configuration is impressed by an indelible character upon the soul.
What more stringent obligations to perfection can be found than these divine participations demand?
We have farther seen that a priest is bound by three relations, of which each one demands the perfection of purity, charity, and humility. He is related, first, by manifold duties to his Divine Master; secondly, to His sacramental Presence; and thirdly, to the members of His mystical Body over whom he exercises a jurisdiction of life or of death.
What sanctity can be conceived proportionate to such relations of intimacy, trust, and responsibility between the priest and his Divine Master?
1. It is theologically certain that interior spiritual perfection is a pre-requisite condition to receiving sacred Orders. S. Alphonsus declares that this is the judgment of all Fathers and Doctors with one voice.[1]
There are two kinds of men who are called by our Lord to be His priests. The first are the innocent, who, like S. John, S. Philip, and S. Charles,
- ↑ S. Gregory of Nazianzum may be taken as example. He describes the spiritual perfection required before ordination to the priesthood in these words: "I, then, knowing these things, and that no one is worthy of the great God, and of the sacrifice, and
