St. Catherine of Siena

St. Catherine of Siena (A.D. 1347-1380) composed The Dialogue in 1378, in the middle of a period of chaos in the Church’s history. Between 1309 and 1377, the popes were in Avignon rather than in Rome. St. Catherine of Siena helped to persuade Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome in 1377. In 1378, however, Gregory XI died and the Great Schism, during which there were various rival claimants to the papacy, began (it did not end until 1417). The Dialogue, a theological masterpiece, earned St. Catherine her place as a Doctor or teacher of the Church. This excerpt comes from the section devoted to “The Mystic Body of Holy Church” In this section, God speaks to St. Catherine about the dignity of the priesthood and about the effects of corruption in the priesthood. Note the passionate intensity of the call to holiness.

O dearest Daughter, I have told you all this so that you may better know how I have dignified my ministers, and thus grieve the more over their wickedness. If they themselves had considered their dignity, they would not have fallen into the darkness of deadly sin nor muddied the face of their souls. Not only have they sinned against me and against their own dignity, but even had they given their bodies to be burned they would not have been able to repay me for the tremendous grace and blessing they have received, for it is impossible to have a greater dignity than theirs in this life.

They are my anointed ones and I call them my “christs,” because I have appointed them to be my ministers to you and have sent them like fragrant flowers into the mystic body of holy Church. No angel has this dignity, but I have given it to those men whom I have chosen to be ministers. I have sent them like angels, and they ought to be earthly angels in this life.

I demand purity and charity of every soul, a charity that loves me and others, and helps others in whatever way it can, serving them in prayer and loving them tenderly. But much more do I demand purity in my ministers, and that they love me and their neighbors, administering the body and blood of my only-begotten Son with burning love and hunger for the salvation of souls, for the glory and praise of my name.

Just as these ministers want the chalice in which they offer this sacrifice to be clean, so I demand that they themselves be clean in heart and soul and mind. And I want them to keep their bodies, as instruments of the soul, in perfect purity. I do not want them feeding and wallowing in the mire of impurity, nor bloated with pride in their hankering after high office, nor cruel to themselves and their neighbors—for they cannot abuse themselves without abusing their neighbors. If they abuse themselves by sinning, they are abusing the souls of their neighbors. For they are not giving them an example of good living, nor are they concerned about rescuing souls from the devil’s hands, nor about administering to them the body and blood of my only-begotten Son, and myself the true Light in the other sacraments of holy Church. So, by abusing themselves they are abusing others.

1 want them to be generous, not avariciously selling the grace of my Holy Spirit to feed their own greed. They ought not do so; I will not have them do so. Rather, as they have received charity freely and generously from my goodness, so ought they to give to everyone who humbly asks, lovingly, freely, and with a generous heart, moved by love for my honor and the salvation of souls.’ Nor ought they to take anything in payment for what they themselves have not bought but have received gratuitously so that they might administer it to you. But alms they may and should accept. So also should those act who are the receivers, for their part giving alms when they are able. For my ministers ought to be provided by you with material help in their needs, and you ought to be provided for and nourished by them with grace and spiritual gifts, that is, with the holy sacraments I have established in holy Church for them lo administer to you for your salvation.

And I want you to know that they give you incomparably more than you give them, for there is no comparison between the finite and passing things with which you help them, and myself, God, who am infinite and have appointed them in my providence and divine charity to minister to you. With all of your material possessions you could never repay the incomparable spiritual gifts you receive—not only this mystery, but everything whatever that is administered to you by anyone as a spiritual favor, whether through prayer or any other means.

Now I tell you that whatever my ministers receive from you they are obliged to distribute in three ways by dividing it into three parts: one for their own livelihood, one for the poor, and the rest for what is needed for the Church. If they use it in any other way they would offend me.

This is how my gentle glorious ministers conduct themselves. I told you that I wanted you to see the excellence that is theirs beyond the dignity I have given them by making them my christs. When they exercise the dignity virtuously they are clothed in this gentle glorious Sun that I have entrusted to their ministry.

Consider those who have gone before them: the gentle Gregory, Sylvester, and the other successors of the chief pontiff Peter, to whom my Truth gave the keys of the heavenly kingdom when he said, “Peter, I am giving you the keys of the heavenly kingdom; whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.”

Listen well, dearest daughter. By showing you the magnificence of their virtues I shall show you more fully the dignity to which I have appointed these ministers of mine. This is the key to the blood of my only-begotten Son, that key which unlocked eternal life, closed for so long a time because of Adam’s sin. But after I gave you my Truth, the Word, my only-begotten Son, he suffered and died, and by his death he destroyed your death by letting his blood be a cleansing bath for you. Thus his blood and his death, by the power of my divine nature joined with his human nature, unlocked eternal life.

And to whom did he leave the keys to this blood? To the glorious Apostle Peter and to all the others who have come or will come from now u ntil the final judgment day with the very same authority that Peter had.

Nor is this authority lessened by any sinfulness on their part; nor can that sinfulness deprive the blood or any other sacrament of its perfection. I have already told you that no uncleanness can defile this Sun, nor is its light lost because of any darkness of deadly sin that may be in the minister or in those who receive it. Their sin cannot injure the sacraments of holy Church or lessen their power. But grace is lessened and sin increased in those who administe or receive them unworthily.

Christ on earth, then, has the keys to the blood. If you remember, I showed you this in an image when I wanted to teach you the respect lay people ought to have for these ministers of mine, regardless of how good or evil they may be, and how displeased I am with disrespect. You, know that I set before you the mystic body of the holy Church under the, image of a wine cellar. In this wine cellar was the blood of my only-begotten Son, and from this blood all the sacraments derive their life-giving power.

Christ on earth stood at the door of this wine cellar. He had been commissioned to administer the blood, and it was his duty to delegate ministers to help him in the service of the entire universal body of Christianity. Only those accepted and anointed by him were to thus minister. He was the head of the whole clerical order, and he appointed each one to his proper office to administer this glorious blood.

Because he has sent them out as his helpers, it is his task to correct them for their faults, and it is my will that he do so. For by the dignity and authority I have bestowed on them I have freed them from slavery that is, from submission to the authority of temporal rulers. Civil law has no power whatever to punish them; this right belongs solely to the one who has been appointed to rule and to serve according to divine law. There are my anointed ones, and therefore it has been said through Scripture: “Dare not to touch my christs.” Therefore, a person can do no worse violence than to assume the right to punish my ministers.

And if you should ask me why I said that this sin of those who persecute holy Church is graver than any other sin, and why it is my will that the sins of the clergy should not lessen your reverence for them, this is how I would answer you: because the reverence you pay to them is not actually paid to them but to me, in virtue of the blood I have entrusted to their ministry. If this were not so, you should pay them as much reverence as to anyone else, and no more. It is this ministry of theirs that dictates that you should reverence them and come to them, not for what they are in themselves but for the power I have entrusted to them, if you would receive the holy sacraments of the Church. For if you refuse these when it is in your power to have them, you would live and die condemned.

So the reverence belongs not to the ministers, but to me and to this glorious blood made one thing with me because of the union of divinity with humanity. And just as the reverence is done to me, so also is the irreverence, for I have already told you that you must not sin against them, because if you do, you are really sinning not against them but against me. This I have forbidden, and I have said that it is my will that no one should touch them.

For this reason no one has excuse to say, I am doing no harm, nor am I rebelling against holy Church. I am simply acting against the sins of evil pastors. “Such persons are deluded, blinded as they are by their own selfishness. They see well enough, but they pretend not to see so as to blunt the prickling of conscience. If they would look, they could see that they are persecuting not these ministers, but the blood. It is me they assault, just as it was me they reverenced. To me redounds every assault they make on my ministers: derision, slander, disgrace, abuse. Whatever is done to them I count as done to me. For I have said and I say it again: No one is to touch my christs. It is my right to punish them, and no one else’s.

But the wicked show how little they reverence the blood, how little they value the treasure I have given them for their souls’ life and salvation. You could receive no greater gift than that I should give you myself, wholly God and wholly human, as your food.

But by not paying me reverence in the persons of my ministers, they have lost respect for the latter and persecuted them because of the many sins and faults they saw in them. If in truth the reverence they had for them had been for my sake, they would not have cut it off on account of any sin in them. For no sin can lessen the power of this sacrament, and therefore their reverence should not lessen either. When it does, it is against me they sin.

There are many reasons that make this sin more serious than any other, but I will tell you of three principal ones.

The first is that what they do to my ministers they do to me.”

The second is that they are violating my command, for I forbade them to touch [my christs]. They scorn the power of the blood they received in holy baptism, for they disobediently do what I have forbidden. They are rebels against the blood because they have become irreverent persecutors, like rotten members cut off from the mystic body of holy Church. And if they persist in this irreverent rebellion and die in it, they will end in eternal damnation. Still, if even at the end they humble themselves and admit their sin and want to be reconciled with their head—even though they cannot do it actually—they will receive mercy. But let no one count on having the time for this, since no one can be certain of it.

The third reason this sin is more serious than any other is that it is committed deliberately and with selfish malice. They know they cannot do it in good conscience, but they do it nonetheless and sin. And it is a sin committed in perverse pride without any bodily pleasure: Indeed, both body and soul are eaten up by it. Their souls are eaten up because they are deprived of grace and chewed up by the worm of conscience. Their material possessions are consumed in the service of the devil. And their bodies die of it like animals.

So this sin is committed directly against me. It is unmitigated by any profit to the sinner or any pleasure except the sooty spite of pride—a pride born of selfish sensuality and of that perverse slavish fear that led Pilate to kill Christ, my only-begotten Son, rather than risk losing his power. So do these behave.

All other sins are committed either through stupidity or ignorance or through the sort of malice that, though conscious of the evil being done, sins for the sake of disordered pleasure or profit. Such sinners bring harm to their own soul and offend me and their neighbors-me because they are not praising and glorifying my name, their neighbors because they are not giving them the joy of their charity. But they are not actually persecuting me, because while they are sinning against me, it is themselves they are harming, and their sin displeases me because of the harm it does to them.

But this other is a sin committed directly against me. Other sins ave some pretext; they are committed with some excuse, with some middle ground—for I told you that every sin as well as every virtue is realized for God and your neighbors, and virtue is practiced out of the warmth of charity. If you sin against your neighbors you sin against me through them.

But among all my creatures I have chosen these ministers of mine. They are my anointed ones, stewards of the body and blood of my only-begotten Son—your human flesh joined with my divinity. When they consecrate, they stand in the place of Christ my son. So you see, this sin is directed against this Word, and because it is done to him it is done to me, because we are one and the same. These wretches persecute the blood and so deprive themselves of the treasure and fruit of the blood. Thus I consider this sin, committed not against my ministers but against me, the more serious because the persecution as well as the honor is not (nor do I so consider it) owed to them but to me, that is, to this glorious blood of my Son, for we are one and the same. Therefore I tell you, if all the other sins these people have committed were put on one side and this one sin on the other, the one would weigh more in my sight than all the others. I have shown you this so that you would have more reason to grieve that I am offended and these wretched souls damned, so that the bitter sorrow of you and my other servants by my kind mercy might dissolve the great darkness that has come over these rotten members who are cut off from the mystic body of holy Church.

