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This word "priest" signifies or means a man whose duty it is to discharge the functions of divine worship. This is evident from the signification of the word "presbyter,” from which priest is derived. This word "presbyter,” when considered according to the rules of the grammarians, signifies a man who is old and already advanced in years ; but in the secondary and no less important sense, it means a man who is wise, and sensible, and prudent, who no longer either feels or exhibits the lightness or the indiscretion of youth, who is of firm counsel, and whose judgment is matured. These were, ordinarily speaking, the persons who were engaged and employed in the public worship, and by the Fathers of the Church in the primitive times they were called "Majores" not that in reality they were older in years, but only that they were greater and more perfect in morals, for the wise man says that there are two kinds of old age — the one reckoned by the number of years — the other esteemed by the integrity of life. Hence the words of a priest are not necessarily those of a man who is old, but of one who leads an irreproachable life. For this reason they give to them, and suppose in them the qualities of venerable and prudent persons, that they call them "Fathers,” and style them " Reverend.”

Priests: Examine yourselves to see if you are worthy to be reckoned among those whom the Fathers called "Majores ” in the ancient Church. See whether you have the wisdom, the prudence, the judgment, the piety which will make you venerable and respected in the eyes of the people, and acceptable to them. Perhaps you are more remarkable for the levity of youth than for the gravity of morals. It may be that indiscretion is most to be found where it should least exist, and that you exhibit it every day in society; which is unbecoming the dignity, the gravity, and the piety of a priest. Instead of regulating and controlling your passions (as did the Majores of the Primitive Church), perhaps you give them an unbridled license, so that they become a disedification to your ministry, and an oppression to your people. Should these faults exist, regret them with all your sorrow, and resolve to amend, and to provide for their future regulation.

2. From the word “ Sacerdos .”

Consider well what this word “ Sacerdos ” signifies. When considered with regard to God, it signifies one who offers sacrifice. When taken with regard to the people for whom the priest labors, it means “ Sacra dans,” one who gives sacred things ; “ Sacra docens ” one who teaches holy things ; “ Sacer dux,” a sacred or holy leader of the people in all that concerns the worship they give to God, and the sanctification of their souls.

All these terms, as is plain, clearly signify and intimate that the whole duty and employment of a priest are entirely taken up with the Almighty God, and with the people. Should he devote himself to the indulgence of his pleasures or amusements, or give himself up to secular pursuits, he will travel beyond the pale of the duty which is signified by the name he bears ; for it is unbecoming for one bearing the name of priest to mix himself up with worldly affairs, and to abandon the sanctuary where he has been called to labor.

The priest, therefore, should be altogether confined to the labors of his ministry. The name “ priest or sacerdos ” implies that. He is to labor for God by the sacrifices which he offers him, and for the people, by administering the sacraments to them, and instructing them in the Word of God. He should have intercourse with God by constant and fervent prayer, and with the people by communicating to them the lights and graces which he has received in that intercourse. The Almighty God he honors, by rendering Him the sovereign glory and worship which are his due ; and the people he saves by sanctifying their souls in all the exercises of religion. Thus it is that a priest should be worthy of the name he bears.

Priests: See how little you labor for God, and for your people. Behold how devoted you are to the world, and to creatures; how given over to pleasure and amusements. All these things you renounced when you became a priest; and now by returning to them, you disgrace and make little of the name you bear. Resolve never to forget that the name of priest is your name ; and never to abandon the duties of your state for anything else whatsoever.

Source: Ecclesiastical meditations suitable for priests on the mission and students in diocesan seminaries, 1866

"How ironic it would be if the “Christian house church” — that concept so dear to the antiquarianizing liturgical revolutionaries who took it as a pretext for their streamlined modern prayer-service — turned out to be the place where the Tridentine Mass in all its medieval and Baroque density, albeit in temporarily humble circumstances, survived the coming persecution of Catholics." New Liturgical Movement.

• Building Home Altar (New Liturgical Movement)
• Private Chapels brought to Light by Social Distancing (Liturgical Art Journal)
• Portable Altars in Malta (Liturgical Art Journal)
• The Domestic Church: The Catholic Home (The Fish Eater)
• A family realizes a longtime dream of a Home Chapel (Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis)

Catholic Persecution and Private Chapels in America

"It was to gain religious liberty that the pioneer Catholics of the old world left their comfortable homes in Europe to brave the unknown hardships of the new Province upon the shores of Maryland; which freedom of conscience they granted to all comers as far as was in their power. But they themselves met with intolerance when English rulers later came into power and sought to enforce the then bigoted laws of Great Britain.

