The ANGELS OF THE PRIESTHOOD

By Msgr. AMBROSIUS LEBLANC, O.F.M.
Former –Apostolic Prefect of Urawa, Japan
Translated from the French by Fr. Philip McShane, O.F.M.

NIHIL OBSTAT, Fr. Emmanuel Boisvert, o.f.m., Censor.
Marianopoli, die 1a iulii 1958.

IMPRIMI POTEST, Fr. Fulgence Boisvert, o.f.m., Minister provincialis
Marianopoli, die 1a iulii 1958.

IMPRIMATUR, J.C. Chaumont, v.g., Titulary Bishop of Arena,
Auxiliary Bishop in Montreal, 2 July 1958.

Authorization to translate and publish:
Marc Legoenvec, O.F.M., Minister provincial,
Montreal, 23 February 2009.

In my opinion, the title The Angels of the Priesthood
Is a synonym of the «Daisies Petals».

The style of the 1958 vocabulary may be not that of the 21st century. However, the substance of the message is still valid.
Any member of the Daisy Movement who wishes to make a private retreat at home will profit of the reading of the writing of Msgr. Ambrosius Leblanc. I warmly recommend it.
Francis de Ruijte, publisher, 20 March 2009.

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In 1929 a new work appeared written by Stanislas Navante on Little Theresa of the Infant Jesus, with the sub-title `Angel of the Priesthood`. She deserved this gracious title. Little Theresa, and her whole life bears witness to it, was the Angel of the Priesthood in every sense of the word. As she had foretold, she spends her heaven doing good on earth. She fulfils this most apostolic project: `I think of all the good that I would like to do after my death: helping priests, missionaries, the whole Church.` She has kept her word: `From the year following the death of the servant of God,` writes Mgr Laveille, `the annals of the Propaganda Fidei have registered results which missionaries have described as unheard of and unhoped for.` Is it not this marvellous intervention which has earned for her the title Patron of the Missions conjointly with St Francis Xavier?

Angel of the Priesthood! This is what Benedict XV said of her to a priest: `Pray to her. It is her vocation to teach priests to love Jesus Christ.` A venerable religious rendered this homage: `I learned more theology and drew more illumination on the priestly life from the autobiography of St Theresa than in all the works consulted on the subject.` Delegated by Pope Pius XI to the Carmel of Lisieux to celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving, the pontifical envoy, the Rev Fr d`Herbiguy SJ, said to the sisters:` His Holiness Pius XI has vowed a grateful affection to his first Blessed and Saint for the help he has received from her. He considers St Theresa of the Infant Jesus as a second guardian angel of his holy person and in conversation is pleased to give her this name.`

One day Little Theresa offered this prayer: `O my Beloved, I implore you to lower your divine eyes on a vast number of little souls; I implore you to choose in this world a host of little victims worthy of your love!` And so, since her death, this Angel of the Priesthood has seen the increase

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of Angels of the Priesthood under different names: `Apostles of Priests, Priestly Hosts, Little Associates of the Holy Spirit`, names which describe souls whose whole life is dedicated to the Priesthood.

The Angels of the Priesthood is not a recent foundation as has often been thought. It is always from afar, with as much wisdom as love, that the good God prepares the great things he means to accomplish for souls, for families, for society, for the Church.

The Angels of the Priesthood were prefigured at Bethany by Martha and Mary who offered the Sovereign Priest the most cordial and gracious hospitality. We see the Angels of the Priesthood in the pious women who offer to the High Priest about to die the respectful homage of their pity, their compassion, their tears.

The Angels of the Priesthood were represented at Calvary and at the Last Supper by the Mother of the Eternal Priest. At Calvary Jesus baptized them in the streams of his blood. At the Last Supper, through the priestly Host itself, the Holy Spirit considered them the necessary complement to his priests. As St Augustine states: `everything good that is done in the Church, even by the Pontiffs, is done by the secret action of prayerful souls spread throughout the world.`

From the first centuries of the Church, the Angels of the Priesthood were numerous. It was they who during the imprisonment of St Peter prayed for the Head of the Church. It is to the Angels of the Priesthood that St Paul addressed these lines: `Pray for all the saints and for me that it may be given to me to open my lips and to preach freely the mystery of the Gospel whose ambassador in chains I am and that I may speak with fitting assurance.`

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Each century has numbered its Angels of the Priesthood. And how many of them have shone with a special light! Women have pride of place. It is enough to mention St Scholastica, St Clare of Assisi, St Theresa of Avila, St Catherine of Siena, St Margaret of Cortona, St Margaret-Mary, St Theresa of the Infant Jesus. It is to such Angels that priests owe their finest victories.

What fine testimony has been given to the Angels of the Priesthood! “ I had the grace,” said Cardinal Pius, “ of visiting and of blessing virgins whose whole life was a sacrifice for the Church and for the priesthood. These souls seek only to be in communion with the works of the Holy Spirit in the humility of Mary and to clothe themselves in his holy dispositions.”

On the 3rd of August 1908, St Pius X could write: “ We are pleased at the thought that a good number of the faithful of every condition are concerned for the good of the clergy and that of the Church, uniting themselves to us; and it is no less pleasing to us to know that there are many generous souls, not only in cloisters but also in the secular world, who in an unending sacrifice offer themselves to God in this cause.”

