Page:The Eternal Priesthood (4th ed).djvu/279

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THE PRIEST'S LIFE.
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wanting to the companions and priests and friends of Jesus that they be made and be Saints, who are refreshed by the daily oblation of the Holy Mass and the participation of His most holy Body and Blood. All things in the priest's life contribute to this—the daily meditation on divine things; the intimate service of the most Holy Sacrament; sacred studies hardly interrupted; the ministries of charity, which, while they exhaust strength, refresh the mind; the habit also of religion and of dignity; the sign of a kingdom and of perfection which was put upon them when they were tonsured."

8. "Furthermore, to us in England in warfare for the kingdom of truth singular helps for the acquiring of sacerdotal perfection are granted by our Lord, who pities our infirmities. To the priesthood, with which missionaries are invested, the cure of souls is intrusted, and therefore all kinds of spiritual gifts which are annexed to the state of pastors; moreover, they are pastors especially of the poor, the friends of Jesus, 'who have not wherewith to recompense us,' and are poor themselves, fed and content with the alms of the poor. Add to this also the daily and almost perpetual abnegation of their own will, in bearing the burdens of others, in consoling