Whether on a personal level, or just from hearing the reports on the evening news, we’ve all felt a bit of the turmoil that has been rocking the Church for the past several months. The news has exposed to the world, that several of the Church’s cardinals and archbishops have been named or linked to many incidences of abuse and scandal, not necessarily as those who committed the actual crimes… but as those who aided in the cover-up of these crimes… which allowed the abuse to grow and continue…
Resembling cockroaches which have been revealed in the dark, they have been scurrying for cover, throwing around distractions, trying to divert the attention away from their actions. Many of these men who should be acting more like the soldiers of Christ that they were ordained to be, have been reduced to crawling on their bellies with the devil, weighed down by all of their lies and excuses.
Unable, or rather; unwilling to stand up for the Light of Truth, many have behaved as cowards, delving deeper into the darkness of sin. Many have abandoned their role as shepherd. And instead of standing in place of Jesus Christ, as beacons of God’s Truth… they became part of the world… allowing themselves to be swept in the currents of evil that move freely about the secular world, every moment of every day.
In their falling away from God’s call to holiness, these men sinned… grave sins, that ruin the souls of good men. And instead of shepherding their sheep… protecting their flocks… they took those who were entrusted to them and drug them directly into the dens of wolves, which were salivating at the very thought of consuming their holy flesh, and offered them as sacrifice for the devil. It is really quite disgusting and evil. Unfortunately this has been going on for many years, and from the pile up of accusations, it appears that it is far from being over. From the way that many of our bishops and archbishops are self consumed and arrogant in their behavior, I am afraid that it will take a thorough cleansing… an exorcism of sorts, before we are freed of the sin that has embedded itself within the prelates of the Holy Mother Church.
As has been prophisized by many… it appears that the smoke of satan has wound its way down the corridors of the Vatican and has infected the hearts… and infected the souls of God’s chosen men.
We must always remember that God is good and He is merciful. He will provide His Church with righteous men who will be strong and courageous in the face of such manipulation and sin. He will call to Him those who love their Mother. Both in the Blessed Virgin Mary… and in the Holy Mother Church. He will provide good and holy sons. Those same kind of men that shaped the silhouette of many of our saints. The kind of men who for no other reason than their love of God and all that is True and holy, stood in the face of their adversaries and chose the difficult path of holiness. The difficult path of sanctification. The path that found them chained and tortured… or beaten to death… receiving their crown of martyrdom when they refused to corrupt the Truth with lies.
There are saints among us now. They will be the ones who will lead us to the path of heaven. But it is the difficult path, wrought with the lies and manipulations of evil. Wrought with attacks from the devil at every turn. It is this same path that leads some of our present day priests to finding themselves in hiding, fearing for their lives… or even living out of the back of their car, sleeping as a homeless man instead of enjoying the proper residence that should be afforded to every diocesan priest in good standing. Their crime? Going public and exposing some of the rot within the Holy Mother Church. We must understand that these priests are being attacked, not from outside enemies of the Church… No, these men, these ordained priests of God, are being attacked from within… it’s enough to send shivers down one’s spine…
Thankfully, God has not abandoned His Bride. He has not abandoned us, the lay faithful. He is still finding men and filling them…His Men… His soldiers, with the needed courage and zeal, to speak the Truth and to face the difficult charges that are being thrown at them when they choose to reveal the corruptness instead of continuing in the cover up. Regardless of what we think would have been better… whether we think it would have just been easier for them if they had just gone with the flow and kept their mouths shut…we must remember that God is still in control. And He is calling men… His sons to holiness. And that means, He is still calling them to Truth. We must remember that there are still many good and holy priests out there, ready to help us as we navigate our way through this mine field of abuse and scandal.
As lay faithful we need to pray and offer what we can to help these men. It is going to be a hard battle… with so many attacks coming at them from the inside… We have got to gather our forces and join our prayers for their protection… for their courage… I heard someone say that it will take the lay members to fix this…that is true… in a way… But the real battle raging is one between the devil and Christ… Between the devil and Christ’s Church… and His good and holy priests who do not waiver from the Faith….those who do not turn away from the Truth. We must have courage and help them with this battle… by our prayers and by our willingness to sacrifice and our willingness to join our struggles with those of the Church… and give everything we have … everything we do, back to God through His Bride… Our Holy Mother Church and Her good and faithful priests.
