CAPG's Blog 

Archbishop Lynch of Toronto used to say: " The average priest secures the salvation of five thousand souls." The more thoroughly and minutely this statement is examined, the more manifest becomes its truthfulness. Hence the priest who secures but one successor to his sacred office has a perennial source of hope and consolation during his declining years, such as is particularly inspiring at the moment of death. But, why should any priest rest content with having secured one? The more the better. It is related of an aged and venerable priest of Orleans, France, that when about to die he gave expression to this beautiful thought: "I am eighty-three and shall soon die. I have not done all the good I would, but one thing consoles me - I leave after me thirty-three priests whom I have formed to the ecclesiastical state; they will do better than I have done."

Some years later, one of these thirty-three, on the occasion of his silver jubilee to the priesthood, had gathered around him twenty-five other priests, whose vocations to the religious state he in turn had fostered. To him his pastor had said on the day of ordination: "Always have pupils in your presbytery; you will be their angel, and they will be yours." (Quest on Vocations.) Would that God might inspire more to emulate the zeal of such priests as these.

Comparatively few dioceses can be found which are not in actual need of more religious workers who have consecrated their lives to the service of Christ. Pastors are petitioning the various religious communities for Sisters and Brothers to teach in the parish schools. Bishops, especially those of the West and South, as also of our newly acquired possessions in the Orient, are appealing for priests to take charge of missionary work. "Send us priests, wise zealous, holy priests," comes as a cry almost universal. Vast multitudes in every land are groping amid the darkness of error and in the shadows of death, seeking for some one to lead them forth into the light of truth and unto the life of Christ. This need is both instant and imperative, and unless there are found some followers of Christ, ardently devoted to His Church and nobly obedient to His call, who will voluntarily offer themselves for this service and consecrate their lives to this endeavor, these benighted ones, so unfortunate in their error, so well disposed for the right, so precious in the sight of God, will continue, in all probability, to search in vain for the way of salvation; and at least many of them, will be lost.

"The harvest indeed is great but the laborers are few." The work to be done is the work of Christ. He is present all days, directing an assisting and blessing. He calls for help. He chooses some favored ones from among His followers and commands them to go forth into the highways and byways and search our laborers and bring them into His vineyard. Some are found who leave this command practically unheeded, not from malice, but rather because they do not thoroughly realize how intense is the desire of Christ for additional laborers in His work and how dire is the need of the Church at the present time for their consecrated service. Thrice blessed, therefore, and well assured of eternal happiness is the priest who can truthfully say at the hour of death: "I shall soon die; I have not done all the good I would, but one thing consoles me - I leave after me others whom I have formed to the priestly life; they will do better than I have done. "

Source: The Sunday-School Director's Guide to Success by Rev. Patrick James Sloan 1909

St. Vincent de Paul said his Mass with such unction and fervor that all could see that his heart spoke through his lips. His modesty, the serenity of his countenance, his whole exterior appearance were calculated to impress the least susceptible of this audience. They observed in his person something so exceptionally noble and at the same time so humble that often some of them were heart to whisper to others: "How well that priest says Mass!"

On the other hand, it would be impossible to calculate the evil done to religion by inattentive, indevout, worldly looking priests, who, while celebrating, seem intent only on accomplishing their task in the shortest possible time, seemingly indifferent as to whether they offer God homage or insult. Seeing them, one would be tempted to ask, with Tertullian: " Sacrificat an insultat?" Let us suppose that St. Basil and the other ministers who served him at the altar in the church of Cesarea had been wont to celebrate Mass in a trivial, unbecoming manner, instead of that imposing solemnity which fills us with an awe-inspiring sense of God's presence in our sanctuaries; could they have so terrified the Emperor Valens as to make him turn pallid and tremble when he advanced toward the altar to present an offering which none would receive at his hands, because he was guilty of heresy?

We have read of a heretic who, after many conferences with a saint and learned religious, had resolved to embrace the true faith; but having observed priests offer the holy sacrifice without respect or devotion, he was so scandalized by their irreverence that he could not be convinced to the truth of Catholic doctrines, or that those priests themselves believed them, and he completely abandoned the idea of entering the true Church.

One of the most infallible means of preventing that routine indifference which too great familiarity with sacred things so often superinduces, of escaping the abysses of evil which it leads to, as well as of fostering in our souls that feeling of religious awe so essential to the most sublime and sacred of all ministries, is to habituate ourselves to an exact observance of the holy rubrics, and to perform as perfectly as possible each one of the prescribed ceremonies. This is of the highest practical importance.

Source: The Sacrifice of the Mass Worthily Celebrated by Rev. Pierre Chaignon S.J., 1897

Father Tronson, in an instruction on this subject (Observance of the Holy Rubrics), aptly remarks with what care and in what express terms Almighty God Himself had, under the Old Law, ordered and regulated, even to the minutest detail, everything concerning His public and exterior worship. And with what terrible severity He had punished all violations of those regulations, he furnishes three remarkable instances. 

