinless in other respects. They are celibates, they may even be meticulous
about the external laws of the Church, but so were the Pharisees, "the
Pharisees, who were fond of riches" (LUKE 16:14). It was to them that the
Lord told the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (LUKE 6:19-31).
WAS AVARICE THE BEGINNING OF THE FALL OF JUDAS?

But was avarice the cause of the fall of Judas? No! His fall began with
lack of faith and trust in the Lord, which became evident when, at the time
of the second Passover mentioned in St. John's Gospel, Jesus promised the
Eucharist to the crowd that had followed Him to Capharnaum (JOHN 6). Peter
believed and confessed his faith. But Jesus knew that not all of the Twelve
were faithful:
"Have I not chosen all twelve of you? And one of you is a devil. He was
speaking of Judas, son of Simon, the Iscariot, who was one of the twelve,
and was to betray Him." JOHN 6:71, 72

It was Judas's lack of faith that hardened his heart and confirmed him in
his greed. A year later, again at Passover time, Our Lord reprimanded Judas
for his money-madness. St. John opens his account of the tragedy of Calvary
with the words: "Six days before the Paschal feast Jesus went to Bethany"
(JOHN 12:1). There, in the house of Lazarus, Mary anointed Jesus. But he
"who was to betray Him" (JOHN 12:4) protested that the money should have
been given to the poor. By now it was clear that Judas "was a thief" (JOHN
12:6) and, at once reprimanding him and predicting His own death, Jesus
answered,

"Let her alone; enough that she should keep it for the day when my body is
prepared for burial. You have the poor among you always; I am not always
among you." JOHN 12:7, 8
Thus the story of Judas's fall is told in relation to the Passover. It was
at a Passover that Our Lord first announced the Eucharist, and at another
Passover He instituted it. The first rupture in the soul of Judas was when
Our Lord said He would give man His Body and Blood as their food. The total
collapse came the night of the Last Supper, when Our Blessed Lord fulfilled
this promise. Here is unmistakable evidence that fidelity and holiness on
the one hand, and betrayal and disloyalty on the other, are linked to the

Eucharist, the Bread of Life. The first crack in the priesthood comes in
our attitude to the Eucharist: the holiness with which we offer Mass, the
sensitiveness of our devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.

The first mention in the Bible that Dudas was a betrayer was not when he
revealed his greed, but when Our Lord declared Himself the Bread of Life.
On that occasion, Our Lord lost the support of three distinct types of
follower; He lost the masses, because He refused to be a Bread King, giving
the Eucharist instead of plenty; He lost various disciples who "walked no
more in His company" ( JOHN 6 :67 ), because the Eucharist was to them a
scandal; finally, He lost Judas.
Two who had been called by Christ to be priests are contrasted by St. John:
Peter and Judas. When the wholesale desertions followed Christ's
announcement that He would give His Flesh for the Life of the world, Our
Lord asked Peter if he, too, would leave. Peter answered:

"Lord, to whom should we go? Thy words are the words of eternal life; we
have learned to believe, and are assured that Thou art the Christ, the Son
of God." JOHN 6:69, 70
The Heart of Our Lord now becomes sad because of what happened to His
twelve. The number was symbolic, dating from the twelve patriarchs and the
twelve tribes, and so often used with reference to the Apostles. (Was not
each of the twelve Apostles from one of the twelve tribes?) There is,
therefore, something tragic about the Divine complaint:

"Jesus answered them, Have I not chosen all twelve of you? And one of you
is a devil. He was speaking of Judas son of Simon, the Iscariot, who was
one of the twelve, and was to betray Him." JOHN 6:71, 72
Avarice later! But now, long before the meal in Simon's house, long before
his exchange with the Temple priests, Judas is first described as a
betrayer, as Our Lord gives us His Flesh to eat and His Blood to drink.
What did the thirty pieces of silver add to the selling of that Body and
Blood? He had already denied it! He is yet a thief; then a traitor; later,
an open ally of the enemy. He stole from the apostolic purse, developed a
neurotic hatred both of money and of himself; finally, took his own life.
But when did the fissure first show? When began the unseen collapse--so
unseen that the Apostles at the Last Supper did not know of it? It began
when he who was called to be a priest and victim, refused to accept the
words of his Lord:

"As I live because of the Father, the living Father Who has sent Me, so he
who eats Me will live, in his turn, because of Me." JOHN 6:58
The flesh! Certainly it explains certain aspects of priestly weakness.
Worldliness! Love of stocks and bonds! Luxury! Alcohol! Mention any sin
that comes to mind. These are the tails on the falling kites of the
priesthood. But there was already a rent in the garment of holiness before
these other forms of nakedness and shame appeared. Our Lord knows where all
such overt and scandalous sins started. Maybe they started in a "fifteen
minute Mass, a one-minute thanksgiving," a flight from the night shirt to
the alb, a failure to visit the Eucharistic Savior except "officially" when
one had to celebrate Mass or conduct devotions. But somewhere, somehow,

the man who is a priest because of the Eucharist, failed to be a
Eucharistic priest. If a surgeon stayed away from human body and blood,
would he not lose his proficiency? Is he not licensed precisely for body
and blood? But we, who are not "licensed" but "ordained" for Body and
Blood, how shall we retain our power, our holiness, our priestly skill,
except by that lively faith in the Body and Blood of Christ?

THE BETRAYAL AND THE PASSOVER
The Gospels seem to make a point about associating Judas with the Passover.
Avarice, one of the effects of his failure to be Eucharistic, is first
mentioned in this connection:
"Six days before the paschal feast, Jesus went to Bethany." JOHN 12:1

Such are the words with which the Beloved Disciple raises the curtain on
the tragedy of Calvary. And who is first mentioned? Judas! As Mary, the
sister of Lazarus, shows devotion to the Body and Blood of the Savior,
anointing Him "for burial" (JOHN 12:7,8), so does Judas betray his greed
and prepare to sell that Body and Blood.
The hypocrisy of Judas in expressing concern for the poor is stressed by
Our Lord's identification of Himself that same week with the poor (MATTHEW
25:35 ff). When Jesus reprimanded Judas and told him to "let her alone"
(JOHN 12:7), the false apostle resolved to consummate the betrayal.
"And at that, one of the twelve, Judas who was called Iscariot, went to the
chief priests and asked them, What will you pay me for handing Him over to
you? Whereupon they laid down thirty pieces of silver, And he, from that
time onwards, looked about for an opportunity to betray Him." MATTHEW
26:14-16

The cross united not only Our Lord's friends but also His enemies. The
Saduccees and Pharisees, Judas and the Sanhedrin, Rome and the Temple
priests, Herod and Pilate--all those who had lesser enmities united in the
greater hostility to Jesus, the Savior of the world. The Church, which is
the continuing Christ, must always expect such hostile coalitions in time
of crisis. Evil is hypersensitive to goodness. It detects a challenge to
its existence, long before good men are awake to the signs of the times.

JUDAS AT THE LAST SUPPER

Now comes the Passover of Our Lord's Death when the true Lamb of God is
sacrificed for us pilgrims to eternity. The twelve Apostles are gathered
around Our Lord. Where did Judas sit at this first Mass? John was certainly
on His Heart's side. Who was on the Lord's other side? Possibly Peter,
though one detail suggests the contrary:

"Jesus had one disciple, whom He loved, who was now sitting with his head
against Jesus' breast; to him, therefore, Simon Peter made a sign, and
asked him, Who is it He means?" JOHN 13:23, 24
If Peter was on the other side, he would hardly make a sign as here

described.

Could Judas have been next to Our Lord? It is conceivable, for Our Lord
makes many attempts to save those He has chosen. Matthew seems to suggest
it, for how else could Christ have told Judas that He knew his intentions,
while the others continued under the impression that he went out to help
the poor (MATTHEW 26:22, 25)? Betrayers and traitors rarely know they are
discovered. If then, Judas was given that place as a sign of Divine Love,
how, in his hardened heart, he must have thought: "If He knew what I am
going to do, He would never have given me this place."
At this point Our Lord again referred to the Passover:

"I have longed and longed to share this Paschal meal with you before My
Passion." LUKE 22:15
Was Judas reminded of the other Passover when Our Lord had promised the
Eucharist?
Also significant for Judas, though ignored by him, was the stress on
humility at this solemn moment of the institution of the Eucharist. Our
Lord insisted that in a certain sense, His apostles were kings. He did not
deny their instinct for aristocracy, but He told them that theirs was to be
the nobility of humility, the greatest becoming the least. To drive the
lesson home, He reminded them of the position He occupied among them as
Master and Lord of the table and yet free of every trace of superiority.
Many times He repeated that He had come not to be served but to serve. To
bear the burden of others and particularly their guilt was His reason for
becoming the "Suffering Servant" foretold by Isaias (52:13-53:12). And not
content with words, He reinforced them with example.

"And now, rising from supper, He laid His garments aside, took a towel, and
put it about Him; and then He poured water into the basin, and began to
wash the feet of His disciples, wiping them with the towel that girded
Him." JOHN 13:4

The minuteness of John's description is striking. It lists seven distinct
actions: rising, laying His garments aside, taking a towel, putting it
about Him, pouring water, washing the feet, wiping the feet with a towel.
One can imagine an earthly king, just before he returns from a distant
province, rendering a humble service to one of his subjects; but one would
not say that he was doing it because he was about to return to his capital.
Yet Our Blessed Lord is described as washing the disciples' feet because He
is to go back to the Father. He had taught humility by precept: "He that
humbles himself shall be exalted" (LUKE: 14:11); by parable, as in the
story of the Pharisee and the Publican; by example, as when He took a child
in His arms; and now by condescension. The scene was like a re-enactment of
His Incarnation. Rising up from the Heavenly Banquet in intimate union of
nature with the Father, He laid aside the garments of His glory, wrapped
about His Divinity the towel of human nature, which He took from Mary;
poured the laver of regeneration which is His Blood shed on the Cross to
redeem men, and began washing the souls of His disciples and followers
through the merits of His Death, Resurrection and Ascension. St. Paul
expressed it beautifully:

"His Nature is, from the first, Divine, and yet He did not see, in the rank
of Godhead, a prize to be coveted; He dispossessed Himself, and took the
nature of a slave, fashioned in the likeness of men, and presenting Himself
to us in human form; and then He lowered His own dignity, accepted an
obedience which brought Him to death, death on a cross." PHILIPPIANS 2:6 8

Once Peter's protests are stilled, the other disciples are motionless, lost
in mute astonishment. When humility comes from the God-man as it does here,
it is obvious that it will be through humility that men will go back to
God. Each one would have withdrawn his feet out of the basin were it not
for love which pervaded their hearts.
But Our Lord was still not willing to abandon Judas. Once more He tried to
arouse him to a realization of what he planned.
"And you are clean now; only, not all of you." JOHN 13:10

It was one thing to be selected
to salvation through observance
the Apostles would realize that
ranks was not unexpected, Jesus
anticipated by the prophets:

as an apostle; it was another to be elected
of the corresponding obligations. But that
heresy or schisms or treachery in their
cited Psalm 40 to show that it had been

"The man who shared My Bread has lifted his heel to trip Me up. I am
telling you this now, before it happens, so that when it happens you may
believe it was written of Me." JOHN 13:18, 19

The reference was to David's sufferings at the hands of Achitophel, a
disloyalty now identified as a prefigurement of what David's royal Son
would suffer. The lowliest part of the body, the heel, was described in
both instances as inflicting the wound. In Genesis (3:14) God told the
serpent that the woman would crush him while he lay in ambush at her heels.
It now seemed that the devil would have a momentary revenge, by using the
heel to inflict a wound on the seed of the woman--the Lord. On another
occasion Our Lord said:

"A man's enemies will be the people of his own house." MATTHEW 10:36

Only one who has suffered such betrayal from within the household can even
faintly grasp the sadness of the Savior's soul that night. All the good
example, counsel, companionship and inspiration are fruitless with those
who will to do evil. One of the strongest expressions of sorrow expressed
by Jesus now fell from His lips to describe His love of Judas and to lament
the renegade apostle's free decision to sin.
"Jesus bore witness to the distress He felt in His Heart; Believe Me, He
said, believe Me, one of you is to betray Me." JOHN 13:21
There were twelve questions in all. Ten of the apostles asked: "Is it I,
'Lord'?"

