Part I, Chapter IV: The Spiritual Life of the Priest (1): I. Morning Exercise (1)

The Spiritual Life of the Priest (1)

I. Morning Exercise

ON AWAKENING in the morning, pronounce fervently the holy names of Jesus and Mary. Make the sign of the cross with great devotion, saying the words with the intention of adoring the Most Blessed Trinity and of consecrating yourself to the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

Renew the profession of faith made at baptism, saying with all your heart the words, Abrenuntio tibi, Satana, including therein sin, the world and the devil; and then add, Adhaereo tibi, Christe.

If you wish to make a longer renewal of your baptismal profession of faith, you may say the following prayer:

"0 Jesus, for love of Thee I renounce sin, the evil spirit, the world, myself, all my inclinations and whatever is of the old man. I give myself entirely to Thee and consecrate to Thee my heart in honor of Thy Most Sacred Heart; my body With all its members in honor of Thy Sacred Body; my soul with all its faculties; my whole life in honor of Thy life; all my thoughts, actions, works and sufferings in honor of and in thanksgiving for all Thy thoughts, words, actions, works and sufferings.

"0 Jesus, take complete possession of me so that I may be entirely consecrated to Thee and may be sacrificed with Thee for the honor and glory of the Eternal Father.

"0 Mother of Jesus, to thee I give myself; give me in turn to thy Divine Son. (1) In this translation we have separated into two chapters the part dealing with the dispositions to exercise the priestly functions in a holy manner.

"Angels of God, saints of God, I give myself to you. Give me, I beseech you, to God for ever." On arising, recall the infinite love with which Our Lord came forth from the bosom of His Heavenly Father to enter into this valley of tears and darkness. At the moment of His Incarnation He left behind the infinite glory and happiness of heaven to embrace the cross and its humiliating sufferings. In union with that great love of Jesus, arise saying: I will rise. . . . and seek Him whom my soul loveth" (Cant. 3, 2). As you say the words, "whom my soul loveth," have the desire to pronounce them as far as possible with all the love that is offered to Jesus Christ both in heaven and on earth.

While you are dressing, recite vocal prayers, such as the hymn, Veni Creator, or one of the psalms or recall some passages of Sacred Scripture. Fill your mind with holy thoughts, for example, the consideration of the fact that God has subjected you to the necessity of being decently clothed to protect your body; recall also that there are many who are more worthy than you in His sight and who dwell in poverty. Then raise your soul to God and say:

"0 my Saviour, I acknowledge that I have deserved because of my sins the frightful punishment of being hurled unclothed into hell fire. I bless Thee with all my heart for having given me these garments. I give myself to Thee in this action of dressing which I now perform, with all the sentiments that animated Thee when Thou didst clothe Thyself with our humanity. 0 Dear Jesus, rid me of the old man, clothe me with the new, make me live the words of St. Paul: 'Put ye on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, the bowels of mercy, benignity, humility, modesty, patience, and charity` (C0L. 3, 12).

When you are fully dressed, kneel and adore the Blessed Trinity.. Offer thanks for having been preserved during the hours of sleep; consecrate the day to God's glory, saying three times: "Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost." Adore Jesus Christ, as the God-Man, thanking Him and consecrating yourself to His glory, saying at the same time, "We adore Thee, 0 Christ, and we bless Thee, because by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world. Thou didst suffer for us; 0 Lord Jesus, have mercy on us.-

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Invoke the assistance of the Blessed Virgin in the recitation of the Hail Mary.

Salute your guardian angel with this prayer: "0 my holy Guardian Angel, I honor thee by every means at my disposal; I thank thee for all the favors which have come to me through thy special intercession; I offer myself to thee that thou mayst offer me to God and beseech Him to keep me from sin and grant me the grace of always doing His holy will!' Salute all the other angels and.saints of heaven in this way: "All hail, ye angels and saints of the heavenly courts. Deign to intercede for our salvation and for the salvation of all mankind."

2. Meditation

Before offering up the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, devote at least half an hour to meditation o r mental prayer, a habit as vitally necessary to the soul of every Christian and of every priest as bread is to the body.

