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' Repleti sunt omnes Spiritu Sancto.” — A cts., ii., 4.

1. Its great excellence.

The Almighty God, in the institution of this sacrament, has given to his people one of the greatest marks of his mercy. For their benefit He has given to certain men, chosen by himself, a great measure of spiritual power, and grace and wisdom to discharge properly those ecclesiastical duties which concern the whole community. This great power is given to men not for themselves alone, but for the whole Church, and those who receive it, constitute or form the visible government of the Church, and are established as a ministry for the people. Under the Vicar of Christ, the successor of St. Peter, bishops and clergy are appointed to build up the house of God, and to govern and to sanctify the faithful.

What Moses did with the Jews, leading and guiding them under the direction and inspiration of God, so the prelates of the Christian Church now do in the way of governing and instructing the body of Christ, which is the flock committed to their care. This ministry, so excellent in itself, and so necessary for the public good, has great diversity of office and duty, and, at the same time, wonderful unity of end and purpose. Through it the Church administers the sacraments, and thereby conveys to the souls of men the saving grace of Christ.

Priests offer to the Almighty God the great sacrifice of the Mass, which is substantially the same as the sacrifice of the Cross, and which continues and applies the wonderful fruits thereof. For the purposes of sacrifice, clergy are by their holy orders consecrated by God, and set apart from the rest of the faithful, as the tribe of Levi was separated for the service of God from the rest of Israel. Thus do priests, in the holy sacrifice, exercise the power which is given to them over the natural body of Christ ; and the souls of the faithful, which are the mystic body of Christ, they cleanse from their sins, and they instruct and bring up in the way of virtue.

Thus are priests, through this sacrament, made the fathers of the people. They are the shepherds of the flock. They hold the keys of the Church. They are the faithful dispensers in God’s house of his heavenly treasures. Through their hands grace and mercy flow, and God, through them, confers his gifts and spreads abroad his benedictions. The divine power is strikingly manifested everywhere, but it is especially so in this sacrament, where God has exhibited, under visible signs and forms, the greatest mercy, and the kindest consideration for his people. Behold in all this the excellence of this heavenly sacrament.


2. On the dispositions required .

The conditions and dispositions required for the worthy reception of this holy sacrament are two-fold — the first remote, the second proximate.
The remote consist, in the first place, in having a divine vocation to the priesthood. This involves in it, and requires, purity of intention and innocence of life; or, at least, an experience for a considerable time of habits of virtue.
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The cleric should consider well, that he should have full knowledge and instruction on the nature of the order for which he is preparing. He should know whether or not that particular order is a sacrament. He should understand the full extent of the spiritual power conferred by it, the special dispositions which it demands, and the virtues which it requires the recipient to practice.

The proximate dispositions are those which immediately precede or accompany the ordination. The careful study of the rite of the Pontifical concerning the order to be received is enjoined, not only that the ceremony may be known, but also that the cleric who receives the order, may profit by the instructions which the bishop gives him. The cleric who receives the order, should also make beforehand the confession of his sins to ensure his being in the state of grace, for it should be his special care that the holy sacrament of orders, which is given to him for the public good, should be properly received, and, as it can be conferred upon him but once, that it should be then conferred upon him well.

To make a retreat for some days before the reception of this sacrament is also judged necessary, that the cleric, separated from the world and from all intercourse with men, may beg of God the knowledge of his holy will, and the grace to fulfill it; and that he may also learn to love the virtues of the priesthood, and to acquire the ecclesiastical spirit.

This was the manner in which God acted with His great servant Abraham, when He was bringing him to the observance of His holy will, and to all perfection. He made him leave his country, and his father’s house, and go into the desert. When Moses wanted to know the will of God he left the company of men, and sought silence and solitude in which he could commune with God, and our Divine Saviour, before he undertook his public mission, made a retreat for forty days in the desert to show priests how to prepare themselves by retreat to acquire the virtues, and to discharge the arduous duties of the priesthood.