From the heights of heaven Pius X can contemplate a more delightful and more grandiose prospect. Through the influence of the Angels of the Priesthood, of Little Theresa of the Infant Jesus, the Angels of the Priesthood have invaded the world.

These Angels of the Priesthood are a multitude. In 1936, the author of “ Faith in the Love of God” addressed to them these words: “ Know that you are not alone in travelling this road to

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which the grace of the Holy Spirit has led you. Hundreds, thousands, of souls march in your company, fascinated by the same vision of moral beauty which has struck your eyes, taken up like you with the desire to be wholly occupied with those things which concern the service of the heavenly Father in the apostolate. The thought should rejoice you and urge you further to sacrifice. What an honour indeed to know yourselves associated by an invisible but real tie to so many souls. To spread prayer for priests, to make it a current spiritual practice in the life of all… that is a great social need of our people today. Happy are those who have contributed to this goal!

The Angels of the Priesthood is not as association. The only link that unites them is the goal they pursue. This goal does not call for a change in life-style. It asks for no prayer, no meeting, no contribution. It asks only that one give oneself wholly to the great and holy cause of the Priesthood, a most catholic and apostolic intention, espousing all the hopes of the Church, all the desires of the Sovereign Pontiff, all the needs of priests and all the interests of the faithful.

In all the catholic countries of the world, pastors of dioceses have made a stirring appeal on behalf of the Priesthood. To this end, how many conferences and talks have been given, how many steps have been taken, how many financial offerings have been made! Surely, it is a beautiful movement. Has it answered the hopes one could have expected? Has it given the desired results? Unfortunately not! These ardent appeals, well presented and well intentioned, have had little or no effect on the hearts of the young people to whom they were addressed. It is a

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worrying, even alarming, fact. If this apathy continues, in ten years«, in most of our parishes, there will not be enough priests to meet the ever growing needs.

It is a failure3. We must face facts. I may be mistaken, and I hope I am wrong, but I am inclined to explain this poor result in the words of Rev Fr Desplanques SJ in his `Christ in all our Ways`,: `So how has this come about? There are still `good Christians`… I know them… I am one of them…

`How has it come about that so many good Christians have not made a good Christendom? Perhaps these `good Christians `are not such, deep down…

`Our Father, how has it come about that there are so many priests among so many young people, so many sisters among so many young girls… and that produces only so-called `good Christians`…and so few… so few ardent and radical Christians?

`That there are so many churches… and so many parishes… and so many preachers… and so many ceremonies…

`And that has only brought about `good Christians` who are not water, nor fire, nor pepper, nor salt… There is surely something which is not working…`

And I would add, and am I not right to do so,: how has it come about that such ardent appeals on behalf of the Priesthood, that voices as eloquent as they are authoritative, have not provoked in the hearts of a fine, pious, intelligent youth a joyous and spontaneous thank-you? As Fr Desplanques says: `There is something which is not working.`

Doesn`t this failure prove that the gift par excellence which is the Priesthood cannot be bought by words no matter how eloquent, by promises no matter how fine, but by prayer, by sacrifice, by tears, by heart`s blood. Our Lord did not think that the shedding of all his blood too high a price to pay to raise the Priesthood which has eternal promise.

Happy the Christian souls to whom it is given to understand these things.
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THE COST OF RENEWING THE PRIESTHOOD

In 1860 the Church went through a tragic time. The Revolution had sworn the downfall of Pius IX. Hélène de Chappotin, the future foundress of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, then aged 21, regretted not being a soldier so that she could defend the Sovereign Pontiff. She consoled herself with the thought that there might be some other way of working for Holy Church, of sacrificing herself for it. In her personal notes we read: `I offer myself to God to break the chains of St Peter.` Become foundress, she maintained this very catholic thought. It was her great concern. Each of her daughters in their profession had to add to the formula of the vows: `I offer myself as a victim to the Church.`

A holy religious, Mother Mary of Jesus, foundress of the Daughters of the Heart of Jesus, was assassinated in 1884 by an impious sectary and anarchist. She died murmuring: `I forgive him for the sake of the Work.` Her life, it seems, has long since been dedicated to such a goal. `I would gladly give my life,` she said one day to her daughters, `so that Our Lord might find in his priests what He expects of them; I would give it so that just one of them might fulfil the divine plan for him. There are certainly those who do it, but I mean so that just one of them might do it, my life would gladly be given.`

What was the work of Mother Mary of Jesus? Some years earlier she had founded a community of contemplative sisters whose prayers and sacrifices would nourish the ministry of priests.

