CAPG's Blog 

Saint Catherine of Siena, Wake Forest NC ©VP

"The United States of America is a thoroughly secularized society which canonizes radical individualism and relativism, even before the natural moral law. The application, therefore, is more necessary than ever, lest the faithful, led astray by the strong cultural trends of relativism, be deceived concerning the supreme good of the Holy Eucharist and the gravity of supporting publicly the commission of intrinsically evil acts. Catholics in public office bear an especially heavy burden of responsibility to uphold the moral law in the exercise of their office which is exercised for the common good, especially the good of the innocent and defenseless. When they fail, they lead others, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, to be deceived regarding the evils of procured abortion and other attacks on innocent and defenseless human life, on the integrity of human procreation, and on the family.

As Pope John Paul II reminded us, referring to the teaching of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, the Holy Eucharist contains the entire good of our salvation [91]. There is no responsibility of the Church's shepherds which is greater than that of teaching the truth about the Holy Eucharist, celebrating worthily the Holy Eucharist, and directing the flock in the worship and care of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Can. 915 of the Code of Canon Law and can. 712 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches articulate an essential element of the shepherds' responsibility, namely, the perennial discipline of the Church by which the minister of Holy Communion is to deny the Sacrament to those who obstinately persevere in manifest grave sin."

Source: The Discipline Regarding the Denial of Holy Communion to Those Obstinately Persevering in Manifest Grave Sin by Most Rev. Raymond L. Burke, 2007 EWTN

Rue du Bac, Paris.©VP

Saint Vincent de Paul to the Congregation of the Mission, serving the clergy by means of spiritual exercises for those about to be ordained, and by the direction of seminaries:

" To be employed in training good priests and to contribute thereto, as a second efficient instrumental cause, is to perform the work of Jesus Christ, Who, during His mortal life, seems to have assumed the task of making twelve good priests, who were the apostles; have deigned to live with them for years in order to instruct and form them in the Divine Ministry.

What is there in the world so grand as the ecclesiastical state? Principalities and kingdoms bear no comparison to it. Kings cannot, like the priests, change bread into the body of our Lord, forgive sins, or do the other wonders whereby priests surpass all temporal greatness."

It such be the greatness of the priest, judge of his action whether beneficent or fatal according as he is faithful or otherwise to his vocation. "As is the pastor, so will be the people. To the officers of the army is attributed the good or evil success of war. In like manner we can say that if the ministers of the Church are good, if they perform their duty, all will be well; but if, on the contrary, they are unfaithful, they are the cause of all disorders... Yes, we are the cause of the desolation that at present ravages the Church, of the deplorable diminution it has suffered in so many places....(...)

Yes, O Lord, we, it is, who have provoked Thy wrath; our sins have drawn down these calamities. Yes, it is the clerics and those who aspire to the ecclesiastical state, it is the sub-deacons, the deacons, the priests, it is we, who are priests, who have been the cause of this desolation in the Church."

O, my God, what a power! Oh, what a dignity! Is there anything greater or more admirable? Oh, gentlemen, how great a thing is a good priest! What can a good ecclesiastic not do? What conversions can he not procure? Upon the priests depends the happiness of Christendom. This consideration, then, obliges us to serve the ecclesiastical state which is so holy and so elevated, and still more the need the Church has of good priests to remedy the immense ignorance and the innumerable vices with which the earth is covered, and for which pious souls ought to shed tears of blood.

There is question whether all the disorders we witness be not attributable to the priests. This may scandalize some, but the subject requires that by the magnitude of the evil the importance of the remedy be shown. For sometime back, this question has been the subject of several conferences, and it has been thoroughly treated, in order to discover the sources of so many evils; and the conclusion arrived at was that the Church had not greater enemies than bad priests. Heresies sprang form them. We have the instance of the last heresies in those two great heresiarchs, Luther and Calvin. They were priests. It is by priests that heresy has prevailed, vice has reigned, and ignorance established its throne among the poor people; and this, because of their own disorders and their neglect to oppose with all their strength, as was their bounden duty, these three torrents that inundated the earth. What sacrifice, then, gentlemen, will you not make to God, in order to labor for their reformation so that they may live conformably to the sanctity of their state, and that the Church may rise from out her shame and desolation?"

Source: Virtues and spiritual doctrine of St. Vincent de Paul, by a priest of the Congregation of the Mission 1877; (Internet Archive)

"We know the value of our soul by the efforts that God makes to save it and the demon to cast it into perdition. All Hell is leagued against it, all Heaven in its favor. Oh, how inestimable it must be!"

