{"id":3829,"date":"2010-07-19T15:11:34","date_gmt":"2010-07-19T15:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2010\/07\/our-lord-will-sanctify-his-pri\/"},"modified":"2010-07-19T15:11:34","modified_gmt":"2010-07-19T15:11:34","slug":"our-lord-will-sanctify-his-pri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2010\/07\/our-lord-will-sanctify-his-pri\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Lord Will Sanctify His Priests"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Christ<\/a>
\nJesus, the Son of Mary, is the Eternal High Priest.
\nAs Sacrificer and as Victim,
\nHe is present and shown forth in each of His priests.
\nHe has chosen them to be, for His Church,
\nthe visible and acting presence of His own Priesthood.
\nPriests are called,
\nbefore all else,
\nto the most intimate and complete union with Christ.
\nAll the holiness of a priest consists in this.
\nThrough His priests,
\nOur Lord continues to make present to the world
\nHis Life, and His Death,
\nHis Resurrection, and Ascension.
\nChrist calls each of His priests to friendship with Himself.
\nHe desires to unite their hearts to His Heart
\nand to be one with them
\nas He is one with His Father.
\nWhen the Father turns His gaze upon a priest,
\nHe sees Christ.
\nWhen a priest acts in the Name of Jesus
\nand utters the words placed on His lips by the Church,
\nthe Father sees and hears Christ.
\nThe prayer of the priest is the prayer of Christ,
\nand every prayer made by a priest,
\nin accordance with the liturgy of the Church,
\nis received by the Father in Heaven
\nas He receives the personal, ceaseless intercession
\nof Christ Himself before His Face.
\nOur Lord would have souls love priests for His sake,
\n— not with a sentimental love born of human neediness
\nand fruitless attachment —
\nbut with a charity like that of the holy women disciples,
\nwho loved Him,
\nin imitation of Mary, His Mother,
\nfollowing in her footsteps.
\nThose who love the priests of Christ
\nwith a supernatural charity,
\nlove Christ Himself.
\nLove for priests
\nis best expressed in prayer and in sacrifice for them.
\nChrist’s faithful need to learn, once again,
\nto reverence His priests,
\nfor by showing reverence to priests,
\nthey are, in effect, summoning them to holiness.
\nReverence shown a priest is never misplaced
\nfor Our Lord receives it as reverence shown to His own Divine Person.
\nEven when the priestly Face of Christ is disfigured, dishonoured,
\nand vilified in a particular priest,
\nthat priest remains, nonetheless, the anointed one of the Lord.
\nThe priest fallen on the field of spiritual combat
\nor deceived by the enemy and led into sin,
\nremains an image of Christ the Priest.
\nIn the fallen priest, Christ shows His Face
\nally bloody, tumefied, and disfigured
\nas He showed it to Veronica
\nin His most bitter Passion.
\nWhere are the Veronicas who will minister to Christ’s fallen priests?
\nWho will wipe their faces?
\nWho will show them tenderness, reverence, and compassion?
\nWho will console them in their humiliations,
\nin their sorrow, their defeat, and their abjection?
\nChrist searches for souls to console His priests,
\n— and to console Him living in them —
\nand He finds so few.
\nHis fallen priests are reviled, mocked,
\nand handed over to public scorn.
\nEven in their sinfulness,
\neven in their betrayal of Christ
\nand their crimes against His Mystical Body,
\nthese men covered with shame
\nremain His chosen ones, and the privileged friends of His Sacred Heart.
\nIf one cannot pity them and console them for their own sakes,
\none can, at least, do so for the sake of Christ.
\nIn His fallen priests
\nChrist sees the haggard and anxious face of Judas, His betrayer.
\nOur Lord loved Judas,
\neven after he had gone out into the night.
\nHe loved him in Gethsemani.
\nHe loved him after the betrayal.
\nHe loved him even at the moment when,
\ndespairing of His mercy,
\nJudas hung himself and took his own life.
\nThere is no priest outside the pale of Christ’s mercy.
\nThere is no priest to whom Christ will not extend pardon.
\nThere is no priest ,
\neven if He has betrayed his Lord,
\nreviled Him, scorned Him,
\nand abused His rights over His Immaculate Body and Precious Blood,
\nthat the Heart of Jesus is not ready to forgive
\nand draw once again to Himself.
\nPriests do not believe half enough in Christ’s love for them.
\nThey preach His love,
\nbut, far too often, have no experience of it.
\nThey have no experience of it
\nbecause they flee from before His Eucharistic Face
\nand hardly ever remain, silent and adoring,
\nclose to His Eucharistic Heart.
\nWhere are the souls who will so prevail
\nover the terrible justice of God
\nthat there will be nothing but divine mercy,
\nand forgiveness, and the most tender friendship,
\nfor those priests who least deserve it?
\nSouls who offer themselves as victims for priests
\nare perfectly aligned with the desires and intentions of the Heart of Jesus.
\nWith such souls He will save even the most forsaken and sinful priests.
\nWith such souls He will search out His lost sheep,
\nplace them upon His shoulders,
\nand carry them to the hospice of HIs merciful love,
\nthat is, to His Mother’s immaculate and maternal Heart.
\nThere He will wash them,
\nheal them of their diseases,
\nnourish them with the living Bread that is His Body,
\ngive them to drink of the chalice of His Blood,
\nand hold them fast in His friendship,
\nnever again to be seduced and deceived
\nby their Enemy and His.
\nThe present crisis in the priesthood
\nwill result in a purification of the Church of Christ.
\nA new priesthood will emerge
\nshining with holiness
\nand inspiring awe in the souls of those
\nwho will have eyes to see the Face of Christ
\non the countenance of His priests.
\nOur Lord will sanctify His priests
\nand bring about a great change in priestly life.
\nPriests will become more apostolic,
\nmore united to Our Lord in prayer,
\nin His victimhood,
\nin all His sufferings,
\nand in His glory.
\nThis will come about through the intercession of His Immaculate Mother,
\nwho loves each priest even as she loves her Jesus.
\nThe maternal Heart of Mary ceaselessly intercedes
\nfor her priest sons.
\nSpiritual mothers of priests,
\npriest-intercessors for priests,
\nfathers, brothers, and friends of priests,
\njoin with the Blessed Virgin Mary
\nin pleading for them.
\nOur Lord will not delay in hearing His Mother’s supplication,
\nand the world will be obliged to recognize
\nthat the Church is the Bride of the Crucified
\nand that her priests are other Christs,
\noffering themselves with Him,
\nand giving life to souls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jesus, the Son of Mary, is the Eternal High Priest. As Sacrificer and as Victim, He is present and shown forth in each of His priests. He has chosen them to be, for His Church, the visible and acting presence of His own Priesthood. Priests are called, before all else, to the most intimate and <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-priesthood"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paVypq-ZL","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3829"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3829\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}