Untitled - Saints' Books

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Nemo
:
CHAP, x.j The Vocation to the Priesthood. 201
whom, as St. Peter Darnian has written, God has not
called; for instead of promoting her welfare, they com
mit havoc among her members; and instead of edifying,
they contaminate and 1
destroy her children.
Whom He (the Lord) shall choose, they shall approach to
Him. God 2
will gladly admit into his presence all whom
he has called to the priesthood, and will cast off the priest
whom he has not chosen. St. Ephrem regards as lost
the man who is so daring as to take the order of priest
hood without a vocation. "I am astonished," he says,
"at that which those fools dare to do, who, without the
grace of vocation through Christ, full of boldness, seek
to insinuate themselves into the office of the priesthood.
Miserable beings, that know not that they are preparing
for themselves an eternal fire." And Peter de Blois
has written: "What ruin does not the bold man prepare
for himself who of the sacrifice makes a sacrilege, and
of life an instrument of death!" He who errs in his
vocation exposes himself to greater danger than if he
transgressed particular precepts; for if he violates a
particular command, he may rise from his fall, and begin
again to walk in the right
path, but he who errs in his
vocation mistakes the way itself. Hence the longer he
travels in it, the more distant he is from his home. To
him we may justly apply the words of St. Augustine:
"You run well, but on the wrong road." 5
It is
necessary to be persuaded
of the truth of what
St. Gregory says, that our eternal salvation depends
1
deterius Ecclesiam laedit." Cont. cler. mil. c. 3.
2
Quos "
elegerit (Dominus), appropinquabunt Num. xvi. ei." 5.
3
Obstupesco ad ea "
quse soliti sunt quidam insipientium audere, qui
temere se conantur ingerere ad munus Sacerdotii assumendum, licet
non adsciti a gratia Christi: ignorantes, miseri, quod ignem et mortem
sibi accumulant." Or. de Sacerd.
4
Quam " perditus est, qui sacrificium in sacrilegium, qui vitam convertit
in mortem." Ep. ad rich. land.
5
Bene "
curris, sed extra viam./