should be stripped of the religious rites and solemn ceremonies and of that exterior respect which should accompany their administration. The pastor, therefore, following up his exposition of the sacraments, will deem it a duty to bestow, also, on the Sacrament of Orders, an attention proportioned to its importance. This exposition cannot fail to prove salutary, in the first place, to the pastor himself, in the next place, to those who may have embraced the ecclesiastical state, and finally to the faithful at large to the pastor himself, because, whilst explaining this Sacrament to others, he himself is excited to stir up within him the grace which he received at his ordination to others whom the Lord has called to his sanctuary, by inspiring them with the same love of piety, and imparting to them a knowledge of those things which will quality them the more easily to advance to higher orders to the faithful at large, by making known to them the respect due to the ministers of religion. It also not unfrequently occurs, that, amongst the faithful there are many who intend their children for the ministry whilst yet young, and some who are themselves candidates for that holy state; and it is proper that such persons should not be entirely unacquainted with its nature and obligations. [1]
The faithful then are to be made acquainted with the exalted dignity and excellence of this sacrament in its highest degree, which is the priesthood. Priests and bishops are, as it were, the interpreters and heralds of God, commissioned in his name to teach mankind the law of God, and the precepts of a Christian life they are the representatives of God upon earth. Impossible, theiefore, to conceive a more exalted dignity, or functions more sacred. Justly, therefore, are they called not only angels, [2] but gods, [3] holding, as they do, the place and power and authority of God on earth. But the priesthood, at all times an elevated office, transcends in the New Law all others in dignity. The power of consecrating and offering the body and blood of our Lord and of remitting sin, with which the priesthood of the New Law is invested, is such as cannot be comprehended by the human mind, still less is it equalled by, or assimilated to, any thing on earth. Again, as Christ was sent by the Father, [4] the Apostles and Disciples by Christ, [5] even so are priests invested with the same power, and sent " for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, and the edification of the body of Christ." [6]
This office, therefore, is not to be rashly imposed on any one: to those only it is to be intrusted, who, by the sanctity
- ↑ Qui special ad mores eorum qui in aliquo ordine ecclesiaslico sunt, videndum esl, immo sciendum Cone. Trid. in posleriore parte cujusque sessionis, quae esl de reformatione; quod vero altinet a ordinem ut est sacramentum, vide idem Cone, sess. 13. el de singulis ordmationibus vide Cone. Carlhag. IV. sub Anastasio Ponti- fice. anno 398.
- ↑ Mal. ii. 7.
- ↑ Ps. lxxxi. 6.
- ↑ John viii. 36.
- ↑ Matt, xxviii. 19.
- ↑ Ephes. iv. 12. De sacerdotii dignitate vide Ignat. epist ad Smyrn. Amb. lib. 5. epist 32. et lib. 10. ep. 82. Chrysost. horn. 60. ad pop. Antioch, et in Mall, hom 83. Wazian. oral. 17. ad suos cives.
