Untitled - Saints' Books

"
Ps.
CHAP, vii.] The Sacrilegious Mass. 131
They crucify my body more cruelly than the
did." A learned author says that the priest who
Jews
cele
brates in the state of sin is guilty, as it were, of mur
dering before the eyes of the eternal Father his own
Son. 2
Oh ! what an impious treason. Behold how Jesus
Christ complains, by the mouth of David, of the sacri
legious priest: For if My enemy had reviled Me 2 would
verily have borne with . . .
it,
but thou, a man of one mind,
and My familiar, who didst take sweetmeats together with
Me? Behold an exact description of a priest who offers
Mass in the state of sin. If my enemy, said the Lord,
had insulted me, I would have borne the offence with
less pain; but you whom I have made my familiar, my
minister, a prince among my people, to whom I
often given my flesh for food you
have so
have sold me to the
devil for the indulgence of passion, for a beastly gratifi
cation, for a little earth. Of this sacrilegious treason
the Lord complained to St. Bridget: "Such priests," he
said, "are not my priests, but real traitors; for, like
Judas, they sell and 4
betray me." St. Bernardine of
Sienna teaches that such priests are even worse than
Judas; because Judas betrayed the Saviour to the Jews,
but they deliver him up to devils by receiving him into
their sacrilegious breasts, which are ruled by devils. 5
1 "
Corpus meum amarius crucifigunt, quam Judaei."
Rev. 1. 4,
c. 133-
Ne, si peccatis obnoxii offerunt, eorum oblatio sit quasi qui
victimat Filium in conspectu
Patris." Durant. De Rit. Eccl. 1. 2. c.
42, 4-
3 "
Quoniam, si inimicus meus maledixisset mihi, sustinuissem
utique; tu vero, homo . . . unanimis, dux meus et notus meus, qui
simul mecum dulces capiebas cibos !"
liv. 13.
4 "Tales Sacerdotes non sunt mei Sacerdotes, sed veri proditores
ipsi enim et me vendunt quasi Judas."
Rev. 1. I, c. 47.
5 "
Juda traditore deteriores effecti, eo quod, sicut ille tradidit Jesum
Judseis, sic isti tradunt diabolis, eo quod ilium ponunt in loco sub
potestate d.iaboji conjstitu.to." T. II. s. 55, a. I, c. 3.