CAPG's Blog 

"At Castelnuovo, where there was a family gathering and great rejoicing, his mother said to him, what he calls "these memorable words": You are a priest. In saying Mass henceforward you are then nearest to Jesus Christ. Remember, however, that to begin to say Mass means to begin to suffer. You will not realize it at once, but little by little you will see that your mother has told you the truth. I am confident that every day you will pray for me, whether I am living or dead: that is enough for me. Henceforward, think only of the salvation of souls, and don't be troubled in mind about me."

Source:  R.F. O'Connor Venerable Don Bosco The American Catholic Quarterly Review ..., Volume 46 1921

"What is the end of a preacher? Is it to please? To gain applause? To obtain promotion? Or is it to give men life; to make them " Sorrowful unto penance"?

I am of opinion, writes St. Francis of Sales, that a preacher ought not to aim at the gratification of the ear, which is the result of artifice, of worldly elegance, of merely ornamental oratory. He who desires to please his audience says only "pleasant things". The craving for applause blinds him to the truth. He relies almost exclusively on the persuasive words of human wisdom, he makes little or no account of the Word of God, which ought to be the chief source of sacred eloquence, and he speaks in a style more suited to the platform than to the pulpit, more profane than sacred.

 Hence there arises amongst the people and even amongst the clergy, a vitiated taste in respect to the Word of God, which gives scandal to the pious and no profit to the incredulous; for these latter, although they sometimes come to the church, especially if attracted by such high-sounding words as Progress, Fatherland, Modern Science, and loudly applaud the preacher, go forth from it no better than they entered."

Source: The Priest of Today, Rev. Thomas O'Donnell 1911 page 226

"Pope Pius X is convinced that on the character of the clergy mainly depend the present welfare and the future hopes of religion. He is convinced that in modern times the Church needs ministers of more than ordinary virtue, men who are ever ready to spend themselves for Christ and to suffer hard things for His sake. Hence he observes with alarm the growth of a worldly spirit in some of the clergy - disregard for mental prayer, indifference to spiritual reading, neglect of self-examination - and he foretells with sorrow what will be the bitter fruits of such worldliness. Sacred duties will be callously performed, the light of the faith will be darkened, dangerous novelties will be preferred to sound doctrine, human wisdom will be substituted for the Word of God, and pride and contumacy will take the place of the humility and meekness of Christ."

Source: The Priest of Today, His Ideals and His duties, by Thomas O'Donnell C.M. 1910

"We recommend very specially to Priest and to the faithful the practice of the Sunday Communion offered to the Holy Ghost, already propagated with such zeal by many distinguished prelates. The practice consists in offering Communion every Sunday to the Holy Ghost, by the hands of Mary, in favor of the Church and of Priests. Those who adopt this devotion should, when making the offering of their Sunday Communion, intercede earnestly for priests, so that they may become every day more holy and more zealous and ardent apostles of the Holy Ghost.

It is much to be desired that this practice of the Sunday Communion should become general in every parish, in Seminaries, Universities, Colleges, and especially in religious Communities."

Prayer to the Holy Ghost in Favor of the Church.

O Holy Spirit, Creator, be propitious to the Catholic Church; and by Thy heavenly power make it strong and secure against the attacks of its enemies; and renew in charity and grace the spirit of Thy servants, whom Thou has anointed, that they may glorify Thee and the Father and His Only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. amen.
(300 daysʼ indulgence, once a day. Leo XIII, August 26 1889)

Manual of prayers to the Holy Ghost by Very Rev. Fr. Felix of Jesus 1941

Source: CAPG

Prayer before Mass (Prayers of St. Gertrude)

O Almighty, everlasting God, seeing that it is the true faith of Thy Church that the holy Sacrifice of the Mass instituted by Thy Son is infinitely pleasing to Thy divine Majesty, and renders Thee an infinite worship and praise, and since by it alone Thou canst be worthily and adequately worshiped and praised; impelled by an ardent desire of Thy honor and glory, I purpose to assist at this present sacrifice with the utmost devotion of which I am capable, and to offer this most Holy Oblation to Thee in union with Thy priest.

