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As from the beginning Religion in some form has always existed, consequently at the same time there has also always been a priesthood, that is to say, ministers of sacred things, "ancients," "elders" or priests. Such was Adam; such were Enoch, Noe, Melchizedek, Abraham, and after them under the Mosaic Law the ministers of Religion the High-priest, priests and Levites. (That is: men of the tribe of Levi, from which should be recruited the ministers of the Mosaic Worship. ) However, these were but a figure of and a preparation for the Priesthood of the New Law. In the New Law Jesus Christ is the sole Redeemer, the sole Mediator, the sole Intermediary between Heaven and Earth, and consequently the sole Priest. But according to the general arrangements of His Providence He has willed that certain men should be His earthly and temporary deputies such are the Catholic bishops and priests. Hence the Sacrament of Holy Orders which consecrates them and gives to them the powers and the graces necessary for the exercise of their sacred functions: to offer the Sacrifice of the adorable Body and Blood of our divine Savior; to remit the sins of men; to dispense supernatural life by means of the Sacraments; to teach the truths of religion; to preside at public worship and to render to the faithful from their birth to their death all the services in the spiritual order which they may need for the sanctification and the salvation of their souls.

On our part we have duties towards our priests: to listen to their instructions; to help them in their ministry; to defend them against calumny; and, as far as our means permit us, to provide for their material wants whilst they themselves are consecrating their lives to insure to us all spiritual blessings.

The word Orders (from the Latin Ordo, in the sense of rank, class, social condition) is applied very rightly to the Sacrament by which the hierarchy of the ministers of the Church is created from the minor orders to the sub-deaconship, deaconship, priesthood and episcopate. (We have seen already that the word, priest (presbyter) signifies aged man, ancient, a venerable man; in the primitive Church, the priests were always chosen from amongst the elders.)

Those who receive this Sacrament are the fewer in number. But everywhere God calls whom He wishes without any merit on their part to labor for the salvation of their brethren.

This "call of God" is what we term a location. Those thus called should respond: God will be faithful to them. In the Church the Pope or Sovereign Pontiff is as Bishop of Rome the successor of St. Peter, and the first of the Bishops of the whole Church. The Bishops alone like the Apostles constitute the Priesthood in its complete fullness; it is be cause of this that they alone administer the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

Once a priest, forever a priest; nothing can take away this stamp of priesthood which will remain for all eternity. But to hear confessions, every priest must be approved of for this office, and must receive jurisdiction from the bishop, as every bishop receives jurisdiction from the Pope. (Jurisdiction, that is the power to judge or to exercise spiritual authority. )

Once consecrated sub-deacon, the priest is bound: 1st to recite daily the devotional exercises called the Divine Office in which he prays in the name of the whole Church; 2nd to observe celibacy and continence; that is, not to marry and to preserve perfect purity of heart. St. Paul tells us: "He that is without a wife, is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please God. But he that is with a wife, is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife: and he is divided." (I. Cor. VII. 32.)

The Latin Church thus imposes celibacy on her priests so that they may have no other family than that of the souls confided to their care; that they may be able to devote themselves exclusively to the service of these souls; and that they may be freer to consecrate themselves to every kind of ministry, whether in Christian or Pagan lands.

In such circumstances, therefore, it is only just that their material wants should be supplied by the faithful in accordance with the words of St. Paul. (I. Cor. IX.)

The first Catholic priests were St. Peter, who was Pope, the Apostles, who were bishops and those of the Faithful who were chosen and consecrated as priests and missionaries. Throughout the ages since the beginning of time this priesthood has been continued, and so it will be until the end of the world. When there are no longer priests, there will be no longer a Church, and so the world will come to an end. 

Source: Credo: A short exposition of Catholic Belief.  1919 1920

Our Lady of Lourdes, France

Be thou blessed, O most pure Virgin, who didst deign to appear in the grotto of Lourdes as many as eighteen times, resplendent with light, sweetness, and beauty, and to say to the humble and simple child who contemplated thee in ecstasy, " I am the Immaculate Conception!" be thou blessed for the extraordinary favors which thou dost unceasingly scatter around this place.