The sanctification of the Lord`s ministers was the constant object of her sacrifices. Wanting to live on in her daughters, she strove to inculcate in them her own spirit. Repeatedly she came

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back to this subject. She held it so much to heart! She found in her soul these words which one cannot resist: `My daughters,` she wrote, `union with the altar, union with the sacrifice, the identification of one`s whole life with the ministers of the Lord – so that they may celebrate more worthily – is an attraction which is sublime. It is pure Christianity to help priests, to dedicate oneself for them.`

One might be listening to St Theresa of Avila: `The day when you have not prayed, wept, suffered for priests and for the Church,` she said to her daughters, `that day you have not been true Carmelites.` Speaking of the work of priests, she added: `It is our business. It is for this that our tears should flow. When you do not bring your prayers, your discipline, your fasts to this end, know that you are not doing what Our Lord asks of you.`

`I see the great need that the Church has of our prayers and I am so deeply moved that it seems to me that we deceive ourselves to worry about anything else. I am convinced that in devoting ourselves entirely to prayer for the defenders of the Church, for its preachers, for the servants who defend it, we come to the aid of our adorable Master. It is to this end that we are united and this is our vocation. Believe me! No prayer is better nor more profitable that that which is offered for the pastors of the Church.`

Fifty years later, noting a renewal of piety and zeal among priests, St Vincent de Paul dared remark: `Perhaps this change is due to this great saint.`

Little Theresa showed herself worthy of her seraphic mother. The sanctification of priestly souls held pride of place in her apostolic zeal. This thought was the great light of her life; she owed her

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fervour and heroism to it. Moreover, she put it into words: `It is the whole purpose of my life.` And she revealed herself wholly in the answer she gave one day to her nurse who reproached her somewhat that, given her weakness, she walked in the garden. `I walk,` she said smiling, `I walk for a missionary who can no longer walk.`

How moving she is in these lines addressed to her sister: `During the short time which remains to us, let us not waste time, let us save souls. I feel that Jesus is asking us to quench his thirst by giving him souls, especially the souls of priests… Yes, let us pray for priests, let our lives be consecrated to them. I came to Carmel,` she said, the eve of her profession, `to save souls and to pray for priests.`

With Little Theresa it is a conviction: the one who does not pray, who does not sacrifice herself for priests, cannot boast of loving the good God:

To live by love, o my divine Master
Is to beg you to spread your fire
In the chosen and holy soul of your priest.
Let him be purer than the heavenly seraphim.
Protect your immortal Church
I beg you, at each moment of the day.
I, its child, sacrifice myself for her
I live by love.

I would that the soul of the priest
Might resemble the angel in heaven
Ah! I would that he might be reborn
Before ascending the altar.

She had no illusions. Such a marvel is the fruit of ardent prayer and hard sacrifice. So, she added:

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To bring about this miracle,
One needs souls burning with love,
Souls, near the tabernacle
Sacrificing themselves night and day.

The author of `Faith in the Love of God` replies to her little sister in soul. Truly one would say two harps which sing in unison:

That your priests be pure as the white Host
Of which they are the sacred guardians
So that the world might see in the gestures of their life
That they are your special friends
So that they at the level of their sublime task
In purity, in fervour
I accept, o my Jesus, the role of victim
I offer you my life in its flowering…

Realising that by her Carmelite vocation, she is the Angel of the Priesthood, Little Theresa cannot contain her joy; she sings: `How beautiful is our vocation! It is for us to preserve the salt of the earth! We offer our prayers and our sacrifices for the apostles of the Lord; we should ourselves be their apostles while by their words and example the evangelize the souls of our brothers!`

Apostles of the Lord! What are these apostles? Little Theresa had received an understanding of the priesthood. `The vocation of priests!` she exclaimed. `With what love, o Jesus, I would bear you in my hands when my voice made you come down from heaven! With what love I would give you to souls!` She would never be consoled for not being a priest. She confesses she `was

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happy to die at 24 – the age at which one could legally be ordained priest – so as not to live in the regret at not being one.

`The Apostle of the Gentiles,` said Pope Pius XI, `sums up concisely everything on can say on the subject of the greatness, the dignity and the duties of the Christian Priesthood: Let men see you as the ministers of Christ and the dispensers of the divine mysteries.` The priest is the minister of Jesus Christ; he is an instrument in the hands of the divine Redeemer to continue his redemptive work in all its earthly universality and its divine efficacy, for the building up of this admirable work which will transform the world.`

The powers of the priest are truly ineffable. They encompass the creative power of the Father, the redemptive power of the Son, the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit.

A priest climbs the steps of the altar. By a few words, he changes a little bread and a little wine into the body and blood of Christ. “ O power of priests,” exclaimed St Augustine, “ by means of his consecrated lips, in his hands Christ becomes once more incarnate. He who created him without his participation is created by his aid. He who made heaven and earth out of nothing has given him the power to produce himself.”

“ O miracle! O benignity of God,” said St John Chrysostom. “ O formidable priesthood! exclaims St Ephraim.

“It is the miracle of miracles,” says St Thomas Aquinas. “Otherwise we should have to admit that the calling forth by God of natural substances is more than the calling forth by the priest of the very substance of the Creator.”

“The priest,” St Clement liked to say, “ is like God on earth.” What do you think? A simple mortal without leaving the earth can act in the heights of heaven? By a few words, he can transubstantiate bread and wine?

