Untitled - Saints' Books

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54 Material for Sermons. [PART i.
The word ecclesiastic, according to St. Jerome, signifies
a person who has taken God for his inheritance. This
made the holy Doctor say: Let the cleric then under
stand the signification of his name, and let him put his
life in harmony with his 1
Let
title." ecclesiastics
understand the signification of their name, and live
according to it; and since God is their portion, let them
live for God alone, says St. Ambrose. 2
The priest is a minister destined by God for two most
noble and exalted offices to honor him by sacrifices
and to sanctify souls: Every high priest taken from among
men is ordained for men in the things that appertain to God?
Hence," says St. Thomas on this passage,
it is for the
things that refer to God that the priest receives his mis
sion, and by no means that he may acquire glory or
amass riches." 4 Every priest is chosen by the Lord,
and placed in the world to labor, not to acquire wealth
nor applause, nor to indulge in amusements, nor to ad
vance his family, but only to promote the interests "of
God s
is glory.
ordained for the things that ap
pertain to God." Hence, in the Scriptures, the priest is
not to the
called a man of God. 5 A man that belongs
world, nor to relatives, nor to himself, but only to God,
and that seeks nothing but God. Hence to priests
should be applied the words of David: This is the gene
ration of them that seek him, them erf
that seek the face of the
God of Jacob? Behold the generation that seek only
1 "
Clericus interpretetur primo vocabulum suum, ct nitatur esse
quod dicitur. Ep. ad Nepotian.
2
Cui Deus "
portio est, nihil debet curare, nisi Deum." DC Esau.
3 "
4 "
c. 2.
Omnis namque Pontifex, ex hominibus assumptus, pro hominibus
constituitur in iis quae sunt ad Deum." Hcbr. v. i.
Non propter gloriam, non propter cumulandas divitias." In
5 "
Hebr. v. led. 1.
Homo Dei." i Tim. vi. n.
6
"
Haec est generatio quaerentium
eum." Ps. xxiii. 6.