But I find hardly anyone who will grieve over the persecution that is waged against this glorious precious blood, while there are many who persecute me constantly with the arrows of disordered love and slavish fear and self-conceit. Blind as they are, they count as honor what is shameful, and as shame what is honorable, that is, to humble themselves before their head.

Through these sins they have risen up and continue to rise up to persecute the blood. I spoke the truth when I told you that they are persecuting me. So far as their intention is concerned, they persecute me in whatever way they can. Not that I in myself can be harmed or persecuted by them, for I am like the rock that is not hurt by what is thrown at it, but glances it back at the one who threw it. Just so, the impact of the filthy sins they hurl can do me no harm, but their arrows glance back at them poisoned with guilt. This guilt deprives them of grace in this life because they lose the fruit of the blood, and in the end, unless I change their ways through heartfelt contrition and holy confession, they will come to eternal damnation, cut off from me and bound over to the devil. They have, in fact, made a compact, they and the devil, for as soon as they have lost grace they are bound in sin with the chain of hatred for virtue and love of vice. And this chain they have put into the devil’s hands with their free choice. This is what he binds them with, for in no other way could they be bound.

This chain binds the persecutors of the blood one with the other, and as members bound up with the devil they have taken on the function of the devils. The devils make every effort to lead my creatures astray, to lure them away from grace and drag them down into the guilt of deadly sin, so that others may share the evil that is in themselves. This is what such people do, neither more nor less. As the devil’s members they go about undermining the children of the bride of Christ, my only-begotten Son, undoing them from the bond of charity and binding them up in the wretched chain where they will be deprived of the fruit of the blood along with themselves. The links of this chain are pride and self-importance, along with the slavish fear that makes them lose grace rather than risk losing their temporal powers. So they fall into greater confusion than ever, since they have forfeited the honor of the blood. Their chain is welded with the seal of darkness, they have fallen and are making others fall. This is why they do not change their ways. They do not know themselves, but blind as they are they take pride in their own spiritual and bodily ruin.

O dearest daughter, grieve without measure at the sight of such wretched blindness in those who, like you, have been washed in the blood, have nursed and been nourished with this blood at the breast of holy Church! Now like rebels they have pulled away from that breast out of fear and under the pretext of correcting the faults of my ministers—something I have forbidden them to do, for I do not want [my anointed ones] touched by them. What terror should come over you and my other servants when you hear any mention of that wretched chain of theirs! Your tongue could never describe how hateful it is to me! And worse still, they want to take cover under the cloak of my ministers’ sins so as to cover up their own sins. They forgot that no cloak can hide anything from my sight. They might well be able to hide from creatures, but not from me, for nothing present nor anything at all can be hidden from me. I loved you and knew you before you came into being.

And this is one reason the wicked of this world do not change their ways: They do not believe in truth, by the light of living faith, that I see them. For if they believed in truth that I see them and their sins, and that every sin is punished and every good rewarded, they would not commit such evil but would turn away from what they have done and humbly ask for my mercy. And I, through my Son’s blood, would be merciful to, them. But they are obstinate, and so they are rejected by my goodness and because of their sins fall into the ultimate disaster of losing the light and, blind as they are, becoming persecutors of the blood. But no fault on the part of the ministers of the blood can justify such persecution.

I have told you, dearest daughter, something of the reverence that ought to be given my anointed ones no matter how sinful they may be. For reverence neither is nor should be given them for what they are in themselves, but only the authority I have entrusted to them. The sacramental mystery cannot be lessened or divided by their sinfulness. Therefore your reverence for them should never fail—not for their own sake, but because of the treasure of the blood.

Looking to the contrary, I have shown you ever so little how grave and displeasing to me and how harmful to themselves is the irreverence of those who persecute the blood. And I have shown you the compact they have made against me by binding themselves together in the service of the devil, so that you may grieve the more.

I have told you specifically about this sin because of the persecution of holy Church. And I tell you the same of Christianity in general: Anyone who lives in deadly sin is scorning the blood and letting go of the life of grace. But much more displeasing to me and serious for themselves is the sin of those of whom I have spoken specifically.

Now I would refresh your soul by softening your grief over the darksomeness of those wretched ones with the holy lives of my ministers. I have told you that they have taken on the qualities of the Sun, so that the fragrance of their virtues mitigates the stench, and their lightsomeness the dark. By this very light I would have you know more deeply the sinful darksomeness of those other ministers of mine. So open your mind’s eye and contemplate me, the Sun of justice, and you shall see these glorious ministers who by their stewardship of the Sun have taken on the qualities of the Sun.

I have told you about Peter, the prince of the apostles, who received t lie keys of the heavenly kingdom. just so, I am telling you about others who, in this garden of holy Church, have been stewards of the light, that is, the body and blood of my only-begotten Son. He is the one undivided Sun, and all the Church’s sacraments derive their value and life-giving power from his blood. All these of whom I am now telling you were appointed by rank according to their state to be stewards of the Holy Spirit’s grace. How have they administered it? By the gracious brightness they have drawn from this true light.

Does this brightness exist by itself? No, for neither can the brightness of grace exist by itself nor can its light be divided: One must either have it whole and entire or not have it at all. Anyone living in deadly sin is by that very fact deprived of the light of grace. And anyone who has grace is spiritually enlightened by knowing me, for I am the giver of grace and of the virtue by which grace is preserved. It is in this light that the soul recognizes the wretchedness of sin and its source, sensual selfishness, and therefore hates it. By hating sin and its source she receives the warmth of divine charity into her will, for the will follows understanding. And she receives the color of this glorious light by following the teaching of my gentle Truth, whence her memory is filled in pondering the blessing of his blood.

So you see, it is impossible to receive this light without also receiving its warmth and color, for all three are fused into one and the same thing. Thus it is that the soul cannot have one of her powers disposed to receive me, the true Sun, unless all three of her powers are disposed together in my name. For as soon as the eye of understanding rises above physical sight by the light of faith and contemplates me, the will follows by loving what the eye of understanding has come to see and know, and the memory is filled with what the will loves. And as soon as these three. powers are ready, the soul shares in me, the Sun, by being enlightened by my power and the wisdom of my only-begotten Son and the mercy of the Holy Spirit’s fire.

So you see, the soul’s powers have taken on the qualities of the sun. In other words, once these powers have been filled and clothed with me, the true Sun, they behave as the sun does. The sun warms and enlightens, and with its heat makes the earth bring forth fruit. So also these gentle ministers of mine, whom I chose and anointed and sent into the mystic body of holy Church to be stewards of me the Sun, that is, of the body and blood of my only-begotten Son along with the other sacraments that draw life from this blood. They administer it both actually and spiritually by giving off within the mystic body of holy Church the brightness of supernatural learning, the color of a holy and honorable life in following the teaching of my Truth, and the warmth of blazing charity. Thus with their warmth they cause barren souls to bring forth fruit, and enlighten them with the brightness of learning. By their holy and well-ordered lives they drive out the darksomeness of deadly sin and unfaithfulness, and set in order the lives of those who had been living disordered lives in the darkness of sin and the cold that came of their lack of charity. So you see how these ministers of mine are suns because they have taken on the qualities of me the true Sun. By love they have been made to be one thing with me and I with them.

They have all, according to the positions I have chosen them for, given light to holy Church: Peter with his preaching and teaching and in the end with his blood; Gregory with his learning and [his knowledge of] Sacred Scripture and the mirror of his living; Sylvester by his struggles against unbelievers and above all in the disputations and argumentations for the holy faith that he made in deeds as well as in words with the power he received from me. And if you turn to Augustine, to the glorious Thomas, to Jerome and the others, you will gee what great light they have shed on this bride, as lamps set on a lamp-stand, dispelling errors with their true and perfect humility.

Hungry as they were for my honor and the salvation of souls, they fed on these at the table of the most holy cross. The martyrs did it with their blood. Their blood was fragrant to me, and with the fragrance of their blood and their virtues and with the light of learning they bore fruit in this bride. They spread the faith: Those who had been in darkness came to their light and they enkindled the light of faith in them. The prelates, who were entrusted with the authority of Christ on earth, offered me the just sacrifice of their holy and honorable lives. The pearl of justice shone in them and in their subjects, but first of all in them, with true humility and blazing charity, with enlightened discernment. justly they offered me my due of glory and praise and offered themselves their contempt for their selfish sensuality by shunning vice and embracing virtue with charity for me and for their neighbors. With humility they trampled pride underfoot and like angels approached the table of the altar. They celebrated [the Mass] with bodily purity and spiritual sincerity, set ablaze as they were in charity’s furnace. Because they had first done justice to themselves, they were just to their subjects as well. They wanted them to live virtuously, and so corrected them without any slavish fear, for their concern was not for themselves but only for my honor and the salvation of souls. They conducted themselves as good shepherds and followers of the good shepherd, my Truth, whom I sent to govern you, my little sheep, and to lay down his life for you.

These ministers of mine followed in his footsteps. Therefore they did not let my members grow rotten for want of correction. But they corrected lovingly, with the ointment of kindness along with the harshness of the fire that cauterizes the wound of sin through reproof and penance, now more, now less, according to the gravity of the sin. Nor did it concern them that such correcting and speaking the truth might bring them death.

They were true gardeners, and with care and holy fear they rooted out the brambles of deadly sin and put in their place the fragrant plants of virtue. Thus their subjects lived in truly holy fear and they grew up as fragrant flowers in the mystic body of holy Church because my ministers fearlessly gave them the correction they needed. Because there was in them no thorn of sin, they kept to the way of holy justice and administered reproof without any slavish fear. This was and is the shining pearl that sheds peace and light on people’s spirits and establishes them in holy fear with hearts united. I want you, therefore, to know that nothing causes as much darkness and division in the world among both lay people and religious, clergy and shepherds of holy Church, as does the lack of the light of justice and the invasion of the darkness of injustice.

No rank, whether of civil or divine law, can be held in grace without holy justice.” For those who are not corrected and those who do not correct are like members beginning to rot, and if the doctor were only to apply ointment without cauterizing the wound, the whole body would become fetid and corrupt.

So it is with prelates or with anyone else in authority. If they see the members who are their subjects rotting because of the filth of deadly sin and apply only the ointment of soft words without reproof, they will never get well. Rather, they will infect the other members with whom they form one body under their one shepherd. But if those in authority are truly good doctors to those souls, as were those glorious shepherds, they will not use ointment without the fire of reproof. And if the members are still obstinate in their evildoing, they will cut them off from the congregation so that they will not infect the whole body with the filth of deadly sin.

But [those who are in authority] today do not do this. In fact, they pretend not to see. And do you know why? Because the root of selfish love is alive in them, and this is the source of their perverse slavish fear. They do not correct people for fear of losing their rank and position and their material possessions. They act as if they were blind, so they do not know how to maintain their positions. For if they saw how it is by holy justice that their positions are to be maintained, they would maintain them. But because they are bereft of light they do not know this. They believe they can succeed through injustice, by not reproving the sins of their subjects. But they are deceived by their own sensual passion, by their hankering for civil or ecclesiastical rank.

