Dominey

“ And scarcely does the priest begin the words of consecration, than there Christ already hovers, surrounded by the heavenly host, come down from heaven to earth, and to the altar of sacrifice, and changes, upon the words of the priest, the bread and wine into his holy flesh and blood, and permits himself then to be taken up and to lie in the hands of the priest, even though the priest is the most sinful and the most unworthy. ”

“ Priests are also fellow-builders with God in edifying the Church, and rearing the temple of the Holy Ghost upon the one only foundation which Christ, the Master-builder, has laid. They are fathers of all who are born again by water and the Holy Ghost: but in a special sense, and with a more intimate and an eternal relation, they are fathers of those whom they have baptised. ”

“ In a long discourse a priest explains the scene to the congregation, and at the close of his sermon, turning to the santos varones, he says—'Ye holy men, mount the ladders of the cross, and bring down the body of the dead Saviour!' Two of the priests ascend with hammers, and the preacher continues—'Thou, holy man on the right side of the Saviour, strike the first blow upon the nail in the hand, and take it out!' The hammer falls, and the sound of the blow is the signal for the cry of Misericordia! ”

“ By the fountain, bishop, you saw a woman seated, that hid her face. But, as you draw near, the woman raises her wasted features. Would Domrémy know them again for the features of her child? Ah, but you know them, bishop, well! Oh, mercy! what a groan was that which the servants, waiting outside the bishop's dream at his bedside, heard from his labouring heart, as at this moment he turned away from the fountain and the woman, seeking rest in the forests afar off. Yet not so to escape the woman, whom once again he must behold before he dies. ”

“ Who but a priest hath power to break the Bread, and bless the Cup, and make a solemn memorial before God of His Son’s sufferings, and then deliver His sacramental Body and Blood to the faithful communicants, as tokens of His meritorious sufferings, and pledges of their salvation? A man authorized thus to act ‘for men in things pertaining to God,’ and for God in things pertaining to men, must needs be a priest; and such holy ministrations must needs be sacerdotal, whether the holy table be an altar, or the Sacrament a sacrifice or not. ”

“ To trumpet of a day new-born.
The lark, awaking, soaring sings
Into the bosom of the morn.
The priest before the altar stands,
He hears the spirit call for peace;
He beats his breast with shaking hands. ”

“ These ambitions of yours, Michael, which I have observed on several occasions, are dangerous to your better qualities. A clergyman of our Church is a man, and—being a priest—something more than a man; therefore it behoves him to be humble and religious and intent upon his immediate work for the glory of God. ”

“ Another Priest walks round and round the basin crooning mantras. The real worshipper is a poor woman in an advanced stage of leprosy, the flickering light from the little shells of cocoanut falls upon the masses of white and yellow flowers, upon the fruits and incense, upon the costly offerings, upon the poor mis-shapen face. It is still, so still, so full of mystery, her face, the flowers, the Priest, leaping into life like a pulse-beat, with the flare of the cotton wick.... ”

“ A young priest sustains him; St. Paula, kneeling, kisses one of his thin bony hands; the saint fixes his eager eyes on the countenance of the priest, who is about to administer the sacrament,—a noble dignified figure in a rich ecclesiastical dress; a deacon holds the cup, and an attendant priest the book and taper; the lion droops his head with an expression of grief; the eyes and attention of all are on the dying saint, while four angels, hovering above, look down upon the scene. ”

“ Dominic had left the earth and soared away to Heaven, and his numerous miracles had decided the Church to inscribe his name in the catalog of her Saints, the Brothers and Sisters of the Militia of Jesus Christ wished to honor their glorious founder, by taking the title of Brothers of Penance of St, Dominic; besides, the merits of St. Dominic and the apostolical labors of his Order had almost banished heresy; exterior combats were no longer necessary, but it remained yet to overcome by penance, the interior enemy of the soul, and hence the new appellation was more becoming than the old one. ”

“ With the first faint light of dawn the prayers cease, the supplicants arise, and the Bishop puts on his vestments, one by one [57] and with a special prayer for each, because he thus figures the Son of God putting on the garment of our humanity. And because Christ, as man, prayed to His Father and ours, the Bishop comes forth from the tent and prostrates himself before the steps of the Church in fervent prayer, with all his clergy kneeling around him.
Now the natural soul is cold and blind, and closed to Grace; so the Church stands, unlighted and with fast closed doors. ”

“ I was one of twenty-five, the other night, who can bear witness, that having turned out, in a pelting rain, to evening service, the clergyman preached to us with as much eloquence, good sense and zeal as if his audience numbered twenty-five hundred. You may ask why shouldn't he? If he believes one soul is more value than all the world, why shouldn't he? Merely because there is as much human nature in a clergyman as in anybody else. ”

“ Know all christian men and women, that this cruel Dominick, this implacable enemy of ours, has never said one word concerning the virtues of the rosary 424that is not most true; and know ye further, that if you do not believe him, great calamities will befall you.
Dom.—Who was the man in the world the devil hated the most?
Dev. (All of them.) Thou art the very man, who, by thy prayers, and by thy severe ways of penance, and by thy sermons, hast shown the way to Paradise to every one, and hast snatched our prey. ”

“ These Dominicans, honest fellows! are more hungry than the gods of the old régime of whom it is said,—
“The Gods require the thighs
Of beeves for sacrifice;
Which roasted, we the steam
Must sacrifice to them,
Who, though they do not eat,
Yet love the smell of meat.”
But our poor friend the monk has witnesses in his favour, as well as opposed to him. Some men call him a living mummy swathed in faith. Another says he is “a moral gladiator who wrestles with his passions, and either stifles them or is devoured by them.” ”