"They were all full of sorrow, and began to say, one after another, Lord,
is it I?" MATTHEW 26:22
One, however, asked:

"Lord, who is it?" JOHN 13:26
This was John himself. The twelfth had little choice but to continue his
pretence.
"Then Judas, he who was betraying Him, said openly, 'Master,' is it I?"
MATTHEW 26:25

Notice that eleven called Him Lord; but Judas called Him Master. It is a
perfect illustration of St. Paul's insistence that "it is only through the
Holy Spirit that anyone can say, Jesus is the Lord" (I CORINTHIANS 12:3).
Because the spirit that filled Judas was satanic, he called Him Master; the
others called Him Lord, in full confession of Divinity.
Throughout the first part of the Passover meal, both Our Lord and Judas had
been dipping their hands in the same dish of wine and fruit. The very fact
that Our Lord chose bread as a symbol of the betrayal, might have reminded
Judas of the Bread promised at Capharnaum. Humanly speaking, it would seem
that Our Lord should have thundered out His denunciation of Judas, but
rather in a last attempt to save him, He used the bread of fellowship.
"He answered, The man who has put his hand into the dish with Me will
betray Me. The Son of Man goes on His way, as the scripture foretells of
Him; But woe upon that man by whom the Son of Man is to be betrayed; better
for that man if he had never been born." MATTHEW 26:23-25

In the presence of Divinity, who can be sure of his innocence? It was
reasonable for every disciple to ask if it was he. Man is a mystery even to
himself. He knows that within his heart there lie, coiled and dormant,
serpents that at any moment can sting a neighbor, or even God, with their
poison. None of them could be sure that he was not the traitor, even if
none was conscious of a temptation to betray Him. Judas alone knew where he
stood. Even though Our Lord revealed His knowledge of the treason, Judas
remained fixed in his determination to do the evil. The revelation that the
crime was uncovered and the evil stripped naked did not shame him into
withdrawal.
Some recoil in horror when their sins are put bluntly before them. But
though Judas saw his treachery described in all its deformity, he in effect
declared in the language of Nietzsche: "Evil, be thou my good." Our Lord
gave a sign to Judas. In answer to the question of the apostles ("Is it
I?") He declared:
It is the man to whom I give this piece of bread which I am dipping in the
dish. Then He dipped the bread, and gave it to Judas the Son of Simon, the
Iscariot." JOHN 13:26, 27

That Judas committed his sin freely is evidenced by his subsequent remorse.
So too was Christ free to make His betrayal the condition of His Cross.
Evil men seem to run counter to the economy of God, to be an errant thread
in the tapestry of life, but they all fit into the Divine Plan. If the wild
wind roars from the black heavens, there is somewhere a sail to catch it
and yoke it to the useful service of man.

When Our Lord said: "It is the man to whom I give this piece of bread which
I am dipping in the dish/' He was actually offering a gesture of
friendship. The giving of the morsel seems to have been traditional among
both Greeks and Semites. Socrates said that it was always a mark of favor
to give a morsel to a table neighbor. Our Lord held open to Judas the
opportunity to repent, as He later did once again in the Garden of
Gethsemane. But though Our Lord held the door open, Judas would not enter.
Rather would Satan enter in.
"The morsel once given, Satan entered into him; and Jesus said to him, Be
quick on thy errand." JOHN 13:27

Satan possesses only willing victims. The marks of mercy and friendship
extended by the Victim should have moved Judas to repentance. The bread
must have burned his lips, as the thirty pieces of silver would later burn
his hands. Only some minutes previously the Hands of the Son of God had
washed the feet of Judas; now the same Divine Hands touch the lips of Judas
with a morsel; in a few hours, the lips of Judas will kiss those of Our
Lord in the final act of betrayal. The Divine Mediator, knowing all that
would befall Him, directed Judas to open wider the curtain on the tragedy
of Calvary. What Judas was to do, let him do quickly. The Lamb of God was
ready for sacrifice.
The Divine Mercy did not identify the traitor, for Our Lord hid from the
others the identity of the betrayer. The practice of the world which loves
to spread scandals, even those which are untrue, is here reversed in the
hiding of what is true. When they saw Judas leave, the others assumed that
he went on a mission of charity.
"None of those who sat there could understand the drift of what He said;
some of them thought, since Judas kept the common purse, that Jesus was
saying to him, Go and buy what we need for the feast, or bidding him give
some alms to the poor." JOHN 13:28

But Judas had gone out to sell, not to buy. He would minister not to the
poor, but to the rich in charge of the temple treasury. Though Our Blessed
Lord knew the evil intention of Judas, He still continued to behave kindly.
He would bear the ignominy alone. In many instances, Jesus acted as though
the effects of the deeds of others were unknown to Him. He knew that He
would raise Lazarus from the dead, even when He wept. He knew who believed
Him not, and who would betray Him, yet this did not harden His Sacred
Heart. Judas rejected the last appeal, and thus despair remained in His
heart.
Judas went out, "and it was night" (JOHN 13:30), an appropriate setting for
a deed of darkness. It perhaps was a relief to be away from the Light of
the World. Nature is in sympathy at times, at times in discord with our
joys and sorrows. The sky is gloomy with clouds when there is melancholy
within. Nature was suiting itself to the evil deeds of Judas. When he went
out, he found not the fact of God's smiling sun but the Stygian blackness
of night. It would also be night at midday when the Lord was crucified.

Judas is intelligible only in terms of the Body and Blood of Christ.
Clawing at money was the effect, not the cause of a ruined priesthood.

JUDAS AND THE PRIESTHOOD
1. Those Who have been cradled in the sacred associations of the priesthood
know best how to betray Our Lord. Judas knew where to find Our Lord after
dark.
"Here there was a garden, into which He and His disciples went. Judas, His
betrayer, knew the place well; Jesus and His disciples had often
forgathered in it." JOHN 18:1, 2

2. Divinity is so holy, that all betrayal must be prefaced by some mark of
esteem or affection.
"It is none other, he told them, than the Man whom I shall greet with a
kiss." MATTHEW 26:48

3. No bishop or priest knows the ultimate depth of spiritual sorrow and
grief, until he has felt the hot blistering kiss of a brother in Christ who
is a traitor.
4. A priest can always sell Our Lord, but no priest can buy Him.
"Whereupon they laid down thirty pieces of silver." MATTHEW 26:15

5. Any pleasure, profit or gain that one receives through rejecting the
Eucharistic Lord proves so disgusting, that the beneficiary is impelled,
like Judas, to throw it back in the face of those who gave it to us.
"And now Judas, His betrayer, was full of remorse at seeing Him condemned,
so that he brought back to the chief priests and elders their thirty pieces
of silver, I have sinned, he told them, in betraying the Blood of an
Innocent Man." MATTHEW 27:3, 4

Could not the money have been given to the poor? Judas never thought of
that then.

6. Many psychoses and neuroses are due to an unrequited sense of guilt. The
Lord would have pardoned Judas as He pardoned Peter, but Judas never asked
for it.
When a man hates himself for what he has done and is without repentance to
God, he will sometimes pound his breast as if to blot out a sin. There is a
world of difference between pounding a breast in self-disgust, and pounding
it with the mea culpa of one asking for pardon. Self-hatred can become so
intense as to pound the life out of a man, leading him to suicide. Though
death is a penalty of original sin and naturally feared by any normal
person, some rush into its arms.
The conscience of Judas warned him before the sin. After the sin it gnawed,
and the rending was such that he could not bear it. Down the valley of
Cedron he went, that valley of so many ghostly associations. Jagged rocks
and gnarled and stunted trees he chose as the proper place to empty himself
of self. Everything around proclaimed his destiny and his end. Nothing was
more revolting to his eyes than the gilded roof of the temple, for it

reminded him of the Temple of God he had just sold. Every tree seemed the
gibbet to which he had sentenced Innocent Blood. Every branch was an
accusing finger. The very hill on which he stood overlooked Calvary,
whereon the One he had sentenced to death would unite heaven and earth, a
union he would now exert his final efforts to prevent. Throwing a rope over
a limb of a tree, he hanged himself (MATTHEW 27:5).

The lesson is clear. We are Eucharistic priests. Watch a priest read Mass
and you can tell how he treats souls in a confessional, how he ministers to
the sick and poor, whether or not he is interested in making converts,
whether he is more concerned about pleasing the Lord Bishop than the Lord
God, how effective he is in instilling patience and resignation in those
who suffer, whether he is an administrator or a shepherd, whether he loves
the rich, or the rich and the poor, and whether he gives only money-sermons
or Christ-words. The moral rot of the priesthood starts with a want of
lively faith in the Divine Presence, and the sanctity of the priesthood
starts there too.

14. WHY MAKE A HOLY HOUR?

What good does a medical convention achieve if the doctors agree on the
need for good health, but take no practical steps to implement their
argument? So with a book on the priesthood. What concrete recommendations
may be given to the priest to make him worthy of the supernal vocation to
which he is called? One immediate and essential answer is the Holy Hour.
But why make a Holy Hour?

1. Because it is time spent in the Presence of Our Lord Himself. If faith
is alive, no further reason is needed.
2. Because in our busy life it takes considerable time to shake off the
"noonday devils," the worldly cares which cling to our souls like dust. An
hour with Our Lord follows the experience of the disciples on the road to
Emmaus (LUKE 24:13-35). We begin by walking with Our Lord but our eyes are
"held fast," so that we do not "recognize Him." Next, He converses with our
soul, as we read the Scriptures. The third stage is one of sweet intimacy,
as when "He sat down at table with them." The fourth stage is the full
dawning of the mystery of the Eucharist. Our eyes are "opened" and we
recognize Him. Finally we reach the point where we do not want to leave.
The hour seemed so short. As we arise we ask:
"Were not our hearts burning within us when He spoke to us on the road, and
when He made the Scriptures plain to us?" LUKE 24:32

3. Because Our Lord asked for it.
"Had you no strength, then, to watch with Me even for an hour?" MATTHEW
26:40
The word was addressed to Peter, but he is referred to as Simon. It is our
Simon-nature which needs the hour. If the hour seems hard, it is because
. . the spirit is willing enough, but the flesh is weak." MARK 14:39

4. Because, as St. Thomas Aquinas tells us, the priest's power over the
"corpus mysticum" follows from his power over the "corpus physicum" of
Christ. It is because he consecrates the Body and Blood of Christ, that the
priest can teach, govern and sanctify the members of the Church.
Practically, this means that he walks into the confessional from the foot
of the altar; that he mounts the pulpit after having enacted the mystery of
redemption. Every sick call, every word of counsel in the parlor, every
catechism lesson taught to children, every official act in the chancery,
flows from the altar. All power resides there, and the more "short-cuts" we
take from the tabernacle to our other priestly duties, the less spiritual
strength we have for them.
"The Eucharist is the 'fons et caput' of all the spiritual goods of the
Church." URBI ET ORBI, May 8, 1907

"It is from the Eucharist that all other Sacraments receive their
efficacy." Roman Catechism, Part II, Chapter 4, No. 47.

If all the sacraments, if all our preaching, confessing, administrating,
and saving start with that Flame of Love, then how can we refuse to be
sparked by it an hour a day?

