CHAPTER IV.
THE OBLIGATIONS TO SANCTITY IN THE PRIESTHOOD.
Hitherto we have dwelt upon the priesthood as invested with the greatest power ever bestowed by God on man. This alone would suffice to show that it demands of the priest—not a proportionate consecration of all his living powers, for that is impossible—but an entire oblation of himself. It shows also that with the priesthood a proportionate grace, adequate for the discharge of all his duties, is given to the priest. This alone would suffice to show that the state of the priesthood is the highest in its powers, obligations, and grace: and that it is the state of perfection instituted by our Divine Lord to be the light of the world, and the salt of the earth.
We have seen, also, that the priesthood is one; and that every priest shares it because he partakes in the priesthood of the Incarnate Son; that he is thereby conformed to Him, and that this conformity or configuration is impressed by an indelible character upon the soul.
What more stringent obligations to perfection can be found than these divine participations demand?
We have farther seen that a priest is bound by three relations, of which each one demands the perfection of purity, charity, and humility. He is related, first, by manifold duties to his Divine Master; secondly, to His sacramental Presence; and thirdly, to the members of His mystical Body over whom he exercises a jurisdiction of life or of death.
What sanctity can be conceived proportionate to such relations of intimacy, trust, and responsibility between the priest and his Divine Master?
1. It is theologically certain that interior spiritual perfection is a pre-requisite condition to receiving sacred Orders. S. Alphonsus declares that this is the judgment of all Fathers and Doctors with one voice.[1]
There are two kinds of men who are called by our Lord to be His priests. The first are the innocent, who, like S. John, S. Philip, and S. Charles, grew up from their earliest consciousness in sanctifying grace and interior perfection. The second are the penitent, as S. Paul, who had persecuted the name of Jesus; S. Augustine, who had wandered early from the divine law; S. Thomas of Canterbury, who had been immersed in the world without falling from God, and yet with many imperfections. The antecedents of these two kinds are widely unlike, but their end is one and the same. They come up to the altar by paths far apart; but they meet before it in one heart and mind, conformed to the perfection of the Great High Priest.
This interior spiritual perfection consists not in a sinless state—for who is without sin?—but first, in such a freedom from the power of sin that they would willingly die rather than commit a mortal sin; and next, in such a fear and aversion from all sin that they would willingly suffer any pain or loss rather than offend God by a wilful venial sin; and thirdly, by a glad and deliberate choice of a life in the spirit of poverty, humility, labour, and the Cross—that is, the lot of their Divine Master; so that, even if they could enjoy the world and yet be saved, they would choose to be conformed to Him in His mental sorrows, and in the manifold ways of His Gross. Such a state, with a reign of the love of God and of souls, even though the impetuosities of sudden infirmity and the indeliberate movements and faults of nature still remain, is the interior spiritual perfection which the Fathers and Doctors require of those who come to be ordained to the priesthood.
S. Alphonsus says that they all hold that the state of sanctifying grace is not sufficient for ordination. But all who are in a state of sanctifying grace are united with God. Union with God, therefore, is not enough for the priesthood. Union with God—that is, a freedom from mortal sin—is, indeed, enough for Communion. No such Communion is bad; but such a Communion is not therefore devout, and may be on the brink of danger. If such, without sin, may be the state of faithful, such cannot be the state of a priest who consecrates and consumes the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, and distributes the Bread of Life to others. The world has sunk so low that some think that only a more than common goodness is required as a sufficient condition for a priest: that is, that a priest, who has the priesthood and character of the Son of God, and is surrounded by all the supernatural relations of which we have spoken, must, indeed, be more than commonly good, but may be on the common level of all other men, of whom not one of these divine and pre-eminent obligations can be affirmed. Such perfunctory and professional goodness is hardly the mark of the disciple of a Lord who was crucified.
The Episcopate has been defined as "the order which has spiritual power to rule and to propagate the Church of God by the perpetuity of sacred ordination."[2] The chief office, therefore, of the Bishop is to choose out, to try, to train, and so make perfect, the youths who are to be admitted to the priesthood. From twelve years old, as the Council of Trent orders, they should be trained in the seminary, already admitted to the clerical state by tonsure. From twelve to twenty-four they are under the eye and hand of the Bishop, for, though others work under him, he is so the head and source of their training that a Council of Toledo calls the seminary Episcopalis præsentia. So far as human discernment can reach, such youths grow up in grace to interior spiritual perfection. The others who come at the ninth or the eleventh hour must still ascend by the seven steps which lead to the altar. If the time of their training is shorter, not less is required of them—rather more is exacted of them; and until the same interior spiritual perfection is reached, they slowly ascend towards the Holy Sacrifice. The fervour of conversion and the reparation of penance accomplishes in them in briefer time what the innocence of those who have never sorrowed for sin perhaps more slowly reaches. The fervour of S. Paul and of S. Augustine spring from the sævitia in seipsum—the wrath against themselves which is the perfection of penance. S. Gregory says that a soldier who has given way at the outset of the battle will often turn again and fight more heroically than those who have never wavered. But the innocent and the penitent must both attain interior spiritual perfection before they kneel for the laying on of the hands which impress on them the character of the Eternal Priesthood.