Another reason they will not correct others is that they themselves are living in the same or greater sins. They sense that the same guilt envelopes them, so they cast aside fervor and confidence and, chained by slavish fear, pretend they do not see. Even what they do see they do not correct, but let themselves be won over by flattery and bribes, using these very things as excuses for not punishing the offenders. In them is fulfilled what my Truth said in the holy Gospel: “They are blind and leaders of the blind. And if one blind person leads another, they both fall into the ditch.”

Those who have been or would be my gentle ministers did not and would not act this way. I told you that these have taken on the qualities of the sun. Indeed, they are suns, for there is in them no darkness of sin or ignorance, because they follow the teaching of my Truth. Nor are they lukewarm, because they are set ablaze in the furnace of my charity. They have no use for the world’s honors and ranks and pleasures. Therefore, they are not afraid to correct. Those who do not hanker after power or ecclesiastical rank have no fear of losing it. They reprove [sin] courageously, for those whose conscience does not accuse them of sin have nothing to fear.

Questions for Catherine

1 . What is the great dignity that God has given his ministerial priests? Explain how the sacraments are central to Catherine’s understanding of the priesthood.

2. Why does Catherine warn against the laity condemning and disrespecting even sinful priests? What does Catherine fear will happen if priests, ordained by Christ’s power, no longer have respect in the Church?

3. Having insisted upon the dignity of even sinful priests, Catherine also warns strongly against the sinfulness of priests. What happens when sinful priests fail to discipline their flocks?

St. Thomas More

After having served as a member of Parliament, a lawyer, and personal secretary to the king, St. Thomas More (A.D. 1478-1535) became Chancellor of England in 1529. A prolific author on political and ecclesial subjects, and a noted humanist (the Dutch humanist and classical scholar Erasmus was a close friend), St. Thomas More was executed on July 6,1535, by King HenryVIII for refusing to sign the oath accepting Henry as the Supreme Head of the Church in England—an oath that was signed by all English bishops except one. In the following excerpt from The Sadness of Christ, a commentary on Christ’s betrayal in the garden of Gethsemane that More wrote while a prisoner in the Tower of London, he warns against worldly corruption among the Church’s bishops. Even while warning against corruption, he accepts their authority as ordained by Christ.

SEE NOW, WHEN CHRIST comes back to His apostles for the third time, there they are, buried in sleep, though He commanded them to bear up with Him and to stay awake and pray because of the impending danger; but Judas the traitor at the same time was so wide awake and intent on betraying the Lord that the very idea of sleep never entered his mind.

Does not this contrast between the traitor and the apostles present to us a clear and sharp mirror image (as it were), a sad and terrible view of what has happened through the ages from those times even to our own? Why do not bishops contemplate in this scene their own somnolence? Since they have succeeded in the place of the apostles, would that they would reproduce their virtues just as eagerly as they embrace their authority and as faithfully as they display their sloth and sleepiness! For very many are sleepy and apathetic in sowing virtues among the people and maintaining the truth, while the enemies of Christ, in order to sow vices and uproot the faith (that is, insofar as they can, to seize Christ and cruelly crucify Him once again), are wide awake—so much wiser (as Christ says) are the sons of darkness in their generation than the sons of light.

But although this comparison of the sleeping apostles applies very well to those bishops who sleep while virtue and the faith are placed in jeopardy, still it does not apply to all such prelates at all points. For some of them—alas, far more than I could wish—do not drift into sleep through sadness and grief as the apostles did. Rather, they are numbed and buried in destructive desires; that is, drunk with the new wine of the devil, the flesh, and the world, they sleep like pigs sprawling in the mire. Certainly the apostles’ feeling of sadness because of the danger to their Master was praiseworthy, but for them to be so overcome by sadness as to yield completely to sleep, that was certainly wrong. Even to grieve because the world is perishing or to weep because of the crimes of others bespeaks a reverent outlook, as was felt by the writer who said, “I sat by myself and groaned” (Lam. 3:28) and also by the one who said, “I was sick at heart because of sinners abandoning your law” (Ps. 119:53). Sadness of this sort I would place in the category of which he says, “For the sorrow that is according to God produces repentance that surely tends to salvation, whereas the sorrow that is according to the world produces death” (2 Cor. 7: 10). But I would place it there only if the feeling, how-, ever good, is checked by the rule and guidance of reason. For if this is, not the case, if sorrow so grips the mind that its strength is sapped and reason gives up the reins, if a bishop is so overcome by heavy-hearted, sleep that he neglects to do what the duty of his office requires for salvation of his flock—like a cowardly ship’s captain who is so disheartened by the furious din of a storm that he deserts the helm, hides away, cowering in some cranny, and abandons the ship to the waves—if a, bishop does this, I would certainly not hesitate to juxtapose and compare his sadness with the sadness that leads, as [Paul] says, to hell; indeed, I would consider it far worse, since such sadness in religious matters seems to spring from a mind which despairs of God’s help.

The next category, but a far worse one, consists of those who are not depressed by sadness at the danger of others but rather by a fear of injury to themselves, a fear which is so much the worse as its cause is the more contemptible, that is, when it is not a question of life or death but of money.

And yet Christ commands us to contemn the loss of the body itself for His sake. “Do not be afraid He says, “of those who destroy the body and after that can do nothing further. But I will show you the one you should fear, the one to fear: fear Him who, when He has destroyed the body, has the power to send the soul also to hell. This, I tell you, is the one you must fear.”

And though He lays down this rule for everyone without exception when they have been seized and there is no way out, He attaches a separate charge over and above this to the high office of prelates: He does not allow them to be concerned only about their own souls or merely to take refuge in silence until they are dragged out and forced to choose between open profession or lying dissimulation, but He also wished them to come forth if they see that the flock entrusted to them is in danger and to face the danger of their own accord for the good of their flock. “The good shepherd,” says Christ, “lays down his life for his sheep.” But if every good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep, certainly one who saves his own life to the detriment of his sheep is not fulfilling the role of a good shepherd.

Therefore, just as one who loses his life for Christ (and he does this if he loses it for the flock of Christ entrusted to him) saves it for life everlasting, so too one who denies Christ (and this he does if he fails to profess the truth when his silence injures his flock) by saying his life, he actually proceeds to lose it. Clearly it is even worse if, driven by fear, he denies Christ openly in words and forsakes Him publicly. Such prelates do not sleep like Peter, they make his waking denial. But under the kindly glance of Christ, most of them through His grace will eventually wipe out that failure and save themselves by weeping. if only they respond to His glance and friendly call to repentance with bitterness of heart and a new way of life, remembering His words and contemplating His passion and leaving behind the shackles of evil which bound them in their sins.

But if anyone is so set in evil that he does not merely neglect to profess the truth out of fear but like Arius and his ilk preaches false doctrine, whether for sordid gain or out of a corrupt ambition, such a person does not sleep like Peter, does not make Peter’s denial, but rather stays awake with wicked Judas and like Judas persecutes Christ. This man’s condition is far more dangerous than that of the others, as is shown by the sad and horrible end Judas came to. But since there is no limit to the kindness of a merciful God, even this sort of sinner ought not to despair of forgiveness. Even to Judas God gave many opportunities of coming to his senses. He did not deny him His companionship. He did not take away from him the dignity of his apostleship. He did not even take the purse-strings from him, even though he was a thief. He admitted the traitor to the fellowship of His beloved disciples at the Last Supper. He deigned to stoop down at the feet of the betrayer and to wash with His innocent and most sacred hands Judas’ dirty feet, a most fit symbol of his filthy mind. Moreover, with incomparable generosity He gave him to eat, in the form of bread, that very body of His which the betrayer had already sold; and under the appearance of wine, He gave him that very blood to drink which, even while he was drinking it, the traitor was wickedly scheming to broach and set flowing. Finally, when Judas, coming with his crew to seize Him, offered Him a kiss, a kiss that was in fact the terrible token of his treachery, Christ received him calmly and gently. Who would not believe that any one of all these could have turned the traitor’s mind, however hardened in crime, to better courses? Then too, even that beginning of repentance, when he admitted he had sinned and gave back the pieces of silver and threw them away when they were not accepted, crying out that he was a traitor and confessing that he had betrayed innocent blood—I am inclined to believe that Christ prompted him thus far so that He might if possible (that is, if the traitor did not add despair to his treachery) save from ruin the very man who had so recently, so perfidiously, betrayed Him to death.

Therefore, since God showed His great mercy in so many ways even toward Judas, an apostle turned traitor, since He invited him to forgiveness so often and did not allow him to perish except through despair alone, certainly there is no reason why, in this life, anyone should despair of any imitator of Judas. Rather, according to that holy advice Of apostle, “Pray for each other that you may be saved” (James 5:16), if see anyone wandering wildly from the right road, let us hope that he will one day return to the path, and meanwhile let us pray humbly and incessantly that God will hold out to him chances to come to his senses, and likewise that with God’s help he will eagerly seize them, and having seized them will hold fast and not throw them away out of malice or let them slip away from him through wretched sloth.

Questions for Thomas More

1. How does More compare the sleepiness of the apostles to the condition of the bishops (in England) in his own day?

2. What are the main faults of the bishops, according to More?

3. Rather than condemning the bishops as a lost cause, why does More emphasize that negligent bishops may still repent?

St. Jane de Chantal

Born into a prominent family, St. Jane de Chantal (1572-164 1) married Baron Christophe de Rabutin-Chantal in 1592, and they had six children before his early death in a hunting accident. A few years later, in 1604, she met St. Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva. In 1610, the two co-founded the Visitation of Holy Mary in Annecy, and St. Jane de Chantal devoted the rest of her life to budding up this religious community in accord with what came to be known as Salesian spirituality. I have selected some letters of spiritual direction that St. Jane de Chantal sent to her brother André Frémyot, the Archbishop of Bourges. Her letters emphasize the need for continual prayer.

Chambery, 1625

My very dear Lord,

SINCE GOD, IN His eternal goodness, has moved you to consecrate all your love, your actions, your works, and your whole self to Him utterly without any self-interest but only for His greater glory and His satisfaction, remain firm in this resolve. With the confidence of a son, rest in the care and love which divine Providence has for you in all your needs. Look upon Providence as a child does its mother who loves him tenderly. You can be sure that God loves you incomparably more. We can’t imagine how great is the love which God, in His goodness, has for souls who thus abandon themselves to His mercy, and who have no other wish than to do what they think pleases Him, leaving everything that concerns them to His care in time and in eternity.

After this, every day in your morning exercise, or at the end of it, confirm your resolutions and unite your will with God’s in all that you will do that day and in whatever He sends you. Use words like these: “O most holy Will of God, I give You infinite thanks for the mercy with which You have surrounded me; with all my strength and love, I adore You from the depths of my soul and unite my will to Yours now and forever, especially in all that I shall do and all that You will be pleased to send me this day, consecrating to Your glory my soul, my mind, my body, all my thoughts, words and actions, and my whole being. I beg You, with all the humility of my heart, accomplish in me Your eternal designs, and do not allow me to present any obstacle to this. Your eyes, which can see the most intimate recesses of my heart, know the intensity of my desire to live out Your holy will, but they can also see my weakness and limitations. That is why, prostrate before Your infinite mercy, I implore You, my Savior, through the gentleness and justice of this same will of Yours, to grant me the grace of accomplishing it perfectly, so that, consumed in the fire of Your love, I may be an acceptable holocaust which, with the glorious Virgin and all the saints, will praise and bless You forever. Amen.”