5. Because the Holy Hour keeps a balance between the spiritual and the
practical. Western philosophies tend to an activism in which God does
nothing, and man everything; the Eastern philosophies tend to a quietism in
which God does everything, and man nothing. The golden mean is "Surgite
postquam sederitis:" action following rest; Martha walking with Mary;
"contemplata aliis tradere," in the words of St. Thomas. The Holy Hour
unites the contemplative to the active life of the priest.
Thanks to the hour with Our Lord, our meditations and resolutions pass from
the conscious to the subconscious and then become motives of action. A new
spirit begins to pervade our sick calls, our sermons, our confessions. The
change is effected by Our Lord Who fills our heart and works through our
hands. A priest can give only what he possesses. To give Christ to others,
one must possess Him.

6. Because revelations made by the Sacred Heart to saintly souls indicate
that still unexplored depths of that Heart are reserved for priests. There
are veils of love behind which only the priest may penetrate, and from
which he will emerge with an unction and power over souls far beyond his
own strength.
The "house" of the priest is not the rectory. He is "at home" only where
Christ is present. There alone he learns the secrets of love. To St.
Margaret Mary, the Sacred Heart complained that so few priests answer His
cry: "I am thirsty" (JOHN 19:28). His words to her were: "I have a burning
thirst to be honored in the Blessed Sacrament, and I find hardly anyone who
endeavors according to My desires to quench that thirst by making some
returns to Me."
7. Because the Holy Hour will make us practice what we preach. It grieves
the Sacred Heart to see a scandalous disparity between the high ideal of
the priesthood and its poor realization.

"Here is an image, He said, of the kingdom of heaven; there was once a
king, who held a marriage-feast for his son, and sent out his servants with
a summons to all those whom he had invited to the wedding; but they would
not come." MATTHEW 22:2, 3

It was written of Our Lord that He "set out to do and to teach"--"facere et
docere" (ACTS 1:1). The priest who practices the Holy Hour will find that
when he teaches, the people will say of him as of the Lord:
All . . . were astonished at the gracious words which came from his
mouth." LUKE 4:22
8. Because the Holy Hour makes us obedient instruments of Divinity. In the
Eucharist there is this double movement; first, of the priest to the
Eucharistic Heart; and secondly, of the priest to the people. The priest
who has given himself to the Heart of Our Blessed Lord, is known by Our
Lord as expendable for His purposes. The priest becomes endowed with an
extra power because of his suppleness in the hands of his Master. God gives
some graces directly to souls, as a man gives alms to the poor man he
happens to meet. But the Sacred Heart wishes great graces to be distributed
to souls through the hands of His priests.

The effectiveness of priests has little or nothing to do with their natural
endowments. A Eucharistic priest will be a better instrument of the Lord
among souls than a learned one who loves Him less. One of the promises made
to priests who love the Sacred Heart is: "I will give such priests the
power of touching the most hardened hearts."
9. Because the Holy Hour helps us make reparation both for the sins of the
world and for our own. When the Sacred Heart appeared to St. Margaret Mary,
it was His Heart, and not His Head, that was crowned with thorns. It was
Love that was hurt. Black Masses, sacrilegious communions, scandals,
militant atheism--who will make up for them? Who will be an Abraham for
Sodom, a Mary for those who have no wine? The sins of the world are our
sins, as if we had committed them. If they caused Our Lord a bloody sweat,
to the point that He upbraided His disciples for failing to stay with Him
an hour, shall we with Cain ask:

"Is it for me to watch over my brother?" GENESIS 4:9
The priest who asks what he can do about Communism knows that battles are
won when his hands are lifted, like those of Moses, in prayer.
10. Because it will restore our lost spiritual vitality. Our hearts will be
where our joys are. One reason why many fail to progress after many years
in the priesthood, is that they shrink from casting the whole burden of
their lives upon Our Lord. They fail to seek their joy in the union of
their priesthood with the victimhood of Christ. They will sometimes remain
stubborn, clinging to the things of sense, forgetful that the Eucharistic
door is really not a door at all; it is not even a wall, for there we have
the "breaking down the wall that was a barrier between us" (EPHESIANS
2:14).

The Sacred Heart promised through St. Margaret Mary to "make His priests

like two-edged swords, which will make the holy fountain of penance spring
up in them." Our lives at best are weak, perhaps broken like fragmented
china. So we go to the Sacred Heart and ask "ut congregata restaures, et
restaurata conserves": that "Thou wouldst bring together and mend, mend and
forever preserve, what now lies broken." We need to be cemented again by
love into unity, and where can such love be found except in the Sacrament
of unity?

11. Because the Holy Hour is the "Hour of Truth." Alone with Jesus, we
there see ourselves, not as the people see us --always judging us to be
better than we are--but as the Judge sees us. If we take praise seriously,
nothing so deflates our pomposity as the realization of the helplessness to
which the Lord of Heaven has reduced Himself, under the species of Bread.
Our failings, our want of charity to other priests, our too hasty responses
to those whose appearance offends us, our sugary kindness to the well
dressed, our seeking out the rich, our avoiding the poor, our hurried Mass,
our impatience in the confessional--all these the Eucharistic Lord draws
out of our conscience.
Living in sin, grievous or venial, becomes intolerable for the priest who
practices the Holy Hour. It is like having a doctor at hand to warn us of a
growing cancer. Eventually, we are driven to ask the Divine Physician to
heal us. No sin is a hidden sin in meditation; no excuses are given. We
take sin out of its lair and lay it before God. We always knew that God saw
it; but in the Hour we see it. Our sins are placed before our eyes not as a
human weakness, but as a recrucifying of Our Lord:
"Scrutinize me, 0 God, as Thou wilt, and read my heart; put me to the test,
and examine my restless thoughts. See if on any false paths my heart is
set, and Thyself lead me in the ways of old." PSALM 138:23, 24

But there is no need to fear, because during the Hour, we enter into the
private chambers of the Judge. We make friends with Him before the trial
while making reparation for our sins.
12. Because it reduces our liability to temptation and weakness. Presenting
ourselves before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is like putting a
tubercular patient in good air and sunlight. The virus of our sins cannot
long exist in the face of the Light of the world.

"Always I can keep the Lord within sight; always He is at my right hand, to
make me stand firm." PSALM 15:8

Our sinful impulses are prevented from arising through the barrier erected
each day by the Hour. Our will becomes disposed to goodness with little
conscious effort on our part. Satan, the roaring lion, was not permitted to
put forth his hand to touch righteous Job, until he received permission
(JOB 1:12). Certainly then will the Lord withhold serious fall from him who
watches (I CORINTHIANS 10:13), With full confidence in his Eucharistic
Lord, the priest will have a spiritual resiliency. He will bounce back
quickly after a falling:
"Fall I, it is but to rise again, sit I in darkness, the Lord will be my
light. The Lord's displeasure I must bear, I that have sinned against Him,
till at last He admits my plea, and grants redress." MICHAEAS 7:8, 9

The Lord will be favorable even to the weakest of us, if He finds us at His
feet in adoration, disposing ourselves to receive Divine favors. No sooner
had Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor, humbled himself before his Maker, than
God sent a special messenger to his relief, telling him that "even now he
is at his prayers" (ACTS 9:11). Even the priest who has fallen can expect
reassurance, if he watches and prays.
"They shall increase, that hitherto had dwindled, be exalted, that once
were brought low." 3EREMIAS 30:19, 20

13. Because the Holy Hour is a personal prayer. The Mass and the Breviary
are official prayers. They belong to the Mystical Body of Christ. They do
not belong to us personally. The priest who limits himself strictly to his
official obligation and adoration, is like the union man who downs tools
the moment the whistle blows. Love begins when duty finishes. It is a
giving of the cloak when the coat is taken. It is walking the extra mile.
"Answer shall come ere cry for help is uttered, prayer find audience while
it is yet on their lips." ISAIAS 65:24
Of course, we do not have to make a Holy Hour--and that is just the point.
Love is never compelled, except in hell. There love has to submit to
justice. To be forced to love would be a kind of hell. No man who loves a
woman is obligated to give her an engagement ring; and no priest who loves
the Sacred Heart ever has to give an engagement Hour.

"Would you, too, go away?" (3OHN 6:68) is weak love; "Art thou sleeping?"
(MARK 14:37) is irresponsible love; "He had great possessions (MATTHEW
19:22; MARK 10:22) is selfish love. But does the priest who loves His Lord
have time for other activities before he performs acts of love "above and
beyond the call of duty"? Does the patient love the physician who charges
for every call, or does he begin to love when the physician says: "I just
dropped by to see how you were"?
14. Meditation keeps us from seeking an external escape from our worries
and miseries. When difficulties arise in the rectory, when nerves are made
taut by false accusations, there is always a danger that we may look
outwards, as the Israelites did, for release.

"From the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, word was given you, Come back
and keep still, and all shall be well with you; in quietness and in
confidence lies your strength. But you would have none of it; To horse! you
cried We must flee! and flee you shall; We must ride swiftly, you said; but
swifter still ride your pursuers." ISAIAS 30:15, 16

No outward escape, neither pleasure, drink, friends or keeping busy is an
answer. The soul of a priest cannot "fly upon a horse" he must take "wings"
to a place where his "life is hidden away . . . with Christ in God"
(COLOSSIANS 3:3).
15. Finally, because the Holy Hour is necessary for the Church. No one can
read the Old Testament without becoming conscious of the presence of God in
history. How often did God use other nations to punish Israel for her sins!
He made Assyria the "rod that executes My vengeance" (ISAIAS 10:5). The

history of the world since the Incarnation is the Way of the Cross. The
rise of nations and their fall remain related to the Kingdom of God. We
cannot understand the mystery of God's government, for it is the "sealed
book" of the Apocalypse. John wept when he saw it (APOCALYPSE 5:4). He
could not understand why this moment of prosperity and that hour of
adversity.

What we often forget is that all the judgments of God begin with the
Church, as they began with Israel. Not politics, but theology is the key to
the world. We bemoan the wickedness of men, but is not the Lord all the
while looking at our own failures? Judgment begins with us:
"Make thy way, the Lord said to him, all through the city, from end to end
of Jerusalem; and where thou findest men that weep and wail over the foul
deeds done in it, mark their brows with a cross. To the others I heard Him
say, Yours it is to traverse the city at his heels, and smite. Never let
eye of yours melt with pity; old and young, man and maid, mother and child,
all alike destroy till none is left, save only where you see the cross
marked on them. And begin first with the temple itself." EZECHIEL 9:4-6
Amos gave the same lesson. The more unmerited the favors, he insisted, the
greater the punishment:

"Nation is none I have claimed for my own, save you and guilt of yours is
none that shall go unpunished." AMOS 3:2
God speaks through Jeremias and says that punishment begins with the holy
city, "in civitate mea."
"Here am I beginning my work of vengeance with that city which is the
shrine of My Name, and shall you be acquitted, you others, and go scotfree? That shall never be, says the Lord of hosts; to the sword if I
appeal, it is for a whole world's punishment." JEREMIAS 25:29
Lest we think that we do not share responsibility for what comes upon the
world in the New Testament, let Peter reaffirm the warning:

"The time is ripe for judgment to begin, and to begin with God's own
household; and if our turn comes first, what will be its issue for those
who refuse credence to God's message?" I PETER 4:17

The Hand of God will strike first the Church, then the world. We who are
the watchmen set on the walls, are the first to be judged. Jerusalem was
destroyed only after Our Lord purged the Temple. Jacob's house felt the
famine before the Egyptians did. The Jews were carried into captivity
before the Assyrians fell to the Medes and Persians.