By thy maternal heart, O Mary, and by the glory which the holy Church has rendered thee, we conjure thee to pray for the Sovereign Pontiff and for Father [ name ] and to realize the hopes of peace which the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception excited in the breasts of the faithful. Amen.
Source: St. Josephʼs Manual ( Rev. James Fitton, 1877)

Father Price's Daily Prayer

O Mother Immaculate, Patron of America, who, through little Bernadette, bade us pray and work for the conversion of the countless souls now perishing. I offer all the prayers, actions, and sufferings of this day and every day of my life for their conversion, and I beg of thee to bless my resolution to do what I can throughout my life to bring about their salvation.

St. Bernadette, Pray for Father Price.

Imprimatur: Most Rev. Vincent S. Waters, D.D. May 2 1949

Behold the fatal cause of the persecutions of the Apostles, and of other Ecclesiastics !

Behold the source of the damnation of innumerable souls, ignorance, wilful and deliberate !

Because no one understandeth, they shall perish for ever" (Job. iv. 20).

If people are, in great part, slaves of the devil, it is from want of knowledge : "Therefore is My people led away captive, because they had not knowledge" (Is. v. 13). "Where there is no knowledge of the soul there is no good " (Prov. xix. 2). And we must acknowledge with grief that this ignorance, which is the mother of all vices, springs from the carelessness of Priests, because they neglect to preach the Word of God, which is "living and effectual" (Heb. iv. 12). Justly, therefore, does St. Gregory declare against such priests as render themselves guilty of the ruin of innumerable souls, who are thus lost for want of instruction. We who are called Priests, he says, are guilty of murdering men's souls, for we are the cause of the death of all those whom by our tepidity and silence we allow to go to destruction.

Let us remember what the devil one day said to a French Priest, who was preparing to make a speech at the opening of a synod : " The Rulers of the infernal darkness salute the Rectors of Parish Churches, and thank them for their negligence in teaching the people; because sin is born of ignorance, and damnation is born of sin."

Let us implore the Holy Spirit to bestow on us (priests) a little of that light and zeal which he gave to St. Paul, so that we may be able to say with him, "I am clear from the blood of all men, for I have not spared to declare unto you all the counsel of God" (Acts xx. 26, 27). " By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all the power of them by the Spirit of His mouth." — Pu xxxii. 6. " I will pour out My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thy stock' Is xliv. 3.

Source: Meditations for the use of the clergy : for every day in the year. On the Gospels for the Sundays, Volume 3 (Msgr. Scotti, Archbishop of Thessalonica)

St. Francis de Sales, HNJ Cathedral, Raleigh NC

"(...) the name of Reformed is a blasphemy against Our Lord, who has so perfectly formed and sanctified his Church in his blood, that it must never take other form than of his all lovely Spouse, of pillar and ground of truth. One may reform the nations in particular, but not the Church or religion. She was rightly formed, change of formation is called heresy or irreligion. The tint of Our Saviour's blood is too fair and too bright to require new colours." Source: Catholic Controversy by Bishop St. Francis de Sales, p.204

All hail to thee, Mary, Mother of God, Virgin Mary!

Our Lady and Child, Saint John Baptist Catholic Church, Front Royal VA CAPG

"466.The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God's Son. Opposing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council, at Ephesus in 431, confessed "that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man."(89) Christ's humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception. For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb: "Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh."(90)" Catechism of the Catholic Church

St. Cyril of Alexandria before the Fathers of the Council of Ephesus:

"Hail thou bearer of light, incorruptible vessel!
Hail Mary! At once Virgin, Mother, and Handmaid.
Virgin because of Him who is born of thy virginity;
Mother because of Him whom thou didst bear upon thy breast and whom thou has nourished with thy milk;
Handmaid because of Him who has taken to Himself the position of a slave.

Hail Mary! Temple in which God has been received, the great holiness of which the prophet David proclaimed when he said: Thy temple is holy and wonderful in thy justice (Ps. Lxiv.60)

Hail Mary! The jewel of the earth; Hail Mary! Incorruptible dove; Hail Mary, Inextinguishable lamp, for of thee is born the Sun of Justice; Hail Mary! Dwelling-place of Him whom no other dwelling can contain; thou, in whom was contained the only Son of God, the God-word; thou, who with neither toil nor sowing hast made the undying ear of corn to flourish; Hail Mary! Mother of God, of whom the prophets have foretold, and through whom the shepherds gave glory to God at the manger, singing with the angels that moving hymn, Glory to God on high in heaven: peace on earth among men of goodwill; Hail Mary! Mother of God, because of whom the choirs of angels sing, the archangels exult and chant hymns which make us tremble."