I know there are many people out there stating that their faith is in God, not in the priests or the bishops. Heck, not even in the pope. But we must remember that without the good and holy priests throughout the ages of time, there would be no Eucharist… and without the Eucharist, there would be no hope. For all the struggles of men, God has given us His Bride… His Church, and holy priests to carry out His mission in that Church, and for any person to deny this, is to deny the very name of Jesus as God. For as HE said over and over to His disciples… ‘No one knows the Father except through Me’…
And then He went and built The Church upon the Rock of Peter….His first priest… His first Pope… and He built His Church upon the foundation of a man… He then poured His breath and Life upon the earth through this Holy Institution… His Bride… The Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church. If we go all the way back to the beginning, we find that those first twelve apostles…those that were ‘handpicked’ by Jesus Christ Himself, also betrayed Him. They were living in His midst…sharing meals with the Lord, and still the temptation of sin won over in some of their hearts. But we don’t discount the fact that Christ knew what He was doing when He chose them. We do not judge the other eleven over the sin of Judas, do we? No, we look at the others… and even though they had their struggles, they were able to fulfill their vocation… fulfill the mission that God lay before them.
Jesus warned them that Satan would enter the Church through the sins of man, but He also promised them… promised us... that the ‘gates of hell would not prevail against it.’ He instituted the Holy Sacraments to aid us when we have fallen… these same sacraments are available for all Catholics who have sinned… The sacrament of penance can renew our souls. And like I mentioned before, the sacrament of the Eucharist can give our hearts Hope, restoring the peace that gets lost in chaos. As His disciples, we must trust that God’s power is still working through His Church. We must also remember that no sin is greater than His love, His mercy and His forgiveness. But we must repent. All of us. All of us must turn our hearts, our minds and our souls back to the Lord and His Truth.
In the midst of all the torment, in the midst of all the agony and ugliness of sin, let His Words give us the courage we need to hold fast to the teachings of the Lord and go forward… Trusting in God with more fervor than before. It is not a time for mediocrity. It is a time for us to trust in the Lord and do the same. As we go through our days, let us pray for our good and holy priests, and pray that God’s mercy may be upon us all.
O Almighty and Eternal God, look upon the Face of Thy Christ, and for love of Him Who is the eternal High-priest, have pity on Thy priests. Remember, O most compassionate God, that they are but weak and frail human beings. Stir up in them the grace of their vocation which is in them by the imposition of the Bishop’s hands. Keep them close to Thee, lest the enemy prevail against them, so that they may never do anything in the slightest degree unworthy of their sublime vocation.
O Jesus, I pray Thee for Thy faithful and fervent priests; for Thy unfaithful and tepid priests; for Thy priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields; for Thy tempted priests; for Thy lonely and desolate priests; for Thy young priests; for Thy aged priests; for Thy sick priests; for Thy dying priests; for the souls of Thy priests in Purgatory.
But above all I commend to Thee the priests dearest to me: the priest who baptized me; the priests at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me Thy Body and Blood in Holy Communion; the priests who taught and instructed or helped me and encouraged me; all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way, particularly (your priest’s name here). O Jesus, keep them all close to Thy heart, and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity. Amen. Mary, Queen of the clergy, pray for us; obtain for us many and holy priests. Amen.
“Let us love God; but at the price of our hands and sweat of our face.”
You will find out that Charity is a heavy burden to carry, heavier than the kettle of soup and the full basket. But you will keep your gentleness and your smile. It is not enough to give soup and bread. This the rich can do. You are the servant of the poor, always smiling and good-humored. They are your masters, terribly sensitive and exacting master you will see. And the uglier and the dirtier they will be, the more unjust and insulting, the more love you must give them. It is only for your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give to them.- St. Vincent de Paul
Another Meditation on the Poor
Even though the poor are often rough and unrefined, we must not judge them from external appearances nor from the mental gifts they seem to have received. On the contrary, if you consider the poor in the light of faith, then you will observe that they are taking the place of the Son of God who chose to be poor. Although in his passion he almost lost the appearance of a man and was considered a fool by the Gentiles and a stumbling block by the Jews, he showed them that his mission was to preach to the poor: “He sent me to preach the good news to the poor.” We also ought to have this same spirit and imitate Christ’s actions, that is, we must take care of the poor, console them, help them, support their cause.