Colonel Bernard U. Campbell in his “Life and Times of Archbishop Carroll” tells us that as late as 1758 an attempt was made to pass a bill to prevent the growth of Popery, by which priests were to be rendered incapable of holding any lands and forbidden to make any proselytes under penalty for high treason; and which further provided that no person educated at foreign Popish seminaries should be qualified to hold land or inherit any estate within the new province.

This bill, which did not pass, seems to have been aimed particularly at John Carroll, who later became the first Catholic Bishop of the New World; Charles Carroll, signer of the Declaration of Independence; and Robert Brent, afterwards, first Mayor of Washington, who were all heirs to large estates in Maryland and at that time were boys being educated abroad at Catholic institutions.

Colonel Campbell further states that though this bill did not pass, the early Catholics were compelled to pay a land tax exactly double that exacted from others; that Catholic places of worship were forbidden and Catholic education not permitted; that Catholics were declared unfit to hold public office and that the Council even granted orders to take children away from the “pernicious contact of their Catholic parents.”

Nor did these days of intolerance pass until the Revolutionary period had broadened the minds of men and united all Americans in a more truly Christian spirit.

“In 1774 when the Reverend John Carroll returned to America, a priest, it is not believed,” says Colonel Campbell, “that there was a public. Catholic Church in all of Maryland.” “St. Peter's in Baltimore had been begun but never finished, being closed by the authorities.” And it was not until 1776 that the ban against public Catholic worship was removed.

It is not to be inferred from this, however, that Catholicity was crushed out, nor Catholic worship abolished. The well-to-do Catholics of that period had private chapels in their own homes upon their large estates and here the family and its many retainers, would gather for service whenever a faithful pastor came that way in the ministry of his duties. Of these early private chapels, in the vicinity of the present city of Washington are known to have been three: Queen's Chapel, a part of the large estate of Richard Queen, Esq., situated amid the wooded hills of Langdon; the Capitol Hill Chapel of Cern Abbey on the Duddington estate; and one in the manor house of Notley Young near the present corner of Tenth and G Streets S. W., where Father Devitt, Professor of History at Georgetown College says public Mass was first said in Washington, after it was permitted.

Father John Carroll finding this condition of catholicity in 1774 began his ministry from his own home near Rock Creek in the vicinity of Forest Glen. Here his zealous mother had maintained a small private chapel for her own family use and this was the nucleus of the present St. John's Church. After 1776, however, when the law against public Catholic worship was abolished, Father Carroll built an humble frame Church near his home, which was without doubt the first public Church in the vicinity of the District of Columbia. Father Carroll was ordained the first Catholic Bishop of the New World and was later made Archbishop. In 1789, Georgetown College was built with a small chapel attached, which in 1792 was superseded for public worship by Trinity Church, served by the same Jesuit Fathers."

Source: Records, Volume 23,Columbia Historical Society (Washington, D.C.)

' Repleti sunt omnes Spiritu Sancto.” — A cts., ii., 4.

1. Its great excellence.

The Almighty God, in the institution of this sacrament, has given to his people one of the greatest marks of his mercy. For their benefit He has given to certain men, chosen by himself, a great measure of spiritual power, and grace and wisdom to discharge properly those ecclesiastical duties which concern the whole community. This great power is given to men not for themselves alone, but for the whole Church, and those who receive it, constitute or form the visible government of the Church, and are established as a ministry for the people. Under the Vicar of Christ, the successor of St. Peter, bishops and clergy are appointed to build up the house of God, and to govern and to sanctify the faithful.

What Moses did with the Jews, leading and guiding them under the direction and inspiration of God, so the prelates of the Christian Church now do in the way of governing and instructing the body of Christ, which is the flock committed to their care. This ministry, so excellent in itself, and so necessary for the public good, has great diversity of office and duty, and, at the same time, wonderful unity of end and purpose. Through it the Church administers the sacraments, and thereby conveys to the souls of men the saving grace of Christ.

