CAPG's Blog 

" but how many Priests belong entirely to Jesus Christ! Oh God, who do the greater part love their Savior who has so loved and exalted them? Oh God, how many poor laborers or shepherds love Jesus Christ better than many Priests love him! Alas! What will be the anguish of a Priest lost in hell, when he shall find himself for ever at a distance from, and deprived of Jesus Christ, who on earth has been so near to him - entirely his!"

Source: Sacerdos sanctificatus; or, Discourses on the Mass and Office

" If Priests and Religious did all recite the Office as it ought to be recited, the Church would not behold herself in the miserable state to which she is reduced. How many sinners would be delivered from the slavery of the devil, and how many souls would love God with much greater fervor! And how would priests themselves not find themselves ever the same, imperfect, irritable, jealous, attached to their own interests, and led away by vanities! Our Lord has promised to hear every one who prays to him. (Luke xi. 10).

And how comes it that a priest offering up so many prayers in a day, were it only in the Office which he recites, is yet never heard? He is always the same, as weak and prone as ever to fall not only into slight sins (to which he is habituated, and takes neither pains nor care to correct himself of them,) but into grievous sins against charity, justice, or chastity; hence when he recites the Office, he pronounces sentence of condemnation against himself, in these words: Maledicti qui declinant a mandatis tuis. And what is still worse, he feels little remorse, excusing himself as being of the same flesh and blood as other men, and not able to restrain himself.

But if he said the Office with fewer distractions and less negligence, accompanying with his heart the many prayers which he offers to God in reciting it, he certainly would not be so weak but would acquire fortitude and strength to resist all temptations, and to lead a holy life, such as becometh a Priest of God."

Source: Sacerdos sanctificatus; or, Discourses on the Mass and Office by Saint Alphonse de Liguori

Four causes there were, right courteous reader, which first moved me to explicate unto thee, according unto my small capacity, the mysteries and ceremonies of the Holy Mass.

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3. The third was, the deep, mortal, and cankered malice of wicked heretics, their most execrable blasphemies, together with many most fearful wild,, and damnable facts, done and committed by them, in hatred and contempt of this divine Sacrifice: and what good Christian is there that will not, to the uttermost of his power, defend a treasure so inestimable from the savage assaults of such wicked miscreants?

Traditional Latin Mass, Holy Name Cathedral Raleigh, NC

"Saint Bonaventure says, that in the Mass God manifests to us all the love which he has borne us, and includes in it, as in a compendium, all His benefits. (...)

On this account the devil has always endeavored to abolish the Mass throughout the world by means of heretics, making them the precursors of Antichrist, who before all things will endeavor to abolish, and in fact will, in punishment of sins of men, succeed in abolishing the holy sacrifice of the altar, according to the prediction of Daniel: And strength was given him against the continual sacrifice, because of sins: and truth shall be cast down on the ground, and he shall do and shall prosper. (Daniel 8,12)."

Source: Sacerdos sanctificatus; or, Discourses on the Mass and Office Alphonsus Liguori

"Unless a Priest esteem the Holy Sacrifice as it deserves, he can never celebrate it with suitable devotion. Assuredly there is no action, which man can perform, so sublime, so sacred, as the celebration of Mass.

God Himself could not enable a man to perform anything greater than the celebration of Mass."

Source: Sacerdos sanctificatus; or, Discourses on the Mass and Office, St. Alphonsus Liguori 1861