Source: Thoughts of the Curé of Ars (John Baptist Vianney) 1896

Lord, have mercy

Christ, have mercy
Lord, have mercy
Christ, hear us
Christ, Graciously hear us

God, Our Heavenly Father, have mercy on us
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us
God, The Holy Ghost, have mercy on us
Holy Trinity, Three Persons in one God, have mercy on us

Lord, obtain for us priests
Lord, obtain for us holy priests and make us docile to their teachings

Holy Mary, Queen of the Clergy, obtain for us holy priests
Saint Joseph, Patron of the Church, obtain for us holy priests
Saint Michael, splendor and protector of the Church militant, obtain for us holy priests

All you holy Saints and Archangels, obtain for us holy priests
All you holy Patriarchs and Prophets, obtain for us holy priests
All you holy Martyrs and Virgins, obtain for us holy priests
All you holy Bishops and Confessors, obtain for us holy priests
All you holy Priests and Doctors, obtain for us holy priests
All you holy Founders of religious orders, obtain for us holy priests

St. Anthony of Padua, defender of the Holy Eucharist, obtain for us holy priests
St. John-Mary Vianney, model of sacerdotal holiness, obtain for us holy priests
St. Francis Xavier, patron of missionary priests, obtain for us holy priests
St. Therese of the Child-Jesus and of the Holy Face, victim offered for the sanctification of priests, obtain for us holy priests
Saints and Servants of God, obtain for us holy priests.

To celebrate with reverence the Holy Mysteries, obtain for us holy priests
To offer every day the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, obtain for us holy priests
To feed the people of God with the Bread of life, obtain for us holy priests
To promote the splendors of the Divine Worship, obtain for us holy priests
To regenerate souls through baptism,  obtain for us holy priests
To instruct the faithful in the Holy Faith, obtain for us holy priests
To keep the faithful in the fear of the Lord,  obtain for us holy priests
To announce to all the Word of God,  obtain for us holy priests
To unmask and combat false doctrines, obtain for us holy priests
To fortify the Faith of those who doubt, obtain for us holy priests
To support and encourage those who fail, obtain for us holy priests
To raise up those who fall and to reconcile them to God,obtain for us holy priests
To bring back to God those who rejected Him, obtain for us holy priests
To protect christian morality,  obtain for us holy priests
To fight with zeal the corruption of morality, obtain for us holy priests
To bless holy unions, obtain for us holy priests
To defend the honor and sanctity of marriage, obtain for us holy priests
To strengthen the happiness of our christian families, obtain for us holy priests
To fortify and console our sicks and those who suffer, obtain for us holy priests
To assist our dying ones, obtain for us holy priests
To lead our dead to eternal happiness, obtain for us holy priests
To pray and offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for our dead, obtain for us holy priests
To give glory to God, and to give grace and peace to souls of good will, obtain for us holy priests.

Lamb of God, Who take away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who take away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

The Lord chose for Himself priests so that they will offer Him a worthy thanksgiving.

Let us pray: God Almighty and merciful, favorably grant the prayers of Your faithful and grant to those whom You have given the immense generosity of your clemency, to be elevated to the service of the heavenly mysteries, to become worthy ministers at Your sacred altars, so that their teachings be confirmed by your sanctification. Through Our Lord Jesus-Christ, Amen.

Source: CAPG

Source: Catholic Research Resources Alliance Catholic Transcript, April 13, 1933

"BEHOLDING THE HOLY FACE."  by Peter O'Donnell.

With longing eyes once more I turn to thee
Oh Holy Face, and light again I see;
Grant me O Lord the everlasting Grace
 That I may ne'er forget Thy Holy Face;
 Give me contrition, help me to amend,
 O! Christ, Lord God of Hosts, be thou my Friend.

I humbly place myself within Thy hand,
To suffer, gladly, pain upon demand.
Never again shall crosses terrorize
This worthless body which I now despise,
Never again this body shall offend,
O! Christ, Lord God of Hosts, be thou my Friend.

 My God! no pen or brush can ever trace
The matchless beauties of Thy glorious Face,
 No science, art nor tongue can e'er express
Its wondrous Majesty and Holiness.
Grant me to see Thy Face until the end
 O! Christ, Lord God of Hosts, be thou my Friend.