The cleric, during his ordination, which is the most solemn moment of his life, should reflect on the perpetual sacrifice and consecration which he makes of himself to the Almighty God. At that holy and awful time he should offer the thoughts, words, and deeds of his whole life to the love and service of God. In the case of sub-deaconship he contracts before God and the Church the vow, or, at least, the obligation of chastity, and resolves to regulate his passions by their subjugation, and to die to all the disordered pleasures of the senses. He also makes the sacrifice of his will, for in future the will of his bishop or superior is a rule and law to him. Priests, before the ceremony of their ordination, is concluded, make to the bishop a solemn promise of this ecclesiastical obedience.

The cleric, at his ordination, renounces the world and the things of the world. He gives up friends, and country, and home. From the day that God has anointed him as His priest, and poured out His spirit upon him, God is to him as His eternal portion, and he is dearer to Him than his people, or his father’s house.

Ask yourselves what were your dispositions at your ordination. Were you then in the state of grace and friendship with God ? Did you enter into his house to become his enemy? Did you come into the Church “ sicut fur et latro” to betray its most sacred interests, and to violate its most holy obligations? Since your ordination where has been your purity, your obedience, your perfect life? Have you been the man of sin seated in the house of God, or have you been the faithful dispenser of God’s mysteries, and the minister of all goodness and blessing to his people.

Let us pray to God in the words of the Pontifical, "Abundet in nobis totius forma virtutis, auctoritas modesta, pudor constans, innocentiae puritas, et spirituals observantia disciplinea.”

Source: Ecclesiastical meditations suitable for priests on the mission and students in diocesan seminaries, 1866

According to the provisions of the Old Law, the priesthood was the property of a caste. The office descended from father to son within the limits of certain family in a certain tribe. In the New Law the whole Christian community is declared to be " as chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people." Therefore now no race of men, no nation, no kindred, no condition of life, is debarred from the sanctuary. The sons of every family are eligible to serve at the altar. The one thing necessary is that the Lord have need of them. "No man," says St. Paul, "taketh the honor unto himself unless he is called of God, even as Aaron was." A divine vocation to the priesthood is required, and that vocation the still, small voice of the Spirit of God is ever whispering to the chose ones among your children. Oh happy are you, if your prayers, your counsel and your example teach them to answer, like the child of Anna in the silence of the tabernacle: "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth."

But once the priest is called of God, he must be ready, like Abraham, to go forth from his father's house, and, if needs be, from his native land. For him there is no sweet dream of home; for him no hope of the love of wife or child. Henceforth his home is the house of God; henceforth his spouse is Holy Church, his children the flock of Christ. He is adopted into the order of Mechisedech, of whom it is written that he was "without father, without mother, without genealogy or length of days, but made like unto the Son of God."

It is this assimilation to the Son of God that cuts off the Catholic priest from his own people. He is no longer a mere man 'whose father we know, whose mother we know, whose brothers and sisters are amongst us." He is God's messenger. He is no longer the playmate of our boyhood, the companion of our youth. He is the ambassador of the Great King. He is not even the brilliant scholar, the wise administrator, the kindly friend or the sage counselor. Henceforth and forever he is the fellow-laborer of Jesus Christ. When you bring your children to him that he may pour upon them the waters of regeneration, it is Christ Himself that baptizes. When he lifts his hand in absolution in the tribunal of penance, the sentence is ratified in the high court of heaven by the Judge of all. When he offers the sacrifice of the Mass, the Victim is caught up by the Holy Angels of God and borne to the altar on high, in the sight of the Divine Majesty, and is made His own by the Eternal Priest Himself who stands ever living to make intercession for men.

To co-operate with Jesus Christ, nay, to bear the very Person of Jesus Christ in the salvation of the world, this is the proper work of the Catholic priest. And behold, what high mysteries we touch here! Of all the dark ways of God none is so unsearchable as His love for the world, His hunger for men's souls.

Source: Altar and Priest, Rev. PC Yorke, 1913

Official Assignments

At the hour of death the Masses you have heard will be your greatest consolation. Every Mass will go with you to judgment and plead for pardon. At every Mass you can diminish the temporal punishment due to your sins, more of less, according to your fervor.

Assisting devoutly at Mass you render to the Sacred Humanity of our Lord the greatest homage. He supplies for many of our negligences and omissions. He forgives you all your unknown sins which you never confessed.

You afford the souls in purgatory the greatest possible relief.