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`Do this in memory of me.` the Saviour said to the apostles and their successors. `If anyone says that by these words: Hoc facite in meam commemorationem,` teaches the Council of Trent, `Christ did not ordain his apostles priests and did not order them and other priests to offer his body and blood, let him be anathema!`

Having power over the real body of Christ, the priest has it no less over his mystical body. He is constituted, according to the expression of St Paul, `the dispenser of the divine mysteries.`

`But among the powers that the priest has over the mystical body of Christ for the benefit of the faithful,` notes Pope Pius XI, `there is the power to remit sins. `Those to whom you have remitted them, they will be remitted; those to whom you have retained them, they will be retained.` A formidable power, so special to God that not even human pride could admit that it could be shared with man: `Who can forgive sins but God alone?` and to see it exercised by a simple man truly gives rise to the question not out of pharisaic scandal but out of a respectful awe at so great a dignity: Who is this who even forgives sins?` But the God-Man is precisely the one who had and has power to forgive sins on earth and who wanted to transmit it to his priests with divine liberality and mercy so as to go beyond the need of moral purification innate in the human conscience. What a comfort for guilty man, broken by remorse and sorrow, to hear the words of the priest who says in the name of God: I absolve you from your sins!`

Christ did not give the power to forgive sins to angels, nor to powers, nor to seraphim, nor even to his divine Mother. `Go and confess to the Blessed Virgin or to an angel,` said the St Curé d`Ars. `Will they absolve you? No. Will they give you the body and blood of Our Lord? No. The Blessed Virgin cannot make her Son come down into the Host. You might have two

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hundred angels but they cannot absolve you. A priest, no matter how simple, can; he can say to you: Go in peace. I absolve you, I forgive you.`
Aware of the powers he had received, the holy Curé could not contain his joy. `Ah! The priest is something great,` he said, `if he understood it he would die of love!` Fr Gratry thought this way: `God, I think, covers with a veil and prudently tempers the brilliance and beauty of the catholic priesthood. If one knew, if one understood, what the priesthood is, there would be too many priests.`

In his book `My Conversion and my Vocation`, the celebrated Russian general Schouvaloof speaks of the priesthood in terms worthy of his great spirit of faith: `The Priesthood is the greatest thing in the world. The priest, placed between heaven and earth, between God and man, has received powers from Jesus Christ with which no other human creature has been invested.`

``It is clear: the Priesthood is the highest of all dignities, the most elevated of all magistracies, and the lowest village parish-priest is a hundred times greater than all the kings of the earth together.`

This great Christian rediscovered the words of St Bernard: `Priest, to what a rank God has raised you! He has placed you above kings and emperors, He has placed you above angels and archangels.`

Before an elite audience in Notre Dame in Paris, Lacordaire one day praised the glory of the Priesthood in these proud accents: `In the pulpit we proclaim the word of God; at the altar we offer the blood of God; in the holy tribunal we grant the forgiveness of God. So, if you had the power of Theodosius or Charlemagne, the valour of Turenne or Condé, the learning of Pascal or

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Newton; if you had, concentrated in your mind, every power, every spark of genius, every splendour of glory, you could without loss of honour kneel before this man, be he so lowly, whom Christ has consecrated as his minister and representative; you could without being humbles listen to his word, hear his Mass, receive his absolution, for in the power he holds, the man is nothing, God is everything.`

In addition to the priest, I see the multitude of souls whom he is called to save and sanctify. It is his mission, as beautiful as it is redoubtable. `The mission of the priest,` says St Ambrose, `is none other that the mission of the Holy Spirit: munus Spiritus Sancti, officium sacerdotis.`

It is rightly said that the priest does not save on his own nor is lost on his own. The priest will enter heaven with a numerous and brilliant following of the elect who will be his crown, or will fall into hell followed by a multitude of damned who will be his shame and confusion.

To contribute to the vocation and sanctification of a single priest is to snatch souls from hell and to work effectively for the salvation of a whole people. `To make a priest,` said Mgr de Segur, `is to save a thousand souls.`

St Vincent de Paul never stopped inviting the faithful to pray for priests. He justified his insistence by saying: `To make good priests is to work on a masterpiece beyond which one can think of nothing that is greater or more important! Oh! A good priest is a great thing! What conversions he can accomplish! As are the pastors,` he added, `so are the people.`

Drawing on the words of a saint, I can add: to make a holy priest is to prepare ten, twenty, thirty thousand souls for heaven.

One begins to realize that the priest, armed with the Gospel, is the strongest hope for tomorrow. Not, tank God, for some reckless clericalist take-over, but to assure once more social recovery by supernatural recovery. Salvation? It is the priest, voice of the Gospel, the pile planted by God to stop the downward flow.

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Salvation? It is those preachers proclaiming the word of God in season and out of season, and proclaiming it with a voice of conviction and such a flame of charity that souls, moved to their depths, weep for their sins and promise a greater fidelity to duty and virtue.

Salvation? It is those confessors always ready to go to the confessional to welcome all sinners there with kindness. Who does not think here of the St Curé d`Ars spending his days and a part of his nights hearing confessions! How many souls owe him the joy of heaven!

Salvation? It is those pastors wholly dedicated to their flocks: looking for the lost sheep; going the extra step for the prodigal child; pouring oil and wine on souls wounded by grief, by injustice; weeping at the foot of the altar for the faults of their parishioners and atoning for them by offering their whole being.

Salvation? It is those priests who by their piety and dignity during Mass give the faithful the impression that they are seeing Our Lord at the altar. This vision leaves a beneficial imprint on the soul. Faith is strengthened, love is increased, piety grows, chastity appears more beautiful, courage downcast rises up again, sorrow loses its bitterness, hatred disappears.