I offer Thee not only this sacrifice, but all those which shall be this day offered from every part of the world; and I protest before Thee that if it depended on me whether they should be offered or omitted, I would put forth all my powers to procure and further their being offered. And were I able now to raise up to Thee, of the stone which are scattered over the earth, most devoted priests, who should day by day and with glowing fervor offer to Thee this sacrifice of praise, I would most gladly do it. But, being what I am, I implore Thee, O most holy Father, through Jesus Christ Thy Son, to pour into the hearts of all Thy priests, and especially those who might perchance otherwise offer Thee this acceptable sacrifice coldly and without due recollectedness, the spirit of grace and of fervor, that they may be enabled to celebrate Thy tremendous Mystery with becoming awe and devotion.

Grant to me, and to all those who are here present with me, that we may join in this most sacred action with reverence and devotion, so that we may have our portion in its fruit and effect. I confess to Thee, O almighty God, and to the Blessed Mary ever Virgin, and to all the Saints, my own sins and those of all the world; and I lay them on Thy sacred Altar, that they may be entirely blotted out by the virtue of this sacrifice. Do thou deign to grant us this grace, by that love which held back Thy hand from smiting when Thy most beloved Son, Thy only Son, was immolated by the hands of ungodly men. amen"

Preces Gertrudianae; Prayers of St. Gertrude and St. Mechtilde.

Divine Savior, Jesus Christ, Who hast entrusted the whole work of Thy redemption, the welfare and salvation of the world, to priests as Thy representatives, through the hands of Thy most holy Mother and for the sanctification of Thy priests and candidates for the priesthood I offer Thee this present day wholly and entirely, with all its prayers, works, sacrifices, joys, and sorrows.

Give truly holy priests who, inflamed with the fire of Thy divine love, seek nothing but Thy greater glory and the salvation of our souls.

And thou, Mary, good Mother of priests, protect all priests in the dangers of their holy vocation and, with the loving hand of a Mother, also lead back to the Good Shepherd those poor priests who have become unfaithful to their exalted vocation and have gone astray.

"St. Thomas Aquinas thus defines man's duties towards God: "Man is bound to render homage to God for these four reasons: because of God's supreme Majesty, of blessings received, of sins committed, of benefits hoped for." When dying on the Cross, Christ rendered this fourfold homage to His Eternal Father. This homage, being the homage of God to God, is of infinite value, but man's homage, the homage of limited, sinful man, is by itself insufficient to render to God what is due to Him. Man's only hope of making his homage acceptable to God, is in the merits of the Cross, and so of Holy Mass; it is in the union of his homage to the homage of the God-Man to the Eternal Father. A Christian is by baptism a member of the Church, but the Church is the Spouse of Jesus, the Royal Prince: Regina Formosissima Christo jugata Principi.

Christ and His Church always act together. Whatever is done by the Church, it is Christ who does it; whatever Christ does in the faithful, He does through the instrumentality of His Church. Christ is one with the Church by bearing her sins; the Church is one with Christ by bearing His Cross. Everything in the Church points to the Altar, to the Sacrifice of the Mass. Holy Mass is the great action of the Church, and through Holy Mass, man is able to pay his fourfold duty to God, to pay full homage to God. These duties, defined by St. Thomas, are summed up in these four words: "Adoration, Thanksgiving, Propitiation, Supplication." These are also four ends as well as the four fruits of Mass."

Source: Report of the Nineteenth Eucharistic Congress, Held at Westminster, London  from 9th to 13th September 1908

"It is not man who causes the things lying on the altar to become the Body and Blood of Christ; but that Christ who was crucified for us. The priest stands performing his office, and pronouncing the words; but the power and grace are the power and grace of God. He says, this is my body, and these words effects the change of the things offered."

Source:The United States Catholic Magazine and Monthly Review, Volume 3. Homely de Prodi. Judae. St. John Chrysostom

Saint Francois de Sales, by Giovan Battista Lucini (Wikipedia)

"Under the ancient law the High Priest did not wear the Rational except when he was vested in the pontifical robes and was entering before the Lord. Thus we do not say that the Pope cannot err in his private opinions, as did John XXII.; or be altogether a heretic, as perhaps Honorius was. Now when he is explicitly a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church must either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See, and must say as St. Peter did: Let another take his bishopric.

When he errs in his private opinion he must be instructed, advised, convinced; as happened with John XXII., who was so far from dying obstinate or from determining anything during his life concerning his opinion, that he died whilst he was making the examination which is necessary for determining in a matter of faith, as his successor declared in the Extravagantes which begins Benedictus Deus. But when he is clothed with the pontifical garments, I mean when he teaches the whole Church as shepherd, in general matters of faith and morals, then there is nothing but doctrine and truth.