If then of dire things "a sanctuario meo incipite," shall not we priests
atone for the sins of the world, keep our priesthood holy for the sake of
our country and the world, and be faithful? If judgment thus starts with
the sanctuary, then so shall mercy. Thus can the world be saved. What a
contribution could the 55,000 priests in the United States make to the
peace of the world, if each spent an hour daily in the sanctuary! And how
blessed for each would be the moment of death:

"Blessed is that servant who is found doing this when his Lord comes." LUKE
12:43
A priest ending his Holy Hour will say with John the Baptist:

"He must become more and more, I must become less and less." JOHN 3:30
The alleged superiority of being "in the chancery" or the alleged
inferiority of being "only an assistant" dissolves before the tabernacle.
What ultimate difference does it make if one is passed over for a "good"
(rich) parish, or if the "second best" man in the diocese is made an
"officialis?" Self-assertiveness gives way to Christ-assertiveness in the
presence of the tabernacle. The priest who makes the Lord everything for an
hour each morning is not seriously wounded by an episcopal "pass-over" when
the promotion was logically his. The "littleness" of the Lord in the
Eucharist makes "bigness" in the priest an absurdity.

Instead of being the "best man" in-the nuptials of Christ and His Church,
we sometimes act as if we sought to be the bridegroom--and that office the
Lord will not surrender. In the Holy Hour, the priest learns to be
concerned only with furthering the beauty of the Bride which is the Church,
so that it may be presented with "no stain or wrinkle" (EPHESIANS 5:27) on
the day of the Wedding of the Lamb.
To our parish, as Paul to the Corinthians, we say:
"I have betrothed you to Christ, so that no other but He should claim you,
His bride without spot." II CORINTHIANS 11:2
An inflexible law governs the influence of the priest on others: the more
he is inflated, the less are the Lord and His Church glorified. Meditation
on the "emptying" of the Savior in the Eucharist will keep him always
conscious, that he is the moon receiving his light from the sun.

No Eucharistic bishop will ever say or even think: "I built twenty-one high
schools, forty-three new parishes and six convents in nineteen years." He
knows too well who provided the money--the people! He knows too well who
gave the authority--the Church! He knows too well who supplied the help-his priests! Daily will he hear the Lord from the tabernacle whisper:
"After all, friend, who is it that gives thee this pre-eminence? What
powers hast thou, that did not come to thee by gift? And if they came to
thee by gift, why dost thou boast of them, as if there were no gift in
question?" I CORINTHIANS 4:7

If the Lord had not given us a vocation, what would we be: insurance
clerks, truck drivers, school teachers, doctors, farmers, waiters? The Lord
did not choose any of us as the best. He picks "frail vessels." And as we
gather together around the Eucharist and look at each other, we recognize
in our hearts the truth of Paul's words:
"Consider, brethren, the circumstances of your own calling; not many of you
are wise, in the world's fashion, not many powerful, not many well born." I
CORINTHIANS 1:26

We are not the best, otherwise the power of the Gospel would be in us,
rather than in the Spirit. But where is this truth better learned than in
the presence of the Mystery which seems bread, but is actually Emmanuel; so
small that our hands can break it, so full of power that its breaking
renews the Passion and Death of Christ? The decreased priest is the
increased Christ. When the Eucharist is no more than a remote background to
our lives, it is like having the sun low on the horizon behind us. We cast
a shadow forward; and the lower the sun, the longer the shadow. If the Lord
is far from us, scarcely visible, our own ego seems to grow important like
our shadow, and with it our opinions and works take on the appearance of
great substance. But this is an illusion. If, on the contrary, each day
begins with the Eucharist before us as our rising sun, the shadow of the
ego no longer hides our true face, and when the Sun of Justice reaches the
meridian, no ego survives. Then the souls whom we tend, like the apostles
at the Transfiguration, see "no one any more, but Jesus only with them"
(MARK 9:7).

The sole requirement is the venture of faith, and the reward is the depths
of intimacy for those who cultivate His friendship. To abide with Christ is
spiritual fellowship, as He insisted on the solemn and sacred night of the
Last Supper, the moment He chose to give us the Eucharist:
"You have only to live on in Me, and I will live on in you." JOHN 15:4

He wants us in His dwelling:
"That you too, may be where I am." JOHN 14:3

How far we miss the j’oys of our priesthood, when our only meetings with the
Lord are "public audiences"--at Mass, devotions, stations of the Cross,
whenever we have to be there. The Lord wants "private audiences." He wants
a protracted audience, a full hour. John and Andrew stayed the entire day!

15. HOW TO MAKE THE HOLY HOUR

If at all possible, the priest should make his daily Holy Hour before
celebrating his Mass. Now that the Church's regulations on the preEucharistic fast have been modified, he will be well advised to take a cup
of coffee before he starts. The average American is physically,
biologically, psychologically and neurologically unable to do anything
worthwhile before he has a cup of coffee. And that goes for prayer, too.
Even sisters in convents whose rules were written before electric
percolators were developed, would do well to update their procedures. Let
them have coffee before meditation.
Limit the saying of the Breviary to twenty minutes of the hour. The basic
purpose of this hour is to meditate. Some spiritual writers recommend a
mechanical division of the hour into four parts: thanksgiving, petition,
adoration, reparation. This is unnecessarily artificial. An hour's
conversation with a friend is not divided into four rigid segments or
topics. The Holy Hour is not an official prayer; it is personal. Each
priest, being a man, has a heart unlike any other in the world. This unique
heart must make up the content of his prayer. God no more likes "circular

letters" than we do. In addition to liturgical or official prayer, there
must be the prayer of the heart. We constantly preach to others; in the
Holy Hour we preach to our.

Many books on meditation have a rigid format which is endurable in the
seminary, but which the priest soon finds too dry for his purposes. The socalled "methods" of meditation are generally impractical and unsuited to
our mentality. What they consist in is an analysis of a meditation which
was already made, and which proved satisfactory for the one who made it. A
child will run after a ball with grace and freedom of movement. But if he
is told to narrate what he does every second, how he first lifts the right
foot, then the left, all the spontaneity disappears. To base a meditation,
first on the intellect, then on the will, and finally on the emotions, is
to destroy intimacy. This is not what really happens. The intellect does
not work first in meditation, then the will, then the imagination. The
person meditates; all his faculties work together. To achieve this, the
greatest possible freedom should be left to the individual:
", . . where the Lord's Spirit is, there is freedom." II CORINTHIANS 3:17
The best book for meditation is the Scripture. But since many of its depths
need to be explained, a good spiritual commentary is valuable. Too often
the Lord may have to repeat the complaint He voiced to His disciples:
"You do not understand the Scriptures or what is the Power of God." MATTHEW
22:29

Read the Scriptures, or a commentary, or any solid spiritual book, until a
thought strikes you. Then close the book, and talk to Our Lord about it.
But do not do all the talking. Listen also "Speak on, Lord, Thy servant is
listening" (I KINGS 3:10) must not be: "Listen, Lord, Thy servant
speaketh." We learn to speak through listening, and we grow in love of God
through listening. Meditation is at least half listening:

"It is My turn to ask questions." JOB 40:2
When you are so fatigued and exhausted that you cannot pray, offer up your
worthlessness. Does not a dog love to be near the master, even when the
master gives him no evident sign of affection?
Allow no difficulty in making the Hour to be an excuse for giving it up.
When making it is a pleasure, we can think of ourselves as priests; when it
is an effort, we can remember that we are also victims. Then we become like
Moses, who asked God to blot his name from the record, if this would win
pardon for the people (EXODUS 32:31) and like Paul, who was willing to be
accursed for his race (ROMANS 9:1-3). The very effort we put forth each day
makes us masters of ourselves, and therefore, better servants of the Sacred
Heart.

When tempted to give up the Hour, ask yourself which of these three
excuses, which the Lord said (LUKE 9:57-62) would be ours, are keeping us
back from total service: earthly desires, earthly love, or earthly grief.
SIT OR KNEEL?

Should one kneel, sit, stand or walk during the Holy Hour? Scripture
records examples of each of these various attitudes. The publican who stood
in the back of the Temple was accounted justified. St. Simplician, who
succeeded St. Ambrose as Bishop of Milan, asked Augustine what was the
proper attitude to pray, and why David did not kneel praying before the
tabernacle. Augustine replied that one should adopt the bodily position
best calculated to move the soul. Aristotle said that the soul by sitting
becomes wise. St. Jerome's rule was that in praying and in meditating, the
body should always take the position which seemed best for exciting the
soul's internal devotion.

Sitting is sometimes associated with despair and weariness in Scripture.
When Israel was brought into captivity, and Jerusalem left deserted:
". . . the prophet Jeremias sat down there and wept." LAMENTATIONS 1:1

Elias, too, in his despair sat down under a juniper tree and "prayed to
have done with life" (III KINGS 19:4). The exiles from Jerusalem are
pictured in the Psalm
"We sat down by the streams of Babylon and wept there, remembering Sion."
PSALM 136:1
And when Moses was praying for victory against Amalec, his arms grew weary;
so they found him a stone to sit on and bade him be seated on it" (EXODUS
17:12).
On the other hand, Our Blessed Lord prayed in the Garden on His knees: "He
fell upon his face in prayer" (MATTHEW 26:39). Stephen prayed in the same
position: "Kneeling down, he cried, aloud, Lord, do not count this sin
against them" (ACTS 7:59). After the miraculous draught of fishes: "Simon
Peter fell down and caught Jesus by the knees; Leave me to myself, Lord, I
am a sinner" (LUKE 5:8). St. Paul evidently prayed kneeling: "I fall on my
knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (EPHESIANS 3:14). The young
man who came to Our Lord inquiring what he must do to receive eternal life
". . . knelt down before him" (MARK 10:17). Even when the soldiers mocked
Our Blessed Lord, after beating Him over the head with a rod and spitting
upon Him, they bowed their knees in worship of Him" (MARK 15:19). The
gesture of ridicule is an obvious mockery of a gesture of worship.

When Our Lord went into the Garden, He "knelt down to pray" (LUKE 22:41).
When Peter raised Tabitha from the dead, he "went on his knees to pray"
(ACTS 9:40). When Paul came to Ephesus, and quoted the only words spoken by
Our Lord recorded in Scripture other than in the Gospels ("It is more
blessed to give than to receive"), he "knelt down and prayed with them all"
(ACTS 20:35,36). The Psalmist used a like expression: "Come in, then, fall
we down in worship, bowing the knee before God who made us" (PSALM 94:6).
The mother of the sons of Zebedee adopted the same position when seeking
preferment for her two boys, "falling on her knees to make a request of
Him" (MATTHEW 20:20).
The father who had the lunatic son came to Our Lord "and knelt before Him:
Lord, he said, have pity on my son, who is a lunatic" ( MATTHEW 17:14). The
leper who came up to Our Blessed Lord in the synagogue in Galilee to be

healed knelt at His feet and said, "If it be Thy Will, Thou hast power to
make me clean" (MARK 1:40). The condition that the devil imposed upon Our
Blessed Lord for giving Him all the kingdoms of the world was likewise that
of kneeling: "If Thou wilt fall down before me and worship" (LUKE 4:7).

Peter, on the contrary, was standing when he warmed himself by the fire
(JOHN 18:18, 25).
The conclusion is obvious. It is best to kneel during the Hour, for it
indicates humility, follows the example of Our Lord in the Garden, makes
atonement for our failings, and is a polite gesture before the King of
Kings.

HOW OFTEN?

Should the priest who hears the appeal of the suffering Savior to watch an
Hour with Him, make the sacrifice once a week? No! It is too hard. What is
done once a week is an interruption of our normal life. The temptation is
to put it off until the end of the week, thereby running the risk of not
doing it at all.
The weekly Holy Hour can never become a habit. Once a week is not a deep
token of love. What mother is content to see her child once a week; what
wife, her husband? Love is not intermittent. Medicines taken once a week
can give little strength.