Salvation? It is educators worthy of the name. By their teaching and more by their example, they prepare for the Church `a perfect people` and renew the wonders worked by St Vincent de Paul, Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, Don Bosco.

Salvation? It is spiritual directors who, snatching souls from mediocrity, lead them to the

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summit of evangelical perfection. Happy the soul who meets a St Francis de Sales!
Salvation? It is missionaries. Having left their family and their country, they devote their whole lives to the salvation of pagan souls. As the Psalmist sings: `How beautiful are the feet of those who proclaim peace!` Without their heroic devotion, how many souls would not know the true God and would not profit from the benefits of Redemption? `When it comes to the missions,` said Benedict XV, `charity takes on a more sacred character. It is not only a matter of lessening the privations, the miseries of pagans, of improving their lot, but of snatching their souls from the hands of Satan, of giving them the freedom of the children of God, of saving them from the flames of hell and of gaining for them the glories of heaven.`

Salvation? It is holy priests. Each of their words is the messenger of a special grace. By their example, God gives an irresistible strength. Their simple presence is a sermon; they impose respect, they command admiration. Their shadow, like the shadow of St Peter, works wonders. From their person comes a secret virtue of marvellous fruitfulness. One cannot see them without thinking of God. One cannot approach them without feeling better for it. There is scarcely a soul who can escape the vivifying warmth of their charity. Thus one of the greatest benefits God does for a soul is to put in her path a holy priest, to place her within his radiance. Sinful, he converts her; lukewarm, he returns her to her first fervour; generous, he impels her to heroism; loving and
delicate, he raises her to the summit of perfection.

Salvation? It is holy priests. We need them in our distraught century. Only they can cure the evils from which it suffers; only they can stop its march towards apostasy.

Blessed are the souls who by their prayers and their sacrifices obtain holy priests for our country! They will surely merit well of God, of the Church and of souls. I recall the voice of Pope Pius XI: `We praise, we bless, we recommend with all our heart those pious works which in a thousand ways and by a thousand holy efforts suggested by the Holy Spirit, aim to preserve, promote and further priestly vocations. Nothing is more agreeable to God, more honourable to the Church, more profitable to souls that the gift of a holy priest. If then he who offers a glass of water to the least of Christ`s disciples `will not lose his reward`, what will be the reward of him who so to speak puts into the pure hands of a young levite the sacred chalice ennobled with the blood of Redemption, and who helps elevate this chalice to heaven, a pledge of peace and blessing for humanity.`

The Blessed Virgin, so most authorized theologians teach, although not having the priestly character, eminently fulfils these functions. And so, in your way, do you.

You cannot officially offer the sacrifice at our altars, for Christ has not said to you: Do this in memory of me; but sacrificed on the altar to the will of God, you are the hosts of his eternal priesthood. Thanks to this shared priesthood, your sorrowful life is an everlasting Mass. This Mass of suffering, like the Mass of the priest, honours God, edifies his holy Church, succours the souls in purgatory, obtains innumerable favours for the living and makes you participants in all sorts of good. This was the understanding of Fr Girard whom sickness stopped as a subdeacon on the way to the priesthood and which crucified him for twenty-two years. To a confrere who pitied him for not being able to be a priest, this father made the sublime observation: `I would rather be the Host, no matter how small and miserable, for whom Jesus is the Priest, than the Priest for whom Jesus would be the Host.`

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You cannot give sacramental absolution in the tribunal of penance for you haven`t received the power of the keys; but your sufferings, if you wish it, associate you in the closest way with this ministry of mercy and love. By your crucified life, you obtain for sinners faith, confidence and justification. How many priests owe to you the holy joy of reconciling to God, either at the moment of death or on the occasion of a retreat, those unhappy people who for ten, twenty and thirty years have lived in sin and sacrilege!

You cannot mount the pulpit to proclaim the word of God. It has not been said to you: `Go and teach`, but your patience, your resignation, your piety, your courage, your holy example speaks of Christ and of God. You are of those `Apostles whose very presence, according to Lacordaire, `ìs already as a beneficent apparition of Jesus Christ`.

You cannot ordain priests as bishops do, but your sufferings have won the priestly vocation for a great number of young men, the perseverance of many seminarians, the virtues proper to holy priests. `The more you are Hosts`, a holy foundress liked to say to her daughters, `the more priests there will be.`

In spite of the ardour of your zeal, it will not be given to you to go on the missions. Console yourself with the thought that your sufferings nourish the ministry of missionaries. Was it not in her sickroom or in the infirmary that Little Theresa of Lisieux made herself the auxiliary of missionaries and earned the title of their patroness?

You will never consecrate bishops, but by the immolation of your life, you will assure the Church with bishops who, filled with the spirit of God, will preside with wisdom, dignity and zeal over the future of their dioceses. St Augustine states: `Everything good that happens in the

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Church, even through its pastors, happens by the secret movement of prayerful and suffering souls spread throughout the world.`

Souls who are victims, souls who are hosts, souls who are martyrs, you are apostles and your apostolate through sacrifice is most efficacious and fruitful. Am I not right to envy your lot?
How beautiful it is! `To work for the salvation of souls,` says St John Eudes,`is more beautiful than to win victories, to conquer kingdoms or to found empires. It is the work of works. The saints will have nothing nearer their heart. The Church is devoted to it. Angels rush to it with impetuous ardour. The Virgin Mary has consecrated her life and that of her Son to it. And the Word of God has come, strove, suffered and died for this deliverance. And the three divine Persons in their creation and work never pursue any other goal.

