Graham Greene: "... for the half-hearted and the corrupt"

HOW OFTEN the priest had heard the same confession--Man was so limited: he hadn't even the ingenuity to invent a new vice: the animals knew as much. It was for this world that Christ had died: the more evil you saw and heard about you, the greater the glory lay around the death; it was too easy to die for what was good or beautiful, for home or children or civilization--it needed a God to die for the half-hearted and the corrupt.

[Graham Greene, THE POWER AND THE GLORY 1940]

Vocations: "Good Measure, Pressed Down, Shaken Together"

Years ago our parish provided one priestly vocation to a religious order. For some time now, I've been praying for five more priestly vocations to serve the Catholic faithful in our archdiocese. Additionally, I'm praying for two vocations to religious life. It's not that I'm telling God what to do. But the number seven is a conspicuous biblical sign of fullness and blessing. Therefore I'm praying for seven in the sense of seeking a great harvest of workers from one little parish.

May our work with the poor, especially single mothers with children, merit the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary for many new workers in God's vineyard. Thus everyone will glorify God alone who provides seminarians and religious postulants with ". . . good measure, pressed down, shaken together, (and) running over" for the seminary in our archdiocese.

Moreover, I am praying for these vocations to emerge and take root during my lifetime. Therefore, my dear parishioners, if you want me to live a very long time possibly with great sadness, don't pray for these vocations. However, if you want the local Church to enjoy a long life and be well served in future generations, beseech God now for these seven new vocations! And do not stop! As for future regret, I will have none. God will grant me the joy of hope realized!

"Radical Assent"

In his compendium JOSEF PIEPER, AN ANTHOLOGY (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), the philosopher has much to say about ritual, explaining why the phenomena of celebration and liturgy occupy a place wholly above the ordinary activities of our human lives.

First, there can be no more radical assent to the world than the praise of God, the lauding of the Creator of this same world. . . . secondly—the ritual festival is the most festive form that festivity can possible take. . . . thirdly—there can be no deadlier, more ruthless destruction of festivity than refusal of ritual praise.  [156-157]

A preceding reality makes evident this necessary "radical assent". The complexity of the natural world and its creatures points to the corresponding and surpassing supernatural complexity of heaven:  "For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator."  [WisSol 13:5]

 Heaven's splendor is mirrored by the beauty and grandeur of human ritual celebration, most perfectly expressed as the holy sacrifice of the Mass. The psalmist prays, "Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance."  [Psa 90:8] Thus the unfathomable mysteries of heaven reveal human exigency while bringing to nothing the barrenness of the devil's grotesque society.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria: Jesus Cleanses the Temple

“There was in (the temple) a crowd of merchants and others guilty of the charge of the shameful love of money. I mean money changers or keepers of exchange tables, sellers of oxen, dealers of sheep, and sellers of turtle doves and pigeons. All these things were used for the sacrifices according to the legal ritual. The time had now come for the shadow to draw to an end and for the truth to shine forth. The truth is the lovely beauty of Christian conduct, the glories of the blameless life and the sweet rational flavor of worship in spirit and in truth.

“The Truth, Christ as One who with his Father was also honored in their temple, commanded that those things that were by the law should be carried away, even the materials for sacrifices and burning of incense. He commanded that the temple clearly should be a house of prayer. His rebuking the dealers and driving them from the sacred courts when they were selling what was

wanted for sacrifice means certainly this, as I suppose, and this alone.”

[Saint Cyril of Alexandria: Commentary on Luke 19, Homily 132 (CGSL 522-23)]

Closest To Little Children

Our Lord's heart is closest to little children threatened by environments of fear, neglect and violence. Our Lord suffers in knowing that many children will receive no other love than his own in this world.

For children, as a category, stand apart from the political brokers of education, wealth and power. Devoid of these things by which others protect themselves from predatory forces in society, children are utterly dependent on the philanthropy of others and, accordingly, they are ruined and destroyed by predatory forces when leaders and their institutions pander to a lethargic citizenry with showy words and cleverly crafted mediocrity.

Ours is a generation that prefers chatter to conversation and argument over reason. Endless talk is a sign of synthetic concern, the detritus of intellectual and moral sterility. The opportunity to talk endlessly on a given subject is highly valued. Not surprisingly, the intoxicating heat of debate is often equated with the fire of brilliance and the conscientious, arduous labor of actualizing a heroic vision.