Source: Christian Spirituality, Volume 1 Newman Press, 1922 - Asceticism page 240

The Sower of good seed, 1180.

“And other some fell among thorns, and the thorns growing up with it choked it."-St. Luke viii. 7.

We, my dear brethren, have received the seed of the Divine word, and we have kept it: we have never fallen away from the true faith as it is in Christ and His Church, and with God's help we never shall. Our steadfastness in the faith is our greatest glory in the sight of heaven and of earth, and whatever our shortcomings may be, we are at least free from the awful crime of apostasy, and this worst of all reproaches can never be laid to our charge. The good soil that produces a hundred fold is ours; but alas! the thorny soil is ours also, and our faith though firmly rooted is often choked by the pernicious jungle growing up around us, in which we suffer ourselves to become entangled.

How many a glorious promise of supernatural faith and virtue in those around us becomes utterly blighted by the thorns of the world's ways and temptations, because no proper care is taken to resist them and stamp them out! The thorny growths that stifle our faith and render it worthless in the sight of God are many indeed, but there is one in particular that is more destructive than all the rest beside. I need hardly name it to you, for you know it but too well—the deadly Upas-tree of intemperance- that casts its withering shade over our hearts and homes and altars! Is there a single person here this morning that does not know of more than one generous soul in whom every fruitful germ of faith and hope and charity, and every sentiment of true Christian manhood and womanhood, have not been blighted by this prevalent passion ? Call the roll of your nearest friends and acquaintances, and how many will you not find absent from the ranks of Christian life, duty, and fidelity through this one vice? There is a skeleton in every closet, and the saloon-keepers have taken the flesh off its bones. This more than anything else chokes the divine seed of the word amongst us; this nullifies the power of our faith; this neutralizes the effects of the Sacraments; this scandalizes our holy religion and makes our consecrated ministry vain; for this is the evil root from whence springs the foul crop of lusts and blasphemies, and crimes and contentions, that stifle every virtue of the Christian life and weigh down the Church of the living God.

Could we but cast out this baneful blight of intemperance from amongst us, our glorious faith would appear in all its strength and beauty, and yield its hundred fold. If it were not for the gross and scandalous lives that so many so-called Catholics lead, nothing could stop the onward march of our faith. This is the one objection raised against us that we cannot satisfactorily meet.

We know very well that ours is the only true religion, and that it supplies every help that we need to enable us to overcome our passions and to lead upright lives. But the world at large knows little or nothing of our faith; it only looks at the dark side of our every-day conduct, and scornfully asks: "Where is the influence of the Catholic religion on the venal politician, the low liquor-seller, the drunken reveler, the meretricious streetwalker, the abominable fathers and mothers who make their homes a hell upon earth, and drive their unfortunate children to destruction ? And what reply can we make? We cannot deny that many who claim to profess our faith are an utter disgrace to it, and a rock of scandal to the world. They, of course, have shaken off all sense of obligation to their religion and its teachings, and have no more conception of religious duty than the cow or the horse. Theirs is a purely animal existence, they live only for the gratification of their lower nature, and we disclaim all responsibility for them. What responsibility has the Catholic Church for those who seldom or ever darken its doors, who never approach its Sacraments, who spend their Saturday nights in the saloons, and their Sunday mornings in drunken slumber? What responsibility has the Church for the recreant rowdies who hang around the corner grog-shops, and the fallen flirts who frequent the sidewalks? They may have Catholic names, but that is the only evidence of their Catholicity. The thorns of dissipation and sensuality and sin of every kind have choked the seed of truth in their hearts, and they are outside the soul of the Church, though they may still claim to belong to its visible pale. But take our consistent Catholics, men and women who are in touch with the spirit of their faith and honestly endeavor to live up to its teachings. Are they not in very truth the salt of the earth? and does not the divine seed planted in their souls produce a hundred fold?"

