Refusing to Share in the Priesthood of Christ
by VP
Posted on Tuesday May 14, 2019 at 02:29PM in Quotes
What would happen to a priest already sharing in the priesthood of Christ by reason of his ordination, if he refused to share in Christ’s condition of victim? He would certainly be falling away from the priestly ideal: his life would become disordered, disturbed, and confused. He would remain a minister of Christ but without a sincere love for his affectionate Master. No longer a man of God but a man of the world, a man whose life has become vain, superficial, barren. This deplorable state of sterility reveals in an even better light the fruitfulness of a genuine apostolate, just as it is easier to appreciate the value of justice when we see the suffering resulting from injustice. Every priest should ask for the grace to be a victim in the way God wants him to be, to suffer patiently whatever God has willed for him from all eternity, so that he takes up his cross each day not simply as a faithful follower of Christ but as a priest standing in the place of Christ himself. He must undergo a mystical death before his physical death.
Source: The Priest in Union with Christ, Father Reginal Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.