If the Holy Hour once a week is too difficult, how often should it be made?
The answer is obvious. It should be made every day.
The Holy Hour made once a week is an interruption to the week. But made
daily, its absence is an interruption. Furthermore, an act which becomes a
habit by daily repetition, loses its difficulty. What at first was
imperfectly performed, by habit becomes easier with each progressive
stroke. If the Holy Hour is repeated daily at the same hour, we start it
without premeditation; it becomes almost automatic. The daily Holy Hour
becomes as easy as anything we do daily. It becomes not just a habit, but
part of a priest's nature. As Aristotle wrote in his Rhetoric:
"That which has become habitual becomes, as it were, a part of our nature;
habit is something like nature, for the difference between 'often' and
'always' is not great, and nature belongs to the idea of 'always,' habit to
that of 'often.' "

In the Old Testament the manna fell each day, not just weekly.
"But the Lord said to Moses, I mean to rain down bread upon you from
heaven. It will be for the people to go out and gather enough for their
needs, day by day; and so I shall have a test, whether they are ready to
follow My orders or not." EXODUS 16:4

God promised to give them bread every day, but on the day before the
Sabbath there fell a double supply, for none would fall on the Sabbath.
This daily gathering was a test of love and obedience. The Lord always has
a test: in the desert, as well as the Garden. The first parents were tested

by the prohibition to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. The obedience of the Israelites was tested by the command, not to
gather on ordinary days more than enough for that day. All life is a
probation. The inference suggested is that under the new dispensation, a
daily faith in the Eucharist by a Holy Hour is a proof of our faithfulness.
The manna taught a daily lesson of dependence on God, and it played an
important part in the spiritual education of Israel. It came not by fits or
in starts, but in a regular way What the Lord gave daily, we can return
daily.

The priest should think of the practice of the daily Holy Hour as something
to continue for his whole life. The children of Israel ate the manna for
forty years (EXODUS 16:35) until they came to the borders of the land of
Chanaan. The forty years represent the pilgrimage of life. It spiritually
implies that every priest should daily gather heavenly manna for his soul.
The daily Holy Hour gives us wisdom. Daily adoration of the Eucharist was
not only implied in the type or prefigurement of the manna, but also in the
way wisdom is given to those who fulfill the indicated conditions. Our Lord
said that those who did His Will would know His doctrine. This means that
knowledge is necessary in the beginning in order to love, but that later
love deepens knowledge. The Book of Proverbs, speaking of the wisdom that
is older than this world, summons the soul to an early and a daily
watching:
"Love Me, and thou shalt earn My Love; wait early at my doors, and thou
shalt gain access to Me." PROVERBS 8:17

The mind of the priest who lives close to the tabernacle door gains a
special illumination. The priest's mind and heart are best guided when they
seek the Eucharistic Lord at dawn. The young priest too is strengthened who
begins his watch at the tabernacle door in the first days of his
priesthood.

Another passage of the Book of Proverbs describing the daily search for
wisdom at the feet of the Lord, is frequently applied to the Blessed
Mother:
"I was at His side, a master-workman, my delight increasing with each day,
as I made play before Him all the while; made play in this world of dust,
with the sons of Adam for my playfellows." PROVERBS 8:30-32

It is certainly worthy to note that this delight is described not as
spasmodic or hebdomadal, but day by day. "Blessed are they who listen to
Me, keep vigil, day by day, at My threshold, watching till I open My doors"
(PROVERBS 8:34).
Daily exigencies demand a daily Holy Hour. The Lord's Prayer reminds us
that yesterday's food does not nourish us today:

"Give us this day our daily bread." MATTHEW 6:11
Vitamins cannot be stored up. Spiritual energy has to be renewed; today's
strength must come from the Lord today. Thus the monotony of life is
broken, and there comes to the priest new power for each day's apostolate.

The Holy Hour each day also destroys in the priest forebodings and worries
about the future. Kneeling before the Eucharistic Lord, he receives the
rations for each day's march, worrying not at all about the morrow.
The Holy Hour should be a daily event because our crosses are daily, not
weekly.

"If any man has a mind to come My way, let him renounce self, and take up
his cross daily, and follow Me." LUKE 9:23
Our children, our missions, our debts, our ulcers, our pet peeves--none of
them come in octaves. Their horizontal and vertical weavings form for us a
daily cross. These daily crosses will sour us, sear our souls and make us
bitter, unless we turn them into crucifixes; and how can that be done
except by seeing them as coming from the Lord? That we can do only if we
are with Him. The Holy Hour may be a sacrifice, but the Lord does not make
the week the unit of sacrifice. He tells us our cross is daily.
One moment in which Our Lord exulted, was when He exclaimed in the midst of
His disciples, that "the hour has come" ( JOHN 17:1). The word "hour" He
used only in relation to His Passion and Death. It was for that time, that
hour, that the clock of time had been set in motion; it was for that hour,
that the world was created, the Lamb slain, the dust of earth prepared. To
it the patriarchs looked forward; to it we look backwards. Without it there
would be no Mass, no absolution, no pardon. Will the true priest shrink
from such an hour, willing to be a priest but not a victim? To offer, but
not to be offered? To be a grain of incense but unready to be consumed in
the fire? Rather must he each day take up his cross of watching saying with
the Sacred Heart, "the hour has come."
Each day, while it is in his power to do so, because there will be a day
and an hour that will not be his over which he will have no control, for

". . . that day and that hour you speak of, they are known to nobody, not
even to the angels in heaven." MARK 13:32

It is not conceivable that a priest who has sanctified each day with its
Hour will ever be rejected by the Judge. If Our Lord puts the day and the
hour together to make it a symbol of judgment, then shall not we put the
day and the hour together unto salvation, unto joy and unto love?
"Blessed is that servant who is found doing this when his Lord comes." LUKE
12:43

It may be objected, that an hour a day taken out of priestly work, means
that much less good can be done. The very same objection was made to Paul's
imprisonment. Vet from his prison St. Paul wrote to the Philippians to
reassure them that, even if not actively preaching, he was doing good. Each
priest in prayer can say as Paul in prison:
"I hasten to assure you, brethren, that my circumstances here have only had
the effect of spreading the gospel further; so widely has my imprisonment
become known, in Christ's honour, throughout the praetorium and to all the
world beyond." PHILIPPIANS 1:12

All the things that were happening to him there, were furthering the
Gospel. We all stand committed to Christ under a spiritual obligation to
maintain a clear and decisive loyalty, not only for our own sake, but for
that of all whom our steadfastness and watchfulness will strengthen. The
daily Holy Hour is a limitation on time, but a limitation that is conquered
by a superior spiritual good. By human standards nothing could be a greater
waste than Paul in prison, just when Christianity was beginning to conquer
the world. The same might be said of a pastor beginning a parish. Nothing
could seem more wasteful than to sacrifice an hour for the Lord. But God's
ways are different. The apparent reverse and discomfiture of man is turned
into the triumph of truth. Mercies are garnered and resources found hidden
by the priest who knocks on the tabernacle door.
Every pastor may properly ask if he should not give more attention to the
tabernacle and the altar in his church, in order to emphasize the Real
Presence. An altar which looks like a table and a tabernacle which looks
like a box, help little to bring home to the viewer the Divine Presence.
Would not the tabernacle perhaps be enriched by restoring the two cherubs
prescribed under the law of Moses?
"Make a throne, too, of pure gold, two and a half cubits long, one and a
half cubits broad, and two cherubs of pure beaten gold for the two ends of
this throne, one to stand on either side of it; with their wings outspread
to cover the throne, guardians of the shrine. They are to face one another
across the throne. And this throne is to be the covering of the ark, and
the ark's contents, the written law I mean to give thee. Thence will I
issue my commands; from that throne of mercy, between the two cherubs that
stand over the ark and its records, My Voice shall come to thee, whenever I
send word through thee to the sons of Israel." EXODUS 25:17-22

The exact shape of the temple cherubim was kept secret by the Jews. The
first century Jewish historian, Josephus, noted that "no one is able to
state or conjecture of what form the cherubim were." The two wings of both
cherubs were both so advanced in front of them and elevated, as to
overshadow the top of the Ark of the Covenant. Their faces were bent toward
one another, so that they both looked downward toward the Ark, as if
watching over it. The Cherubs are spoken of as the seraphs of the Temple
vision in Isaias (6:2), and also as the guardians of Paradise (GENESIS
3:24). Their wings were also a protecting shade for those who took refuge
under them in Divine Mercy (PSALM 90:1-3). St. Peter said later that the
angels loved to gaze and meditate upon the mystery of Redemption--an
obvious reference to the position of the angels over the Ark of the
Covenant.
And now the angels can satisfy their eager gaze." I PETER 1:12

The top of the Ark, sometimes called the Mercy Seat, was blood-stained,
blood being sprinkled on it once a year. As a figure of the New Testament,
the faces of the angels are therefore Christ-ward hovering over the cross
and the Blood of Redemption.
The angel guarding the Garden of Delight to prevent the return of our first
parents (GENESIS 3:24), now seems a counterpart of those placed to watch
over the prototype of the Eucharist, except that the latter grasp no sword
in their hands. Zacharias seems to tell us where the sword will be found,

namely, in the Heart of the Shepherd Who offered His life for His sheep.

"What wounds be these in Thy Clasped Hands? Thus wounded was I, He shall
answer, in the house of my friends. Up, sword, and attack this Shepherd of
Mine . . . says the Lord of hosts." ZACHARIAS 13:6, 7

The pastor's primary concern should be the tabernacle, not the rectory, not
the ego, but the Lord, not his comfort, but God's glory. Wall to wall
carpeting in a rectory goes poorly with an altar and tabernacle looking
like a house on stilts. Should not the King have a better home than his
representative? First things first, as David sang:

"Never will I come beneath the roof of my house, or climb up into the bed
that is strewn for me; never shall these eyes have sleep, these eyelids
close, until I have found the Lord a home, the great God of Jacob a
dwelling-place. . . . Let thy priests go clad in the vesture of innocence,
thy faithful people cry aloud with rejoicing." PSALM 131:3-5, 9
Some can be forgetful of the Eucharist, as Saul was unmindful of the ark.
But David contrasted his own comfortable home with the poverty of the ark:
"Here am I dwelling in a house all of cedar, while God's ark has nothing
better than curtains of hide about it!" (II KINGS 7:2). David could not
allow the Eternal God to dwell in an unfitting abode. The Lord rebukes
those who build fine houses while neglecting His Temple:
"Listen, the Lord said (to them through the prophet Aggaeus), is it not too
early yet for you to have roofs over your heads, and My temple in ruins? .
. . To your own houses you run helter-skelter, and My temple in ruins! That
is why the skies are forbidden to rain on you." AGGAEUS 1:4, 9, 10

But while we build churches worthy of the Eucharistic Lord, we will give 10
per cent of the cost to build humble homes for the same Lord in Africa and
Asia. He who makes the daily Hour will think of this, for he knows that his
parish must be a victimhood, as it is also a royal priesthood.
There will come moments when the Hour is difficult--most often on vacation,
but sometimes in great distress. What then gives the priest courage? This
may be a time of darkness, as when the Greeks had come to Our Lord saying,
"We wish to see Jesus," probably because of the majesty and beauty of
appearance which they revered so highly as followers of Apollo. But He
pointed to His torn and battered Self on a hill, and then added that only
through the Cross in their lives will there ever be beauty of soul in the
newness of life.