Showy words are valued most highly by the society "who will listen to anybody and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth".  [2Tim 3:7]  Like mold and mildew, rampant grandiloquence flourishes when a society attempts to conceal its torpor and dampness of spirit. Neither words or show masks the obscene desertion of an educated electorate from the field of genuine child advocacy, however, or its rejection of reality informed by absolute truth.

If, as a condition of our nation's response to the pressing plight of the young, we must accord all opposing viewpoints the same weight, we will have done nothing more than entomb our suffering children under a burial mound of ritualized blather. The injustice of a society which loves talk more than its children will not escape the notice of the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

Who will sacrifice himself to love me always? asks the child who is sacrificed. Who will love me as a person always? asks the child who is treated as an object. Who will never lie to me? asks the child who is double-crossed. Who will never leave me? asks the child who is abandoned. Who can I trust always? asks the child who is betrayed.

Even as Christians feel sorrow and shame for the plight of very many of our nation's children, we hear the echo of Joshua's bold challenge to an earlier generation of Israelites:  "Choose this day whom you will serve...but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."  [Josh 24:15]  The premier question is not what the world's nations (and our own in particular) will choose, but ultimately whom they will choose. And the whom we must choose is Jesus Christ!

Jesus astounds his apostles by insisting, "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God."  [Mk 10:14]  Jesus summons us to choose what we will serve, culture or the Gospel. If we choose for the Gospel, we must renounce idolatry to culture, particularly the seemingly immutable cultural laws that serve the hegemony of the strong.   

For the sake of the name we bear--children of God--we must plead, we must sacrifice, we must suffer on behalf of our children. The virtue of justice is not an invitation to passivity. As the experience of Christian parents testifies, any effort to meet the needs of our children depends on universally shared Gospel values.

Our love of God's little children is proven by advocacy; therefore, "whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus". [Col 3:17]

(photo courtesy ookaboo)

Staying the Course

A mere glance at the Church's history reveals that her priesthood has never traveled a royal road. To the contrary, the holy priesthood takes the hard and narrow way  [cf. Mt 7:13-14]  to a more stringent judgment:  “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, for you know that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness.”  [Jas 3:1]  

Every age has its crisis inside or outside of the Church and perhaps in the most difficult of times both. Whether a man follows the path of cloistered or secular priesthood, the cares of the Church and the world follow him, crying for help as supplicants on the roadside who hear Jesus passing by.

The priest in a monastery, the priest in a diocese must shoulder the pastoral task of lifting up his own and every fallen soul to the sweet fragrance of the Divine Mercy that surrounds the heavenly throne like incense. Likewise, the priest must fervently set about the task of sanctifying the world “in the fulness of the blessing of Christ”  [Rom 15:29]  even has he cares for his own soul.

Thus he clothes the Church with the peace of Christ in the midst of turbulence and empowers her with “times of refreshing”  [Acts 3:19]  to stay the course regardless of the most arduous challenges.

"Adam's Off Ox": Ordinary Time (Wk 06, Cycle A) Feb 16 2014

VERY LITTLE AT THAT

1.  One of our nation's presidents used an expression unfamiliar to most Americans. Someone harshly criticized him—as seems to be the preferred form of public recreation in our country—and he responded to his accuser, He doesn’t know me any better than Adam's off ox. [2]

2.  This figure of speech refers to a person who talks about another as if he really knows him or has first-hand knowledge when in fact he does not. It is a sadness that a great many Christians do not know God any better than Adam's off ox. They claim to know God, but lacking knowledge and a meaningful relationship with him, they actually know very little at that—perhaps just enough to criticize him harshly.

HOLY WAY OF LIFE

3.  Certainly all Christians should endeavor to grow in the knowledge (theology) of God[3] and the moral life. The very best way, actually the only good way, for human beings to do this is by seeking and accepting a relationship with God who said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”.  [Gen 1:26]  By saying “grow in the knowledge of God”, we extend the circle of faith beyond mere talk about God to mean walking with Jesus in a holy way of life.

4.  Of course, one should have knowledge of Jesus Christ, his Church and the call to personal holiness. Knowing about a person, however, will not substitute for a vigorous, dynamic relationship with that person. This is true as well for the human-divine relationship. God who gifted human beings with personhood possesses the fullness of personhood in his divine nature.

