it is customary for him to serve the priest at his private mass.
Let us now consider what degree of perfection is required in a cleric; and if so much is required of him, how much in an acolyte, subdeacon, deacon, priest, and Bishop! I am horrified to think, how many priests scarcely possess what is strictly required in a simple cleric. He is exhorted to cast away all idle thoughts and desires, which belong only to men of the world; that is, to men who are of the world, who are continually thinking of worldly things. The good cleric is exhorted to seek for no other inheritance than God, that He alone "may be the portion of his inheritance;" and the cleric may be truly said to be "the portion and inheritance" of God alone. O! how high is the clerical state which renounces the whole world that it may possess God alone, and may in return be possessed by God alone! "This is the meaning of the words of the Psalmist: " The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup." That is said to be "the portion of inheritance," which in the division of a property among relations, falls to the share of each one. Wherefore, the sense of the word is, not that the cleric wishes to take God as a portion of his inheritance, and to make worldly riches another portion; but that from the bottom of his heart he desires to transfer to his good God, his whole inheritance, that is, whatever may belong to him