Since Christ willed to be born poor, he chose for himself disciples who were poor. He made himself the servant of the poor and shared their poverty. He went so far as to say that he would consider every deed which either helps or harms the poor as done for or against himself. Since God surely loves the poor, he also loves those who love the poor. For when one person holds another dear, he also includes in his affection anyone who loves or serves the one he loves. That is why we hope that God will love us for the sake of the poor. So when we visit the poor and needy, we try to be understanding where they are concerned. We sympathize with them so fully that we can echo Paul’s words: “I have become all things to all men.” Therefore, we must try to be stirred by our neighbors’ worries and distress.
It is our duty to prefer the service of the poor to everything else and to offer such service as quickly as possible. Charity is certainly greater than any rule. Moreover, all rules must lead to charity. With renewed devotion, then, we must serve the poor, especially outcasts and beggars. They have been given to us as our masters and patrons.
~ from the writings of St. Vincent de Paul
Prayer: Do not forsake me, sweet Mother of Sorrows, because you are my spiritual Mother. If I confide my salvation to your loving care and faithfully imitate your virtues, I know you will keep me in your Immaculate Heart both now and at the hour of my death. Amen.
Mary… the Mother of God… the Mother of our Dear Lord and Savior Jesus Christ… Her heart pierced with sorrow… her heart full of pain… For all of Her obedience…for all of her purity and humility… she was rewarded with the suffering of swords… Oh, what a gift to be given! Not just one, but seven swords to pierce her Immaculate Heart. A pain she’d carried with her throughout her life… a pain that was prophesied from the moment of Jesus’ birth... Today, with this feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, we celebrate the spiritual martyrdom of the Blessed Mother. As we contemplate her suffering, let us unite our sorrow with that of this Pure, Compassionate, Blessed Virgin… let us offer her our prayers of consolation for our sins…those sins which helped nail Christ to the Cross…
Oh Thou Mother, font of love! Touch my spirit from above, make my heart with Thine accord, Make me feel as Thou hast felt; make my soul to glow and melt with the love of Christ the Lord.
And let us also remember that Mary was able to do all that God asked of her, not because She was the Mother of God… no, she was able to bear all things… all sufferings, because she lived her holiness. She clung to her Faith… living it…breathing it… every moment… everyday. She sought to unite herself so closely to the One Who created her, that she was able to view all the events... in all their dreadful agony, with the eyes of God. She did not put herself first… She thought only of God’s plan and His workings for man’s salvation. She gave God her yes… not just once... but with all of her life.
On this feast of The Most Sorrowful Heart of Mary we are reminded of the tremendous evilness of sin and how damaging it is, not only to our souls, but to the very breath of Christ, which is the Church in the world today. Let us contemplate our acts of sinfulness with repentance… and be truly sorry for having offended God. Finally, let us pray: Most Sorrowful Heart of Mary, pray for us, that by uniting our sufferings to yours, and truly being sorry for our sins, that we made be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Amen.
“We adore Thee oh Christ and we praise Thee … Because By Your Holy Cross, Thou has redeemed the world.”
In this feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the Church invites us to celebrate Jesus Christ’s definitive triumph over sin and death through His sacrifice on the Cross. The Church, with the authority given to Her, directly from Jesus Christ, is calling each of us in a special way to unite our own sufferings and difficulties to our Savior’s Passion.
For the members of the Body of Christ on earth… which is the Church… His Church… it is yet another sign of God’s goodness… another sign of His mercy. As we go through our days… regardless of whatever befalls us… He calls us to look to the Cross… He reminds us of the gift of salvation that He won for us…
During this time when our Dear Mother Church’s image has been tarnished by the dirtied hands of men, God calls us to rejoice… to look to His Cross with Exaltation… It is His Son’s work of Salvation…He is keeping His promise to the Faithful. Instead of mourning in despair we should rejoice at this precious gift that none of us deserve. We need to remember in these dark hours that the Church will survive. Regardless of the impurity of man, the Church will remain pure and un-spotted… She will remain the Spotless Bride even though many who walk Her halls have been led astray and are stained with sin… the Church will remain Pure and Holy.
As faithful Catholics…as Faithful Christians… We must not lose our focus on the Cross… It is this Cross, which proved to be a stumbling block for so many, that has won us victory. And it is Christ Crucified that we, as His new disciples… His new missionaries, now seek to bring to the whole world so that He may reign in the hearts of all men. Including those who have brought so much scandal to the very heart of our Holy Mother Church. Let us pray that God may have mercy on us all.
Your Nativity, O Virgin Mother of God, was the herald of joy to the whole world; since from thine arose the Sun of Justice, Christ our God, who, destroying the curse, bestowed the blessing, and confounding death, rewarded us with life everlasting.