During the activities of the day, spiritual as well as temporal, as often as you can, my dear Lord, unite your will to God’s by confirming your morning resolution. Do this either by a simple, loving glance at God, or by a few words spoken quietly and cast into His heart, by assenting in words like: “Yes, Lord, I want to do this action because You want it,” or simply, “Yes, Father,” or, “O Holy Will, live and rule in me” or other words that the Holy Spirit will suggest to you. You may also make a simple sign of the cross over your heart, or kiss the cross you are wearing. All this will show that above everything, you want to do the holy will of God and seek nothing but His glory in all that you do.

As for the will of God’s good pleasure, which we know only through events as they occur, if these events benefit us, we must bless God and unite ourselves to this divine will which sends them. If something occurs which is disagreeable, physically or mentally, let us lovingly unite our will in obedience to the divine good pleasure, despite our natural aversion. We must pay no attention to these feelings, so long as at the fine point of our will we acquiesce very simply to God’s will, saying, “O my God, I want this because it is Your good pleasure. “ Chapter 6 of Book IX of the Love of God throws a clear light on this practice and invites us to be courageous and simple in performing it. Whatever good or evil befalls you, be confident that God will convert it all to your good.

As for prayer, don’t burden yourself with making considerations; neither your mind nor mine is good at that. Follow your own way of speaking to our Lord sincerely, lovingly, confidently, and simply, as your heart dictates. Sometimes be content to stay ever so short a while in His divine presence, faithfully and humbly, like a child before his father, waiting to be told what to do, totally dependent on the paternal will in which he has placed all his love and trust. You may, if you wish, say a few words on this subject, but very quietly: “You are my Father and my God from whom I expect all my happiness. “ A few moments later (for you must always wait a little to hear what God will say to your heart): I am Your child, all Yours; good children think only of pleasing their father; I don’t want to have any worries and I leave in Your care everything that concerns me, for You love me, my God. Father, You are my good. My soul rests and trusts in Your love and eternal providence. Try to let yourself be penetrated by words like these.

When you have committed some fault, go to God humbly, saying to Him, I have sinned, my God, and I am sorry.” Then, with loving confidence, add: “Father, pour the oil of Your bountiful mercy on my wounds, for You are my only hope; heal me.” A little later: “By the help of Your grace, I shall be more on my guard and will bless you eternally,” and speak like this according to the different movements and feelings of your soul. Sometimes put yourself very simply before God, certain of His presence everywhere, and without any effort, whisper very softly to His sacred heart whatever your own heart prompts you to say.

When you are experiencing some physical pain or a sorrowful heart, try to endure it before God, recalling as much as you can that He is watching you at this time of affliction, especially in physical illness when very often the heart is weary and unable to pray. Don’t force yourself to pray, for a simple adherence to God’s will, expressed from time to time, is enough. Moreover, suffering borne in the will quietly and patiently is a continual, very powerful prayer before God, regardless of the complaints and anxieties that come from the inferior part of the soul.

Finally, my dear Lord, try to perform all your actions calmly and gently, and keep your mind every joyful, peaceful, and content. Do not worry about your perfection, or about your soul. God to whom it belongs, and to whom you have completely entrusted it, will take care of it and fill it with all the graces. consolations and blessings of His holy love in the measure that they will be useful in this life. In the next life He will grant you eternal bliss. Such is the wish of her to whom your soul is as precious as her own; pray for her, for she never prays without you, my Lord.

Annecy, 8 May 1625

My very honored and beloved Lord,

May the divine Savior, who ascends, glorious and triumphant, to sit at the right hand of His Father, draw to Himself our hearts and all our affections, in order to place them in the bosom of His love! How consoled I was when I read your letter and saw the graces and mercy that thi good Savior has granted you! I have blessed Him and thanked Him for this; I do so again with all MY heart, and I shall continue to thank Him unceasingly.

It is good when a soul loves solitude; it’s a sign that it takes delight in God and enjoys speaking with Him. Don’t you see, my dearest Lord, this is where the divine sweetness communicates its lights and more abundant graces. How great is the grace you have received in this self-examination and the renewal of your soul which you have made with such preparation! Now you experience the fruit of this: peace and contentment in your conscience which is so well-prepared that God will be pleased to fill it with His most holy, precious favors. How strongly I feel about this and what great hope I have that it will lead you to utter integrity and perfection! You must respond faithfully to the lights that God will give you, no matter what it costs you, for really, the love which God, in His goodness, has for you, and which He manifests so openly by such excellent, solid graces, requires a reciprocal love, according to the measure of your weakness and poverty. This means that you must refuse nothing you recognize to be His will. This perfect, abandonment of yourself in the arms of divine Providence, this loving, acceptance of all that He wishes to do with you, and with everything, this peace of conscience, this holy desire to please Him by all kinds of virtuous acts, according to the opportunities He will give you, and especially acts of charity and humility— all this is the wood that will feed the fire of sacred love which you feel in your heart and continually desire. And in this holy exercise, do not forget me, my very dear Lord, so that some day—God knows when—we may see each other in that blessed eternity where we shall love Him and praise and bless Him with all our strength....

Pont-à-Mousson, 1 June 1626

My very dear and honored Lord,

I thank and praise our good God for the blessing He is pleased to have given us through the exchange made possible by our perfect friendship; for I assure you that if my letters enkindle in you the flame of love for the supreme Good, your very dear letters arouse the same feelings in me and make me wish more and more that our hearts be totally and constantly united to the good pleasure of God which we find so kind and favorable. Let us love this good pleasure, my dearest Lord, and let us see it alone in all that happens to us, embracing it lovingly. May this exercise be our daily bread. It can be practiced everywhere, and is particularly necessary for you because of the variety of obligations and contracts which you cannot avoid; for, in everything, by God’s grace, you seek only Him and His most holy will.

Oh! how satisfying it is to read and reread what you tell me, my very dear Lord—of how you continue to practice your spiritual exercises with the same fervor and love you had when you began them, and how you keep your resolutions vigorous, despite the bustle of the court.

Confident of the Lord’s goodness, I trust you will never retreat but will continually advance. Your assurance and testimony about this give my soul consolation and peace. That’s why I beg you, my dearest Lord, always to mention something on this subject when you write to me. And don’t think that this desire comes from mistrust, certainly not. I have no fear of that, now that your year of “novitiate” is over; and I have never doubted that God would grant you a holy perseverance, for the grace of your vocation in the service of His pure love is too extraordinary and abundant. Let us both appreciate and love this grace well, my very dear Lord, since it is the source of eternal life for us. It is so precious to me that I rank it second among all the God-given graces which impel me most strongly to do good and to long to see our life totally bound with Jesus Christ and hidden in God.

Do not think that by this I mean for us to retire into solitude, or to flee those occupations and legitimate contacts necessary to our vocations; oh, no, for I very much like each one to stay in his state of life and not throw himself into the excesses of a hermit’s devotion, especially you, my dearest Lord, for whom this would be most inappropriate. But what I do mean is that we must want, above all, to adorn our souls with the virtues of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and also with that secret, intimate union of our hearts with God, which causes us to long for Him everywhere, as you are doing. As for that humility of heart which makes you think of yourself as a blade of hyssop in comparison to her whom you consider a cedar of Lebanon—though, in truth, she is but a shadow and lifeless image of virtue—my dear Lord, this is the humility which attracts God’s Spirit to our souls and fills them with the treasure of all virtues. It is through humility that we live a hidden life, for she manages her good works in secret and holds in security, in the shelter of her protection, the little good that we do.

1 didn’t intend to write so much, dearest Lord, but that’s how my heart always opens up to you. And certainly it is very softened by the holy and incomparable love God has given it for you. Always love this heart of mine well and continue to recommend it to the divine mercy. Be assured that I never cease desiring for you the fullness of His best graces in this life and a very high place before the throne of His glory and only desirable eternity. But all this, no doubt, I do with infinite love and affection.

Questions for Jane de Chantal

1. How does Jane urge the Archbishop to pray? Why does she urge him to focus on God’s will rather than his own?

2. in what way is the Archbishop to be like a child?

3. Why is abandonment to divine Providence required?

Jean-Jacques Olier

Jean-Jacques Olier (1608-1657) belonged, along with Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle and John Eudes, to what is now known as “the French School” of seventeenth-century Catholic spirituality. A priest influenced by the thought of Bérulle, Jean-Jacques Olier was the leading founder of a religious order, the Sulpicians (the Society of St. Sulpice, named for the parish where Olier was pastor). With his Sulpician companions, Olier founded a number of seminaries throughout France in order to renew and reform the priesthood. In the following selection from his writings, Olier urges priests—as creatures, sinners, Christians, and priests—to model the virtue of patience, because it is in this way that priests can fully endure all sufferings with Christ. The dignity of the priesthood, according to Olier, consists in this vocation to suffer humbly the humiliations that Christ suffered.

WE ARE OBLIGED TO BE patient. First, in our condition as creatures; for God, sovereign master of life and death, on whom our existence depends absolutely, has the right to dispose of us as he chooses.

Saint Paul says that the potter has the right to do whatever he wishes with his pot (Rom. 9:21) since it is the work of his hands. He shatters it, he breaks it, he refashions it, he molds it, he bends it, he compresses it and shapes it as he wills.

This is how we are in the hands of God. Since we are the work of his hands, he can do with us anything he wishes. Whether he shatters, breaks, kills, mortifies, plunges us to the depth of hell and takes us out again, this is totally in his hands and we should suffer it in peace, adoring his desires, his judgments and his designs for his handiwork and remaining completely abandoned to his good pleasure.

Second, as sinners. For in this condition, we must bear with the effects of his justice and wrath toward us. All the punishments that he carries out in this world are nothing compared with what we deserve and what he would make us suffer if he did not choose to be merciful toward us and to treat us with gentleness and clemency in this life.

The punishments that God meted out to sinners, as we see in the holy scripture, even the torments of the damned and the penalties the demons suffer and will suffer eternally for one sin, should cause us not only to be at peace, but to rejoice in our sufferings.

In fact, what is there in hell that we do not deserve? What torments do they suffer there that we do not merit as well and a thousand times more? For mercy is even found in hell and we are not worthy of it. Should not this insight compel us to bear patiently all the difficulties and tribulations of this life, especially since our Lord says that these are signs of his love? “I reprove and I chastise those whom I love” (Rev. 3:19).

Third, as Christians. For as such we should bear with many difficulties and sufferings. This is why we are initiated into the church. For our Lord only admitted us into it to continue his life, which is a life of opposition, contradiction, and condemnation toward the flesh.

He must then humiliate it and subdue it in us, using the ways knows and judges to be most useful, so as to win a complete victory. He first achieved victory in his own flesh, and he wishes to continue it in,; ours in order to show forth in us a sample of the universal triumph that he had achieved over it in his own person.

The church and Christians are only a handful of flesh compared the whole world. Nevertheless, he still desires to be victorious in them proclaim his triumph and to give definite signs of his victory. Th from this perspective, the Christian should be very faithful to the Spirit and completely abandoned to him in order to overcome the flesh and destroy it completely.