Source: Catholic Research Resources Alliance: Our Sunday Visitor, 29 May 1921

Resources:

Sister Saint Pierre and the Work of Reparation

Life of Mary Saint Pierre

The Holy Man of Tours

The Manual of the Arch-Confraternity of the Holy Face

Archconfraternity Enrollment

What medium is to be observed by a priest between a severe and a lax morality?

There have been priests in every age who have decided this question according to their own fancy and inclination, and priests will continue to do so in the future. There will always be doctors and preachers and directors of souls who, yielding to the prejudices and tastes of the age, or desirous of gaining the good will of individuals, or ambitious to make a name, will change the teachings of the Church, making easy or burdensome the yoke of the Lord; as if it were their right to broaden or make narrow the way to heaven; as if it were their privilege to substitute the changing and fallible opinions of men for the infallible and changeless law of the Gospel of Christ.

(...)

A good priest is certainly not a man who follows the mode of the world and its fashions; he is a man who is loyal to truth and loves order. The truth, then, is this, that laxity and severity are two extremes, both equally bad and dangerous and both skirting along the edge of the precipice.

And first laxity. It is condemned in every page of Holy Writ. Did not our Lord say: Narrow is the gate and strait is the way that leads to life? and again: I came not to send peace upon earth, but the sword? And does not He command what is hard and a trial to flesh and blood? To cleanse the heart of whatever is a snare to it and defiles it, to submit to humiliations, to deny oneself in all things, to return good for evil, to carry the Cross daily- this, in short, is the morality taught by Jesus Christ. This is but saying that the life of a Christian is a life of mortification and self-denial, and that to be a Christian in any true sense one must be generous and courageous, ready to struggle and willing to make war upon oneself and conquer. For this reason the Holy Council of Trent warns ministers of the Sanctuary against that excessive indulgence which causes sinners to slumber on in their sins and against becoming accomplices in disorders which they should combat and correct.

To wish to adjust the teachings of the Gospel to the solicitations of human passion, instead of subjecting human passion to the teaching of the Gospel; to set up principles from which deductions can be drawn indulgent to human nature, ever averse to mortification and self-sacrifice, is to open wide the door to laxity, to create false consciences and to cause the loss of souls under pretext of tranquilizing them. Woe to you who deceive the people, scatter lies and call them oracles; Woe to you who lead them astray and allow them to slumber on in false security! My hand shall be heavy upon you; the corruption of your false maxims shall be visited upon your heads, and in the end you shall know that I am the Lord. ( Ezechiel vi. 13.)

Next, severity. Faith and a decent respect for one-self will be enough to restrain one from disseminating in public or teaching privately a lax morality which is clearly in opposition to the spirit of the Gospel. But this is not true in regard to severity. An excessive severity flatters vanity and gains a reputation for sanctity. A priest who openly parades himself as one of austere life is reputed mortified and a man of irreproachable morals. This was the artifice made use of by the Scribes and Pharisees to lead the people astray and poison their minds with error. A stately walk, and imperious tone of voice, a cold and mortified exterior, long prayers, ceaseless censure of the most innocent actions, a haughty scorn of publicans and sinners, all this but served as a mask for their hypocrisy and was a fitting expression of the severe maxims which they disseminated. Their teaching were an additional burden, and made almost unbearable the already weighty and galling yoke of the Hebrew law. They laid upon others burdens which they themselves were unwilling to bear, and which they would not so much as touch with a finger's tip.

This is why the Lamb of God, who was so gentle and tender to others, who pardoned the woman taken in adultery, who had not even a harsh word for Judas who betrayed Him, nor for the executioners who crucified Him, had for the Scribes and Pharisees only words of scorn and anathema: WOE TO YOU!

And why was our Lord so severe upon them? because God is essentially loving and the Father of mercy, and nothing is so injurious to Him as to represent Him as a gloomy and terrible Master, ever armed with thunderbolts to annihilate us. It is, therefore, beyond all question that nothing is more detrimental to souls than to exaggerate the difficulty of being saved, and to put on grace a higher estimate than that put upon it by our Savior Himself. And after all, His ministers are but the interpreters of His law. If, on the one had, they are forbidden to conceal or disguise its true import and meaning or make it ineffective by unwarranted indulgence, they are, on the other, equally forbidden to render it odious and intolerable by culpable exaggeration.

(...)