The day our Queen of Heaven was born, ranks as one of the most beautiful moments in the history of the world, bringing with it the announcement which the long condemned mankind, had awaited… it was about to receive it’s liberation from the chains of sin.
The Redemption of mankind was now at hand…Begun on this day, with the birth of Mary. Who from her very first moments of life, would illuminate the desolate earth with the grace of her sweet smiles. Her entire being radiated with continence and joy.
Her birth is the signal… her birth is the joyous cry out unto the world; a world that had grown accustomed to darkness; that our Savior would soon appear… Born to a young Jewish girl, Jesus, with His Precious Blood, will wash away the sentence of our condemnation due to our sin…
“Oh Mary conceived without sin, pray for us, who have recourse to Thee.”
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, Blessed art thou among women, And blessed is the fruit Of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us sinners Now and at the hour of our death. Amen
Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (official text)
Most sweet Jesus, You have bestowed on men the benefits of Your charity, but their ingratitude only responds with forgetfulness, negligence and spite. Thus here we prostrate ourselves before Your altar, inspired by the desire to make reparation through a special homage for their culpable indifference and the outrages which, in all ways, they oppress Your most loving Heart.
Nevertheless, we remember that we ourselves have been guilty of unworthy conduct in the past, and filled with profound sorrow, we implore Your mercy for us first of all. By voluntary expiation, we are ready to atone for the faults we have committed, ready also to expiate for those who, led astray from the way of salvation and remaining obstinate in their infidelity, refuse to follow You, their Shepherd and chief, thus throwing off the yoke of Your law and trampling the promises of their Baptism.
We would like to expiate for too many lamentable faults, making reparation for each of the following: our disorderly conduct, indecent fashions, scandalous corruption of innocent souls, profanation of Sundays and feasts, detestable blasphemies against You and against Your Saints, insults to your Vicar and to Your priests, reckless violations and odious sacrileges to the divine Sacrament of Your love, and finally the public sins of nations who revolt against the rights and authority of Your Church.
If only we could erase so many offenses with our own blood! At the least we wish to make reparation to Your outraged honor. We present to You even the satisfaction that You have offered to Your Father on the Cross, and the offering You have renewed each day on the altar. We present that sacrifice to You, accompanied with all the acts of atonement made by the Most Holy Virgin Your Mother, the Saints, and by faithful Christians. We promise You with all of our hearts, with the help of Your grace, to use all our means to do penance for our past faults and those of our neighbor. By the fervor of our faith, the purity of our life, and by perfect docility to the precepts of the Gospel, we desire to atone for the indifference toward such a great love, to which belongs all charity. We also promise You to make every effort to spare You new offenses and to lead the most souls possible to follow You.
Agreed, we offer You in this matter, O most good Jesus, by the intercession of the gracious Virgin Mary, Reparatrix, this spontaneous homage of expiation. Guard us until death, keeping us unshakably faithful to our duty and to Your service. Accord to us this precious gift of perseverance, which leads us finally to our native land where, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, You reign, God, forever and ever. Amen.
Indulgence of 300 days. Plenary indulgence one time per month for the customary recitation (with confession, communion and visit to a church). For public recitation on the Feast of the Sacred Heart. Indulgence of seven years and 280 days, and a plenary indulgence for those who confess and receive communion.
Confession and the act of Reparation…They go hand in hand… seeking God’s mercy and forgiveness...For what we have confessed with our lips…let us then make amends. We need to do penance… we need to make reparation for we have sinned... But getting there is only half the battle. We need to realize that we have sinned... as a whole, we have turned our backs on Heavenly Father. We have complied with the devil…We have sinned against the Lord. We are no better than those who stand accused. We have sinned as well. Oh, not in the same way as the bishops and cardinals…but we have sinned… unfortunately, some of us are guilty for so much more. All of us should be praying for forgiveness … falling prostrate and begging for mercy…
As we end this first week of September, with the scandals of the Church still swirling around... still gaining steam…there is a division growing in the hearts of many men. It seems that many outside of the Church are acting a bit smug at the turmoil that is rocking the Faith of so many. Many protestant church ‘ministers’ are so attached to their protest against the True Faith, that they seem somewhat ‘giddy‘ at the disorder that is causing Catholics to question their faith, while causing others to abandon the Faith all together. But nothing can compare to the arrogance of those who have sinned, to laugh and mock… to pretend that they have done nothing wrong… In our pride we often scoff at the notion of sin … Dear Lord, have mercy…
Well, as part of the Church Militant, we have our tasks. It is up to us. It is our job to fight against this evil. It is our duty to serve the Lord... to protect His beautiful Bride here on earth. We must gather ourselves for the storm. In order to properly prepare ourselves for this battle, we must first ask God for His forgiveness…we must confess our sins… we need to free ourselves from all of our distractions… from our attachment to our disorders, so that we may stand in the ready. And then we must be willing to make amends…to offer sacrifice as a remedy for our sins… for the sins of men. We must be willing to stand at the front of this line… fighting the temptations of the world…Giving ourselves to God. We are the soldiers of this present time. We are His soldiers. We have been called to fight this battle… against sin…. against temptation… against evil in the world. We have been called to fight this work of the devil. As the book of Ephesians notes; we are to battle against “the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.” It will prove to be a difficult ride. Not for the faint of heart. May the Good Lord bless us all.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta prayed this prayer everyday.
