Untitled - Saints' Books

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94 Material for Sermons. [PART i.
3. POSITIVE GOODNESS OF CHARACTER.
The third mark of an ecclesiastical vocation is positive
virtue.
Hence, in the first place, the person who is to be
ordained should be a man of innocent life, and should
not be contaminated by sins. The Apostle requires that
they who are to be ordained priests should be free from
every crime. In ancient times a person who had com
mitted a single mortal sin could never be ordained, as
we learn from the First Council of Nice.
St.
Jerome says that it was not enough for a person
free from sin at the time of his ordination, but that it
to be
was, moreover, necessary that he should not have fallen
into mortal sin since the time of his baptism. 2
It is true
that this rigorous discipline has ceased in the Church,
but it has been always at least required that he who had
fallen into grievous sins should purify his conscience
for a considerable time before his ordination. This we
may infer from a letter to the Archbishop of Rheims, in
which Alexander III. commanded that a deacon who had
wounded another deacon, if he sincerely repented of his
sin, might, after being absolved, and after performing
the penance enjoined, be permitted again to exercise his
Order; and that if he afterwards led a perfect life, he
might be promoted to priesthood. 3
He, then, who finds
himself bound by a habit of any vice cannot take any
holy Order without incurring the guilt of mortal sin.
I am horrified," says St. Bernard, 4 when " I think
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"Qui
confess! sunt peccata, canon (ecclesiasticus ordo) non
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admittit. Can. 9.
Ex eo tempore quo in Christo renatus est, nulla peccati conscientia
remordeatur." /;/ Tit. I.
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Et si perfectae vitae et conversations fuerit, eum in presbyterum
(poteris) ordinare." Cap. I, De diacono. Qui cler.
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Horreo considerans unde, quo vocaris, praesertim cum nullum
intercurrerit pcenitentise tempus. Et quidem rectus ordo requirit ut
prius propriam, deinde alienas curare studeas conscientias." Epist. 8.