It is on your account, and my own, my dear
hearers, that I speak, and behold what ought to be the subject of our
sorrow.
A Savior mortally persecuted by pontiffs and hypocritical priests!
Let us not enter, Christians, into the discussion of this article, at
which your piety would, perhaps, be offended, and which would weaken
or prejudice the respect which you owe to the ministers of the Lord.
It belongs to us, my brethren, to meditate to-day on this fact in the
spirit of holy compunction; to us consecrated to the ministry of the
altars, to us priests of Jesus Christ, whom God has chosen in His
Church to be the dispensers of His sacraments. It does not become me
to remonstrate in this place. God forbid that I should undertake to
judge those who sustain the sacred office! This is not the duty of
humility to which my condition calls me. Above all, speaking as I do,
before many ministers, the irreprehensible life of whom contributes so
much to the edification of the people, I am not yet so infatuated as
to make myself the judge, much less the censor of their conduct.
But tho it should induce you only to acknowledge the favors with which
God prevents you, as a contrast, from the frightful blindness into
which He permits others to fall, remember that the priests and the
princes of the priests, are those whom the evangelist describes as the
authors of the conspiracy formed against the Savior of the world, and
of the wickedness committed against Him.
Pages:
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193