And in fact everything a king says is not a law or an edict, but that only which a king says as king and as a legislator. So everything the Pope says is not canon law or of legal obligation; he must mean to define and to lay down the law for the sheep, and he must keep the due order and form. Thus we say that we must appeal to him not as to a learned man, for in this he is ordinarily surpassed by some others, but as to the general head and pastor of the Church: and as such we must honor, follow, and firmly embrace his doctrine, for then he carries on his breast the Urim and Thummim, doctrine and truth. And again we must not think that in everything and everywhere his judgment is infallible, but then only when he gives judgment on a matter of faith in questions necessary to the whole Church; for in particular cases which depend on human fact he can err, there is no doubt, though it is not for us to control him in these cases save with all reverence, submission, and discretion. Theologians have said, in a word, that he can err in questions of fact, not in questions of right; that he can err extra cathedram, outside the chair of Peter, that is, as a private individual, by writings and bad example.

But he cannot err when he is in cathedra, that is, when he intends to make an instruction and decree for the guidance of the whole Church, when he means to confirm his brethren as supreme pastor, and to conduct them into the pastures of the faith, then it is not so much man who determines, resolves, and defines as it is the Blessed Holy Spirit by man, which Spirit, according to the promise made by Our Lord to the Apostles, teaches all truth to the Church, and, as the Greek says and the Church seems to understand in a collect of Pentecost, conducts and directs his Church into all truth: "But when that Spirit of truth shall come, he will teach you all truth, or, will lead you into all truth." And how does the Holy Spirit lead the Church except by the ministry and office of preachers and pastors? But if the pastors have pastors they must also follow them, as all must follow him who is the supreme pastor, by whose ministry Our God wills to lead not only the lambs and little sheep, but the sheep and mothers of lambs; that is, not the people only but also the other pastors: he succeeds St. Peter, who received this charge: "Feed my sheep". Thus it is that God leads his Church into the pastures of his Holy Word, and in the exposition of this he who seeks the truth under other leading loses it. The Holy Spirit is the leader of the Church, he leads it by its pastor; he therefore who follows not the pastor follows not the Holy Spirit.

But the great Cardinal of Toledo remarks most appositely on this place that it is not said he shall carry the Church into all truth, but he shall lead; to show that though the Holy Spirit enlightens the Church, he wills at the same time that she should use the diligence which is required for keeping the true way, as the Apostles did, who, having to give an answer to an important question, debated, comparing the Holy Scriptures together; and when they had diligently done this they concluded by the - It hath seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us; that is, the Holy Spirit has enlightened us and we have walked, he has guided us and we have followed him, up to this truth. The ordinary means must be employed to discover the truth, and yet in this must be acknowledged the drawing and presence of the Holy Spirit. Thus is the Christian flock led, - by the Holy Spirit but under the charge and guidance of its Pastor, who however does not walk at hazard, but according to necessity convokes the other pastors, either partially or universally, carefully regards the track of his predecessors, considers the Urim and Thummim of the Word of God, enters before his God by his prayers and invocations, and, having thus diligently sought out the true way, boldly puts himself on his voyage and courageously sets sail. Happy the man who follows him and puts himself under the discipline of his crook! Happy the man who embarks in his boat, for he shall feed on truth, and shall arrive at the port of holy doctrine!

Thus he never gives a general command to the whole Church in necessary things except with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, who, as he is not wanting in necessary things even to second causes, because he has established them, will not be more wanting to Christianity in what is necessary for its life and perfection. And how would the Church be one and holy, as the Scriptures and Creeds describe her? for if she followed a pastor, and the pastor erred, how would she be holy; if she followed him not, how would she be one? And what confusion would be seen in Christendom, while the one party should consider a law good the others bad, and while the sheep, instead of feeding and fattening in the pasture of Scripture and the Holy Word, should occupy themselves in controlling the decision of their superior ?

It remains therefore that according to Divine Providence we consider as closed that which St. Peter shall close with his keys, and as open that which he shall open, when seated in his chair of doctrine teaching the whole Church.

If indeed the ministers had censured vices, proved the inutility of certain decrees and censures, borrowed some holy counsels from the ethical books of St. Gregory, and from St. Bernard's De Consideratione, brought forward some good plan for removing the abuses which have crept into the administration of benefices through the malice of the age and of men, and had addressed themselves to His Holiness with humility and gratitude, all good men would have honored them and favored their designs.