Acts Before Meditation

Prepare yourself for this holy exercise by the following acts:

Contemplate with the eyes of faith the infinite majesty and the immensity of God, Who i s omnipresent and fills all creation, and Who is more in you than you are in yourself, according to the words of St. Augustine, Intimo meo intimior. Adore Him with profound humility. Realize how unworthy you are even to appear before Him, even to think of Him or have Him think of you or to suffer you in His presence.

Assure your Divine Creator that you are desirous of performing this act solely for His glory. Renounce yourself, your mind and your own self-esteem, giving yourself completely to Christ Our Lord. Enter into the holy. dispositions which animated His continual prayer before His Heavenly Father. Unite yourself to those prayers constantly offered to God, not only by the saints in heaven, but likewise by all holy souls here below. Unite your prayers to those of the Blessed Virgin, the angels and the saints to whom you have special devotion. Beseech them to make you share in their fervor.

Give your mind and heart to the Master. Beg Him to take full possession, and guide them in prayer according to His holy will, in thought and affection pleasing to Him.

Acts After Meditation

You should conclude this exercise by thanking God for all the graces He has bestowed upon you, asking pardon for any carelessness you have manifested, imploring our Saviour to supply any defects and to offer in your place a continual prayer before His Heavenly Father.

Then make a summary of the principal thoughts and inspirations given you by God so that you may think of them during the day. In order to refresh your memory, select a text of Scripture or some aspiration to recall the subject of your meditation. Repeat this ejaculatory prayer frequently during the day.

Beware of relying only on your own thoughts and resolutions. Rely wholly upon the infinite mercy of God, placing in His hands what He has bestowed upon you in prayer, that He may grant you the grace of putting your resolutions into practice.

Beg the Blessed Virgin Mary, your guardian angel, your patron saint and all the angels and saints i n heaven to continue your prayer before the Almighty.

Foresee those faults into which you usually fall and the occasions of sin which are the most dangerous for you. Be vigilant in the observance of the virtues you are especially required to practise, asking God for the grace to avoid pitfalls and to have the strength to be loyal to duty. Keep constantly before your mind the obligations of your state in life, what good you can accomplish this day, what evil you must avoid, what benefits you can reap for the honor and glory of God and the salvation of souls.

3..the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

Preparation

Before celebrating Holy Mass. spend some time in recollection, considering the infinite importance of what you are about to do. The Mass

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is certainly the loftiest, the holiest and the most divine act ever accomplished in heaven and on earth. You should then endeavor to arouse within yourself lively sentiments of devotion and preparation that you may perform this noble action in the most worthy manner possible.

Humble yourself before God, recognizing your own incompetence and unworthiness, except through His mercy and favor.

Thank Him for the infinite goodness He displays towards you in permitting you to offer the Holy Sacrifice.

Protest to Him that you seek only His glory. Purify your soul by true contrition of sin, or even, i f necessary, by the reception of the Sacrament of Penance.

Surrender yourself completely to the Eternal Father, to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. Pray that they may destroy within you whatever is displeasing to them and may adorn your soul with graces and virtues necessary for the offering of Holy Mass. Give yourself entirely to Jesus that you may enter with Him into His holy dispositions and intentions as He sacrificed Himself on Calvary and again sacrifices Himself daily on the altar. Offer yourself to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to all the holy priests and all the angels and saints in heaven that they may plead with God on your behalf, and make you share in their holy dispositions as they offer Jesus in perpetual sacrifice to His Eternal Father in heaven.

Offer Holy Mass for the following five reasons: 1. In honor of all that God is in His divine essence, i n His divine perfections, in the Three Eternal Persons, in His Sacred Humanity and in all the mysteries; i n His Blessed Mother, in the Church Triumphant, Militant and Suffering, in the visible and invisible world.

2. In thanksgiving for all the favors heaped upon His Son, Jesus Christ, upon His holy Mother, upon His Mystical Body, which is the Church, upon all creatures, even upon the demons in hell. 3. In satisfaction and reparation for any dishonor rendered Almighty God by the sins committed by sinners of the whole world, and particularly by yourself or your friends. 4. To obtain from God all the spiritual and temporal graces necessary to all creatures, especially to the Church, to its pastors and priests, to yourself and to all those for whom you are obliged to pray.

5. For the fulfilment of all the providential designs of God for you, for the Church and for the whole world

Thanksgiving After Mass

After Mass prostrate yourself body and soul before our Lord truly present within you, adoring, thanking, loving and revering Him, and asking His pardon for all your ingratitude and offenses.

