Untitled - Saints' Books

CHAP, vii.] The Sacrilegious Mass. 135
Whosoever, adds the saint, shall dare to carry the flame
of lust to the altar, shall certainly be consumed by the
fire of God s vengeance. 1
May the Lord, then, says the
holy Doctor in another place, preserve us from ever
adoring on the altar the idol of impurity, and from
placing the Son of the Virgin in the Temple of Venus,
that is, in an unchaste heart! 2 If the man that came to
the feast without the nuptial garment was cast into
darkness, how much greater vengeance shall fall on him
who approaches the divine table not only not clothed
with a decent garment, but exhaling the stench of his
impurities? says the same St. Peter Damian. 3 Woe, ex
claimed St. Bernard, to him that separates himself from
God; but still
greater woe to the priest who approaches
the altar with a guilty conscience. 4 Speaking one day
to St. Bridget of a priest who had sacrilegiously cele
brated Mass, the Lord said that he entered into the
soul of that priest as a spouse for his sanctification, and
that he was obliged to depart from it as a judge, to in
flict the punishment merited by the sacrilegious recep
tion of his body. 5
If the sacrilegious priest will not abstain from cele
brating the divine mysteries in the state of sin, through
horror of the insult, or rather of so many insults, offered
to God by sacrilegious Masses, he ought
at least to
" 1
Quisquis carnalis concupiscentiae flamma aestuat, et sacris assistere
mysteriis non formidat, ille, procul dubio, divinse ultionis igne
consumitur." Opusc. 27, c. 3.
- "
Absit ut aliquis huic idolo substernatur, ut Filium Virginis in
Veneris templo suscipiat." Serin. 60.
3
"Quid illi sperandum, qui, coelestibus tricliniis intromissus, non
modo non est spiritualis indumenti decore conspicuus, sed ultro etiam
fsetet sordentis luxurise squalore perfusus." Opusc. 18. d. i, c. 4.
Vse ei qui se alienum fecerit ab eo: et multum vse ei qui immundus
"
4
accesserit." De Old. vita. c.
2.
5 "
Ingredior ad Sacerdotem istum ut sponsus; egredior ut Judex,
judicaturus contemptus a sumente." Rev. 1. 4, c. 62.