One Mass heard during your life will be of more benefit to you than many heard for you after your death

You are preserved from many dangers and misfortunes which would otherwise have befallen you. You shorten your purgatory by every Mass.

Every Mass wins for you a higher degree of glory in heaven.

Source: Our Young People, 1916

It was, (...), when Charleston was scourged by disease that the charity and heroism of the bishop were put to the test. "When that frightful scourge," writes W.G.Read, "the yellow fever, desolated Charleston, he was ever at his post." This is nothing new or strange to those who know the Catholic Priesthood. But when the Protestants of Charleston saw this apostolic man hurrying under the fiery noons of August and September, or the deadly midnight dew, to assist and console the victim of the plague, usually of the humblest and the poorest, they could not but exclaim, in the sincerity of their wonder and admiration: "This is Christian charity!"

"A near relative of mine, speaking of him to me, said: "I met him one forenoon, while the fever was at its highest, brushing along through, perhaps, the hottest street in the city. When I tell you he was blazing, I do not exaggerate - he was literally blazing! The fire sparkled from his cheeks, and flashed from his eyes! I shook hands with him, and as we parted, I thought to myself, my dear fellow, you will soon have enough of this!"

"But his work was not yet done. No! Season after season, amid vice, squalidity, and wretchedness, where intemperance, perhaps, kept maudlin watch by the dying and the dead; while the sob of sorrow was broken by the shriek of destitution and despair - there still stood Bishop England, the priest, the father, and the friend - to assure the penitent - to alarm the sinner - to pity and to succor - baptized again and again - unto his holy function, in that frightful black vomit - the direct symptom of the malady!"

Source: Trials and Triumphs of the Catholic Church in America by P.J. Mahon, James M. Hayes

Fr. Chabloz had received a sunstroke that left him weak and feverish. This was followed by the influenza, then epidemic, and while ill he was carried several miles to administer the Sacraments to a dying man. Pneumonia then seized our friend and he succumbed.

Fr. Chabloz was young - thirty-five years of age. Although born in France, his people had moved to Italy, where later he joined the Society of Jesus and offered himself for the missions. One of his hardest trials on leaving Italy was the reluctance of his own father - who chided him because he preferred the pagan Chinese - to have him go; but the father received grace to bow to God's will, and we now learn that he died shortly before his priestly son. May both be now united in God!

From Fr. Novella, S.J.

Source: The Field Afar, Volume 14. June 1920

The King feared that "all our misdeeds should lead the same "plaga" and mortality to our subjects." He had, therefore, taken responsibility for the well-being of the people. He had summoned their bishops, a number of Councillors of the realm and canons of the cathedrals whose bishops could not, at so short notice, attend the meetings where measures should be discussed that "could please God and induce Him by his grace to bestow his mercy on us". They had agreed on the following measures:

"all people throughout all the Realm of Sweden, rich, ecclesiastics, laymen, old and young, females and males, should come barefooted to their parish churches on Friday in every week and confess their belief in God, His righteousness and power, with appropriate humility. They should walk (in procession) around the church with their sacred treasures (relics, images of saints, and so on), attend Mass with invocation of God on that day, make their offerings on the altar of the pennies that they could afford, so that others could receive alms. The Church wardens should distribute this offer among poor people and it should under no circumstances come in the hands of the priest. We order and advise you that on each Friday every Christian shall fast on water and bread: those who do not want to do that shall at least abstain from all fish and fast on ale and bread.

Mass shall be said in honor of Our Lady, the Virgin Mary, that She would deign to ask her blessed Son on her behalf to turn His wrath away from these countries for the sake of our humility. Every bishop has granted 40 days of indulgence to all those in his diocese who have prepared themselves for their deaths and made proper confessions, which all human beings are advised to do these days. ... For this reason, We convey to all human beings the curative advice for their souls that every human being, while God still has given him some time, to cleanse his conscience, make his confession and with full contrition do penance for his sins, so that when God will visit him, He will find him so ready that his souls would be taken in God's hand.

Source: The Black Death and Later Plague Epidemics in the Scandinavian Countries ...By Ole Jørgen Benedictow page 171

What we are witnessing in these hours is dramatic — certainly throughout Italy, but in a tragically exemplary way, in Rome, the heart of Catholicism. 