There will be no lack of opportunities in this life, for he must suffer: first, the attacks of the world through scorn, calumny, and persecution; second, the violent onslaughts of the flesh in its uprisings and its revolts; third, the battles with the devil in the temptations he sends us; finally, the ordeals from God through dryness, desolation, abandonment, and other interior difficulties, which he afflicts on him in order to initiate him into the perfect crucifixion of the flesh.

Fourth, as clerics. For clerics should participate in the fulfillment of Christianity. This cannot exist without patience.

Patience is a sign that the soul is intimately united to God and that it is rooted in perfection. For it must be very much in God and fully possessed by him in order to bear difficulties and torments with peace, tranquillity, and even joy and beatitude in one’s heart.

It must be quite profoundly immersed in him and remain quite powerfully and strongly united to him, so that the flesh has no power at all to attract it to itself and share with him the feelings and aversions that it has toward suffering and endurance.

In this state the soul experiences the perfection attainable in this life, since it conforms to our Lord’s perfect submission to God during his sufferings. For although his flesh experienced aversion and revulsion for the cross, he paid no attention to it with his will. Rather, he always adhered perfectly to the wishes of his Father.

Therefore clerics, being perfect Christians chosen from the midst of the church to assist before the tabernacle of God, should pay particular attention to this virtue. This is their very nature. It is the sign by which they can be identified. This is what predisposes them for the honorable rank that they possess. This is how they are recognized as domestics and servants of God.

Finally, priests and pastors should have a very high degree of patience because, in Jesus Christ and with Jesus Christ, they are both priests and victims for the sins of the world. Jesus Christ the priest wished to be the victim of his sacrifice. He became the host-victim for all people. Since priests are like sacraments and representations of him who lives in them to continue his priesthood and whom he clothes with his external conduct and his interior dispositions, as well as with his power and his person, he wishes furthermore that they be interiorly rooted in the spirit and dispositions of a host-victim in order to suffer, endure, do penance, in short, to immolate themselves for the glory of God and the salvation of the people.

In imitation of our Lord, priests should not only be victims for sin through persecution, penance, internal and external sufferings, but also they should be like the victims of a holocaust. This is their true vocation. For they should not merely suffer, as he did, all sorts of difficulties both for their own sins and the sins of the people entrusted to them, but even more they should be entirely consumed with him through love.

The spirit of love strengthens and empowers us to endure affliction and suffering, no matter how great they are. Since he is infinite, he gives us as much as we need to endure those that can occur in our vocation.

All the torments of the world are nothing to a generous soul filled with the power of God, who is able to shoulder countless sufferings more violent than all those that the world and the devil might afflict us with. it is with this Spirit that Saint Paul said.. “I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13). Everything he saw seemed little to do or suffer because of the God who dwelled in him.

It is through this same eternal, immense and all-powerful Spirit that he called his sufferings light and momentary, because Jesus Christ who suffered and bore them in himself and allowed him to see and experience something of his eternity through his presence, caused him to look upon the entire duration of this life as but a moment. This is how our Lord, who allows us to experience interiorly that his power and strength could support a thousand worlds, leads us to call his burden light.

However, it is not as if he does not occasionally withdraw his tangible strength from us so that we might experience the burden of tribulation in the weakness of our flesh and in the frailty to which it is reduced because of his absence. However, he makes us endure this abandonment in order to produce two wonderful effects in our souls.

The first is to mistrust ourselves and the weaknesses of the flesh. The second is to appreciate God and his strength. For in this state we are necessarily forced to turn to God and to dwell in him so that we might be strengthened and sustained in order to accomplish and to suffer all that he wishes for his glory.

Questions for Olier

1. Describe how Olier calls upon priests to bear difficulties patience rather than becoming angry at or disillusioned with God.

2. What does Olier identify as the sufferings that the believer will undergo?

3. Why is patience such an important virtue? How does patience enable priests to imitate Christ and rely upon God’s strength, given by the Holy Spirit?

John Henry Newman

John Henry Newman (1801-1890) converted to Catholicism from Anglicanism in 1845. The greatest theologian of the 19th century, Newman is best known for his theory of the development of doctrine, but his work spanned a wide range of important themes. His Apologia Pro Vita Sua, explaining his conversion, is today recognized as a literary classic. Famous as an Anglican priest for his sermons, Newman joined the Oratory of St. Philip Neri when he became a Catholic, and Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations, a collection of sermons, was his first published work written as a Catholic. In the third discourse, “Men, Not Angels, the Priests of the Gospel,” reprinted in full below, Newman reflects upon the simultaneous dignity and unworthiness of priests.

WHEN CHRIST, THE GREAT Prophet, the great Preacher, the great Missionary, came into the world, He came in a way the most holy, the most august, the most glorious. Though He came in humiliation, though He came to suffer, though He was born in a stable, though He was laid in a manger, yet He issued from the womb of an Immaculate Mother, and His infant form shone with heavenly light. Sanctity marked every lineament of His character and every circumstance of His mission. Gabriel announced His incarnation; a Virgin conceived, a Virgin bore, a Virgin suckled Him; His foster-father was the pure and saintly joseph; Angels proclaimed His birth; a luminous star spread the news among the heathen; the austere Baptist went before His face; and a crowd of shriven penitents, clad in white garments and radiant with grace, followed Him wherever He went. As the sun in heaven shines through the clouds, and is reflected in the landscape, so the eternal Sun of justice, when He rose upon the earth, turned night into day, and in His brightness made all things bright.

He came and He went; and, seeing that He came to introduce a new and final Dispensation into the world, He left behind Him preachers, teachers, and missionaries. in His stead. Well then, my brethren, you will say, since on His coming all about Him was so glorious, such as He was, such must His servants be, such His representatives. His ministers, in His absence; as He was without sin, they too must be without sin; as He was the Son of God, they must surely be Angels. Angels, you will say, must be appointed to this high office; Angels alone are fit to preach the birth, the sufferings, the death of God. They might indeed have to hide their brightness, as He before them, their Lord and Master, had put on a disguise; they might come, as they came under the Old Covenant, in the garb of men; but still men they could not be, if they were to be preachers of the everlasting Gospel, and dispensers of its divine mysteries. If they were to sacrifice, as He had sacrificed; to continue, repeat, apply, the very Sacrifice which He had offered; to take into their hands that very Victim which was He Himself., to bind and to loose, to bless and to ban, to receive the confessions of His people, and to give them absolution for their sins; to teach them the way of truth, and to guide them along the way of peace; who was sufficient for these things but an inhabitant of those blessed realms of which the Lord is the never-failing Light?

And yet, my brethren, so it is, He has sent forth for the ministry of reconciliation, not Angels, but men; He has sent forth your brethren to you, not beings of some unknown nature and some strange blood, but of your own bone and your own flesh, to preach to you. “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?” Here is the royal style and tone in which Angels speak to men, even though these men be Apostles; it is the tone of those who, having never sinned, speak from their lofty eminence to those who have. But such is not the tone of those whom Christ has sent; for it is your brethren whom He has appointed, and none else—sons of Adam, sons of your nature, the same by nature, differing only in grace—men, like you, exposed to temptations, to the same temptations, to the same warfare within and without; with the same three deadly enemies—the world, the flesh, and the devil; with the same human, the same wayward heart: differing only as the power of God has changed and rules it. So it is; we are not Angels from Heaven that speak to you, but men, whom grace, and grace alone, has made to differ from you. Listen to the Apostle: When the barbarous Lycaonians, seeing his miracle, would have sacrificed to him and St. Barnabas, as to gods, he rushed in among them, crying out, “O men, why do ye this? We also are mortals, men like unto you”; or, as the words run more forcibly in the original Greek, “We are of like passions with you.” And again to the Corinthians he writes, ‘We preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ our Lord; and ourselves your servants through Jesus. God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, He hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus: but we hold this treasure in earthen vessels.” And further, he says of himself most wonderfully, that, “lest he should be exalted by the greatness of the revelations,” there was given him “an angel of Satan” in his flesh “to buffet him.” Such are your Ministers, your Preachers, your Priests, O my brethren; not Angels, not Saints, not sinless, but those who would have lived and died in sin except for God’s grace, and who, though through God’s mercy they be in training for the fellowship of Saints hereafter, yet at present are in the midst of infirmity and temptation, and have no hope, except from the unmerited grace of God, of persevering unto the end.

What a strange, what a striking anomaly is this! All is perfect, all is heavenly, all is glorious, in the Dispensation which Christ has vouchsafed us, except the persons of His Ministers. He dwells on our altars Himself, the Most Holy, the Most High, in light inaccessible, and Angels fall down before Him there; and out of visible substances and forms He chooses what is choicest to represent and to hold Him. The finest wheat-flour, and the purest wine, are taken as His outward symbols; the most sacred and majestic words minister to the sacrificial rite; altar and sanctuary are adorned decently or splendidly, as our means allow; and the Priests perform their office in befitting vestments, lifting up chaste hearts and holy hands; yet those very Priests, so set apart, so consecrated, they, with their girdle of celibacy and their maniple of sorrow, are sons of Adam, sons of sinners, of a fallen nature, which they have not put off, though it be renewed through grace, so that it is almost the definition of a Priest that he has sins of his own to offer for. “Every high Priest,” says the Apostle, “taken from among men, is appointed for men, in the things that appertain unto God, that he may offer gifts and sacrifices for sins; who can condole with those who are in ignorance and error, because he also himself is compassed with infirmity. And therefore he ought, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins.” And hence in the Mass, when he offers up the Host before consecration, he says, Suscipe, Sancte Pater, Omnipotens, aeterne Deus, “Accept, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God, this immaculate Host, which I, Thine unworthy servant, offer to Thee, my Living and True God, for mine innumerable sins, offences, and negligences, and for all who stand around, and for all faithful Christians, living and dead.”

Most strange is this in itself, my brethren, but not strange, when you consider it is the appointment of an all-merciful God; not strange in Him, because the Apostle gives the reason of it in the passage I have quoted. The priests of the New Law are men, in order that they may “condole with those who are in ignorance and error, because they too are compassed with infirmity.” Had Angels been your Priests, brethren, they could not have condoled with you, sympathized with you, have had compassion on you, felt tenderly for you, and made allowances for you, as we can; they could not have been your patterns and guides, and have led you on from your old selves into a new life, as they can who come from the midst of you, who have been led on themselves as you are to be led, who know well your difficulties, who have had experience, at least of your temptations, who know the strength of the flesh and the wiles of the devil, even though they have baffled them, who are already disposed to take your part, and be indulgent towards you, and can advise you most practically, and warn you most seasonably and prudently. Therefore did He send you men to be the ministers of reconciliation and intercession; as He Himself, though He could not sin, yet even He, by becoming man, took on Him, as far as was possible to God, man’s burden of infirmity and trial in His own person. He could not be a sinner, but He could be a man, and He took to Himself a man’s heart that we might entrust our hearts to Him, and “was tempted in all things, like as we are, yet without sin.”

