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"There is nothing so great as the Eucharist. If God had something more precious, He would have given it to us."

-- Saint Jean Vianney

"The priest must be a believer, one who converses with God. If this is not the case, then all his activities are futile."

Cardinal Josef Ratzinger

The honor of fasting consists not in abstinence from food, but in withdrawing from sinful practices.

For let not the mouth only fast but also the eye, and the ear, and the feet, and the hands, and all the members of our bodies. Let the hands fast by being pure from rapine and avarice. Let the feet fast by ceasing to run to unlawful spectacles. let the eyes fast, being taught never to fix themselves rudely upon handsome countenances, or to busy themselves with strange beauties. let the ear fast, refusing to receive evil speakings and calumnies. Let the mouth, too fast from disgraceful speeches and railings. For what doth it profit if we abstain from birds and fishes; and yet bite and devour our brethren?

What advantage shall we gain by abstinence from meats, if we do not also expel the evil habits of the soul.

St. Chrysostom

There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual acts “close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved”.

Source: Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations Regarding Proposals to give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons

"Our vocation is not to go and reap in the Father's fields: Jesus does not say to us: " Cast down your eyes and reap the harvest"; our mission is still more sublime. Here are the words of the Divine Master: "Lift up your eyes and see..." see that in Heaven there are empty places; yours it is to fill them...you are as Moses praying on the mountain; ask of Me laborers and I will send them; I await but a prayer, a sigh from out your heart!"

-- St. Therese of Lisieux (St. Therese of Lisieux Spiritual Maxims)

"Every priest knows that Mary, as Mother, is also the most distinguished modeler of his priesthood, since it is she who moulds the priestly soul, protects it from dangers, from routine and discouragement, and maternally safeguards it, so he may grow in wisdom, age and grace, before God and men."

-- Congregation for the Clergy (Directory on the Ministry and Life of Priests)

" You are not of yourself because you are of God. You are not of yourself because you are the servant and minister of Christ. You are not your own because you are the spouse of the Church. You are not of yourself because you are the mediator between God and man. You are not from yourself because you are nothing. What then are you? Nothing and everything. O Priest! Take care lest what was said to Christ on the cross be said to you: "He saved others, himself he cannot save!"

-- St. Norbert

Our Divine Savior, it is true, left all the splendors of Heaven. He became man in order that He, Who is life itself, might die to save us. He endured all the fury and barbarity of His enemies; He was torn, bleeding, abandoned by all on an infamous gibbet. Assuredly, this was too much, but it was not enough for His love to us. Hence it is that we behold Him in the Mass - this same God, again become a victim, giving Himself to us in perpetual sacrifice, in order thereby to apply forever to the souls of men the merits of His life and death.

What can we say - what can we do while contemplating these prodigies, save to humble ourselves with the angels, in endless adoration, thanksgiving and love!

Source: The Holy Mass: the Sacrifice for the living and the dead, the clean oblation offered up among the nations from the rising to the setting of the sun, Fr. Michael Muller 1881.

Thrones and scepters and crowns have withstood the hierarchy of the Church; but, immutable, like God, who laid its foundation, it is the firm, unshaken center round which the weal and woe of nations move - weal if they adhere to it - woe if they separate from it.

If the world takes from the Pope, the bishops, and priests of the Catholic Church, the cross of gold, they will bless the world with one of wood. If necessary, popes, bishops and priests can suffer and die for the welfare of the world, as Jesus suffered and died. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church is immortal.

Source: The Catholic Priest, Rev. Michael Muller C.S.S.R

The priest is a steward in charge of interests not his own. He is a servant, as servant of all work, expected to be helpful all round and all day long. He can work for nobody but his Master. His rule is that of our Lord himself.

Priests of God, you are not your own.

Source: Daily thoughts for priests by Fr. John Hogan 1899