He then paused for a moment as His soul was seized by a frightening
apprehension of the Passion and being "made sin," of being betrayed,
crucified, and abandoned. Out from the depths of His Sacred Heart welled
these words:

"And now My soul is distressed. What am I to say? I will say, Father, save
Me from undergoing this hour of trial; And yet I have only reached this
hour of trial that I might undergo it." JOHN 12:27
These are almost the same words that He used later on in the Garden of
Gethsemane words that are inexplicable except for the fact that He was

bearing the burden of the world's sins. It was only natural for Our Blessed
Lord to undergo a struggle inasmuch as He was a perfect man. But it was not
the physical sufferings alone which troubled Him; He, like Stoics,
philosophers, men and women of all ages, could have been calm in the face
of great physical trials. But His distress was directed less to the pain,
and more to the consciousness of the sins of the world which demanded these
sufferings. The more He loved those for whom He was the ransom, the more
His anguish would increase, as it is the faults of friends rather than
enemies which most disturb hearts!
He certainly was not asking to be saved from the Cross, since He
reprimanded His Apostles for trying to dissuade Him. Two opposites were
united in Him, separated only in utterance: the desire for release, and
submission to the Father's will. By laying bare His own soul, He told the
Greeks self-sacrifice was not easy. They were not to be fanatics about
wanting to die, for nature does not want to crucify itself; but on the
other hand, they were not to turn their eyes from the Cross in cowardly
dread. In His own case, now as always, the most sorrowful moods pass into
the most blissful; there is never the Cross without the Resurrection; the
"Hour" in which evil has mastery passes quickly into the "Day" where God is
Victor.

And as at that moment, there came to Him a Voice from heaven, so there will
come to the priest-victim a voice from the tabernacle.

16. THE EUCHARIST AND THE BODY OF THE PRIEST

One effect of devotion to the Blessed Sacrament is a more lofty concept of
the body. Much devotional literature is infected with a Jansenistic
emphasis on the vileness of the body. It is represented as a "worm" and
"the enemy of the soul," as if the soul could be saved without the body
Such contempt of the body forgets that man is a person, a composite of body
and soul. In announcing the Eucharist, Our Blessed Lord spoke of it in
relationship not only to the soul but also to the body which will share in
the Resurrection.
"And He Who sent Me would have Me keep without loss, and raise up at the
last day, all He has entrusted to Me." JOHN 6:39

Job, looking forward to the Resurrection while peering at his ulcerous
sores, cried out:
"This at least I know, that One lives on Who will vindicate me, rising up
from the dust when the last day comes. Once more my skin shall clothe me,
and in my flesh shall I have sight of God." JOB 19:25

Similarly, the Lord speaks to Ezechiel:
"Will you doubt, then, the Lord's power, when I open your graves and revive
you?" EZECHIEL 37:13

This idea St. Paul developed at length (I CORINTHIANS 15:35-44), relating
it to the Resurrection of Christ. The characteristics the body will assume

will reflect those of the soul. If one pours a blue liquid into a glass,
the glass looks blue. If one pours red into it, it looks red. If the soul
is black within, the body will take on a like corruption. If the soul has a
participation of the Divine Nature, the body will take on the radiance of
Heaven. As Dante wrote in his Paradiso:
"Glorious and sanctified flesh shall be put on us again, making our persons
more pleasing through being all complete."
What was said of Our Blessed Lord as He came into the world should,
therefore, be applicable to every priest.
"Thou hast endowed Me instead with a body." HEBREWS 10:6

What this means is that God would not be satisfied with the sacrifices of
the Old Law (ISAIAS 1:11-17; JEREMIAS 7:21-23; OSEE 6:6), but that the Body
which His Son took was to be the instrument of His divinity. It was thanks
to the Body Mary gave Him that He could suffer. It was thanks to the same
Body that Divinity walked this earth in the form of man:

"In Christ the whole plenitude of Deity is embodied, and dwells in Him."
COLOSSIANS 2: 9

In the wilderness, Satan appealed to the appetite of hunger after Our Lord
had been fasting. But Our Lord made reparation for all such sins by
offering His Body a Sacrifice on the Cross.
It may be asked why the emphasis in the Epistle to the Hebrews is placed
upon the body which Our Lord took, and not upon the soul, as it is in
Isaias (53:10). It was probably to stress the fact that the offering of
Christ was to be by death, which required a body; and also to draw
attention to the need to confirm the New Covenant by blood as well as the
Old. Hence, Our Lord the night of the Last Supper changed the wine into
Blood, calling it the Blood of the New Testament or Covenant; but the Blood
could not be given without the Body.
Another reason may be to remind us that Christ's Human Nature (LUKE 1:35)
did not constitute a distinct person, but pertained to the Second Person of
the Blessed Trinity. The mystery of the Incarnation is that the Godhead
dwelt in the Body; the mystery of Atonement is hidden in One offering of
the Body of Christ; the mystery of sanctification is that the Holy Spirit
dwells in and sanctifies the Body too.
Since the great High Priest stressed His Body as the source of
sanctification for souls, then must not the priest who touches that Body of
Christ in the Eucharist, see his own body incorporated in that same
Eucharistic Lord?
This respect for the body will manifest itself in two ways: by purity of
body, and by a spirit of sacrifice. For all Christians, but particularly
for the priest who touches the Body of Christ, the obligation to be pure is
clear :
"But your bodies are not meant for debauchery, they are meant for the Lord,
and the Lord claims your bodies." I CORINTHIANS 6:13
’

"Have you never been told that your bodies belong to the Body of Christ^" I
CORINTHIANS 6:15

The body does not belong to the priest; he is only its trustee. He is
obligated to use it according to the great High Priest's direction:
"You are no longer your own masters. A great price was paid to ransom you;
glorify God by making your bodies the shrines of His Presence." I
CORINTHIANS 6: 19, 20

It is not only the soul that is the Lord's; it is the body as well. Limb by
limb, the body of the priest must be the same as that which the Son of God
took, which for us was crucified, and which is now in glory at the right
Hand of God. Once the priest actually sees it as the temple of God, he has
to show it a greater respect. The way he dresses, how he presents himself
to callers at the door, how he keeps his body disciplined, free from
excesses of eating and drinking, these and all his relations to his body,
are guided by a sense of what is proper to the temple which is God's. The
body of the priest is the temple wall, his senses are its gate, his mind
the nave, his heart the altar-priest and his soul the holy of holies.
There will even be a resulting pleasantness about the priest's face.
Builders of medieval cathedrals spent much time on the doors to make them
as worthy as possible. The face is the doorway of the soul, and it should
not be a discredit to the temple. A dreary and sad look, peevishness and
discontent, little befit those whose bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost
and who touch the Body and Blood of Christ each morning at the altar. In
the face will shine forth the Divine Presence.

PURITY

The purity of the priest is therefore spiritual before it is physical; it
is theological, before it is physiological; it is Eucharistic, before it is
hygienic. Purity is a reflection of faith; it is attitude before an act; a
reverent inwardness, not a biological intactness.
Purity in the priest is not the result of something he "gives up; it is
reverence for mystery--and the mystery is creativeness. God has allowed
creatures to share in His creation. Husband and wife prolong it by
begetting fruit to their marriage, an incarnation of their mutual love. The
ambassador of Christ is called to another kind of creativeness--he begets
souls. He consecrates, he baptizes; he recreates souls in the confessional.
In all these acts his body shares. Therefore, he has not surrendered
certain functions of the body; he has transformed them, merged them into
the Divine plan of redemption.

Consecrated virginity is the highest form of sacral or sacrificial love; it
seeks nothing for itself, it seeks only the will of the Beloved. The world
makes the mistake of assuming that virginity is opposed to love, as poverty
is opposed to wealth. Rather, virginity is related to love, as a university
education is related to a grammar-school education. Virginity is the
mountain peak of love, as marriage is its hill. Simply because virginity is
often associated with asceticism and penance, it is thought to mean only

the giving up of something. The true picture is that asceticism is only the
fence around the garden of virginity. A guard is always stationed around
the crown jewels of England, not because England loves soldiers, but
because it needs them to protect the jewels. So, the more precious the
love, the greater the precautions to guard it. Since no love is more
precious than that of the soul in love with God, the soul must ever be on
the watch against lions who would overrun its green pastures. The grating
in a Carmelite monastery is not to keep the sisters in, but to keep the
world out.
As virginity is not the opposite of love, neither is it the opposite of
generation. The Christian blessing on virginity did not abrogate the order
of Genesis (1:22) to "increase and multiply," for virginity has its own
generation. Mary's consecration of virginity was unique in that it resulted
in a physical generation--the Word made Flesh. But it also set the pattern
for spiritual generation, for she also begot the Christ-like. In like
manner, virgin love must not be barren. Rather must it say with Paul:

"It was I that begot you in Jesus Christ. . ." I CORINTHIANS 4:15
When the woman in the crowd praised the Mother of Our Lord, He turned the
praise to spiritual motherhood, and said that she who did the will of His
Father in heaven was His mother. Relationship was here lifted from the
level of the flesh, to the spirit. To beget a body is blessed; to save a
soul, is more blessed, for such is the Father's Will. An idea thus can
transform a vital function, not by condemning it to sterility, but by
elevating it to a new fecundity of the Spirit. There would, therefore, seem
to be implied in all virginity the necessity of apostleship and the
begetting of souls for Christ. God, Who hated the man who buried his talent
in the ground, will certainly despise those who pledge themselves to be in
love with Him, and yet show no new life--converts or souls saved through
contemplation.

INSTRUCTING YOUTHS ON PURITY
In discussing with others the dignity of the body, the true priest will not
limit himself to the routine repetition of the traditional prohibitions and
the equal routine advice to imitate the Blessed Mother. The "don't"
technique is that it makes the young wonder why their instinct of
procreation should be so strong, if it has evil associated with it. On the
other hand, the young wonder how the Blessed Mother is to be imitated. The
ideal is so high and abstract as easily to seem impractical to the young.
As pure water is more than the absence of impurities, as a pure diamond is
more than the absence of carbon, and as pure food is more than the absence
of poison, so purity is more than the absence of voluptuousness. Because
one defends the fortress against the enemy, it does not follow that the
fortress itself contains no treasure.

Youth should be told by the priest, that every mystery contains two
elements; one visible, the other invisible. For example, in Baptism, water
is the visible element and the regenerating grace of the Christ is the
invisible element. Sex is a mystery, too, because it has these two
characteristics. Sex is something known to everyone, and yet it is

something hidden from everyone. The known element is that everyone is
either male or female. The invisible, hidden, mysterious element in sex is
its capacity for creativeness, a sharing in some way of the creative power
by which God made the world and all that is in it. As God's love is the
creative principle of the universe, so God willed that the love of man and
woman should be the creative principle of the family. This power of human
beings to beget one made in their image and likeness partakes of God's
creative power.
The young must be made to understand that the torch of life placed by God
in their hands, must burn controlled unto the purpose and destiny set by
reason and the God of reason. The mystery of creativeness which God put in
them is surrounded with awe. A special reverence does envelop the power to
be co-creators with God in the making of human life. It is this hidden
element which in a special way belongs to God, as does the grace of God in
the sacraments. Those who speak of sex alone concentrate on the physical or
visible element, forgetting the spiritual or invisible mystery of
creativeness. Humans in the sacraments supply the act, the bread, the
water, and the words; God supplies the grace, the mystery. In the sacred
act of creating life, man and woman supply the unity of the flesh; God
supplies the soul and mystery. Such is the mystery of sex as the priest
should explain it.

In youth, this awesomeness before the mystery manifests itself in a woman's
timidity, which makes her shrink from a precocious or too ready surrender
of her secret. In a man, the mystery is revealed in chivalry to women,
which is something more than a mere sense of awe in the presence of the
unknown. Because, too, of the reverence which envelops this mysterious
power which came from God, mankind has always felt that it is to be used
only by a special sanction from God and under certain relationships. That
is why, traditionally, marriage has been associated with religious rites,
to bear witness to the fact that the power of sex which comes from God,
should have its use approved by God because it is destined to fulfill His
creative designs.
Certain powers may properly be used only in certain relationships. What is
lawful in one relationship is not lawful in another. A man can kill another
man in a just war, but not in his private capacity as a citizen. A
policeman can arrest someone as a duly appointed guardian of the law, but
not otherwise. So, too, the "creativeness" of man and woman is lawful under
certain relationships sanctioned by God, but not apart from that mysterious
relationship called marriage.

