will be aut forma gregis aut fabula: either the pattern or the by-word. Ira est non gratia cum quis ponitur supra ventum nullas habens radices in soliditate virtutum.[1] What measure of spiritual perfection, what measure of sanctity, is proportioned to such an office, to such a charge, to such a responsibility? "Therefore the sanctity of the priest ought to be a sanctity not common to all, but singular in degree: a sanctity which seeks only the things of Christ: a sanctity which has its conversation in heaven: a sanctity which offers itself as an oblation and sacrifice to God in the odour of sweetness: a sanctity by which the priest becomes a fountain of light, of benediction, of merit, and of eternal life to souls: a sanctity which is an example to the faithful in word, in conversation, in charity, in faith, in chastity."[2]
These three relations of the priest are motives to aspire towards the highest conformity to our Divine Master, and to the closest union with Him. And these motives are not only prompted by generosity, gratitude, and love—that is, by the law of liberty—but they contain in themselves, and they impose upon the priest, duties of obligation to which we will now go on.