Dear Jesus, help me to spread Thy fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Thy spirit and love. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of Thine. Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Thy presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me but only Jesus. Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be a light to others. Amen.
“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”
Today is the feast day of one of most recently canonized saints…Mother Teresa of Calcutta… a small framed Albanian woman who had a very big heart that was full of love for God and all of His children. She took care of the poorest of the poor… those who disappear in the nooks and cracks of society… those people who most others did not even see. She fed the hungry, one person at a time. She cared for them and cleaned their wounds. She did all of this not because she was better than you or I…. No, she did it out of love for God and because by loving God with all her heart she was able to see the dignity of every one she met. She was able to carry the Light of Christ into the dark streets of despair and shine a bit of hope for those who were hopeless… those who were suffering. I realize that there are still controversies surrounding this saintly woman… but we should all try to live as she did…Humbly…. simply… and with love for the Lord.
Daily Prayer For Priests
Lord Jesus, live in all priests and help them truly appreciate their unique oneness with you so that they shall never crave for more or less than just yourself and your love forever.
Grant Father the grace to seek for no greater joy than your love and the privilege of bringing it to others.
Grant to me, an ever-deepening reverence of your priesthood. And when death ends my life here on earth, may you, the Eternal High Priest, reveal to me in the Beatific Vision the consolation everlasting of having prayed and sacrificed for your priests here on earth.
Amen
I’m sure by now everyone has heard the news… the scandal spreading through the corridors of the Holy Mother Church. It is quite devastating to say the least. And Pope Francis... well his attitude is quite telling… and I will not go into my feelings about him, as right now, they are rather uncharitable at best. So many people are shocked and feel let down. So many people don’t know what to do. I spoke with several people from my local parish today and they were devastated, the trust they had for the Church… for her priests has been shattered. The bad thing is that so many of the faithful who fill the pews week in and week out… hadn’t a clue just how bad things how gotten inside the Church. Those who didn’t hear about the homosexual agenda within the Church, for whatever reason, now feel like a bomb has exploded in their midst, shattering their image of the Holy Mother Church, shattering the one thing that they had always counted on. And now, many of these ‘faithful’ Catholics are left wondering what to do next.
Well, the first thing we must do is fight our fear. We must humbly pray that God will give us the courage and the grace to allow this purging of our Church. Of course we are all afraid of this wild blaze that is moving through the Church, but we must let it do its work. It can, and it will purify the Church… But only if we do not allow ourselves to fall into panic and fear. Seek out the embrace and support of our Dear Blessed Mother, she will give you the courage to stand at the foot of the cross when all the others have gone and fled. Stand firm. Pray the rosary. Everyday.
We must pray for our priests by name. Pray for their strength and their holiness. Let them know that you are praying for them. For those who have abandoned their duties, we must pray that they return to their love of Christ, particularly, Christ in the Eucharist, who so often is neglected and abandoned by His dear sons. Ask God for His mercy and ask for His grace to wash over all of our priests… Pray that the Lord will help our holy priests to remain holy. Offer up your daily suffering to build the Church, one holy member at a time. We should also pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet so that God’s mercy will be upon each of us to fulfill our vocations. We need to pray for the conversion of sinners everywhere.
Prayer For Priests
O Jesus, Eternal Priest, look down with love upon Thy priests. Fill them with burning zeal for the conversion of sinners. Keep them within the shelter of Thy Sacred Heart. Keep unstained their anointed hands. which daily touch Thy Sacred Body. Keep unsullied their lips purpled with Thy precious Blood. Keep pure and unearthly their hearts sealed with the sublime marks of Thy glorious Priesthood. Let Thy holy love protect them from the world’s contagion. Bless their labors with abundant fruit, and may the souls to whom they minister on earth be one day their joy and consolation in heaven. Amen.