Ponder this truth well, my brethren, and let it be your comfort. Among the Preachers, among the Priests of the Gospel, there have been Apostles, there have been Martyrs, there have been Doctors—Saints in plenty among them; yet out of them all, high as has been their sanctity, varied their graces, awful their gifts, there has not been one who did not begin with the old Adam; not one of them who was not hewn out of the same rock as the most obdurate of reprobates; not one of them who was not fashioned unto honour out of the same clay which has been the material of the most polluted and vile of sinners; not one who was not by nature brother of those poor souls who have now commenced an eternal fellowship with the devil, and are lost in hell. Grace has vanquished nature; that is the whole history of the Saints. Salutary thought for those who are tempted to pride themselves in what they do, and what they are; wonderful news for those who sorrowfully recognise in their hearts the vast difference that exists between them and the Saints; and joyful news, when men hate sin, and wish to escape from its miserable yoke, yet are tempted to think it impossible!

Come, my brethren, let us look at this truth more narrowly, and lay it to heart. First consider, that, since Adam fell, none of his seed but has been conceived in sin; none, save one. One exception there has been who is that one? Not our Lord Jesus, for He was not conceived of man, but of the Holy Ghost; not our Lord, but I mean His Virgin Mother, who, though conceived and born of human parents, as others, yet was rescued by anticipation from the common condition of mankind, and never was partaker in fact of Adam’s transgression. She was conceived in the way of nature, she was conceived as others are; but grace interfered and was beforehand with sin; grace filled her soul from the first moment of her existence, so that the evil one breathed not on her. nor stained with work of God. Tota pulchra es, Maria; et macula originalis non est in te. “Thou art all fair, O Mary, and the stain original is not in thee.7 But putting aside the Most Blessed Mother of God, every one else, the most glorious Saint. and the most black and odious of sinners, I mean, the soul which, in the event, became the most glorious, and the soul which became the most devilish, were both born in one and the same original sin, both were children of wrath, both were unable to attain heaven by their natural powers, both had the prospect of meriting for themselves hell.

They were both born in sin; they both lay in sin; and the soul, which afterwards became a Saint, would have continued in sin, would have sinned willfully, and would have been lost, but for the visitings of an unmerited supernatural influence upon it, which did for it what it could not do for itself. The poor infant, destined to be an heir of glory, lay feeble, sickly, fretful, wayward, and miserable; the child of sorrow; without hope, and without heavenly aid. So it lay for many a long and weary day ere it was born; and when at length it opened its eyes and saw the light, it shrank back, and wept aloud that it had seen it. But God heard its cry from heaven in this valley of tears, and He began that course of mercies towards it which led it from earth to heaven. He sent His Priest to administer to it the first sacrament, and to baptise it with His grace. Then a great change took place in it, for, instead of its being any more the thrall of Satan it forthwith became a child of God; and had it died that minute, and before it came to the age of reason, it would have been carried to heaven without delay by Angels, and been admitted into the presence of God.

But it did not die; it came to the age of reason, and, oh, shall we dare to say, though in some blessed cases it may be said, shall we dare to say, that it did not misuse the great talent which had been given to it, profane the grace which dwelt in it, and fall into mortal sin? In some instances, praised be God! we dare affirm it; such seems to have been the case with my own dear father, St. Phillip, who surely kept his baptismal robe unsullied from the day he was clad in it, never lost his state of grace from the day he was put into it, and proceeded from strength to strength, and from merit to merit, and from glory to glory, through the whole course of his long life, till at the age of eighty he was summoned to his account, and went joyfully to meet it, and was carried across purgatory, without any scorching of its flames, straight to heaven.

Such certainly have sometimes been the dealings of God’s grace with the souls of His elect; but more commonly, as if more intimately to associate them with their brethren, and to make the fullness of His favours to them a ground of hope and an encouragement to the penitent sinner, those who have ended in being miracles of sanctity, and heroes in the Church, have passed a time in willful disobedience, have thrown themselves out of the light of God’s countenance, have been led captive by this or that sin, by this or that religious error, till at length they were in various ways recovered, slowly or suddenly, and regained the state of grace or rather a much higher state, than that which they had forfeited. Such was the blessed Magdalen, who had lived a life of shame; so much so, that even to be touched by her was, according to the religious judgment of her day, a pollution. Happy in this world’s goods, young and passionate, she had given her heart to the creature, before the grace of God prevailed with her. Then she cut off her long hair, and put aside her gay apparel, and became so utterly what she had not been, that, had you known her before and after, you would have said it was two persons you had seen, not one; for there was no trace of the sinner in the penitent, except the affectionate heart, now set on heaven and Christ; no trace besides, no memory of that glittering and seductive apparition, in the modest form, the serene countenance, the composed gait, and the gentle voice of her who in the garden sought and found her Risen Saviour. Such, too, was he who from a publican became an Apostle and an Evangelist; one who for filthy lucre scrupled not to enter the service of the heathen Romans, and to oppress his own people. Nor were the rest of the Apostles made of better clay than the other sons of Adam; they were by nature animal, carnal, ignorant; left to themselves, they would, like the brutes, have groveled on the earth, and gazed upon the earth, and fed on the earth, had not the grace of God taken possession of them, and set them on their feet, and raised their faces heavenward. And such was the learned Pharisee, who came to Jesus by night, well satisfied with his station, jealous of his reputation, confident in his reason; but the time at length came, when. even though disciples fled, he remained to anoint the abandoned corpse of Him, whom when living he had been ashamed to own. You see it was the grace of God that triumphed in Magdalen, in Matthew, and in Nicodemus; heavenly grace came down upon corrupt nature; it subdued impurity in the youthful woman, covetousness in the publican, fear of man in the Pharisee.

Let me speak of another celebrated conquest of God’s grace in an after age, and you will see how it pleases Him to make a Confessor, a Saint and Doctor of His Church, out of sin and heresy both together. It was not enough that the Father of the Western Schools, the author of a thousand works, the triumphant controversialist, the especial champion of grace, should have been once a poor slave of the flesh, but he was the victim of a perverted intellect also. He, who of all others, was to extol the grace of God, was left more than others to experience the helplessness of nature. The great St. Augustine—I am not speaking of the holy missionary of the same name, who came to England and converted our pagan forefathers, and became the first Archbishop of Canterbury, but of the great African Bishop, two centuries before him—Augustine, I say, not being in earnest about his soul, not asking himself the question, how was sin to be washed away, but rather being serious, while youth and strength lasted, to enjoy the flesh and the world, ambitious and sensual, judged of truth and falsehood by his private judgment and his private fancy; despised the Catholic Church because it spoke so much faith and subjection, thought to make his own reason the measure of all things, and accordingly joined a far-spread sect, which affected to be philosophical and enlightened, to take large views of things, and to correct the vulgar, that is the Catholic notions of God and Christ, of sin, and of the way to heaven. In this sect of his he remained for some years; yet what he was taught there did not satisfy him. It pleased him for a time, and then he found he had been eating as if food what had no nourishment in it; he became hungry and thirsty after something more substantial, he knew not what; he despised himself for being a slave to the flesh, and he found his religion did not help him to overcome it; thus he understood that he had not gained the truth, and he cried out, “O, who will tell me where to seek it, and who will bring me into it?”

Why did he not join the Catholic Church at once? I have told you why; he saw that truth was nowhere else; but he was not sure it was there. He thought there was something mean, narrow, irrational, in her system of doctrine; he lacked the gift of faith. Then a great conflict began within him—the conflict of nature with grace; of nature and her children, the flesh and false reason, against conscience and the pleadings of the Divine Spirit, leading him to better things. Though he was still in a state of perdition, yet God was visiting him, and giving him the first fruits of those influences which were in the event to bring him out of it. Time went on; and looking at him, as his Guardian Angel might look at him, you would have said that, in spite of much perverseness, and many a successful struggle against his Almighty Adversary, in spite of his still being, as before, in a state of wrath, nevertheless grace was making way in his soul—he was advancing towards the Church. He did not know it himself, he could not recognise it himself., but an eager interest in him, and then a joy, was springing up in heaven among the Angels of God. At last he came within the range of a great Saint in a foreign country; and, though he pretended not to acknowledge him, his attention was arrested by him, and he could not help coming to sacred places to look at him again and again. He began to watch him and speculate about him, and wondered with himself whether he was happy. He found himself frequently in Church, listening to the holy preacher, and he once asked his advice how to find what he was seeking. And now a final conflict came on him with the flesh: it was hard, very hard, to part with the indulgences of years, it was hard to part and never to meet again. O, sin was so sweet, how could he bid it farewell? How could he tear himself away from its embrace, and betake himself to that lonely and dreary way which led heavenwards? But God’s grace was sweeter far, and it convinced him while it won him; it convinced his reason, and prevailed and he who without it would have lived and died a child of Satan, became, under its wonderworking power, an oracle of sanctity and truth.

And do you not think, my brethren, that he was better fitted than another to persuade his brethren as he had been persuaded, and to preach the holy doctrine which he had despised? Not that sin is better than obedience, or the sinner than the just; but that God in His mercy makes use of sin against itself, that He turns past sin into a present benefit, that, while He washes away its guilt and subdues its power, He leaves it in the penitent in such sense as enables him, from his knowledge of its devices, to assault it more vigorously, and strike at it more truly, when it meets him in other men; that, while our Lord, by His omnipotent grace, can make the soul as clean as if it had never been unclean, He leaves it in possession of a tenderness and compassion for other sinners, an experience how to deal with them, greater than if it had never sinned; and again that, in those rare and special instances, of one of which I have been speaking, He holds up to us, for our instruction and our comfort, what He can do, even for the most guilty, if they sincerely come to Him for a pardon and a cure. There is no limit to be put to the bounty and power of God’s grace; and that we feel sorrow for our sins, and supplicate His mercy, is a sort of present pledge to us in our hearts, that He will grant us the good gifts we are seeking. He can do what He will with the soul of man. He is infinitely more powerful than the foul spirit to whom the sinner has sold himself, and can cast him out.

O my dear brethren, though your conscience witnesses against you, He can disburden it; whether you have sinned less or whether you have sinned more, He can make you as clean in His sight and as acceptable to Him as if you had never gone from Him. Gradually will He destroy your sinful habits, and at once will He restore you to His favour. Such is the power of the Sacrament of Penance, that, be your load of guilt heavier or be it lighter, it removes it, whatever it is. It is as easy to Him to wash out the many sins as the few. Do you recollect in the Old Testament the history of the cure of Naaman the Syrian, by the prophet Eliseus? He had that dreadful, incurable disease called leprosy, which was a white crust upon the skin, making the whole person hideous, and typifying the hideousness of sin. The prophet bade him bathe in the river Jordan, and the disease disappeared; “his flesh,” says the inspired writer, was “restored to him as the flesh of a little child.” Here, then, we have a representation not only of what sin is, but of what God’s grace is. It can undo the past, it can realise the hopeless. No sinner, ever so odious, but may become a Saint; no Saint, ever so exalted, but has been, or might have been, a sinner. Grace overcomes nature, and grace only overcomes it. Take that holy child, the blessed St. Agnes, who, at the age of thirteen, resolved to die rather than deny the faith, and stood enveloped in an atmosphere of purity, and diffused around her a heavenly influence, in the very home of evil spirits into which the heathen brought her; or consider the angelical Aloysius, of whom it hardly is left upon record that he committed even a venial sin; or St. Agatha, St. Juliana, St. Rose, St. Casimir, or St. Stanislas, to whom the very notion of any unbecoming imagination had been as death; well, there is not one of these seraphic souls but might have been a degraded, loathsome leper, except for God’s grace, an outcast from his kind; not one but might, or rather would, have lived the life of a brute creature, and died the death of a reprobate, and lain down in hell eternally in the devil’s arms, had not God put a new heart and a new spirit within him, and made him what he could not make himself.