A POSTCARD

5.  Knowledge implies responsibility. The one who possesses knowledge may not appropriate to himself unqualified power over it, nor is he empowered without restraint to control the subject of his knowledge. The divine majesty of God is unfathomable to all but the most humble person who kneels, and with bowed head, whispers You are God, I am not. You know everything, I know nothing. During a scholarly discussion between Rabbi Pinchas Lapide and Father Karl Rahner SJ, both theologians, Rabbi Lapide observed:

OF THIS inscrutability you once said with supreme irony:  “What then does one know so precisely about the ‘loving God’?” In fact, what we both know about God would fit without difficulty on a postcard. [4]

To be sure, words on the back of a postcard never ransomed anyone. Nor has the Torah or the Bible.

“ENTRUSTING THEMSELVES”

6.  A human being, in the greatest need, turns to another human being to ransom him from trouble or danger. Humanity itself, instinctively aware of its fall from grace, looks to the heavens for rescue but not just anything in the heavens. The whole of humanity seeks a person to ransom it from enthrallment to sin and to rescue it from death—a person to whom, in the words of Pope John Paul II, “they might entrust themselves”.  [John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, no. 33 (1998)]  

7.  That person is Jesus Christ who as Son of God and Messiah gave his own life as a ransom. He freed us from enslavement to our own sin and the sin of the generations before us. Liberated from the power of death, we are in God’s debt. We are debtors who, in making a just return to God, the Giver of all that is good, rejoice in the truth that what we owe can never be repaid.

Pope Benedict XVI: "The Task of a Gardener"

It seems very important to me that the Catechism, in mentioning the limits of the power of the supreme authority of the Church with regard to reform, should call back to mind what is the essence of primacy, as it is emphasized by Vatican Councils I and II:  The pope is not an absolute monarch whose will is law, but rather the guardian of the ancient Tradition (and the Sacred Scriptures), and the first guarantor of obedience.

He cannot do whatever he wants, and precisely because of this he can oppose those who intend to do whatever they want. The law to which he must adhere is not that of acting "ad libitum," but obedience to the faith. Because of this, with regard to the liturgy, he has the task of a gardener and not that of an engineer who builds new machines and throws out the old ones.

The "rite," meaning the form of celebration and prayer that matures in the faith and life of the Church, is a condensed form of the living Tradition, in which the sphere of the rite expresses the whole of its faith and prayer, making it possible at the same time to experience the communion among the generations, the communion among those who pray before us and after us. Thus the rite is like a gift that is given to the Church, a living form of "paradosis."

[Joseph Ratzinger, preface to the book by Alcuin Reid “Lo sviluppo organico della liturgia,” Cantagalli, Siena, 2013]

How One Lover Bonds

I’m not very good at that,

you said—

but you preferred escape

to acting like you cared.

You quarantined my need /

yeah, I know

because You’re not very good

at that, you said.

I saw fear—as if tremors

from a heartfelt thank you

might scrub the silky softness

off your public face.

And be a mortgage. /

What’s this I hear—

bad luck ran your

your precious scow aground

and wrecked your game?

And you Send for me? to salvage

your golden cargo? /

I’m not very good at that, I say.

I’ll take the vicious sting

of your white-hot madness—

thanking Who? for all I know

in the present moment/

God knows how one lover

bonds and the other doesn’t.

April 2002

Benjamin Franklin: "We Know Where To Find Him"

I CONDOLE with you. We have lost a dear and valuable relation, but it is the will of God and nature, that these mortal bodies be laid aside when the soul is to enter into real life. Why then should we grieve that a new child is born among the immortals-- a member added to their happy society? We are spirits. That bodies should be lent us while they afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge, or in doing good to our fellow creatures is a kind and benevolent act of God.

WHEN THEY become unfit for these purposes and afford us pain instead of pleasure; instead of an aid, become an encumbrance; and answer none of the intentions for which they were given, it is equally kind and benevolent that a way be provided by which we may become free of them. Death is that way. He who quits the body, parts at once with all pains, and possibilities of pains and disease, which it was liable to or capable of making him suffer.

OUR LOVED one and we are invited abroad on a party of joy which is to last forever. His chair was ready first and he has gone before us. We cannot all conveniently start together and why should you and I be grieved at this since we are soon to follow and since we know where to find him.

[Benjamin Franklin, Eulogy to a person (unknown) at the time of the death of his brother]

(Image: Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington DC)

John Henry Cardinal Newman: "To Act, You Must Assume"

LIFE IS not long enough for a religion of inference; we shall never have done beginning, if we determine to begin with proof.  We shall ever be laying our foundations; we shall turn theology into evidences, and divines into textuaries. 