Purity is now seen not as something negative, but positive. Purity is such
a reverence for the mystery of creativeness, that it will suffer no schism
between the use of the power to beget and its Divinely ordained purpose.
The pure would no more think of isolating the capacity to share in God's
creativeness, than they would think of using a knife for other than its
humanly ordained purpose. Those things which God has joined together, the
pure would never separate. Never would they use the material sign to
dishonor the holy inner mystery, as they would not use the Bread of the
altar, consecrated to God, to nourish the body alone.

Purity, then, is not mere physical intactness. The priest will tell the
girl it is a firm resolve never to use the power until God sends her a

husband. In the boy, it is a steadfast desire to wait upon God's will that
he have a wife. In this sense true marriages are made in heaven; for when
heaven makes them, body and soul do not pull in opposite directions. The
physical aspect, known as sex, is not alienated from the invisible,
mysterious aspect which is revealed only to the one willed by God to share
in God's creativeness, in God's own time.

Youth will see that experience bears out the definition of purity as
reverence for mystery. No one is scandalized at seeing people eat in
public, or read in buses, or listen to music on the street, but they are
shocked at dirty shows, foul books, or undue manifestations of affection in
public. It is not because youths are prudes, nor because they are educated
in Catholic schools, nor because they have not yet come under the
"liberating" influence of a Freud, but because these things involve aspects
of a mystery so deep, so personal, so incommunicable that they must not be
vulgarized.
We like to see the American flag flying over a neighbor's head, but we do
not want to see it under his feet. There is a mystery in that flag; it is
more than cloth; it stands for the unseen, the spiritual, for love and
devotion to country. The pure are shocked at the impure, because of the
prostitution of the sacred; it makes the reverent, irreverent. The essence
of obscenity is the turning of the inner mystery into a jest. Given a
hidden presence of a God-gift in every person, as there is a hidden Divine
Presence in the Bread of the altar, each person becomes a host. As one
discerns the Bread of Angels under the sign of bread, so one discerns a
soul and potential co-partnership with God's creativeness under a body. As
the Catholic craves the embrace of Christ in the Sacrament because he first
learned to love Him as a Person, so he reveres the body because he first
learned to revere the soul. This is adoration in the first instance, and
purity in the second.

In dealing with adults, the priest who has given his body to the Lord will
explain to them the meaning of "two in one flesh." Not only in marriage,
but outside marriage, every such act creates oneness and something that
endures through eternity. There is no such thing as drinking the water and
forgetting the glass:
"Am I to take what belongs to Christ and make it one with a harlot? God
forbid. Or did you never hear that the man who unites himself to a harlot
becomes one body with her? The two, we are told, will become one flesh." I
CORINTHIANS 6:15, 16
Each person possesses a gift which can be given only once, and received
only once. In the unity of flesh he makes her a woman; she makes him a man.
They may enjoy the gift many times, but once given, it can never be taken
back, either in man or in woman. It is not just a physiological experience,
but the unraveling of a mystery. As one can pass just once from ignorance
to knowledge concerning a given fact or axiom, for example, the principle
of contradiction, so one can pass just once from incompleteness to the full
knowledge of self which the partner brings. Once that border line is
crossed, neither belongs wholly to self. Their reciprocity has created
dependence; the riddle has been solved, the mystery has been revealed; the
dual have become a unity, either sanctioned by God or in defiance of His
Will.

St. Paul also teaches a lesson the priest can communicate about the body.
"Any other sin a man commits, leaves the body untouched, but the fornicator
is committing a crime against his own body." I CORINTHIANS 6:17, 18

Drunkenness and gluttony are sins done in and by the body, are sins
committed through abuse of the body; but they are still outside the body,
that is, introduced from without. Fornication is the alienation of a body
which is the Lord's and making it the body of someone else; it is the
surrendering of the property of the Lord to another. It is a sin against a
man's own body in his very nature.

After presenting to others the positive side of purity, then the ideal of
the Blessed Mother becomes clear. She is the ideal love we see beyond all
creature love, a love to which we instinctively turn when flesh-love fails.
She is the ideal that God had in His Heart from all eternity--the Lady Whom
He would call our Blessed "Mother." She is the one every man loves when he
loves a woman--whether he knows it or not. She is what every woman wants to
be, when she looks at herself. She is the woman every man marries in his
ideal; she is hidden as an ideal in the discontent of every woman with the
carnal aggressiveness of man; she is the secret desire every woman has to
be honored and fostered. To know a woman in the hour of possession, a man
must first have loved her in the exquisite hour of a dream. To be loved by
man in the hour of possession, a woman must first want to be loved,
fostered, and honored as an ideal. Beyond all human love is another love;
that "other" is the image of the possible. It is that "possible" that each
man and each woman loves when they love one another. That "possible"
becomes real in the blueprint love of the One beloved of God before the
world was made, and in that other love bringing Christ to us and us to
Christ: Mary, the Immaculate Virgin, the Mother of God.
THE PRIEST'S BODY: A LIVING SACRIFICE
The Eucharistic priest lives out Paul's words:
"I appeal to you by God's mercy to offer up your bodies as a living
sacrifice, consecrated to God and worthy of His acceptance." ROMANS 12:1
St. Paul may have had in mind some of the sacrifices of the Old Law. The
priest, having killed the animal, cut it open and took out all that was
unclean. He then washed it, and consumed it on the altar with fire, before
the Lord. Our great High Priest would have us wash externally from our
guilt in His Blood, and then laying us open, would remove all that was
corrupt within us by the washing and regeneration of the Holy Spirit, that
we may be laid as holy sacrifices upon the altar and consumed before the
Lord.

"Living" may be here understood as opposed to sensual lust which has its
source in the body and against which the Apostle later complained (ROMANS
7:24). "Living" also may mean the continual sacrifice. The Greek word used
in this text is the usual one for presenting sacrificial animals at the
altar, but here our bodies are specified. The Jew had to present to God the
body of an animal, the priest has to present his own body. Under the Law

the animal was sacrificed; in the Mass, the priest is "sacrificed" and made
a victim.
When the body is offered to God as a "reasonable sacrifice," the earth is
trod not as a golf course, or a market, but as a temple. If our sole
sentiment toward our great High Priest was a religious feeling not
expressed in an appropriate form of sacrifice, our feelings would
eventually die out. Expressing our priestly lives in sacrifice prevents
piety from becoming emotional. Nothing gives so much power to the words of
the priest in the pulpit, the classroom, or the home, as his self-denials.
Nothing in this world is of value until offered or dedicated to a higher
end. What is the worth of land, unless we do something with it? What is the
worth of our body, unless it is spent for Christ?
The Sacrifice of the Mass which we offer is performed without any
satisfaction to the senses. But when does it become sensible, tangible,
lived-out, concrete? When the morning sacrifice is made visible in the
living sacrifice of his body. Any excesses which dull the spirit and make
it unfit to serve Him any absorbing care about outward things which checks
the growth of Christ in us, such things erect a barrier against the power
of the priest to sanctify others "ex opere operantis. There is no such
thing as a "six o'clock Mass." The Mass is continuous--a "living
sacrifice." What is mystically presented in the morning Mass must be bodily
presented throughout the day.

Having died with Christ on the altar we continue the death in instructing
converts, in burying the dead, in consoling the sick, in almsgiving for the
Propagation of the Faith. No one will despise the sacrifices which the body
ought to make, if the flame sacrifice is kindled at the Consecration.
The continuing sacrifice of the priest is of the heart and mind in
thanksgiving (ROMANS 15:16; HEBREWS 13:15); the sacrifice of good deeds
(HEBREWS 13:16); the sacrifice of broken hearts and contrite spirits (PSALM
50:17); the sacrifice of the whole man and the dedication of himself to God
(I PETER 2:15; ROMANS 12:1; PHILIPPIANS 2:7).

That the motivation for our living sacrifice is the Eucharist is clear:

"So it is the Lord's Death that you are heralding, whenever you eat this
Bread and drink this Cup, until He comes." I CORINTHIANS 11:26
The Eucharist is thus not only an incorporation to the Life of Christ, it
is also an incorporation to His Death. Our Mass not only looks back to the
first coming of Christ, but forward to His second coming. The Mass is also
a mystical representation of the Death of Christ through the separate
consecration of the Bread and Wine, typifying the separation of the Blood
from the Body of Christ. This mystical and unbloody representation of the
Death of Christ, commits us to the discipline and mortification of the body
when we leave the altar. As Christ's Death was not a bare dying, but a
death with high and glorious ends, so our re-enactment of it is not a mere
historical recalling, but a practical living-out of the Cross. Without the
prolongation of sacrifice there is only a speculative remembrance, such as
one might have of a motion picture, but without a stirring up of mutual
love and gratitude.

A decline in reverence in saying the Mass is going to be followed by a
decline of sacrifice in the priestly activities of the day. The lazy priest
will always work "hardest" to finish his Mass as quickly as possible. He
does not want the trumpet call to sacrifice to be loud or too clear. But
the saintly priest knows that wheat has to pass through a mill to become
fit for the altar and grapes have to be crushed in the wine-press; so too
must he be a victim, in order to offer worthily the sacrifice which
proclaims and re-enacts the Death of Christ.
Monsignor Ronald Knox bids us reflect on our victimhood as we say in
thanksgiving: "This is His Body which is being given for me; this is His
Blood which is being shed for me-- after all this lapse of time, He still
comes to me in the posture of a Victim. And He wants to impress something
of Himself on me; I am to be the wax, He the signet ring. Something, then,
of the Victim He wants to see in me; does not the Imitation say it is up to
every Christian to lead a dying life? Not for me, perhaps, to enter very
deeply into the dispositions of my Crucified Savior, but to be rather more
humble, when I am thwarted; rather more resigned, when things go wrong with
me; rather less anxious to make a chart of my own spiritual progress, more
ready to let Him do in me what He wants to do, without letting me know
about it! If I could only die a little to the world, to my wishes, to
myself; be patient and wait for His coming, content to herald His Death by
dying with Him!"

Our struggle as priests then is not to become angelic and to live as if we
had no body, but to become more Christlike.
"This is my earnest longing and my hope . . . that this body of mine will
do Christ honour. ..." PHILIPPIANS 1:20
At the end of a busy day when fatigue sets in, because of all we did for
Christ's sake, we can read in our body the traces of crucifixion: "We carry
about continually in our bodies the dying state of Jesus, so that the
living power of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies too" (II CORINTHIANS
4:10).

In the morning Mass we "announced the death of the Lord"; in parish, home,
confessional and everywhere we prolonged it into exhaustion, knowing that
such multiple "deaths" for others are the condition of the glorious
resurrection of that same body. Some spiritual writers speak of the
imitation of Christ as if it were only in the soul. St. Paul insists that
the death of Christ is "manifested in our bodies." St. Paul uses two words
for body, one is "sarks," which stands for man in his absence from God; the
other is "soma," which stands for man in the solidarity of creation and
made for God. The first is crucified for Christ's sake, the other is
glorified for His sake. The "sarks" cannot inherit the Kingdom of God (I
CORINTHIANS 15:50), but the "soma" can. Since the "body is for the Lord,"
then our body is not our own. The priest is not his own. "You are no longer
your own masters. A great price was paid to ransom you; glorify God by
making your bodies the shrines of His Presence" (I CORINTHIANS 6:19, 20).