All good men are not Saints, my brethren—all converted souls do not become Saints. I will not promise that, if you turn to God, you will reach that height of sanctity which the Saints have reached—true; still, I am showing you that even the Saints are by nature no better than you; and so (much more) that the Priests, who have the charge of the faithful, whatever be their sanctity, are by nature no better than those whom they have to convert, whom they have to reform. It is God’s special mercy towards you that we by nature are no other than you; it is His consideration and compassion for you that He has made us, who are your brethren, His legates and ministers of reconciliation.

This is what the world cannot understand; not that it does not apprehend clearly enough that we are by nature of like passions with itself; but what it is so blind, so narrow-minded as not to comprehend, is, that, being so like itself by nature, we may be made so different by grace. Men of the world, my brethren, know the power of nature; they know not, experience not, believe not, the power of God’s grace; and since they are not themselves acquainted with any power that can overcome nature, they think that none exists, and therefore, consistently, they believe that every one, Priest or not, remains to the end such as nature made him, and they will not believe it possible that any one can lead a supernatural life. Now, not Priest only, but every one who is in the grace of God, leads a supernatural life, more or less supernatural, according to his calling, and the measure of the gifts given him, and his faithfulness to them. This they know not, and admit not; and when they hear of the life which a Priest must lead by his profession from youth to age, they will not credit that he is what he professes to be. They know nothing of the presence of God, the merits of Christ, the intercession of the Blessed Virgin; the virtue of recurring prayers, of frequent confession, of daily Masses; they are strangers to the transforming power of the Most Holy Sacrament, the Bread of Angels; they do not contemplate the efficacy of salutary rules, of holy companions, of long-enduring habit, of ready spontaneous vigilance, of abhorrence of sin and indignation at the tempter, to secure the soul from evil. They only know that when the tempter once has actually penetrated into the heart, he is irresistible; they only know that when the soul has exposed and surrendered itself to his malice, there is (so to speak) a necessity of sinning. They only know that when God has abandoned it, and good Angels are withdrawn, and all safeguards, and protections, and preventives are neglected, that then (which is their own case), when the victory is all but gained already, it is sure to be gained altogether. They themselves have ever, in their best estate, been all but beaten by the Evil One before they began to fight; this is the only state they have experienced: they know this, and they know nothing else. They have never stood on vantage ground; they have never been within the walls of the strong city, about which the enemy prowls in vain, into which he cannot penetrate, and outside of which the faithful soul will be too wise to venture. They judge, I say, by their experience, and will not believe what they never knew.

If there be those here present, my dear brethren, who will not believe that grace is effectual within the Church, because it does little outside of it, to them I do not speak: I speak to those who do not narrow their belief to their experience; I speak to those who admit that grace can make human nature what it is not; and such persons, I think, will feel it, not a cause of jealousy and suspicion, but a great gain, a great mercy; that those are sent to preach to them, to receive their confessions, and to advise them, who can sympathise with their sins, even though they have not known them. Not a temptation, my brethren, can befall you, but what befalls all those who share your nature, though you may have yielded to it, and they may not have yielded. They can understand you, they can anticipate you, they can interpret you, though they have not kept pace with you in your course. They will be tender to you, they will “instruct you in the spirit of meekness,” as the Apostle says, “considering themselves lest they also be tempted . ‘ Come then unto us, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and ye shall find rest to your souls; come unto us, who now stand to you in Christ’s stead, and who speak in Christ’s name; for we too, like you, have been saved by Christ’s all-saving blood. We too, like you, should be lost sinners, unless Christ had had mercy on us, unless His grace had cleansed us, unless His Church had received us, unless His saints had interceded for us. Be ye saved, as we have been saved; “come, listen, all ye that fear God, and we will tell you what He hath done for our souls. “ Listen to our testimony; behold our joy of heart, and increase it by partaking in it yourselves. Choose that good part which we have chosen; join ye yourselves to our company; it will never repent you, take our word for it, who have a right to speak, it will never repent you to have sought pardon and peace from the Catholic Church, which alone has grace, which alone has power, which alone has Saints; it will never repent you, though you go through trouble, though you have to give up much for her sake. It will never repent you, to have passed from the shadows of sense and time, and the deceptions of human feeling and false reason, to the glorious liberty of the sons of God.

And O, my brethren, when you have taken the great step, and stand in your blessed lot, as sinners reconciled to the Father you have offend d (for I will anticipate, what I surely trust will be fulfilled as regards many of you), O then forget not those who have been the ministers of your reconciliation; and as they now pray you to make your peace with God, so do you, when reconciled, pray for them, that they may continue to stand in the grace in which they trust they stand now, even till the hour of death, lest, perchance, after they have preached to others, they themselves become reprobate.

Questions for Newman

1 . Explain Newman’s argument, at the beginning of his sermon, that since Christ was sinless, so also his representatives—his priests must be as sinless as the holy angels. How does Newman then justify the fact that priests are not sinless?

2. Why does Newman consider penance and reconciliation to be the heart of the priesthood?

3. Why are repentant sinners, redeemed by God’s grace, most suitable to minister to a flock that is in the same condition? What, according to Newman, can grace accomplish in human beings through God’s ministers of reconciliation?

Pope John Paul II

One of the great spiritual leaders of the twentieth century, Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla) was ordained a priest in 1946, and became Pope in 1978. The author of poetry, plays, and philosophical works, as well as a wide variety of writings during his papacy, John Paul II provides unique insight into the mystery of the priesthood as lived out in the second half of the twentieth century. His vision is richly Christological and focuses upon the need for holiness, in light of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Who Is the Priest?

IN THIS PERSONAL TESTIMONY, I feel the need to go beyond the mere recollection of events and individuals in order to take a deeper look and to search out, as it were, the mystery which for fifty years has accompanied and enfolded me.

What does it mean to be a priest? According to Saint Paul, it means above all to be a steward of the mysteries of God. “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Now it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy” (1 Cor. 4:1-2). The word “steward” cannot be replaced by any other. It is deeply rooted in the Gospel: it brings to mind the parable of the faithful steward and the unfaithful one (cf Lk 12:41-48). The steward is not the owner, but the one to whom the owner entrusts his goods so that he will manage them justly and responsibly. In exactly the same way, the priest receives from Christ the treasures of salvation, in order duly to distribute them among the people to whom he is sent. These treasures are those of faith. The priest is thus a man of the word of God, a man of sacrament, a man of the “mystery of faith.” Through faith he draws near to the invisible treasures which constitute the inheritance of the world’s Redemption by the Son of God. No one may consider himself the “owner” of these treasures; they are meant for us all. But, by reason of what Christ laid down. the priest has the task of administering them.

Admirabile Commercium!

The priestly vocation is a mystery. It is the mystery of a “wondrous exchange”—admirabile commercium—between God and man. A man offers his humanity to Christ, so that Christ may use him as an instrument of salvation, making him as it were into another Christ. Unless we grasp the mystery of this “exchange,” we will not understand how it can be that a young man, hearing the words “Follow me!,” can give up everything for Christ, in the certainty that if he follows this path he will find complete personal fulfillment.

In our world, is there any greater fulfillment of our humanity than to be able to re-present every day in persona Christi the redemptive sacrifice, the same sacrifice which Christ offered on the Cross? In this sacrifice, on the one hand, the very mystery of the Trinity is present in the most profound way, and, on the other hand, the entire created universe is “united” (cf Eph. 1:10). The Eucharist is also celebrated in order to offer “on the altar of the whole earth the world’s work and suffering,” in the beautiful expression of Teilhard de Chardin. This is why in the thanksgiving after Holy Mass the Old Testament canticle of the three young men is recited: Benedicite omnia opera Domini Domino. For in the Eucharist all creatures seen and unseen, and man in particular, bless God as Creator and Father; they bless him with the words and the action of Christ, the Son of God.

The Priest and the Eucharist

“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes.... No one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Lk 10:21-22). These words of Saint Luke’s Gospel lead us to the heart of the mystery of Christ and enable us to draw near to the mystery of the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, the Son, who is of one being with the Father, the One whom only the Father knows, offers himself in sacrifice to the Father for humanity and for all creation. In the Eucharist Christ gives back to the Father everything that has come from him. Thus there is brought about a profound mystery of justice on the part of the creature towards the Creator. Man needs to honor his Creator by offering to him, in an act of thanksgiving and praise, all that he has received. Man must never lose sight of his debt, which he alone, among all other earthly realities, is capable of acknowledging and paying back as the one creature made in God’s own image and likeness. At the same time, given his creaturely limitations and sinful condition, man would be incapable of making this act of justice towards the Creator, had not Christ himself, the Son who is of one being with the Father and also true man, first given us the Eucharist.

The priesthood, in its deepest reality, is the priesthood of Christ. It is Christ who offers himself, his Body and Blood, in sacrifice to God the Father, and by this sacrifice makes righteous in the Father’s eyes all mankind and, indirectly, all creation. The priest, in his daily celebration of the Eucharist, goes to the very heart of this mystery. For this reason the celebration of the Eucharist must be the most important moment of the priest’s day, the center of his life.

In Persona Christi

The words which we repeat at the end of the Preface—“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”—take us back to the dramatic events of Palm Sunday. Christ goes to Jerusalem to face the bloody sacrifice of Good Friday. But the day before, at the Last Supper, he institutes the sacrament of this sacrifice. Over the bread and wine he says the words of consecration: “This is my Body, which will be given up for you... This is the cup of my Blood, the Blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.”

What kind of a “memorial” is this? We know that this term must be given a weighty significance, one which goes far beyond mere historical remembrance. Here we are speaking of a “memorial” in the biblical sense, a memorial which makes present the event itself. It is memory and presence. The secret of this miracle is the action of the Holy Spirit, whom the priest invokes when he extends his hands over the gifts of bread and wine: “Let your Spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Thus it is not merely the priest who recalls the events of Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection; it is also the Holy Spirit who enables this event to be made present on the altar through the ministry of the priest. The priest truly acts in persona Christi. What Christ accomplished on the altar of the Cross and what earlier still he had instituted as a sacrament in the Upper Room, the priest now renews by the power of the Holy Spirit. At this moment the priest is as it were embraced by the power of the Holy Spirit, and the words which he utters have the same efficacy as those spoken by Christ at the Last Supper.

Mysterium Fidei

At Holy Mass, after the consecration, the priest says the words Mysterium fidei, Let us proclaim the mystery of faith! These words refer of course to the Eucharist. In a way, however, they also concern the priesthood. There can be no Eucharist without the priesthood, just as there can be no priesthood without the Eucharist. Not only is the ministerial priesthood closely linked to the Eucharist, but the common priesthood of all the baptized is also rooted in this mystery. To the celebrant’s words the people reply: ‘When we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus, until you come in glory.” As the Second Vatican Council reminded us, the faithful, by their sharing in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, become witnesses of the Crucified and Risen Christ and commit themselves to living his threefold mission-as priest, prophet, and king—which they received at Baptism.