Consider that while He is within you, He performs the same function that He exercises in heaven, namely, He adores, praises, thanks and loves His Eternal Father, and sacrifices Himself to His greater honor and glory. Surrender yourself to Christ that you may be united with Him in His adoration, His love, His praise and His sacrifice, that therein you may glorify the ever Blessed Trinity, immolating yourself with Jesus, your Head and Master.

Even as Jesus Christ gives Himself all in all, with infinite love, so in union with the same love give yourself entirely to Him, imploring Him to possess you completely and thus destroy in you anything that i s displeasing to Him. Ask Him to establish the reign of His glory and of His love in your heart and in your life.

4. the Divine Office

Preparation

Look upon this function as one of the greatest and most important in the life of a priest. Think of i t as an action truly saintly, wholly angelic, completely divine. Through it you become one with the angels, with the saints, with the Blessed Virgin, with Christ our Lord, and with the Three Divine Persons of the ever Blessed Trinity, united in continual glorification and praise of one another. Consequently, let your resolution be to perform this duty well, with all respect and external modesty, and with the most perfect interior devotion.

Humiliate yourself before God, realizing that you are unworthy to undertake so holy a function and unable of yourself alone to discharge it becomingly. Try to make an act of contrition that your soul may he purified from every stain of sin. Offer to God your tribute of praise

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and Prayer, mindful of the words of Sacred Scripture: "Praise is not Seemly in the mouth of a sinner" (Ecclus. 15, 9).

Unite yourself to our Lord, reciting in unison with His praises your own poor efforts, joining in all that He offers or will ever offer to His Father in heaven and on earth. Thus, you will become associated with all those saintly souls on earth as well as those of the Church Triumphant and the Church Suffering. Endeavor to unite your soul with the holy dispositions of love, humility and devotion with which they offer their prayers to God. - Beg the Blessed Virgin Mary, the angels and saints to perform this holy action with you and to make you share in the devotion with which they pray perpetually in heaven.

Acts After the Divine Office

At the end of the divine office thank God for all the graces He has imparted to you through the recitation of the breviary. Ask His pardon for any faults you may have committed during its reading. Beg Him to atone for your transgressions in this particular matter, reciting the following prayer:

0 clementissime Jesu, gratias ago tibi ex toto corde meo. Propitius esto mihi vilissimo peccatori. Ego hanc actionem offero divino Cordi tuo emendandam atque perficiendam, ad laudem et gloriam Sanctissimi Nominis tui et beatissimae Matris tuae, ad salutem animae meae totiusque. Ecclesiae tuae. Amen..

5. Reading of Sacred Scripture

Following the completion of the exercises suggested above, kneel and read with great devotion and attention a chapter of the New Testament with the following dispositions:

Adore Our Lord in this manner: "0 Jesus, I adore Thee as the Eternal Word of the Father and as the Source of all holy words contained in this book. I adore Thee in all Thy providential designs for Thy Church and for myself in particular in pronouncing these blessed words and in inspiring Thy sacred writers." Thank Our Lord for having given you so precious a treasure, so,

holy a relic of Himself as His Divine Word, and for all the graces and light communicated to the Church through the instrumentality of Sacred Scripture.

Make a fervent act of humility, realizing how unworthy you are to read or even to touch the holy books, asking God's pardon for any negligence you may have shown or any improper use you may have made of them in the past. You should revere Sacred Scripture as the very heart of God containing all the secrets and the principles of the life of His children, according to St. Augustine's interpretation of Psalm 21, 1 5 : Factum est cor meum tanquam cera liquescens in medio ventris mei.(2)

Recall the incident in the Gospel of St. Luke (4, 16) when Our Lord in the synagogue at Nazareth took up the book of the Scriptures and, opening it publicly, read therefrom. Sunrexit legere. In memory of this episode of Our Saviour's life, give yourself to Him to share the admirable dispositions and intentions with which He read the Holy Book. Unite yourself also with all the great saints of the Church who read with such devotion the works of Scripture and sanctified themselves greatly by their inspired reading.

Give yourself completely to the. Divine Spirit who dictated the Sacred Writings. Pray that He may engrave them On your heart, and make your soul and body living gospels and books in which is inscribed the exterior and interior life of Jesus Himself.

