Untitled - Saints' Books

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1 30 Material for Sermons. [PART i.
which makes me willing to place myself in the hands of
my enemy for your welfare, and for the welfare of every
Christian !" The devils then tremble before Jesus in
the holy sacrament; but the sacrilegious priest not only
does not tremble, but, as St. John Chrysostom says, he
audaciously tramples on the Son of God in his own per
son. 2 In the sacrilegious priest are verified the words
of the Apostle: How much more do you think he deserveth
worse punishments who hath trodden under foot the Son of
God, and hath esteemed the blood of the testament unclean by
which he was sanctified ?* Then, in the presence of that
God at whose beck the pillars of heaven tremble, and the
whole earth and all things in it are moved? a worm of the
earth dares to trample on the blood of the Son of God !
But, alas what ! greater calamity can befall a priest
than to change redemption into perdition; sacrifice into
sacrilege, and life into death ? Great, indeed, was the
impiety of the Jews who drew blood from the side of
Jesus Christ; but far greater is the impiety of the priest
who receives from the chalice the same blood and in
sults it. Such is the thought of Peter de Blois; he adds,
while borrowing the words of St. Jerome:
Shame on
the perfidious Jew; shame on the perfidious Christian :
the Jew caused the blood to flow from the side of Christ;
the Christian, the priest, causes the same blood to flow
from the chalice in order to 5
profane Of such it." priests
our Lord complained one day to St. Bridget, saying,
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Life, ch. 38.
Quando qui particeps est cum ipso in mysteriis, peccatum committit,
non eum concnlcat." /;/ Hcb. hom.-2O.
Quanto majus putatis deteriora mereri supplicia, qui Filium Dei
conculcaverit, et sanguinem testament! pollutum duxerit, in quo sanctificatus
est?" Heb. x.2O.
Columnse coeli contremiscunt." Job, xxvi. n.
Quam perditus ergo est, qui redemptionem in perditionem, qui
sacrificium in sacrilegium, qui vitam convertit in mortem ! Verbum
beati Hieronymi est: Perfidus Jndseus, perfidus Christianus, ille de
latere, isle de calice, sanguinem Christi Cuditl
Egist. 123.