The priest, as steward of the “mysteries of God,” is at the service of the common priesthood of the faithful. By proclaiming the word and celebrating the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, he makes the whole People of God ever more aware of its share in Christ’s priesthood, and at the same time encourages it to live that priesthood to the full. When, after the consecration, he says the words Mysterium fidei, all are invited to ponder the rich existential meaning of this proclamation, which refers to the mystery of Christ, the Eucharist, and the priesthood.

Is this not the deepest reason behind the priestly vocation? Certainly it is already fully present at the time of ordination, but it needs to be interiorized and deepened for the rest of the priest’s life. Only in this way can a priest discover in depth the great treasure which has been entrusted to him. Fifty years after my ordination, I can say that in the words Mysterium fidei we find ever more each day the meaning of our own priesthood, and here is also the measure of the response which this gift demands. The gift is constantly growing! And this is something wonderful. It is wonderful that a man can never say that he has fully responded to the gift. It remains both a gift and a task: always! To be conscious of this is essential if we are to live our own priesthood to the full.

Christ, Priest and Victim

The truth about Christ’s priesthood has always struck me in an extraordinarily eloquent way in the Litany which used to be recited in the seminary at Cracow, especially on the eve of a priestly ordination. I am referring to the Litany of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Priest and Victim. What profound reflections it prompted! In the Sacrifice of the Cross, made present anew in every Eucharist, Christ offers himself for the salvation of the world. The invocations of the Litany call to mind the many aspects of this mystery. They come back to me with all the rich symbolism of the biblical images with which they are interwoven. When I repeat them, it is in Latin, the language in which I recited them at the seminary and then so often in later years:

Iesu, Sacerdos et Victima,

Iesu, Sacerdos in aeternum secundum ordinem Melchisedech,

Iesu, Pontifex ex hominibus assumpte,

Iesu, Pontifex pro hominibus constitute,

Iesu, Pontifex futurorum bonorum,

Iesu, Pontifex fidelis et misericors,

Iesu, Pontifex qui dilexisti nos et lavisti nos a peccatis in sanguine tuo,

Iesu, Pontifex qui tradidisti temetipsum Deo oblationem et hostiam,

Iesu, Hostia sancta et immaculata, Iesu,

Hostia in qua habemus fiduciam et accessum ad Deum,

Iesu, Hostia vivens in saecula saeculorum.

What theological depth is present in these expressions! They are invocations deeply rooted in Sacred Scripture, especially in the Letter to the Hebrews. We need only reread this passage: “Christ... as a high priest of the good things to come... entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls... sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Heb 9:11-14). Christ is a priest because he is the Redeemer of the world. The priesthood of all presbyters is part of the mystery of the Redemption. This truth about Redemption and the Redeemer has been central to me; it has been with me all these years; it has permeated all my pastoral experiences, and it has continued to reveal new riches to me.

In these fifty years of priestly life, I have come to realize that the Redemption, the price which had to be paid for sin, entails a renewed discovery, a kind of a “new creation” of the whole created order; the rediscovery of man as a person, of man created by God as male and female, a rediscovery of the deepest truth about all man’s works, his culture and civilization, about all his achievements and creative abilities.

After I was elected Pope, my first spiritual impulse was to turn to Christ the Redeemer. This was the origin of the Encyclical Letter Redemptor Hominis. As I reflect on all these events, I see ever more clearly the close link between the message of that Encyclical and everything that is found in the heart of man through his sharing in Christ’s priesthood.

Being a Priest Today

Fifty years as a priest is a long time. How much has happened in this half-century of history! New problems, new lifestyles, and new challenges have appeared. And so it is natural to ask: What does it mean to be a priest today, in this time of constant change, as we approach the Third Millennium?

Certainly the priest, together with the whole Church, is part of the times in which he lives; he needs to be attentive and sympathetic, but also critical and watchful, with regard to historical developments. The Council has pointed to the possibility and need for an authentic renewal, in complete fidelity to the word of God and Tradition. But I am convinced that a priest, committed as he is to this necessary pastoral renewal, should at the same time have no fear of being “behind the times,” because the human “today” of every priest is included in the “today” of Christ the Redeemer. For every priest, in every age, the greatest task is each day to discover his own priestly “today” in the “today” of Christ to which the Letter to the Hebrews refers. This “today” of Christ is immersed in the whole of history—in the past and future of the world, of every human being and of every priest. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8). If we immerse our human and priestly “today” in the “today” of Jesus Christ, there is no danger that we will become out-of-date, belonging to “yesterday.” Christ is the measure of every age. In his divine, human, and priestly “today,” the conflict between “traditionalism” and “progressivism”—once so hotly debated—finds its ultimate resolution.

Humanity’s Profound Expectations

If we take a close look at what contemporary men and women expect from priests, we will see that, in the end, they have but one great expectation: they are thirsting for Christ. Everything else—their economic, social, and political needs—can be met by any number of other people. From the priest they ask for Christ! And from him they have the right to receive Christ, above all through the proclamation of the word. As the Council teaches, priests “have as their primary duty the proclamation of the Gospel of God to all” (Presbyterorum Ordinis, 4). But this proclamation seeks to have man encounter Jesus, especially in the mystery of the Eucharist, the living heart of the Church and of priestly life. The priest has a mysterious, awesome power over the Eucharistic Body of Christ. By reason of this power he becomes the steward of the greatest treasure of the Redemption, for he gives people the Redeemer in person. Celebrating the Eucharist is the most sublime and most sacred function of every priest. As for me, from the very first years of my priesthood, the celebration of the Eucharist has been not only my most sacred duty, but above all my soul’s deepest need.

A Minister of Mercy

As the steward of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the priest fulfills the command given by Christ to the Apostles after his Resurrection: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (Jn 20:22-23). The priest is the witness and instrument of divine mercy! How important in his life is the ministry of the confessional! It is in the confessional that his spiritual fatherhood is realized in the fullest way. It is in the confessional that every priest becomes a witness of the great miracles which divine mercy works in souls which receive the grace of conversion. It is necessary, however, that every priest at the service of his brothers and sisters in the confessional should experience this same divine mercy by going regularly to confession himself and by receiving spiritual direction.

As a steward of God’s mysteries, the priest is a special witness to the Invisible in the world. For he is a steward of invisible and priceless treasures belonging to the spiritual and supernatural order.

A Man in Contact with God

As a steward of these treasures, the priest is always in special contact with the holiness of God. “Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.” God’s majesty is the majesty of holiness. In the priesthood a man is as it were raised up to the sphere of this holiness; in some way he reaches the heights to which the Prophet Isaiah was once exalted. And it is precisely this vision of the Prophet which is echoed in the Eucharistic Liturgy: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua. Hosanna in excelsis.

At the same time, the priest experiences daily and continually the descent of God’s holiness upon man: Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. With these words the crowds in Jerusalem greeted Christ as he came into the city to accomplish the sacrifice which brought Redemption to the world. Transcendent holiness, which is in a sense “outside the world,” becomes in Christ a holiness which is “in the world.” It becomes the holiness of the Paschal Mystery.

Called to Holiness

Constantly in contact with the holiness of God, the priest must himself become holy. His very ministry commits him to a way of life inspired by the radicalism of the Gospel. This explains his particular need to live in the spirit of the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience. Here we also see the special fittingness of celibacy. We also see the particular need for prayer in his life: prayer finds its source in God’s holiness and is at the same time our response to this holiness. I once wrote “Prayer makes the priest and through prayer the priest becomes himself.” Before all else the priest must indeed be a man of prayer, convinced that time devoted to personal encounter with God is always spent in the best way possible. This not only benefits him; it also benefits his apostolic work.

While the Second Vatican Council speaks of the universal call to holiness, in the case of the priest we must speak of a special call to holiness. Christ needs holy priests! Today’s world demands holy priests! Only a holy priest can become, in an increasingly secularized world, a resounding witness to Christ and his Gospel. And only thus can a priest become a guide for men and women and a teacher of holiness. People, especially the young, are looking for such guides. A priest can be a guide and teacher only to the extent that he becomes an authentic witness!

Cura Animarum

My now long experience, amid so many different situations, has confirmed my conviction that priestly holiness alone is the soil which can nourish an effective pastoral activity, a true “cura animarum.” The truest secret of authentic pastoral success does not lie in material means, much less in sophisticated programs. The lasting results of pastoral endeavors are born of the holiness of the priest. This is the foundation! Needless to say, training, study, and updating are indispensable; in short, an adequate preparation which enables one to respond to urgent needs and to discern pastoral priorities. But it can also be said that priorities depend on circumstances, and every priest is called to identify and pursue them under the authority of his Bishop and in harmony with the directives of the universal Church. In my own life I have identified these priorities in the lay apostolate and particularly in the pastoral care of the family—an area in which lay people themselves have helped me so much—in youth ministry and in serious dialogue with the world of learning and culture. All this has been reflected in my scholarly and literary activity. This was the origin of my study Love and Responsibility and, among others, the literary work The Jeweler’s Shop, which is subtitled Meditations on the Sacrament of Marriage.

An inescapable priority today is that of preferential concern for the poor, the marginalized, and immigrants. The priest must be truly a “father” to such people. Material means are of course indispensable, such as those offered by modern technology. But the real secret is always the priest’s holiness of life, which finds expression in prayer and meditation, in a spirit of sacrifice and in missionary zeal. When I think back on my years of pastoral ministry as priest and Bishop, I become more and more convinced of how true and fundamental this is.

A Man of the Word

I have already mentioned that, to be an authentic guide of the community and a true steward of the mysteries of God, the priest is also called to be a man of God’s word, a generous and tireless evangelizer. Today the urgency of this is seen even more clearly in the light of the immense task of the “new evangelization.”

After so many years of being a minister of the word, which especially during my papacy has brought me as a pilgrim to every part of the world, I cannot fail to make further considerations regarding this dimension of priestly life. This is a demanding dimension, since people today look to priests for the “lived” word before they look to them for the “proclaimed” word. The priest must “live by the word.” But at the same time, he will try to be intellectually prepared to know the word in depth and to proclaim it effectively. In our day, marked as it is by a high degree of specialization in almost all areas of life, intellectual formation is extremely important. Such formation makes it possible to engage in a serious and creative dialogue with contemporary thought. Study of the humanities and of philosophy and a knowledge of theology are the paths to this intellectual formation, which then needs to be continued for the rest of one’s life. In order to be authentically formative, study needs to be constantly accompanied by prayer, meditation, and the invocation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and the fear of the Lord. Saint Thomas Aquinas explains how, with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, a person’s whole spiritual being becomes responsive to God’s light, not only the light of knowledge but also the inspiration of love. I have prayed for the gifts of the Holy Spirit since my youth, and I continue to do so.

Questions for Pope John Paul II

1 . According to John Paul II, what does it mean to be a priest? Explain the importance of holiness, prayer, and study.

2. What is the significance of the Eucharist for the vocation of the ministerial priesthood? How does the priest act “in persona Christi”? Why is the Eucharist so central?

3. Describe what the Pope says about redemption, reconciliation, and the call to holiness.