The Angels of the Priesthood, I can affirm it, contribute in a special way to give holy priests to Christ and to the Church.

A holy religious offered herself to Our Lord on behalf of priests: `O my adored Priest, that I may be given as a host everywhere it is a question of the sanctification of your priests and the lightening of their load. I feel that they have a spiritual right over me as they have a right over their Host. A voice says to me unceasingly: The more I am a host, the more they will be priests.`

Recalling these words to her daughters one day, Mother Mary of Jesus said to them: `Close your eyes and allow our divine sanctifier to act, Jesus our husband. Let your heart be a living lily amidst the thorns of anguish; let your soul be a censer full of the fire of love and the incense of an unceasing sacrifice whose perfume rises towards Jesus; let your whole being be a supplication and a holocaust which touches the heart of God and attracts the torrent of his graces

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on priests so that Jesus might find joy in their souls, that he might be greatly glorified in them, and make them produce in his service fruits evermore abundant.

`The more you are hosts, the more priests will there be!` The words have the secret of maintaining a soul in its first fervour or if need be of renewing its courage. Who does not understand! In these simple words, there is fire. What would a loving, delicate soul not do to offer to Christ priests and more priests, more like him, more influential on crowds, more powerful on the heart of God? This soul has the regret of not having a thousand lives to sacrifice for such a worthy cause. It says to God: `I do not see how I can help, but if you need cement for your priestly building, pulverize my bones, harden them with my blood and tears, make use of them. I can give nothing except myself, take all and do what you will…`

What beautiful souls to have spoken such words and to have made such an offering of their life! `Divine heart of my God,` said the sick little Jeanne-Marie Fabre, `If you have need of more martyrs for the defence of consecrated souls, Oh! then, I offer you all the blood in my veins! I offer you all for souls, for your Church, especially for your priests that they may be truly pure, truly holy!` Another sick religious, Seraphie-Adele, echoes her little sister in suffering: `I do not know how to thank heaven for having given me this sublime vocation of praying and suffering for priests. Lord, be pleased with me and for me, I beseech you, for all the sufferings that you wish me to bear, in you and with you, for your priests so that they might be holy and immaculate in your charity, for your reign, o Heart of Jesus, for the accomplishing of your will.`

Praises are ever-flowing for `blood donors`. Indeed they play a praiseworthy social role. Our century can boast of having at work a form of charity which previous centuries did not know: `blood donors`. How many lives have been saved thanks to this generous and effective gesture! How many people`s health has been improved and fully restored! How many parents have been kept in the affection of their children! How many children, without this gesture, would have been lost to the tenderness of their parents!

`Blood donors`! Their gesture is the most intelligent, most humane, most honourable investment that one can make. Isn`t life itself our capital par excellence? How many dying millionaires would be willing to give away their whole fortune to anyone who would promise them an extra dozen years of life! There are other blood donors whose origin is much higher still, whose incomparable role is more beautiful, and whose effectiveness has a bearing whose extent and influence are without measure.

The great Blood Donor was the Son of God, the Word Incarnate. On the tree of the cross, it was not by the drip but by fully shedding that he gave his divine blood for us, a blood of such virtue that it has redeemed humanity. For twenty centuries this blood has preserved from eternal death all the souls who have drunk it in Holy Communion. This blood has cured all the moral infirmities of souls who have received it with profound respect and holy confidence.

In the first three centuries of the Church, following the example of the great Blood Donor, an untold number of Christians gave their blood as witnesses to Christ, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. And this blood of Christians united to that of the divine Redeemer has been, in

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the words of Tertullian, a seed: `Semen est sanguis christianorum`. Do we not owe to such blood our Christian faith and the flowering of apostolic works which Holy Church reverences. She has not wanted for blood donors. And their blood has always flowed in streams. It is not always the blood from veins – this is not the most precious – but blood from the heart, blood from the will, blood from a life sacrificed to the glory of God.
Among these blood donors, the Angels of the Priesthood occupy pride of place. It is into the veins of the Apostles of the Lord, his ministers and dispensers of the divine mysteries, other Christs, that they transfuse the blood of their sacrifices, of their offerings, of their sufferings, of their whole life offered to God for the sanctification of priests and for the fecundity of their ministry.

`The more you are hosts, the more they will be priests`! And naturally the soul says to itself: `The less I am a host, the less will they be priests`. This just reflection compels no less to sacrifice and to heroism. If priests are less priests, the glory they will render to God will be less great; the souls saved will be fewer; the damned will be more numerous. Who would dare assume such a responsibility?

A soul which has understood the role of the Angels of the Priesthood can no longer refuse anything to the good God. For priests, she prays; for priests , she sacrifices; for priests, she gives up even all merit so as to enrich him. Like St Catherine of Siena, St Theresa of Avila, St Theresa of the Infant Jesus, that soul makes the sanctification of priests’ souls the constant object of all her efforts. She does not let slip a single opportunity,

Misunderstood, she does not complain. She offers her suffering to God. May she earn for priests the favour of understanding souls! So many souls, through being misunderstood, do not give of their all!