The two sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abiu, are devoured by fire because, contrary to the ceremonial law, they put in their censers a fire other than that prescribed.

Oza is punished with instantaneous death for having unlawfully touched the Ark of the Covenant, though under circumstances which seemed to render his doing so excusable, if not imperative.

Ophni and Phinees, with their father Heli, who by his silence encouraged their sacrilegious temerity, were also punished in a dreadful manner for their transgression of the divine ordinance.

Who will believe that God exacts less respect for our adorable mysteries that He did for those of the Old Testament, which were but feeble representations, dimly defined shadows of what is accomplished on our altars?

Lend a respectful ear to what the holy Council of Trent says: "-If any one saith, that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, wont to be used in the solemn administration of the sacraments, may be contemned, or without sin be omitted at pleasure by the ministers, or be changed, by every pastor of the churches, into other new ones; let him be anathema. (Canon 13, on the Sacraments)"

Anathema is the greatest punishment which the Church can inflict. Against whom, in this instance, does she pronounce it?

Not against those who change, neglect, or omit at their pleasure the rites which she has approved and adopted; but against those who simply say that every pastor can change them, that they can be neglected or omitted without sin. Now, if the Church thus vigorously deals with whosoever speaks lightly of her sacred rites and ceremonies, will she spare those who in action disregard them? In vain would we endeavor to palliate our neglect by pretending that we do not intend to disregard the rubrics. Have we not just reason for alarm, when we reflect on the above-cited decree of the Church, and realize that we do not take pains to observe them religiously?

Source: The Sacrifice of the Mass Worthily Celebrated by Rev. Pierre Chaignon S.J., 1897

The Mass is the memorial of the passion of Jesus Christ. His death is here mystically represented by the separate consecration of the bread and of the wine. The ornaments are all marked with the sign of the the cross, which is used in all ceremonies and benedictions. But above all, the silence, the meekness, the patience of the adorable Victim, everything at the altar, vividly remind us of the ignominious and sorrowful scenes of Calvary. Moreover, outrages ceased not to be offered to Jesus Christ with the termination of His mortal life. We know what indignities have been reserved for Him hidden under the Eucharistic veils. Alas! does He not find in our churches renewal of the cruel trials of Calvary? Does not His heart experience the same sorrow at the sight of the crimes daily committed by men, whilst He offers Himself to the Eternal Father as a victim of propitiation? Does He not find also coldness, indifference, abandonment, and that, too, on the part of those very persons who were the recipients of his greatest favors and on whose fidelity He had therefore the strongest claims. On the cross He was loaded with opprobrium by the Jews; on the altar He is overwhelmed with it by the heretics and the impious. But in this example of the Savior, who not only devotes Himself to torments and to death, but who also, as it were, prolongs and perpetuates His passion by leaving Himself in the hands of men, there is a wonderful power to make us love mortification, or at least render the practice of is more agreeable.

Jesus Christ foresaw everything. Therefore, when through love for men He constituted Himself a prisoner in the Holy Eucharist, the persecutions of the future were as clearly present to Him as those which He was actually undergoing. His tender love for us triumphed over every feeling of repugnance. He accepted the twofold chalice. Oh, that thought alone, which everything connected with the celebration of the sacred Mysteries so vividly recalls, ought to suffice to inspire the priest with unbounded generosity and courage!

Thou hast, O Lord! constituted Thyself my Victim; shall I refuse to be Thine? When instituting the Sacrament of the Altar, and pre-ordaining me to be its privileged minister, Thou didst well know how many tribulations Thou wouldst have to undergo from that moment to this. Thou hast ever present to Thee those numberless impieties, those horrible sacrileges, committed against Thee in Thy holy sacraments during this long interval of nearly nineteen hundred years. Thou didst distinctly foresee how many Judases Thou wouldst encounter on Thy way, how many times on multiplied Calvaries Thy thirst wouldst be sated with vinegar and gall; yet that terrifying prospect could not allay the fervor of Thy love, nor prevent Thee accomplishing this prodigy of charity in my behalf. Will it now be said that I have nothing but a lukewarm heart to offer Thee in return for all Thou has done for me? For love of me Thou hast sacrificed consolations, glory, life itself; shall I hesitate to sacrifice for Thee my love of ease, my sensitive emotions? For the love of me Thou hast consented to be spit upon, to be trampled under foot, to be crucified; Thou has abandoned Thyself to the fury of Thy enemies, to be rejected, insulted, vilified by many even of Thy own disciples, and all this Thou endurest till the consummation of the world; and shall I complain of remaining in obscurity during the few days of my sojourn on earth? Shall I permit a slight insult or contradiction to irritate me to such an extent as completely to upset my mind? Shall I continued to be proud, impatient, excitable, exacting? Such a contrast should not be tolerated.

Source: The Sacrifice of the Mass Worthily Celebrated by Rev. Pierre Chaignon S.J., 1897