WE SHALL never get at our first principles.  Resolve to believe nothing, and you must prove your proofs and analyze your elements, sinking farther and farther, and finding in the lowest depth a lower deep, till you come to the broad bosom of skepticism.

I WOULD rather be bound to defend the reasonableness of assuming that Christianity is true, than to demonstrate a moral governance from the physical world. Life is for action.  If we insist on proofs for everything, we shall never come to action:  To act you must assume, and that assumption is faith.

[John Henry Cardinal Newman, DISCUSSIONS AND ARGUMENTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS (London: Longman's, Green and Co., 1907) 292]

(Image: Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington DC)

Outdoor Plumbing

     On October 11, a cold overcast Monday in 1999, I was visiting my godson Adam and his family at their home in Springfield, Virginia. His mother and I spent the morning navigating shopping centers in the Washington area. After only one or two malls, I was wiped out. When we got back to the house, I crashed on the blue leather couch and took a nap.

       I awoke to Adam, not quite four years old, crawling over the couch. He wedged himself between my back and the cushions. Then, like a cat, he went motionless. Feeling his warm baby breath on my face, I opened my eyes. My godson’s face was about four inches from mine. He looked at me intently, guilelessly, hardly blinking. With consummate placidness, he asked, Do you have outdoor plumbing? 

       No, I said, I don't. I had outdoor plumbing when I was little, you see. But I don't have any now. Adam’s eyes widened. His mouth dropped a little. He seemed really interested in what I had to say. In fact, I rattled on, At one time, everybody used to have outdoor plumbing.

       Adam didn't blink. He whispered, What do they have now?  

       Well, I said, now they all have indoor plumbing just like me.

       Adam's eyebrows shot up. After a moment, he remarked with infinite pity, My sister has indoor plumbing.

       Your sister has indoor plumbing?

       I have outdoor plumbing.

       What do you mean you have "outdoor plumbing"? 

       Right here! He pointed to his zipper zone.

       I got it. Yeah, I finally got it. The little brute walloped me. I got that I was a nitwit. I just told this child I was a woman dressed as a man masquerading as a Catholic priest. Kid, I gotta get up. Adam dropped to the cushions behind me. Are you a girl? he asked. I didn't look back. Work it out on your own, bub.

(Image: Ikea)

School of Truth

Discovering Truth is like climbing a mountain. We do not invent either as we ascend. The ascent to Truth begins by the comforting lamplight of Natural Law. The summit of Truth is attained in the brilliant sunlight of Divine Revelation. It is the ascent to Truth that brings wisdom. It is at the summit of Truth where we encounter God. 

St. Clement: "Light-Bearing Eyes"

THE COMMANDMENT of the Lord shines clearly, enlightening the eyes. Receive Christ, receive power to see, receive your light, that you may plainly recognize both God and man. More delightful than gold and precious stones, more desirable than honey and the honeycomb is the Word that has enlightened us. How could he not be desirable, who illumined minds buried in darkness, and endowed with clear vision 'the light-bearing eyes' of the soul? . . .

SING HIS praises, then, Lord, and make known to me your Father, who is God. Your Word will save me, your song instruct me. I have gone astray in my search for God; but now that you light my path, Lord, I find God through you, and receive the Father from you. I become co-heir with you, since you were not ashamed to own me as your brother.

LET US, then, shake off forgetfulness of truth, shake off the mist of ignorance and darkness that dims our eyes, and contemplate the true God, after first raising this song of praise to him: 'All hail, O light!' For upon us buried in darkness, imprisoned in the shadow of death, a heavenly light has shone, a light of a clarity surpassing the sun’s, and of a sweetness exceeding any this earthly life can offer.”

______________________________

From Clement of Alexandria’s Exhortation to the Greeks II, quoted in ANCIENT CHRISTIAN COMMENTARY ON SCRIPTURE: NEW TESTAMENT II, Mark, edited by Thomas C. Oden and Christopher A. Hall (Downer’s Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998).

Ecology of Personhood: Ordinary Time (Wk 5, Cycle A) Feb 09 2014

WONDERFULLY HUMAN

1.  Arturo Toscanini, the renown Italian conductor of La Scala and the Met, warmly recalled a very special day in his youth. “I kissed my first girl and smoked my first cigarette on the same day,” he said. “I have not had time for tobacco since.” ^[2]  Other people may advance brutal clinical horrors for eschewing tobacco, but Maestro Toscanini's reason to abandon smoking is the better, wonderfully human and compelling.