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Does she suffer from insomnia? She is almost happy. `One day I visited a sick person of 20 years of age, stiff with rheumatism which the doctors declared incurable. Her livid features told the story of long insomnia. `You have scarcely slept child? `I asked her. `Very little in fact. But I found the night so short. I thought of the missionaries in far off lands for whom I resolved to suffer… It seemed to me that my evil would do them good, and I felt such happiness!`(Apostolate of the Hidden Elite).

Criticisms and calumnies left her unmoved, it seemed. Such is not the case. A delicate soul, she suffered. However, she did not ask God to take this chalice from her. She drank it in silence. She wanted to keep priests from that which might dishonour their ministry. To merit this gift, she was ready to sacrifice her reputation. If a priest has the misfortune to forget his priestly dignity, she redoubles her prayers and sacrifices. She is inconsolable. She wants to wash away this oversight with her blood, and so long as the stain has not disappeared, she covers it with the royal mantle of charity.

She gives herself no rest. She is ready to face all tasks. Has she to choose? She reserves to herself the most difficult and humble task. To listen, she is never tired. What is the secret of her energy? She hopes to earn for priests the strength they need. Isn`t it to souls such as these that many priests owe a long and fruitful career?
Sufferings do not frighten her. She welcomes them. She forbids all complaint, she is smiling. Her sufferings, if a good God allows her to have them willingly, will preserve priests in precious health. That souls should offer their very life on behalf of priests! They could not sacrifice in a nobler cause.

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A priest was taken to hospital, victim of a railway accident. To save his life it was a matter of amputating a leg. In the next room was a young sister who the next day had to have a gangrenous foot removed. Told of the critical state of this priest, she exclaimed, `It should not be. Lord, take my sick foot but spare your priest the operation which threatens him.` Her prayer was heard. To the great surprise of the doctors, the priest`s condition improved. Some weeks later, he left the hospital. Did he not owe this favour to the sacrifice of this sister?

Another sister was born, it would seem, under an unlucky star. Her companions pitied her. Despite her care, each week she had to her credit a new accident. She laughed it off. `That amuses me, `she would say,` for I see there the response of God. Often have I said to him, ’Strike me but spare your priests’. We have here the secret of the special protection accorded to certain priests. They have only escaped death by Providence.

I was in a hospital. `Father`, a young priest said to me, `go into room 12. One of my sisters has tuberculosis. Her case is hopeless but she does not want to face death. You will do her good; tell her that I sent you`. A few minutes later, I knocked at the door of this sick person. My visit seemed to surprise her and even to annoy her. `Don`t speak to me of death`, she said to me on seeing me enter. Truly, not encouraging. I left the word to her. Amidst abundant tears she gave me the reason why she didn`t want to die. Ì will not die. I will not die. I want to be cured. Promise me`, `Will you recover your health`, I said, Ì hope so, and I will pray for you, but the important thing is to sanctify your sufferings. If you permit, I will propose a goal`. `Yes,` she replied coldly,`but that won`t change anything. I don`t want to die. I am too young`.

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`Your brother, Fr N, asked me to come and see you. You are lucky to have a priest as your brother. He will be lucky if his little sister would offer all her sufferings for the success of his ministry. `The more you are the host, the more he will be a priest`. I hit the nail on the head. `You think so?` she said to me smiling slightly. She thought for a moment. `Well, yes, I agree. Accept my word. I will not take it back, but don`t say anything to my brother`. The cause was won. A few days later, she returned to her family to die there. For six months, despite severe pain, her patience, her resignation, her abandon to the will of God never failed. She spoke of death as one speaks of a holiday. Death which she had so dreaded, she now called on. It delayed her from consummating her sacrifice on behalf of her brother. `Father`, she said to me one day, `the goal you proposed to me has been a revelation to me. If I didn`t have it, I would have wasted my sufferings, and I would perhaps have died a rebel`. A few days before her death, she confided to her brother: `How happy I am to die! In heaven, I will be your Little Theresa. Count on me`.

Claire Latour, a tubercular of the Bruchesi Institute, told a friend of what she called her `conversion`. `Someone had given me `The Apostolate of the Hidden Elite`. This book said nothing to me. I was frightened of it. One day, I said to myself: at any rate, I must see what good there is in it`. I turned to a page by chance where one spoke of suffering for missionaries. Ah! How I cried… my life was changed. I too wanted to help missionaries. I was no longer afraid. Gladly I made my offering for priests`. A friend leaving her in pain wished her good night. Smiling, the invalid replied, `Don`t pray that I suffer less. It is for priests`.

