Banished...
by VP
Posted on Monday April 18, 2022 at 01:00AM in Quotes
"Oh, how sad would be the state of society were the Popes, the bishops and priests to be banished from the earth! The bonds that unite the husband and wife, the child and the parent, the friend and the friend would be broken. Peace and justice would flee from the earth. Robbery, murder, hatred, lust, and all the other crimes condemned by the Gospel, would prevail. Faith would no longer elevate the souls of men to heaven. Hope, the sweet consoler of the afflicted, of the widow and the orphan, would flee away, and in he stead would reign black despair, terror, and suicide. Where would we find the sweet virtue of charity, if the Popes, the bishops and priests were to disappear forever? Where would we find that charity which consoles the poor and forsaken, which lovingly dies the tears of the widow and the orphan; that charity which soothes the sick man in his sufferings, and binds up the wounds of the bleeding defender of his country? Where would we find that charity which casts a spark of divine fire into the hearts of so many religious, bidding them abandon home, friends, and everything that is near and dear to them in this world , to go among strangers, among savage tribes, and gain there, in return for their heroism, nothing but outrage, suffering and death?
Where, I ask, would we find this charity, if the Popes, the bishops and priests were to disappear forever?
Leave a parish for many years without a priest, and the people thereof will become the blind victims of error, of superstition, and of all kinds of vices.
Show me an age, a country, a nation without priests, and I will show you an age, a country, a nation without morals, without virtue. Yes, if "Religion, Science, Liberty, and Justice, Principle and Right, " are not empty sounds - if they have a meaning, they owe their energetic existence in the world to the "salt of the earth" to the Popes, bishops and priests."
Source: The Catholic Priest, Rev. Michael Muller C.S.S.R
Prayer for Zealous Priests
Sanctify to Thyself, O my Lord, the
hearts of Thy priests, that, by the merits of Thy sacred humanity, they
may become living images of Thee, children of Mary, and full of the fire
of the Holy Ghost, that they may guard Thy house, and defend Thy glory,
and that through their ministry the face of the earth may be renewed,
and they may save those souls which have costs Thee all Thy blood. Amen
Queen of the Apostles, pray thy Son, the Lord of the Harvest, to send laborers into His harvest, and to spare His people. Amen.
The Prayer Book. Imprimatur Samuel Cardinal Stritch Archbishop of Chicago, May 10, 1954.