17. THE PRIEST AND HIS MOTHER

Every priest has two mothers: one in the flesh, the other in the spirit.
Much more is known about the former; much more has been written about the
latter. There is no more rivalry between these two mothers than between the
priest's earthly father and his heavenly Father. Often, one of the first
acts of the mother of the flesh was to lay her son at the feet of the
Blessed Mother, as did the author's mother, to symbolize the surrender of
filiation. How many were the secret conferences between these two mothers
in which the mother in the flesh begged the mother in Christ to have him
one day hold a host and a chalice in his hands?
If it is true (as the Fathers say) that Mary conceived in her heart before
she conceived in her womb, may not the same be said of the mothers of many
priests? Some priests have been called at the eleventh hour, but many
mothers may paraphrase the book of Proverbs and say: "The son was not as
yet, and I conceived a priest." As God consulted with Mary to ask if she
would give Him a human nature, so He often consults with the mother of a
priest to ask her consent to the continuation of His priesthood. When the
mother's dream is realized, what thoughts pass through the soul of her son,
now a priest?

The priest, first, gives up the earthly love of a woman, as Mary gave up
the earthly love of a man. His "I have no knowledge of woman" balances her
"I have no knowledge of man" (LUKE 1:34). The expression in Scripture means
carnal union, as in GENESIS 4:1 ("Adam had knowledge of his wife, Eve, and
she conceived"). From the very beginning, the priest knows that love is
simultaneously an affirmation and a negation. Every protestation of love is
a limitation on every competing love. True love by its nature imposes
restrictions. The married man imposes limitations on himself in respect to
all women, but one. The priest admits of no exception, and he does so in
the exercise of a perfect freedom. In the Incarnation, God established a
beachhead in humanity, through the free choice of a woman; now Our Lord
finds an extension of His priesthood in the free act of a priest. He waits
upon our consent.

Our earthly mother willed in general to conceive, but when it would be
realized was unforeseen and unpredictable. Not so the priest's surrender at
ordination. His surrender is like Mary's. She willed her Son and she
conceived. So the priest willed to be God's, and he can identify the day
and the hour. The more he serves that surrender, the more he knows that
only the Christ-fettered are free.

But a priest cannot live without love. The Blessed Mother knew there could
be no conception without fire and passion. How could there be a son, since
she had "no knowledge of man?" Heaven had the answer. Certainly, there
would be fire and passion and love, but that fire and that love would be
the Holy Spirit.

Neither can the priest live without love. If there is to be a generation of
souls, and if he is to be a "father" begetting others in Christ, there must
be love. That love is the same as Mary's; the Fire and Passion of the Holy
Spirit overshadowing him. As in her, were united virginity and motherhood,
so in the priest, there is to be the unity of virginity and fatherhood.
This is not barrenness but fecundity, not the absence of love, but its
ecstasy.

The next stage of the priest's love is service.
So it is that the Son of Man did not come to have service done Him; He
came to serve others ..." MARK 10:45

As Mary's spiritual motherhood was not a privilege apart from humanity, so
neither is the spiritual fatherhood of the priest. Nothing so provokes the
service of others, as a sense of one's unworthiness when visited by the
grace of God. Mary hastening over the hills in the Visitation, reveals how
she, the handmaid of the Lord, became the handmaid of Elizabeth. She is now
the example to the priest that the Christ within him must prompt dedication
to "all those who are our friends in the common faith" (TITUS 3:15), and to
all mankind. As Mary's visit sanctified John the Baptist, so the visit of
the priest-victim will always sanctify souls.

Every sick call of the priest will be to him the mystery of the Visitation
all over again. Carrying the Blessed Sacrament to his breast, in auto or on
foot, makes him another Mary carrying the cloistered Christ within her pure
body. No delays on sick calls, no tarrying while the family worries, but
like Mary, the priest "hastens"--for nothing demands speed as much as the
need of others. The more Christ-possessed the priest is, the more likely he
is to hear from those who open the door to him who carries the Blessed
Sacrament: "Why, as soon as ever the voice of thy greeting sounded in my
ears" (LUKE 1:44), my heart leaped with joy. The holy priest inspires
Magnificats in every visit to the sick, as the families of the parish say
to him: "How have I deserved to be thus visited" (LUKE 1:43) by another
Christ?
The priest has a deep love of Mary not only in his better moments, but even
in his failings. He trusts in her intercession to combat his weakness. Then
especially, he looks to her for special attention, knowing that the child
who falls most often is apt to get most of the mother's kisses.

If ever the Simon-nature dominates him; if there come moments when, like
Demas, he "has fallen in love with this present world" (II TIMOTHY 4:9); if
he becomes known in the parish as a "golfer" or a "swell guy" or "one of
the boys" rather than as a good priest, then he knows where he must go to
help him find his Lord again. He must go to Mary. She, too, "lost" Christ.
That physical loss was a symbol of the spiritual loss which the priest
sustains in losing his first ardor. Mary's Heart is pierced with a sword at
the loss of every "alter Christus." But she also is in search of them. To
have God and then lose Him is a greater loss than never to have Him. Mary
and the weak priest suffer together, but in different ways. She felt the
darkness of losing God, when the boy Jesus stayed on in Jerusalem unknown
to her (LUKE 2:43). It was at this moment that Mary became the Refuge of
Sinners. She understood what sin is; for she, a creature, experimentally
lost the Creator. She lost the Child only in the mystical darkness of soul,
while the priest, who falls, feels the moral blackness of an ungrateful
heart. But Mary found the Child. To all bishops and priests through the
ages, she gave the lesson that we are not to wait for the lost to come
back; we must go in search of them. And her intercession will help in the
most desperate cases, as we say with Augustine to her: "What all the other
saints can do with your help, you alone can do without them."
At the Marriage Feast of Cana, Mary teaches the priest how much he belongs

to the Church, and so little to himself. Up to this time and during the
feast she is called "Jesus' mother" (JOHN 2:1,3). At its end, however, she
becomes "woman" (JOHN 2:4). What happens here is like what happened when
Christ was lost for three days. Mary had then said: "Thy father and I"
(LUKE 2:48), and Our Lord immediately reminded her of His Heavenly Father,
recalling the mystery of the Annunciation, and the fact that Joseph was
only the putative father.
From that moment, Joseph disappears from Sacred Scripture; he is never seen
again. At Cana, "Jesus' mother" asks for a manifestation of His Messianic
role and Divinity; Our Lord tells her that the moment He works a miracle
and begins His Public Life, He goes to His "Hour," the Cross. Once the
"water blushes into wine" at the Divine look, she becomes "woman." As
Joseph disappears at the Temple, so Mary as the Mother of Jesus, disappears
to become the Mother of all whom He will redeem. She never speaks again in
Sacred Scripture. She has spoken her last words, and what a beautiful
valedictory they were:

"Do whatever He tells you." JOHN 2:5

She now is the "universal Mother," the woman with the seed more numerous
than the sands of the sea.
Through Mary's example and influence, there comes a moment in the priest's
life when he realizes he does not belong to his family, his parish, his
diocese, his country. He belongs to the missions and to the world; he
belongs to humanity. The closer the priest gets to the mission of Christ,
the more he loves every soul in the world. As Mary "mothered" all men at
the Cross, so the priest "fathers" them. No bishop is consecrated for a
diocese; he is consecrated for the world. He is assigned to a diocese only
for jurisdictional reasons. The priest is not ordained for a diocese; he is
ordained for souls. "He does not belong to our parish" is a valid
jurisdictional reason for not handling a marriage case, but it is no valid
reason for not considering the petitioner as a member of Christ, and
therefore, entitled to the milk of human kindness. St. Thomas Aquinas tells
us that Mary at the Annunciation spoke in the name of all humanity. At Cana
she is given to humanity; at the foot of the Cross, she is confirmed as the
mother of mankind.

Devotion to Mary keeps the priest from being the hireling, a hired servant
with fixed hours, assigned duties, parish limits, and no lost sheep. There
is no "on duty" for a priest. He is "on love" everywhere--on the golf
course, in the airplane, in a restaurant, in a hospital. Nothing human is
foreign to him. Every soul is either a potential convert, or a potential
saint.
In the Passion, Mary teaches compassion to the priest. The saints least
indulgent to themselves are the most indulgent to others. But the priest
who leads an easy, unmortified life cannot speak the language of the
affrighted. Self-raised above need, he cannot bend to console; or if he
does, it is with condescension, not compassion. The good priest, on the
contrary, sees Mary in the dust of human lives; she lives amidst terror,
brain-washings, false accusations, libels, and all the other instruments of
terror. The Immaculate is with the maculate, the sinless with the sinner.
She bears neither rancor nor bitterness, but only pity, pity that they do

not see or know how loving is that Love they are sending to death.
In her purity, Mary is on the mountaintop; in her compassion she is amidst
curses, death cells, hangmen, executioners, and blood. A man may become so
obsessed with his sinfulness as to refuse to cry to God for forgiveness,
but he cannot shrink from invoking the intercession of God's Mother. If the
good Holy Mother Mary, who deserved to be spared evil, could nevertheless,
in the special Providence of her Son, have a cross, then how shall we, who
deserve not to be ranked with her, expect to escape our meeting with a
cross? "What have I done to deserve this?" is a cry of pride. What did
Jesus do? What did Mary do? Let there be no complaint against God for
sending a cross; let there only be wisdom enough to see that Mary is there
making it lighter, making it sweeter, making it hers!
Every woe, every wound in the world is ours as a priest. So long as there
is an innocent priest in a Siberian jail, I am in prison. So long as a
missionary is without a roof over his head, I am homeless. Sharing with
these there must be, if there is to be compassion. The priest will never
sit and watch the world's enmity against Our Lord, knowing that Mary's co­
operation was so real and active that she stood at the foot of the Cross.
In every representation of the Crucifixion, the Magdalen is prostrate; she
is almost always at the feet of Our Lord. But Mary is standing.
Finally, the death of the priest. Millions of times he has asked Mary to
pray for him at the "hour of my death." It is to be hoped that he offered
Mass to her once a week during his entire priesthood. Daily, he announced
the death of the Lord in the Eucharist (I CORINTHIANS 11:26), and now he
comes not to the end of his priesthood, for that never ends: "A priest for
ever in the line of Melchisedech" (PSALM 109:4; HEBREWS 5:6). But it is the
end of probation. This is the one moment the priest looks most to Mary for
her intercession. He sees the Crucifix before him and can hear once again
His Lord saying to him, "This is thy mother" (JOHN 19:27). Death to those
who are saved is infancy again, a second birth. That is why it is called
"natalitia" or birthday in the liturgy. The world celebrates birthdays when
men are born in the flesh; the Church, when souls are born in the Spirit.

But the priest knows that Mary is in labor, for he sees now all his
failings in the white light of eternity. At Bethlehem, when she brought
forth the High Priest there was no travail, but at the Cross she underwent
the pangs of childbirth in becoming the woman or universal mother. The
representative of her Divine Son now senses how much extra grief he caused
her. But she will not surrender the burden, as she did not refuse John, who
was indeed a poor exchange for Jesus.
Two words fall from the priest's lips repeatedly: "Jesus" and "Mary." He
had always been a priest--now, at last, in death he is also a victim.
Twice, the great High Priest had been a Victim, on entering the world, and
on leaving it. Mary was at both altars, at Bethlehem and at Calvary. Mary
was at the priest's altar on the day of ordination, too, and now she is
with him at the hour of his death.

Mother of priests! Two loves were always in her life: the love of the Life
of her Son, the love of the Death of her Son. The same two loves she bears
to every priest. In the Incarnation she was the connecting link between
Israel and Christ; at the Cross and Pentecost, she was the connecting link

between Christ and His Church. Now she is the link between the priest­
victim and the One who is always "making intercession for us in heaven."
Every priest at death wants to be laid in Mary's arms as was the Christ,
Whose representative he is. As Mary said after the Crucifixion over her Son
Who was laid in her arms: "This is my Body," so she will say at the death
of every priest: "This is my body, my victim, my host. As I formed Jesus
the Priest in my womb to be a Victim, so I helped Jesus, "Sacerdos-Hostia,"
to grow in Thee."

Is it any wonder, then, that she is the Woman in every priest's life. No
priest is his own. He belongs to the Mother of Jesus, once and always the
Priest-Victim.