After the death of her husband, Jeanne Marie de Maillé, the rich chatelaine of Sillé, made herself voluntarily poor under the livery of the Third Order and offered herself as a victim for priestly souls. To the great surprise of her family, Jeanne Marie sought out humiliations, she created sufferings for herself. Those around her were astonished and wondered: `Why fill a chalice which anyone else would leave empty?` Jeanne Marie filled this chalice with new penances. `Christ`, she would say, `has perfected his eloquence on Calvary; it is from the cross that he draws people to himself. By my sacrifices may I obtain for priests the eloquence of Christ!`

Soon one noted in the town of Sillé a considerable change in morals and piety. Formerly indifferent, crowds gathered in the churches to hear the word of God, and the word of God for so long scorned made the deepest impression on souls. What was the secret? Nobody guessed. Preachers thought, vainly perhaps, that it was their preaching. Blessed Jeanne Marie worked this spiritual renewal. If one preached well, if the word of God moved souls, if virtue spread fine and conquering, it was because Jeanne Marie, the poor, the mendicant, the servant had prayed long and suffered much for priestly souls.

`We shall see in heaven`, said Fr Plus, `to what humble hidden influences the great apostolic successes are due. Wherever there is a supernatural radiance, a truly fruitful activity, be sure, a batch of ardent prayers was thrown by someone into the brazier`.

St Benedict benefited largely from the prayers of his dear sister, St Scholastica and from those of her spiritual daughters.

St Dominic founded the Dominican sisters. By their prayers and sacrifices they nourished the apostolic mission of the Preaching Friars. And how fruitful it was!

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By their crucified life, St Clare and her daughters took an active part in the work of moral and social renewal of St Francis of Assisi. They effectively helped him `to repair the Church which was falling in ruins`. It has rightly been said: the Poor Clares with their fingers on the keyboard of divine pardon presided over the fate of the Church for the conquest of souls. They were for the Friars Minor what the Dominican sisters were for the Friars Preacher.

St Theresa of Avila lived close to St John of the Cross. The seraphic reformer of Carmel did not cease saying to her daughters: Àh! Pray for the sanctification of priests; let that be your special task, the object of your prayers, of your tears, of your sighs`.

`How do you explain your success?` someone once asked of Fr Mateo. `What gives so much power to my words`, replied this apostle of the Sacred Heart, ìs the thousands of ardent and holy souls who are with me`. Speaking of these souls, Fr Mateo added: `How beautiful and admirable is this generation of little souls, blessed by heaven, which has received from the Lord the secret of doing great things, without applause, without hope of human recompense, for his glory and the salvation of souls. Whence came these precious souls? They are the drops of blood of a race… the moral richness of an organism all imbued with the purest and strongest Catholicism`.

Ì understand`, said a devout Carmelite, `that Jesus made me responsible for the souls of his ministers whom I could help, raise, save by my life as a Carmelite. Already, this mission had been given to me. But have I understood it this morning? You will be a Carmelite for my priests. All, everything for them. They are the priceless diamonds of Jesus. It behoves me to work on

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these diamonds to polish them, to make then shine. To seal each act of my life with this word of Jesus, a word which I take as the inviolable motto of my life, the formula for all my intentions: Ì sanctify myself for them so that they may be sanctified in truth`. I feel, in writing this word, that on this word I shall be judged. My God, have mercy! But I retract nothing. Yes, yes, in life, in death, everything, all for your priests`.

Èverything for your priests!` It is not too much to give. `The prayer of the Mother of God`, said Blessed Julien Eymard, `her preferred apostolate was to pray for the priesthood, to ask that vocations multiply, to obtain for the people holy priests. Why be amazes? Didn`t the holy Virgin hear the prayer of her divine Son on behalf of priests: `My Father, keep them from evil, sanctify them in the truth; I sanctify myself, I sacrifice myself so that they may be sanctified in truth`.

Èverything for your priests!` `To devote oneself to souls is beautiful, is great`, said Mother Mary of Jesus, `but to devote oneself to the interests of the most pure glory of God in priestly souls is so beautiful that it would take a thousand lives to give and a thousand hearts to be crushed by sacrifice in this noble goal.` This holy foundress was right. The souls who make themselves hosts on behalf of priests not only nourish their ministry and assure them of its fruitfulness, but without being clothed in the priestly character, they fulfil the role and the functions of it. `These souls`, adds Mother Mary of Jesus, can òne not might say, in a mysterious way and by extension are eminently priestly`. This shared priesthood, beyond understanding, raises them to sublime heights. Above them, there are only the priests.

`How beautiful our vocation is!`exclaimed Little Theresa overjoyed. Ìndeed`, wrote St Jean-Baptiste, ìs there anything more beautiful than such a role? Christ has made of priests his `chosen tribe, his own people`, to constitute tem not the successors but the ministers of his own

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priesthood; their priesthood is then the extension, the prolongation of that of Christ. Where here below would one find a higher dignity? Ah! Let no-one speak to me of this world`s honours, vain titles which pass with time! The priestly character will have all eternity to shine on the brows of those who wore it with dignity on earth, and its brilliance will reflect on all those who near and far have contributed to their vocation and the fruitfulness of their ministry.

How does it seem to you? Don`t the Angels of the Priesthood appear glorious in the radiance of the divine Priest, and are they not as the image of his Priesthood?

The powerful of this world believe themselves to be busy with important tasks and give themselves up to great enterprises. These tasks and enterprises pale to vanishing point before the beautiful mission of the Angels of the Priesthood. The years will pass over human works and reduce them to dust. The centuries will not touch the work of the Angels of the Priesthood, for the priest is eternal, `Sacerdos in aeternum`.