The good Cardinals Contarini the Theatine, Sadolet, and Pole, with those other great men who counseled the reformation of abuses in this way, have thereby deserved immortal commendation from posterity. But to fill heaven and earth with invectives, railings, outrages, - to calumniate the Pope, and not only in his person, which is bad enough, but in his office, to attack the See which all antiquity has honored, to wish to go so far as to sit in judgment upon him, contrary to the sense of the whole Church, to style his position itself anti-Christianism -who shall call this right? If the great Council of Chalcedon was so indignant when the Patriarch Dioscorus excommunicated Pope Leo, who can endure the insolence of Luther, who issued a Bull in which he excommunicates the Pope and the bishops and the whole Church? All the Church gives him (the Pope) patents of honor, speaks to him with reverence. What shall we say of that fine preface in which Luther addressed the Holy See: "Martin Luther to the most Holy Apostolic See and its whole Parliament, grace and health. In the first place, most holy see, crack but burst not on account of this new salutation in which I place my name first and in the principal place." And after having quoted the Bull against which he was writing, he begins with these wicked and vile words: "Ego autem dico ad papam et bullæ hujus minas, istud: qui præ minis moritur ad ejus sepulturam compulsari debet crepitibus ventris.” And when writing against the King of England, "Living," said he, "I will be the enemy of the papacy, burnt I will be thy enemy." What say you of this great Father of the Church? Are not these words  worthy of such a reformer? I am ashamed to read them, and my hand is vexed when it lays out such shameful things, but if they are hidden from you, you will never believe that he is such as he is,—and when he says: "It is ours not to be judged by him but to judge him."

But I detain you too long on a subject which does not require great examination. You read the writings of Calvin, of Zwingle, of Luther: take out of these, I beg you, the railings, calumnies, insults, detraction, ridicule, and buffoonery which they contain against the Pope and the Holy See of Rome, and you will find that nothing will remain. You listen to your ministers; impose silence upon them as regards railings, detraction, calumnies against the Holy See, and you will have your sermons half their length. They utter a thousand calumnies on this point: this is the general rendez-vous of all your ministers. On whatever subjects they may be composing their books, as if they were tired and spent with their labor they stay to dwell on the vices of the Popes, very often saying what they know well not to be the fact. Beza says that for a long time there has been no Pope who has cared about religion or who has been a theologian. Is he not seeking to deceive somebody? for he knows well that Adrian, Marcellus, and these five last have been very great theologians. What does he mean by these lies? But let us say that there may be vice and ignorance: "What has the Roman Chair done to thee," says St. Augustine, " in which Peter sat and in which now Anastasius sits?

Why do you call the Apostolic Chair the chair of pestilence? If it is on account of men whom you consider to be declaring and not keeping the law - Did Our Lord, on account of the Pharisees, of whom He said: they say and do not do any injury to the chair in which they sat? Did he not commend that chair of Moses, and reprove them, saving the honor of their chair? For He says: Super cathedram, &c. (Matt. xxiii. 2). If you considered these things you would not, on account of the men you speak against, blaspheme the Apostolic Chair, with which you do not communicate. But what does it all mean save that they have nothing to say, and yet are unable to keep from ill-saying."

The Catholic Controversy, St. Francis de Sales

Saint Paul, Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh NC. ©CAPG

  Prayer to Saint Paul

O Glorious Saint Paul, after persecuting the Church you became by God's grace its most zealous Apostle. To carry the knowledge of Jesus, our divine Savior, to the uttermost parts of the earth you joyfully endured prison, scourgings, stonings, and shipwreck, as well as all manner of persecutions culminating in the shedding of the last drop of your blood for our Lord Jesus Christ.

May your example inspire our parish priests today to be zealous in their service to God's people. Obtain for our priests the grace to labor strenuously to bring the faith to others and to accept any trials and tribulations that may come their way. Help them to be inspired by your Epistles and to partake of your indomitable love for Jesus, so that after they have finished their course they may join you in praising him in heaven for all eternity. Amen.

Source: CAPG

"Kneeling indicates and promotes the adoration necessary before receiving the Eucharistic Christ. From this perspective, the then-Cardinal Ratzinger assured that: "Communion only reaches its true depth when it is supported and surrounded by adoration."

Source: The Spirit of the Liturgy (Ignatius Press, 2000), p. 90