After your reading of Sacred Scripture, thank God for the light given us through His inspired Word. Give yourself anew to Him and be~ seech Him to imprint upon your heart the truths you have just read so that you may express them in your life. Memorize a few passages for meditation during the day.

6. Spiritual Reading

Spend some time daily in pious reading that you may be instructed in spiritual things according to the words of St. Paul: Attende lectioni (i Tim. 4, 13). The Following of Christ and the lives of the saints, especially the lives of holy bishops and priests, are recommended.

At the beginning of the reading period, elevate your mind to God, (2). Enarr. 11 Ps. 21.

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assuring Him that you undertake this exercise solely for His glory and begging Him to grant you the light and grace necessary to do it well.

While reading, let your mind be lifted constantly on high. Make various acts of faith, hope, charity, confidence, humility and hatred of sin.

In reading the life of a saint, bless God for the glory which accrued to His divine majesty through the life and works of the particular saint in question. Rejoice with the saint for the many favors which he received from Almighty God and the happiness he now possesses in heaven. Be humbled in realizing how remote you are from the holiness the saint practised. Cultivate a great desire to imitate his virtues, ,Praying for his intercession on your behalf that you may obtain that grace.

At the end of the spiritual reading, thank God for the light which He just gave you, as you perused this work of devotion. Then, pray that the fruits which have come to you may be used to His greater honor and glory.

7. Study

Adore God as the beginning and end of all science and learning, seeking nothing more than His glory, for Sacred Scripture says: "The 'Lord is a God of all knowledge and to Him are thoughts prepare& (1 Kings, 2, 3).

Avoid idle curiosity, and study only the subjects that are necessary for your state in life. Banish vanity, protesting to God that you wish to study and to learn not for any vain glory, not for worldly honor or praise, but simply that you may be enabled better to edify your neighbor and to glorify God by teaching men to save their souls. "Glorify ye the Lord in instruction" (Is. 24, 15). St. Bernard speaking on this subject says: Alii sciunt ut sciant, et est curiositas: alii sciunt ul sciantur, et est vanitas: alii sciunt u t aedificent, et est charitas. ( 3 )

Humiliate yourself, recalling that of yourself you are nothing, as St Paul says, «Not that we are sufficient to think any thing of ourselves, as of ourselves: but our sufficiency is from God». (2 Cor. 3, 5). (3).Sermo. 36 sap. Cant.

Remember that you are unworthy that God should give you any further enlightenment because you have already abused what knowledge He has imparted to you, and you have turned your back upon Him through sin to follow the prince of hell; therefore, you certainly have merited to know only eternal darkness.

Adore Christ as the Eternal Wisdom given to us by Almighty God to be our teacher and guide, our light and director. I am the light of the world" (John 8, 12).

Give yourself to Jesus Christ to be taught by Him according to these words, "And they shall all be taught of God" (John 6, 45), or again "Blessed is the man whom thou shalt instruct, 0 Lord: and shalt teach him out of thy law" (PS. 93,12). Beg Him to grant you His divine light that you may be guided and directed in your studies; that you may be participators in that divine Spirit with which He made use of the knowledge given Him by His Eternal Father. Finally, throw yourself completely at His feet and beseech Him to be your director and sanctifier in your study, and ask Him for holy dispositions which prompted the words of St. Paul, "For I judged not myself to know any thing among you, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (1 Cor.2,2).

Pray to God unceasingly for deliverance from the three harmful effects often produced by learning.

The first is vanity, pride and arrogance. "Knowledge puffeth up," says Sacred Scripture (i Cor. 8 , 1). Consequently, you should constantly beg of God great humility and modesty of spirit that you may always remember that it is charity, not knowledge, which renders you acceptable to your Maker. Knowledge without piety leads to hell. The serpent used knowledge to tempt man to his downfall: E ritis scientes ~Gen. 3, 5). Thirst for learning was to a great extent the cause of original sin and of all the other crimes that resulted from it. The necessity of study should make you remember that you are rebellious subjects of the Omniscient Creator. If our first parents had not sinned, you would have been endowed with all necessary knowledge without work and study. Consequently, the very fact that you must study to learn should remind you that the human race is still doing penance for the sin of Adam and Eve, who were condemned to earn their bread in the