Priests offer to the Almighty God the great sacrifice of the Mass, which is substantially the same as the sacrifice of the Cross, and which continues and applies the wonderful fruits thereof. For the purposes of sacrifice, clergy are by their holy orders consecrated by God, and set apart from the rest of the faithful, as the tribe of Levi was separated for the service of God from the rest of Israel. Thus do priests, in the holy sacrifice, exercise the power which is given to them over the natural body of Christ ; and the souls of the faithful, which are the mystic body of Christ, they cleanse from their sins, and they instruct and bring up in the way of virtue.

Thus are priests, through this sacrament, made the fathers of the people. They are the shepherds of the flock. They hold the keys of the Church. They are the faithful dispensers in God’s house of his heavenly treasures. Through their hands grace and mercy flow, and God, through them, confers his gifts and spreads abroad his benedictions. The divine power is strikingly manifested everywhere, but it is especially so in this sacrament, where God has exhibited, under visible signs and forms, the greatest mercy, and the kindest consideration for his people. Behold in all this the excellence of this heavenly sacrament.


2. On the dispositions required .

The conditions and dispositions required for the worthy reception of this holy sacrament are two-fold — the first remote, the second proximate.
The remote consist, in the first place, in having a divine vocation to the priesthood. This involves in it, and requires, purity of intention and innocence of life; or, at least, an experience for a considerable time of habits of virtue.
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The cleric should consider well, that he should have full knowledge and instruction on the nature of the order for which he is preparing. He should know whether or not that particular order is a sacrament. He should understand the full extent of the spiritual power conferred by it, the special dispositions which it demands, and the virtues which it requires the recipient to practice.

The proximate dispositions are those which immediately precede or accompany the ordination. The careful study of the rite of the Pontifical concerning the order to be received is enjoined, not only that the ceremony may be known, but also that the cleric who receives the order, may profit by the instructions which the bishop gives him. The cleric who receives the order, should also make beforehand the confession of his sins to ensure his being in the state of grace, for it should be his special care that the holy sacrament of orders, which is given to him for the public good, should be properly received, and, as it can be conferred upon him but once, that it should be then conferred upon him well.

To make a retreat for some days before the reception of this sacrament is also judged necessary, that the cleric, separated from the world and from all intercourse with men, may beg of God the knowledge of his holy will, and the grace to fulfill it; and that he may also learn to love the virtues of the priesthood, and to acquire the ecclesiastical spirit.

This was the manner in which God acted with His great servant Abraham, when He was bringing him to the observance of His holy will, and to all perfection. He made him leave his country, and his father’s house, and go into the desert. When Moses wanted to know the will of God he left the company of men, and sought silence and solitude in which he could commune with God, and our Divine Saviour, before he undertook his public mission, made a retreat for forty days in the desert to show priests how to prepare themselves by retreat to acquire the virtues, and to discharge the arduous duties of the priesthood.

The cleric, during his ordination, which is the most solemn moment of his life, should reflect on the perpetual sacrifice and consecration which he makes of himself to the Almighty God. At that holy and awful time he should offer the thoughts, words, and deeds of his whole life to the love and service of God. In the case of sub-deaconship he contracts before God and the Church the vow, or, at least, the obligation of chastity, and resolves to regulate his passions by their subjugation, and to die to all the disordered pleasures of the senses. He also makes the sacrifice of his will, for in future the will of his bishop or superior is a rule and law to him. Priests, before the ceremony of their ordination, is concluded, make to the bishop a solemn promise of this ecclesiastical obedience.

The cleric, at his ordination, renounces the world and the things of the world. He gives up friends, and country, and home. From the day that God has anointed him as His priest, and poured out His spirit upon him, God is to him as His eternal portion, and he is dearer to Him than his people, or his father’s house.

Ask yourselves what were your dispositions at your ordination. Were you then in the state of grace and friendship with God ? Did you enter into his house to become his enemy? Did you come into the Church “ sicut fur et latro” to betray its most sacred interests, and to violate its most holy obligations? Since your ordination where has been your purity, your obedience, your perfect life? Have you been the man of sin seated in the house of God, or have you been the faithful dispenser of God’s mysteries, and the minister of all goodness and blessing to his people.

Let us pray to God in the words of the Pontifical, "Abundet in nobis totius forma virtutis, auctoritas modesta, pudor constans, innocentiae puritas, et spirituals observantia disciplinea.”

Source: Ecclesiastical meditations suitable for priests on the mission and students in diocesan seminaries, 1866