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CHAP vii.] The Sacrilegious Mass. 127
sacrilegious priests, the Lord declares that he will scatter
of their sacrifices over their faces: I will scatter
the dung
upon your face the dung of your solemnities^ It is true, as
the Council of Trent teaches, that the holy sacrifice
2
How
cannot be contaminated by the malice of priests.
ever, priests who celebrate in the state of sin defile, as
far as in them lies, the sacred mystery; and therefore the
Lord declares that he is, as it were, polluted by their
abominations. Her priests have defiled My sanctuaries,
. . . and I was profaned in the midst of them?
Alas! O Lord, exclaims St. Bernard, how does it
happen that some of those that hold a high place in your
Church are the first to persecute you! 4 This is, indeed,
too true, as St. Cyprian says, that a priest who cele
brates Mass in the state of sin insults with his mouth
and hands the very body of Christ. 5 Another author,
Peter Comeston, adds, that the priest who pronounces
the words of consecration in the state of sin spits, as it
were, in the face of Jesus Christ; and when he receives
the most holy sacrament into his unhallowed mouth he,
as it were, casts the body and blood of Jesus Christ into
the mire/ But why do I say that he casts Jesus Christ
into the mire ? The soul of a priest in sin is worse than
mire; and, as Theophilactus says, the mire is not so un-
1 "
Dispergam super vultum vestrum stercus
solemnitatum vestrarum."
Mai. ii. 3.
2
"
Hsec quidem ilia munda oblatio est, quffi
nulla malitia offerentium
inquinari potest." Sess. 22, cap. i.
3 "
4 "
Coinquinabar in medio eorum." Ezech. xxii. 26.
Heu, Domine, Deus, quia ipsi sunt in persecutione tua primi,
qui videntur in Ecclesia tua gerere principatum." /;/ Conv. S. FziJi
s. i.
5
"
Vis infertur corpori Domini; in Dominum manibus atque ore
delinquunt." Serin, de. Lapsis.
Qui sacra illius verba Sacramenti ore immundo profert, in
6
faciem Salvatoris spuit; et cum in os immundum sanctissimum carnem
ponit, eum quasi in lutum projicitV Serm. 38.