The scenario is all the more disconcerting as what is at stake is not only public health but the salvation of souls — and for some time now we, as Pastors, have stopped inflaming the hearts of our faithful with the desire for eternal salvation. We have thus deprived them of those supernatural gifts which make us capable of facing trials here below, even the assaults of death, with the power of faith and that spark of inexhaustible and unshakable hope which comes to us from our yearning for the destiny of glory for which we were created.

The statements of the Italian Episcopal Conference, those of the Cardinal Vicar of Rome, as well as the surreal and spectral images that have come to us from the Vatican, are many expressions of the darkening of the faith that has struck the heights of the Church. The Ministers of the Sun, as St Catherine of Siena was fond of calling them, have caused the eclipse, and delivered the flock to clouds of thick darkness (cf. Ezekiel 34:12). 

Regarding the measures of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI): when those issued by the State were still limited only to at risk areas, to certain activities and at precise times of day, the CEI had already cancelled the totality of public liturgical celebrations in all the churches of the territory, helping to fuel fear and panic and depriving the faithful of the indispensable comfort of the sacraments. It is difficult not to think that such a measure was suggested to the president of the CEI by the one who, protected by the Leonine Walls, has been dreaming for seven years now of an outgoing, rugged, field hospital Church, which does not hesitate to embrace everyone and to get dirty.

Cardinal Bassetti, so eager that he seems more zealous than the king, appears to have forgotten a very important lesson: that the Church, in order to serve the common good and the State, must never give up being herself, nor fail in her mission to proclaim Christ, our only Lord and Savior. She must beware of obscuring her divine prerogatives of Wisdom and Truth and in no way abdicate the Authority that comes to her from the Sovereign of the kings of the earth, Our Lord Jesus Christ. 

The ecclesial events of these hours have manifested clearly — if there was still any need — the tragic subjection of the Church to a State that is striving and doing all it can to destroy the Christian identity of our Italy, by enslaving it to an ideological, immoral, globalist, Malthusian, abortionist, migrant agenda that is the enemy of man and of the family. The goal of this agenda is the destruction of the Church, and certainly not the good of our country.

The courage and wisdom of ardent priests and lay faithful has partly remedied the absence of an authoritative voice and heartening gestures from the Vicar of Christ and from pastors. 

Open, throw open wide the doors to Christ! Open, throw open wide the doors of our churches so that the faithful may enter in, repent of their sins, participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and draw upon the treasury of graces that flow from the pierced Heart of Christ, our only Redeemer who can save us from sin and death.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò

Translation by Diane Montagna

Source: Lifesitenews

The same way in which the offering can help us - by the good motive governing our action: "Whatsoever shall give you to drink a cup of water in name... he shall not lose his reward." (Mark iv 40). 

The burning of a small candle is an insignificant action; but if it is done for God's glory and to honor one who is near to God, it becomes a meritorious action. "Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God." (I Cor. x. 13.) "Whatsoever you do in word or in work, all things do ye in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Col. iii, 17). There is no reason why a candle could not or should not be burned to God's glory and in the name of Christ. The motive prompting a devout candle before the shrine of our Lord or saint is the very motive that urges a good citizen to drape a flag about the picture or statue of George Washington on February 22. How can a piece of cloth add to Washington's honor or assist the citizens? The representatives of a foreign nation goes to Mount Vernon and places a wreath of flowers upon Washington's tomb. We applaud and deem that our country has been honored. There is no need to explain or analyze that sentiment; it is a natural one, and everybody understands and appreciates it. That same sentiment is elevated to a religious and supernatural sphere when a Catholic burns a candle before the shrine of one of God's heroes. His intention is to honor the memory of that saint and thus give glory to God in whose cause that saint lived and worked and died; he asks the saint to pray to God for him; he begs God to hear and answer the saint's intercession; he is urged to imitate the saint's virtues; he feels inclined to serve God better. In other words, he performs an action which his supernatural motives render pleasing to God and of great benefit to himself.

Source: Our young People, a Home Magazine, Nov. 1916

It is not necessary to understand every word of Latin said by the priest at Catholic Religious services, any more than it is necessary to understand every word enunciated by Caruso or Gadski in grand opera!

Source: Our Young People, 1916