It is moreover to be always borne in mind that a priest is ordained ad exercendam perfectionem—that is, not only to be perfect, but by his own life, and by the action and influence of his life in word and deed on others, to exhibit and to impress on them the perfection of our Divine Lord. The priesthood was ordained to perpetuate three things: the witness for the truths of faith, the administration of the Sacraments of grace, and the mind of Jesus Christ. The mind of Jesus Christ is not to be manifested in words only, but in the living power of a mind conformed to His. "Ye are the light of the world" signifies that, as light manifests itself by its own radiance, so the priest must shine by the light of a holy life revealing a holy mind. "Ye are the salt of the earth" signifies the personal possession of the sanctity which resists corruption, and the communicating of the same resistance to others by contact and influence. To exercise perfection, then, is to act according to the rule and spirit of perfection: to act, to speak, to judge, to think as the perfect man would. To exercise perfection is to be and to do what is perfect in the personal and priestly life in piety, humility, charity, self-denial. To exercise is to elicit, to exert, to effect. It is a word of power and energy, of self-command and inward force issuing in outward results.
Schoolmen have disputed whether a priest, who is himself imperfect, could exercise perfection. It is, indeed, an axiom: Extra statum perfectionis perfecti multi, intra statum perfectionis multi imperfecti. But S. Augustine says, Nemo potest dare quod non habet.
If it be said that Judas preached the kingdom of God; that truth has its own vital power; that even mortal sin in the priest does not hinder the opus operatum—that is, the grace of the Sacraments; that any priest may teach others to be humble, charitable, pure, and pious; that if the ground be good and the seed good, no matter what be the hand that sows it—all this may be true—the love and compassion of our Lord for souls will not suffer the faithful to be defrauded by bad priests, or even by imperfect priests who have entered the priesthood without the interior spiritual perfection needed for ordination, or, having entered rightly, have afterwards lost it. All this may be true; but this is not exercere perfectionem. Such a priest does not exercise or put forth what he does not possess; but the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ work their own effects through him, to his own condemnation. They work like gratiæ gratis datæ, which are given for the sanctification of others, but do not sanctify those by whom they are dispensed. This is not the doctrine of the Church: neither is the priesthood of our Divine Master a gratia gratis data. It is a Sacrament which sanctifies those who receive it, and bestows on them a perennial and inexhaustible sacramental grace for its faithful and fruitful exercise.
This is precisely expressed in the Pontifical. In the first preface for the ordination of priests the Bishop warns the candidates that they must ascend to so high a grade as the priesthood with great fear, and must take heed to possess "heavenly wisdom, moral integrity, and a mature observance of justice;" it further says that our Lord, in choosing out the seventy-two and sending them out to preach before Him, taught us both by word and deed that the ministers of His Church ought to be perfect in the twofold love of God and man, and founded in virtue. He charges them to preserve in their morals the integrity of a chaste and holy life. And finally, he commands them as follows: "Realise what you are now doing; imitate (the sanctity) with which you are charged, that in celebrating the mystery of the Lord's death you may mortify all vices and lusts in your members. Let your doctrine be the spiritual medicine of the people of God. Let the odour of your life be the delight of the Church of Christ, that by preaching and by example you may edify the house that is the family of God."
In the second preface the Bishop further prays: "Renew in them the spirit of holiness, that they may receive of Thee the office of the second dignity, and may, by the example of their conversation, impose a rule of moral life. May they be prudent fellowworkers with us; may the pattern of all justice shine forth in them."[3]
In like manner the Council of Trent orders that all clerics shall visibly show in their lives, by their dress, their gesture, their gait, their words, and in all other things, nothing but gravity, modesty, and piety, and that they avoid even lighter faults which in them would be great; so that "their actions shall inspire all with veneration."[4] These words express the exercise of perfection in its fullest sense, which is twofold—first, that the priest shall show the practice of perfect charity in his own life; and next, that he diffuse the same by impressing the same law of charity upon others.
Lastly, without more words, it must be self-evident that the interior spiritual perfection required as a condition to ordination, and therefore as an essential condition to the exercise of perfection upon others, imposes on the priest after ordination the strictest obligation to persevere by all means necessary in that perfect life.