Source: Five minutes sermons for Low Masses for every Sundays of the Year by the Priests of the Congregation of Saint Paul 1893

Mass of St. John of Matha, Priest by Juan Carreño De Miranda

Prayer:

O Glorious St. John of Matha, who, inflamed with an intense love of God and a tender compassion for thy neighbor, hast been chosen by Divine Providence to establish the illustrious Order of the Most Holy Trinity, and spent thus in glorifying this august mystery and redeeming the unfortunate Christians from slavery, graciously obtain for us that we may ourselves also employ our lives in glorifying the Blessed Trinity and doing good to our neighbor by the works of Christian charity, that we may at last deserve to enjoy in heaven the beatific vision of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen

Pope Leo XIII 1897, New Raccolta 1903

Praise and glory be to Thee, O most sweet Jesus, for the infinite love wherewith Thou dost vouchsafe to descend from heaven in the holy Mass to change bread and wine into Thy sacred flesh and blood, to conceal Thyself under these contemptible appearances and by means of this boundless humility to appease the just wrath of God and avert the chastisements due to us.

With our whole hearts we thank Thee for this inestimable benefit. With all the powers of our soul we praise and magnify Thee, and we beseech the hosts of heaven to unite their voices to ours and compensate for what is defective in our giving of thanks. We humble pray Thee to enlighten our minds, that we may clearly comprehend the saving mysteries which Thou dost daily enact upon our altars, that we may venerate them aright, and profit by them for our eternal salvation.

Amen.

Source:Cochem's Explanation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

St. Romuald

"A young nobleman addicted to impurity, being exasperated at the saint's severe remonstrances, had the impudence to accuse him of a scandalous crime. The monks, by a surprising levity, believed the calumny, enjoined him a most severe penance, forbid him to say Mass, and excommunicated him. He bore all with patience and in silence, as if really he had been guilty, and refrained from going to the altar for six months.  In the seventh month he was admonished by God to obey no longer so unjust and irregular a sentence pronounced without any authority and without grounds. He accordingly said Mass again, and with such raptures of devotion, as obliged him to continue long absorbed in ecstasy." (...)

"He never would admit of the least thing to give a savor to the herbs or meal- gruel on which he supported himself. If any thing was brought him better dressed, he, for the greater self-denial, applied it to his nostrils, and said: "O gluttony, gluttony, thou shalt never taste this; perpetual war is declared against thee."

If we not called to practice the extraordinary austerities of many saints, we cannot but confess that we lie under an indispensable necessity of leading mortified lives, both in order to fulfill our obligation of doing penance, and to subdue our passions and keep our senses and interior faculties under due command.

The appetites of the body are only to be reduced by universal temperance, and assiduous mortification and watchfulness over all the senses.

The interior powers of the soul must be restrained, as the imagination, memory, and understanding: their proneness to distraction, and the itching curiosity of the mind, must be curbed, and their repugnance to attend to spiritual things corrected by habits of recollection, holy meditation, and prayer.

Above all, the will must be rendered supple and pliant by frequent self-denial, which must reach and keep in subjection all its most trifling sallies and inclinations. If any of these, how insignificant soever they may seem, are not restrained and vanquished, they will prove sufficient often to disturb the quiet of the mind, and betray one into considerable inconveniencies, faults, and follies. Great weaknesses are sometimes fed by temptations which seem almost of too little moment to deserve notice. And though these infirmities should not arise to any great height, they always fetter the soul, and are an absolute impediment to her progress toward perfection." Source: The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volumes 1-3 By Alban Butler

Prayer for the Abused and Unjustly Accused:
O Holy Family of Nazareth, community of love of Jesus, They cried out, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" Pilate said to them, "I find no guilt in Him. Take Him yourselves and crucify Him." (John 19)
Jesus Christ, Lamb of God, falsely and maliciously accused by the mob, have mercy on us. Jesus Christ, Lamb of God, handed over to death by cowardly authority, have mercy on us. Jesus Christ, Sun of Justice, vindicated by your Resurrection, grant us justice.
Father of Truth, send the light of your Holy Spirit into the darkness of every false accusation and unjust condemnation. Give strength to the innocent to stand firmly in truth, as you gave to Jesus, in the face of torture and death. Give courage to church and civil authorities to grant justice and due process to the innocent, in the face of the mob. Father of Mercy, deliver your innocent ones from evil; grant them speedy justice and vindication, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Victim and Savior. Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on all innocent victims: the abused and the falsely accused. 
Follow with Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be

Source: CAPG