“ Lifted, by his consecration, wholly above humanity, almost deified by the sacerdotal office, the priest, while earth laments or is silent, can advance to the brink of the abyss, and intercede for the being whom the Church has baptized as an infant, who has no doubt forgotten her since that day, and may even have persecuted her up to the hour of his death. ”

“ Six pious youths, three to recite the mass and three for acolytes, marched out of the sacristy and prostrated themselves before the altar, while the officiating priest, the Very Reverend Fray Hernando Sibyla, chanted the Surge Domine—the signal for commencing the procession around the church—with the magnificent voice and religious unction that all recognize and that make him so worthy of general admiration. ”

“ And from the gathered thousands surged the hymn,
Some strong power choked my voice, my eyes grew dim,
I knew that old man eloquent, a priest.
There is a consecration not of man,
Nor given by laid-on hands nor acted rite,
A priesthood fixed since the firm earth began,
A dedication to the eye of Light,
And this is of them. ”

“ Dominic says, with true mediæval instinct, that it was no wonder that Dominic should have tried to imitate, in the many bowings and prostrations of the white-robed monks, the pageantry of angelic adoration which he had so often seen in visions—the folding of the many myriad wings, and the casting down of golden crowns before the throne of the Lamb. [176] And yet, while we are thinking of this beautiful interpretation, there comes another thought—that of churches as bare as the monastery itself, and of a ritual so simple that it would satisfy the veriest Covenanter. ”

“ Jesus answered: neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.’”
The voice of the priest gathers strength and fills the barren room with its reverberations. And its sonorous sounds pierce the soft purring and hissing and whistling and the lingering cracked tolling of the choking church bell. The idiot is filled with glee over the flaming voice and the brilliant eyes and the noise and the whistling and the booming. ”

“ Then turning to the people with “Dominus Vobiscum” he reads the post-communion (one or more) ; turning once more to the congregation he uses the old dismissal formula “Dominus vobiscum” (R. “Et cum spiritu tuo”) , and “Ite, missa est” or “Benedicamus Domino,” in those masses from which Gloria in excelsis has been omitted (R. “Deo Gratias”) . Bowing down before the altar he offers the prayer “Placeat tibi, sancta Trinitas,” then turning round he makes the sign of the cross over the congregation with the words of the benediction (“Benedicat”) . ”

“ The whole world to them is like the bush that burned on Mount Horeb. The presence and glory of God are everywhere. "All things" are theirs; and this includes the whole revelation of God, and the whole regeneration of mankind. A priest begins the day at the altar within the veil, encompassed by the Divine Presence and the heavenly court. ”

“ One of Dominic's delights was to be dressed as a cleric for the great Procession of the Blessed Sacrament on the Feast of Corpus Christi. His whole bearing revealed the depth of his Faith and the excess of his love. ”

“ He added, “Without the Dominicum we cannot be,” or live. [521] To another, the proconsul said that he did not wish to know whether he was a Christian, but whether he participated in the Collecta. His reply was: “As if one could be a Christian without the Dominicum, or as if the Dominicum can be celebrated without the Christian.” [522] And he said further to the proconsul: “We have observed the Collecta most sacredly; we have always convened in the Dominicum for reading the Lord’s word.” ”

“ It is their profession; their prayerful presence can ward off the spirits of darkness; weariness never sits on their eyes as it sits now on thine. Let them stay with thee; it is only fit.”
“Not for another ransom, priest! I will not brook their confederate tears—I will not wing this fair girl’s soul with their hireling prayers—out, good fellows, my mood is wondrous short, and I would not willing do that which to-morrow I might repent of.”
“But, brother——” said one monk, gently. ”

“ Then the confessor makes a triumphant entry into the place; the very heart, soul, conscience, and intelligence, are conquered.
When once master of the place, the priest visits all its most secret recesses and corners; he pries into its most sacred chambers. The conquered place is entirely, absolutely in his hands; he does what he pleases within its precincts; he is the supreme master, for the surrender has been unconditional. ”

“ On Sunday last we treated of this in part, shewing in relation to it what were the “old paths,” and pointing to the proof that our Church walks in them, recognising and maintaining a true priesthood in those who minister at her altars, by the solemn committal to them of the power of absolution, a thing which she would not do upon any other hypothesis than that of their possessing a true sacerdotal character. We had not time to say much upon the altar or the sacrifice. ”

“ A young Monk at Milan, Preacher to the Benedictine Nuns, when he addressed them, added to almost every sentence in his discourse, 'my most dear and lovely sisters, whom I love from the deepest bottom of my heart.' When a monk becomes Preacher or Chaplain to a Nunnery, his days are passed in constant voluptuousness; for the Nuns will gratify their Confessor in every thing, that he may be equally indulgent to them. ”

“ The devotion of the most holy Rosary is known to have been revealed to St. Dominic by the divine mother herself, when the saint, being in affliction, and bewailing to his Lady the conduct of the Albigensian heretics, who at that time were doing great injury to the Church, the Virgin said to him: “This earth will always be barren, until the rain falls on it.” ”

“ Dominic, beautiful and radiant as a star, and told him, that one of the principal sources of relief to the souls in purgatory is the rosary which is recited for them; and that, as soon as they arrive in paradise, they pray for those who apply to them these powerful prayers. ”

“ The promise which Dominic received was fulfilled. Where all other means had failed, the humble prayer of the rosary accomplished the victory over heresy. Thus divine wisdom and infinite power make use of humble things to effect great achievements. Of this the great work of the redemption gives us an example. ”

“ The guardians of the temple met to choose a successor, and, naturally desirous that the sanctity of the oracle should suffer no abatement, elected a young priest of goodly presence and ascetic life; the humblest, purest, most fervent, and most ingenuous of the sons of men. So rare a choice might well be expected to be accompanied by some extraordinary manifestation, and, in fact, a prodigy took place which filled the sacred authorities with dismay. ”