Untitled - Saints' Books

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iio Material for Sermons. [PARTI.
said: Since they should be the temples of the sanctu
aries of the Holy Ghost, they are disgraced if they be
come addicted to impurity."
How horrible to see a
priest that should send forth in every direction the light
and odor of purity, become sordid, fetid, and polluted
with sins of the flesh ? The sow that was washed to her
wallowing
in the mire? Hence Clement of Alexandria
has written that an unchaste priest, as far as in him lies,
contaminates God himself, who dwells within him. 3
Of
this God himself complains by the mouth of his prophet:
Her priests have despised My law, and have despised My sanc
tuaries, . . . and I was profaned in the midst of them * Alas!
says the Lord, by the incontinence of my priest, I, too,
am defiled: by violating chastity he pollutes my sanc
tuary, that is, his body which I have consecrated, and in
which I often come to dwell. It was this St. Jerome
meant when he said: "We defile the body of Christ
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whenever we approach the altar unworthily.-"
Besides, the priest on the altar offers to God in sacri
fice the immaculate Lamb; that is,
Son of God.
the very
On this account, says St. Jerome, the priest should be
so chaste as not only to abstain from every impure
action, but also to avoid every indecent glance.
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St.
John^ Chrysostom likewise has written that a priest
should have purity which would make him fit to stand
1
"Cum ipsi templum et sacrarium Spiritus Sanctl debeant esse, in-
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dignum est eos immunditiis deservire." Cap. Decernimus. dist. 28.
Sus lota in volutabro luti !" Pet. ii. 22.
Deum in ipsis habitantem corrumpunt, quantum in se est, et vitiorum
suorum conjunctione poluunt." -Ptrdctg. 1. 2, c. 10.
4
Sacerdotes "
ejus contempserunt legem meam, et polluerunt sanc-
et coinquinabor in medio eorum." Ezech. xxii. 26.
tuaria mea; . . .
5 "
Polluimus corpus Christi, quando indigni accedimus ad altare."
In Mai. i. 7.
6 "
Pudicitia sacerdotalis,
non solum ab opere immundo, sed etiam
a jactu oculi sit libera." In Tit. i. 8, 9.