Untitled - Saints' Books

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INSTR. ii.] Good Example of the Priest. 241
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excite horror. The saint adds: "You have dedicated
your mouth to the Gospel; but to open
it for such
things is not allowed: to accustomed one s self to doing
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so would be a sacrilege." St. Jerome writes: "All that
does not edify the hearers is
dangerous to those that
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say Some it." things that are trifling in seculars are
criminal in a priest; for every bad example by which he
leads others into sin is in him a grievous transgression.
is for the people only a venial sin," says Peter
de Blois, is criminal in the priest, because every fault
of the shepherd becomes mortal by the scandal that
accompanies it." *
St. Gregory Nazianzen writes: "Spots
on a garment
are more visible, the more beautiful the garment."
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In a
splendid garment stains are most conspicuous, and pro
duce great deformity.
It is also necessary for the priest to abstain from every
species of detraction. St. Jerome says that some re
nounce other vices, but they appear to think it
impos
sible to give up the sin of detraction. 6 It is also neces
sary to avoid familiar intercourse with seculars. The
conversations of seculars breathe an infectious air,
which, as St. Basil says, gradually destroys the health
of the soul. 7 Finally, the priest must abstain from cer
tain secular amusements, at which the presence
of an
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Inter saeculares, nugse sunt; in ore Sacerdotis, blasphemise."
Consecrasti os tuum Evangelic; talibus aperire, illicitum; assuescere,
sacrilegum." De Cons. 1. 2, c. 13.
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Omne " quod non aedificat, in periculum vertitur loquentium."
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Quod veniale est
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plebi, criminale est Sacerdoti. Quod erroneum
est ovi, peremptorium est pastori."
Ad Past, in syn. s. 3.
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6
Splendidae vestis manifestiores sunt maculae." Orat. 31.
Qui ab aliis vitiis recesserunt, in istud tamen, quasi in extremum
diaboli laqueum, incidunt." Ep. ad Celant.
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Sicut in pestilentibus locis sensim attractus aer morbum injicit,
sic in prava conversatione mala hauriuntur, etiamsi statim incommo
dum non sentiatur. Horn. Quod D, non sit auct. maL
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