2.  Although many of us are unfamiliar with the story of Maestro Toscanini's life, we do appreciate the simplicity and innocence of his youthful recollection. The conductor's words invoke the excitement, romance and the head-over-heels discovery of love and enchantment experience by young men and women everywhere.

PERSONAL AND PERILOUS

3.  Today, such simplicity and innocence are dismissed by many as hopelessly naive. It is no exaggeration to say that using sexuality and sex to project personal identity and power, hostility and insecurity is commonplace. In recent years, we have witnessed the disintegration of the traditional family, the destruction of the unborn the rise of a generation of rootless children. Single-parent  poverty and neglect, disease rates, fertility loss and sexually-related medical claims have sky-rocketed. Layered over all this is a relentless attack on masculinity, manhood and fatherhood by educators and media elites.

4.  It is a given that entertainers and broadcast media routinely collaborate to exploit sex and sexuality for publicity and profit. This chorus of voices far outweighs the relatively few public voices urging modesty and abstinence. Sex and sexuality are exploited by television, cinema, print media, and the world-wide web to an unprecedented degree. Yet, no matter how extensive or commercial all this exploitation may be, the abuse of sexuality is always very personal and perilous.

GREAT WOUND

5.  All personal decisions accrue unforeseen consequences which can never be erased. The debate and controversies over sexuality and sex, however, actually may be symptomatic of a more pervasive problem. It is not one choice, or a few, or even many wrong choices, however, but rather the wrong personal decisions of a multitude of people that threatens the moral order and stability of our nation. 

6.  Many believe that our society suffers from a great affliction, a great wound caused by a mass of persons who obsessively exaggerate their individual autonomy and prowess while simultaneously belittling their obligations to the society which supports them. Most pathetic are people who loudly extol their addiction to sex with unashamedly shallow and servile candor. Coarse, indecent, and lacking essential modesty, they aggressively pursue sexual gratification without procreation, multiple sexual partners, cohabitation, serial marriages and divorces, contraception and abortion, and not least the use of sexuality and sex to dominate other people.

POWERFUL DRUG

7.  Countless people testify to the same truth. When one stops being accountable to others for personal behavior, the more hungry and miserable he becomes, eventually finding himself thrown out and trampled underfoot by even his own lawless cronies. People with destructive behaviors, however, are not content with self-inflicted wounds. They have to hurt others and justify on some level of lawlessness why they do it.

Stop-Still

I want to write very tiny

so that who I am

will not attract nor repel

whatever matters

in the universe.

So tiny still that my words

run together and my thoughts

melt into one long anonymous line

threading its way between worlds

of alienations. . .

An orderly succession of half-lives

until at the appointed time

of the cosmic clock,

the last is reached

and heaven is entwined

in the stark stop-still

of things.

January 1991

For Starters

Here’s what being a follower of Jesus Christ does not mean: It does not mean your following a celebrity gospelizer who proves his prosperity mantra by his own lavish life-style and flashy showmanship. It does not mean crowd psychotherapy or buying celebrity products.

It does not mean that people other than yourself are obliged to live a moral and ethical life. It does not you get to cohabitate, contract multiple marriages, commit fornication or adultery, procure abortion, dump human remains on top of dirt or water, absolve your sins in "your own way", swoon at television glamour, and no-show on the Lord’s Day.

So what does being a faithful follower of Jesus Christ really mean? For starters, it means that a Church's holy pastor first will lead people to Christ so that Christ can lead them to the Father. In all other things, it means taking the hidden place, the last place. It means proving one's love by doing the Lord's own works of mercy.

It means your living all TEN Commandments conjointly, consciously and enthusiastically. It means that you remain celibate until you exchange your marriage vows at the Church's altar for better and for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health until death do you part. It means that you would rather perish than betray Christ by apostasy or your spouse by adultery.

It means that you follow the example of Joseph of Arimethea and Mary Magdalene who helped Mary of Nazareth bury her son the Lord Jesus Christ, tagged a notorious criminal. It means you will reverence the bodies of all persons who have died. For the sake of the deceased entrusted to your custody, you will provide him or her a proper religious funeral service in the Church and burial in consecrated ground.

It means your being humane, that you respect the lives and dignity of all human beings to live graced lives from conception to natural death. It means your being reconciled with God and neighbor at all times and accepting divine mercy as the indispensable condition for your worship in the Church and your Christian life in the world.