Happy is the priest who perseveres in the self-oblation made on the day when he was ordained: unhappy above all men is the priest who falls from it. To such may be said the divine and terrible words: "I have somewhat against thee because thou hast left thy first charity;"[5] or, "I would thou wert cold or hot; but because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth;"[6] or even, "Thou hast the name of being alive, and thou art dead."[7] If the state of the priesthood were the state perfectionis adquirendæ, such a man might more easily regain his fervour. But it is a state perfectionis exercendæ, conservandæ, et amplias augmentandæ. He has already received the greatest vocation, next after the divine maternity of Mary and the foster-fatherhood of Joseph, ever bestowed on man: and with it the greatest grace, because proportionate to that vocation. S. Paul says to every one of us, "Be thou an example of the faithful in word, in conversation, in charity, in faith, in chastity. Neglect not the grace that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with imposition of the hands of the priesthood. Meditate upon these things: be wholly in these things—hæc meditare, in his esto: that thy proficiency (that is, thy growth in sanctity) may be manifest to all. Take heed to thyself and to doctrine: be earnest in them, for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee."[8] In this we see the exercitium perfectionis in se, et in alios, the exercise of personal and of pastoral perfection, first in his own life, and next in his actions upon his flock. Ut perfectus sit homo Dei.[9]
The last three chapters and the present have all been directed to one end, namely, to show by how many and by how stringent obligations a priest is bound to the life of perfection. The notion of obligation has been so identified with laws, canons, vows, and contracts that, if these cannot be shown to exist, no obligation is supposed to exist. It is true that all laws, canons, tows, and contracts lay obligations upon those who are subject to them. But all obligations are not by laws, nor by canons, nor by vows, nor by contracts. There are obligations distinct from and anterior to all these bonds. Faith, hope, charity, contrition, piety, all bind the soul by the most persuasive and constraining obligations. The law of liberty binds by love, gratitude, and generosity. Compared with these it may be said all bonds are as the letter that may kill to the spirit which gives life. These bonds of Jesus Christ are upon all His disciples, and emphatically upon His priests. Upon them are all the obligations arising from their participation in His eternal office, in the sacerdotal character, in their special configuration to their Divine Master, in the divine powers of consecration and absolution: in their personal relations to Jesus, to His sacramental Presence, to His mystical Body. If these things do not demand of men aspiring to be priests interior spiritual perfection before their hands are anointed for the Holy Sacrifice, and the yoke of the Lord is laid upon their shoulder, what has God ever ordained, or the heart of man ever conceived, to bind men to perfection?
- ↑ S. Gregory of Nazianzum may be taken as example. He describes the spiritual perfection required before ordination to the priesthood in these words: "I, then, knowing these things, and that no one is worthy of the great God, and of the sacrifice, and of the High Priest who has not first offered himself to God a living and holy sacrifice, and shown forth the reasonable and acceptable service, and offered to God the sacrifice of praise, and a contrite heart, which is the only sacrifice demanded of as by the Giver of all things, how should I (without these things) dare to offer to Him the outward antitype of these great mysteries; or how put on the name and habit of a priest before (my) hands be consecrated by holy works; before my eyes are accustomed healthily to behold the creature, and to worship the Creator alone; … before my feet be planted upon the rock, perfect as the hart's, and all my ways be directed according to God, neither deviating in any degree nor at all (from Him); before every member become a weapon of justice, all dead works being cast off, swallowed up of life and giving place to the Spirit?"—Orat. ii. c. xcv. tom. i. pp. 56, 57.
S. Gregory then requires of the candidate for the priesthood 'before ordination an oblation of himself, the service of his reason and will, a spirit of praise and of contrition, holiness of life, I separation from creatures, adoration of the Creator, stability in grace, sanctification of all our members, mortification of passions, and the reign of the Holy Ghost in the soul.
And again: "This, too, I know, that under the law it was ordained that no priest blemished in the body, or while separated from the sacrifices, could offer the perfect oblations, but the perfect (τελείους) only—a symbol, as I judge, of the perfection of the soul.'—Orat. ii. c. xciv. tom. i. p. 56.
- ↑ Ferrante, Elementa Juris Can. p. 89.
- ↑ Pontif. Rom. in Ordinatione Presbyteri.
- ↑ Sess. xxii. De Ref. cap. i.
- ↑ Apoc. ii.
- ↑ Ibid. iii. 15, 16.
- ↑ Ibid. iii. 1.
- ↑ S. Tim. iv. 12-16.
- ↑ S. Tim. iii. 17.