It is really not a time to point our fingers at anyone else… If we must point at someone… we should be pointing at ourselves. All of us can do better. All of us can do more. We need to start the wave of conversion in our own soul. And if we are talking about really cleaning house… why not start with ourselves? We should go to confession. Take the family and unburden yourselves of your sins, they’re just hindering your own conversion. Besides, a clean conscience helps us to be more open to receiving God’s grace.
Despite how bad it gets, we mustn’t lose hope… we mustn’t lose our Faith. We need to remember that the Church has faced many devastating blows in the past. Actually, if we go all the way back to Christ we find that from the beginning there have been troubles in the hearts of those men chosen to be the Church.
Remember, Christ chose twelve men to be His Apostles… twelve men to start His Church and to spread the Truth. And what happened? Of the twelve, several of them floundered about in their commitment to Christ… and Judas well, he sold Christ out and betrayed the Lord. Even though he had originally committed himself to Jesus, he allowed his sins to rule him. He allowed his own sinful inclinations to turn on the Lord, and to actually betray Him for thirty pieces of silver.
Just think, if Judas hadn’t betrayed Jesus, the story would be different. If the original Christians had chosen to focus on the betrayal of Judas, instead of the good that came out of Christ’s sacrifice and death… the Faith could have been lost. It would not have grown like it did. If the early Christians had put all of their faith into the sinful inclinations of man instead of into the Truth of Christ, the story would have ended there. But it didn’t. We mustn’t lose hope. In fact if we look through the pages of the Church’s history we will find that when there is great sin among men…God pulls out great saints from among the sinners. He pulls out the likes of Saint Thomas Moore…Saint Theresa of Avila and so many… many… others…
Now is not the time to whine and complain. It is a time for conversion. It is a time for us to hunker down in prayer. God is calling us to be saints. He is calling for us to convert our hearts…convert our lives for Him. Pray the rosary, the Blessed Mother can do wonders for the faint of heart… With the rosary, She can even soften the most hardened of hearts.
But we must humble ourselves before the Lord. Spend an hour with Jesus in the Eucharist… There are so many things we need to do at this difficult time, but the last thing any of us need to do is to leave the Faith. God will right the wrongs. God has promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Holy Catholic Church, won’t you join me and Faithful Catholics all over the world and add an Hour of Adoration to your weekly schedule? Pray for the conversion of our priests. Pray for good and holy priests. And finally, pray for our sons, that they may open their hearts to God. That they may listen to the voice of God as it calls them to serve Him in a vocation to the priesthood. Support these young men in any way that you can. But please dear friends, do not abandon the Faith over the sinfulness of men.
As I close I would like to leave you with this writing from St. Teresa of Avila who once saw the demons coming out of an evil priest while he celebrated Mass. I think it is an important message for all of us today to remember as the Truth is revealed about the darkness that lurks in the hearts of men.
Volume 1 of The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Chapter 38, parts 23 & 24 & 25:
23. “Once, while approaching to receive Communion, I saw with my soul’s eyes more clearly than with my bodily eyes two devils whose appearance was abominable. It seems to me their horns were wrapped around the poor priest’s throat, and in the host that was going to be given to me I saw my Lord with the majesty I mentioned placed in the priest’s hands, which were clearly seen to be His offender’s; and I understood that that soul was in mortal sin. What would it be my Lord, to see Your beauty in the midst of such abominable figures? They were as though frightened and terrified in Your presence, for it seems they would have very eagerly fled had You allowed them.
This vision caused me such great disturbance I don’t know how I was able to receive Communion, and I was left with a great fear, thinking that if the vision had been from God, His Majesty would not have permitted me to see the evil that was in that soul. The Lord Himself told me to pray for him and that He had permitted it so that I might understand the power of the words of consecration and how God does not fail to be present, however evil the priest who recites them, and that I might see His great goodness since He places Himself in those hands of His enemy, and all out of love for me and for everyone. I understood well how much more priests are obliged to be good than are others, how deplorable a thing it is to receive this most Blessed Sacrament unworthily, and how much the devil is lord over the soul in mortal sin. It did me a great deal of good and brought me deep understanding of what I owed God. May He be blessed forever and ever.
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