"O Lord, Grant Us Holy Priests"
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
St. Augustine - Bishop, Confessor, Doctor
J.M.J.
"O Lord, Grant Us..."
"Leave a parish without priests, and in thirty years time men will adore the
beasts." The degrading spectacle that our world offers us daily confirms the
truth of these words of the Saint Curé of Ars. It would be dangerous,
though, to assume that the disastrous absence of priests affects only
others, and not us. Memory brings to mind the lyrics of a French song that,
already twenty years ago, remarked on this tragic loss and its frightening
consequences: "Where is the cassock by which the man of God was respectfully
recognized as he passed by?" The priest has disappeared, and with him a
living testimony of the existence of God. Nothing is left to remind men of
sacred realities. The lives of many pass away in increasing coarseness, and
the adoration of God has yielded its place to the adoration of Man and his
unassailable "Rights." Modern man is not content with adoring beasts, as the
pagans did, but has reduced himself to their level.
It is of the utmost urgency to instill in today's priest a sense of his
divine vocation. Instituted by God to be the salt of the earth, the priest
has lost his savor. Man of his times, he is the offspring of an apostate
world and carries within himself - unconsciously, but for that, all the more
deeply - the imprint of the surrounding naturalism. Man of the Church, he
suffers the full impact of the violent crisis that shakes Her and counts him
as its first victim. He does not know who he is or what his mission is.
Today, he is no more than a social worker. We are far from what Archbishop
Lefebvre told his priests when he was a missionary in Africa: "You are
priests of a priesthood that is primarily of prayer, praise and adoration.
Secondly, you are priests of a priesthood that sanctifies your souls and
those of your neighbors, particularly those to whom you are sent. In
consequence, you are priests of a priesthood of immolation, of
self-sacrifice." The priest is the man of God, called by Him to be His
representative among men and the representative of men before God. He
partakes in the High Priesthood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, receiving on the
day of his ordination a particular grace that gives him an intimate
participation in the mystery of the Incarnation. There is no need for him to
seek for his self-definition - he has only to correspond to the vocation
received and to the graces that accompany it. Thus he will penetrate the
mystery of the hypostatic union of Christ and understand that his true joy
is to be united to Christ by sacrifice - the sacrifice of the Mass and that
of his own life. He will then find again his place.
He will find again his place in the bosom of the Church, who, as Spouse of
the Eternal High Priest, is eminently sacerdotal. The priest is not the
"president"' of the assembly of the faithful, any more than he is a
"pastoral leader." The priest is a consecrated man whose whole life is
dedicated to God. He is the man of the Cross and of the Altar, a man who
neither belongs to himself nor to anybody else, but to Christ alone. He is
"alter Christus, " another Christ.
The priest will find again his place in civil society, in spite of the
hatred of the enemies of Christ, who try to restrict him to being no more
than the man of a private cult, without any influence on public life. Christ
is King, and His kingship must be extended over society by the priest: by
the doctrine he teaches, by the example he gives, and especially by the
sacrifice of the Mass he celebrates.
He will find again his place in the bosom of the Catholic family, mirror of
the Holy Family constituted around the Sovereign Priest. Far too often the
priest is considered simply as a counselor to whom one has recourse when
there is some conflict - but not as the consecrated soul that guides the
family along the path of holiness marked out by the graces of matrimony.
Catholic families must be aware of their grave duties towards priests and
vocations.
A vocation does not happen by chance. It is a divine choice that does not
come to fruition unless we pray for this intention, as Our Lord teaches in
the Gospel. In effect, God has willed that the blossoming of vocations and
the grace of being found faithful at the hour of our death depend on our
prayers - on our prayers and sacrifices, especially in these hours of agony
through which the Church lives today, when consecrated souls are
particularly exposed to the attacks of Satan.
The priest is essentially bound to the Incarnation. He participates
intimately in this mystery yet retains his human nature with its qualities
and flaws. Families must not become a tribunal where all the actions of the
priest are systematically dissected and where the sentence passed against
him is always absolute and without appeal. By his union with Christ, the
priest is obliged to be holy, but he still retains the weaknesses of human
nature to humble him and also us, who must be subject to Our Lord in him, in
spite of the priests' personal defects. Let us abandon this regrettable
spirit of criticism against priests. Let us see them with the eyes of Faith.
Instead of criticizing them, let us pray for them, and in a short time they
will become saints...
Let us be gathered around our priests, acknowledging them as the fathers who
give us the bread of sound doctrine and who invite us to follow the path of
union to God.
Our prayers must constantly ascend towards the throne of God, asking Him for
holy priests, worthy instruments of the Holy Ghost, who will renew - through
them - the face of the earth. Knowing that vocations are habitually born on
a mother's knees, let us not forget to pray that we may have holy mothers of
families who will bring their children up in a saintly manner, giving them
the true sense of the things of God, as Mamma Margarita or the mother of St.
Pius X did so well.
"O Lord, give us holy priests! And give us also holy mothers!"
In Christo Sacerdote et Maria,
Fr. Yves le Roux
Taken from www.stas.org - "The Rector's Letter" (July 2006)
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Sincerely in Christ,
Our Lady of the Rosary Library
"Pray and work for souls."
http://olrl.org
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posted by Penny at 9:47 AM
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