Priestly Vocation in Christian Families
by VP
Posted on Thursday July 18, 2019 at 12:00AM in Quotes
The blessing of Heaven upon a Christian family is the gift of a priestly vocation to one of its children.
It is the reward of the fidelity to God; it is the sure mark of such fidelity. There are families, where,
short of a special miracle of grace, a vocation never germinates, or if somehow it is there born, it
quickly withers and dies. Those are the families, where the usual atmosphere is repellent, to the
sweetness and comeliness of Christian life, where the example of parents so lowers the spiritual tone
of the child, that it banishes from his mind all supernal thought, from his heart all freshness of grace
and purity. In quest for vocation, we must first discover the Christian home, the Christian father and
mother. Granted to a parish, or to a diocese true Christian families, vocation will not be wanting.
They are the choice flowers of the well-cultivated garden, whose soil is rich, whose nutriment is the
descending dew of the skies. The Christian home is the nursery of vocations; other agencies - presbyteries,
colleges or seminaries - are the mere helpers to growth and development.
Source: Maine Catholic Historical Magazine 1916
Grace of Priesthood
by VP
Posted on Wednesday July 17, 2019 at 12:00AM in Meditations
If the Christian priesthood is raised so far above the Jewish in its nature and mode of transmission,
it is also contrasted with the Jewish priesthood in the grace and clemency of its origin. I have stated
that the Jewish priesthood began in the slaughter of sinners; whereas our Lord consecrated the hands
of the Apostles, not in the blood of sinners, but in His own Precious Blood, about to be shed for sinners,
when He instituted the most holy Sacrifice and Sacrament of the Altar. Therefore, at the present day the
hands of the priest are anointed at his ordination with the holy oil, which typifies not justice, but mercy.
For functions such as those of the Christian priest, great graces are required, and great virtues may be
demanded. We cannot have sinless priest, yet the candidate must be "without crime, holding the mystery
of the faith in a pure conscience" ( I Tim. iii. 9). Let anyone compare the list of virtues mentioned by
St. Paul in his Epistles to St. Timothy and ST. Titus, with the list of bodily or physical qualities enumerated
by Moses as necessary for the Jewish priest, if he would understand the difference between the two covenants.
Source: Reapers for the Harvest, a treatise for laymen and women by the Rev. T.E. Bridgett, C.Ss.r.
