Thrones and Scepters
by VP
Posted on Saturday May 30, 2020 at 12:00AM in Quotes
Thrones and scepters and crowns have withstood the hierarchy of the Church; but, immutable, like God, who laid its foundation, it is the firm, unshaken center round which the weal and woe of nations move - weal if they adhere to it - woe if they separate from it.
If the world takes from the Pope, the bishops, and priests of the Catholic Church, the cross of gold, they will bless the world with one of wood. If necessary, popes, bishops and priests can suffer and die for the welfare of the world, as Jesus suffered and died. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church is immortal.
Source: The Catholic Priest, Rev. Michael Muller C.S.S.R
You are not your own
by VP
Posted on Thursday May 28, 2020 at 12:00AM in Quotes
The priest is a steward in charge of interests not his own. He is a servant, as servant of all work, expected to be helpful all round and all day long. He can work for nobody but his Master. His rule is that of our Lord himself.
Priests of God, you are not your own.
Source: Daily thoughts for priests by Fr. John Hogan 1899
Restless Activity
by VP
Posted on Wednesday May 27, 2020 at 12:00AM in Quotes
We live in a country and in a period of restless activity, of advertising and being advertised,
of nervous anxiety for results almost at any cost. How sad to see priests caught up and carried
away by the flood, losing the merit of their lives, not to say their very souls, while saving others!
Like those of whom Our Lord speaks, they prophesy by the earnestness of their preaching; they
cast ou devils by the power of the sacraments; they work wonders of material construction and
organization; but they are sustained in it all and borne along chiefly by natural impulse, by
exuberant activity, by the spirit of pride, by the desire to be talked of by their people and by
their fellow priests, by all manner of human motives worthless in the sight of God.
Only at the judgment of God - "on that day"- will they know, will the world know,
in what depths of spiritual poverty they have lived and died.
Source: Daily Thoughts for Priests, Fr. John B. Hogan
Ascension
by VP
Posted on Thursday May 21, 2020 at 07:34AM in Quotes
Our Savior ascended into Heaven in order to leave Priests upon earth as stewards and dispensers of the gifts which (as St. Thomas says) He sends from His eternal throne in Heaven, where He sits as God and Lord.
If visible miracles are less frequent in these days than they were in the first ages of Christianity, yet spiritual miracles are still of frequent occurrence; for says St. Gregory Holy Church now works in spiritual things what the Apostles did in corporal things. In truth, Her ministers cast our the devil from the souls of the Faithful; they speak with that tongue of the Apostles which is not spoken by others; they take up serpents, that is to say, those vices which creep about the world, and would induce penitents to fall again into sins; in Sacramental Confession they drink in with the ear the poison of sinful narratives, and this poison does not hurt them; they cure the sick, that is to say, those who are tormented with spiritual maladies, so says St. Bernard. And these miracles are greater than corporal miracles, inasmuch as they are concerned with men's souls, with grace, with eternity; which are more precious than the body, and nature, and time, says St. Gregory.
Therefore, let us rejoice in the Lord that we (priests) are destined to such great works!
Source: Meditations for the use of the Clergy, Fr. Angelo Scotti