It is necessary to keep a middle course between these two rocks and while avoiding one not get wrecked on the other. But to do this an exact and precise knowledge of the doctrine of Jesus Christ is necessary, in order to transmit it to the people just as He brought it from heaven, and just as the Church transmits it to us, without adding to it or taking from it a single iota.

Source: Jesus living in the priest : considerations on the greatness and holiness of the priesthood, by Rev. Millet S.J. 1901

A pastor, undertaking, as he does, to purify the hearts of others, and to wash away every blemish, should be chaste in thoughts and clean of hand. He should be foremost in action , operatione praecipuus, lest he refute by his conduct what he preaches by his lips, lest the limpid stream at which he drinks become muddied by his own footsteps. There is no one who does more harm in the Church than he who possesses the rank of the repute of holiness without the reality.

A pastor should know when to remain silent, so as not to disclose what is secret. And he should have the gift of speech, so that he may be able to announce what should be known, to exhort in sound doctrine, and to convince gainsayers. God Himself rebukes those who fly when the wolf appears, who, like "dumb dogs that are unable to bark," close their mouths in the presence of danger...

A pastor should, in a spirit of humility, be on a level with those who are good, taking precedence of them in nothing, and rejoicing, not that he has a position of authority, but rather that he has an opportunity to confer benefit. For the most part, however, one who rules others is swollen with conceit. He sees all things at his service, all his orders instantly carried out, all his subjects ready to applaud, even though he does ill, and non disposed to contradict. Deluded by these things, he grows overweening in his own conceit, the deference by which he is surrounded blinds him to the truth, he forgets himself, lives on the breath of others, and comes to regard himself as what people say he is, rather than as what he ought know himself to be....

A pastor must not grow remiss in the care of his own soul. He must not become engrossed in secular business. For if the head is feeble vigorous limbs avail not; and in vain does an army pursue the enemy if its leader has lost the way. Nevertheless, secular business must be undertaken sometimes, not for its own sake of with aridity, but our of consideration for others. Those who censure the deeds of delinquents, but pay no heed to their temporal necessities, will never acquire much influence. Truth appeals not to a poor man if mercy does not relieve his wants...

A pastor should not strive anxiously to please men, let him rather direct all his energies to those things which ought to please. A desire to please may easily degenerate into cowardice and complainsancy, for a man may be so anxious not to dull the edge of his popularity that he will not correct his subjects, even when they go astray. The love of the people, therefore, must be sought not for its own sake, not for the pastor's sake, but as a means, as a silken cord, by which their hearts may be drawn to the love of their Maker.

Source: The priest Today by Rev. Thomas O'Donnell 1911

My God, I love Thee, not because
I hope for Heaven thereby;
Nor because they who love Thee not,
Must burn eternally.

Thou, O my Jesus, Thou didst me
Upon the Cross embrace;
For me didst bear the nails and spear,
And manifold disgrace;

And griefs and torments numberless,
And sweat of agony;
E'en death itself - and all for one
Who was Thine enemy.

Then why, O blessed Jesus Christ!
Should I not love Thee well?
Not for the sake of winning Heaven;
or of escaping Hell;

Not with the hope of gaining aught,
Nor seeking a reward;
But, as Thyself hast loved me,
O ever-loving Lord!

E'en so I love Thee, and will love,
And in Thy praise will sing;
Solely because Thou art my God,
And my eternal King.

Source: Beautiful Pearls of Catholic Truth, 1897

Type of the priesthood with its Virgin Spouse,
The Immaculate Church, our Mother ever fair!
Since even to me God’s wondrous grace allows
An office more than Seraphim may share,
I kneel to thee, most gentle Saint, and dare
To choose thee patron of the trust. O Make
My evermore fidelity thy care,
And keep me MARY’S – for Her own sweet sake!
Her knight before, and poet, now Her priest
(Not less Her slave: a thousandfold the more),
I glory in a bondage but increased,
and kiss the chain Her dear De Montfort wore,
With “Omnia Per Mariam” mottoed o’er,
Which seals me Her apostle – tho’ the least.

Feast of the Seven Dolors, March 31, 1871

Source: Poems: devotional and occasional. by Edmund of the Heart of Mary, Father, 1842-1916

Our Lady, Mother of Sorrows pray for Priests, your special sons. Strengthen their faith and love of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament, so that they may turn to Him for the grace they need to live a life faithful to their calling. Bring comfort, consolation and courage to those who are suffering under the weight of the Cross. Give them the love of your Son and zeal for the honor and glory of God, and the salvation of souls. Amen