Being a faithful follower of Jesus Christ means that your food is doing the will of the Father and accomplishing his work. This means then, that a faithful follower who loves Christ will do these things and more:

Feed the hungry. Give a cup of cold water to the thirsty. Shelter the homeless. Clothe the naked. Visit the sick. Visit the imprisoned. Bury the dead reverently in consecrated ground.

More? Yes, there is more. You will:

Correct the sinner. Instruct those who are ignorant of Christ. Counsel those whose faith is weak. Comfort the sorrowing. Bear wrongs patiently. Forgive all injuries. Pray for the living and the dead.

Go out into the world to do these things. Live a holy way of life. Take up your own cross and follow the Lord Jesus who carried his. Be worthy of him. Be worthy of humanity.

Ven. Pope Pius XII: Dare Not Forget. We Belong to the Church Militant

(The completion of the North American College) lights a stronger flame of hope for the Church in the United States of America and in the world. All this, it seemed to Us, adds up to a grave and sacred responsibility that rests on you, Our dear young seminarians, and on those who are to follow you. 

Will the sacrifices cheerfully offered for your sake be repaid in kind and with interest? Will the hopes and plans cherished by your Bishops, cherished by Us, be fulfilled? Your eager hearts are quick to answer: yes. But reflect a moment. That will be true only under one condition, that you become priests worthy of the name.

In the priesthood man is elevated to an almost staggering height, a mediator between a world in travail and the celestial kingdom of peace. Christ’s ambassador, steward of God’s mysteries, he exercises a divine power. Heir to the priestly and kingly offices of the divine Redeemer, he is commissioned to carry on the task of salvation, bringing souls to God and giving God to souls. Never, then, unmindful of the supreme importance of such a vocation, the priest will not busy himself with useless things.

Modeling his life on that of Him he represents he will gladly spend and be spent on behalf of souls. Souls he seeks everywhere and always, not what the world can offer him. “To be a priest and to be a man dedicated to work is one and the same thing”, wrote Bl. Pius X; and he liked to quote the words of the synod presided over by St. Charles Borromeo:  “Let every cleric repeat again and again: he has been called not to a life of ease and leisure, but to hard work in the spiritual army of the Church.”

Those words, beloved sons, recall another fact one dare not forget. We belong to the Church militant; and she is militant because on earth the powers of darkness are ever restless to encompass her destruction. Not only in the far-off centuries of the early Church, but down through the ages and in this our day, the enemies of God and Christian civilization make bold to attack the Creator’s supreme dominion and sacrosanct human rights.

No rank of the clergy is spared ; and the faithful—their number is legion—inspired by the valiant endurance of their shepherds and fathers in Christ, stand firm, ready to suffer and die, as the martyrs of old, for the one true Faith taught by Jesus Christ. Into that militia you seek to be admitted as leaders.

Imprisonment and martyrdom, We know, do not loom on the horizon that spreads before your eyes. In an atmosphere of untrammeled freedom, where “the word of God is not bound”, the Church in your country has grown in numbers, in influence, in strength of leadership in all that makes for the good of the commonwealth.

The college on the via dell’Umiltà has seen your priests increase from twenty-five hundred to forty-five thousand and more-proud and glorious tribute to the unselfish, clear-visioned Catholic family life that prevails among you; a mission country become a seminary of apostles for foreign fields. 

But the Church militant is “one body, with one Spirit … with the same Lord, the same faith, the same baptism”. (Eph 4, 4 ff.)  And that Spirit calls for more than a dash of heroism in every priest who would be worthy of the name, whatever the external circumstances of time and place.

The spirit of the martyrs breathes in every priestly soul, who in the daily round of pastoral duties and in his cheerful, unrelenting efforts to increase in wisdom and in grace, gives witness to the Prince of shepherds, who endured the cross, despised the shame “when He gave Himself up on our behalf, a sacrifice breathing out fragrance as He offered it to God”.  (Eph 5, 2.)

We raise a fervent prayer to Mary Immaculate, under whose patronage you have placed your country, to Mary gloriously assumed into heaven, whom you have wished to honor in your chapel here, that she would always show a mother’s loving care of the clergy of America, and guide you, beloved seminarians, bearers of such high hopes, along the way that leads to that holiness which will bring her to recognize in you a greater and greater resemblance to her own divine Son . . . .

Venerable Pope Pius XII:  Dare Not Forget. We Belong to the Church Militant. Speech delivered on October 14, 1953 [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 45 (1953) pp 679 ff.] at the opening of the North American College in Rome.