Patroness

“ Thou art my glorious protector, and shalt ever be, after Jesus and Mary, the object of my most profound veneration and tender confidence. Thou art the most hidden, though the greatest saint, and art peculiarly the patron of those who serve God with the greatest purity and fervor. In union with all those who have ever been most devoted to thee, I now dedicate myself to thy service, beseeching thee, for the sake of Jesus Christ, Who vouchsafed to love and obey thee as a son, to become a father to me, and to obtain for me the filial respect, confidence, and love of a child toward thee. ”

“ I will, notwithstanding thy dignity and my unworthiness, approach thee with confidence, because I am convinced that the constant view of the eternal God become a child for our love, has filled thy heart with paternal tenderness for all those whom he honoured, and instructed by the example of his early life. O glorious model and patron of God’s greatest saints! thou dost not disdain to become the particular patron of youth, because the sacred infancy of Christ was the source of thy glory, and the object of thy tender devotion. ”

“ To a true believer in the faith of the Latter-day Saints a blessing of this kind, from under the hand of a Patriarch, was then, and is now, next to a boon of eternal life. A Patriarch is a man highly favored of God, possesses the gift of discerning spirits, and can read the present and future destiny of men. Patriarchal blessings strengthen, stimulate and encourage true Saints to press on to perfection while passing through this world of sorrows, cares and disappointments. ”

“ In one corner an arbour of honeysuckle, where more than once he had caught sight of a crabbed face.
Perhaps the maid with the sweet eyes will be sitting beneath that arbour embroidering thoughtfully some chosen pattern.
What shall he do if Suzanne is there? Will he dare to look at her?
Yes, he must! He must read the expression in her look. And if that look is sweet and free from anger, shall he stop? Certainly. Why should he hesitate? What is there surprising in a priest, stopping to talk to a young girl? Is he not her Curé? More than that, her Confessor. Her confessor! ”

“ Here I would inquire, if it is anything inconsistent, or derogatory to the character of a good or impartial father, who loves all his children, for him to elect or appoint one of them to fulfil a certain purpose or calling, and another to fulfil another useful calling? Is it anything strange for one person to be stronger than another, for one person to serve another, or for one person to have a more numerous posterity than another? ”

“ I like to think that men will tell a story like that about their clergy. The padre, an ideal figure, who is the hero of it, will fail to win respect perhaps. He will, if he preserve his innocence, win love. ”

“ Every devout priest has his patrons. A priest without an intimate relation to Patron Saints can have little realisation of the supernatural order in which we live, and of our communion with "the spirits of the just made perfect." [2] It is not enough for a priest to have devotion to our Blessed Mother. She is not the patron of any one, being the Mother of all. ”

“ He who presides over this earth and he who is said to be the maker of all things, the Father, pointing to his well-beloved Son, says, this is my beloved Son, hear him. He did not come himself to regulate and put in order all things, but he presented his Only Begotten Son, the personage who should be, as he is termed in the Scriptures, the Apostle and great High Priest of our profession, who should take the lead in the management and regulation of all matters pertaining to the great dispensation that was about to be ushered in. ”

“ He differs in nothing from his Father, except in age and authority, the Father having the seniority, and, consequently, the right, according to the Patriarchal laws of eternal Priesthood, to preside over him, and over all his dominions, for ever and ever. ”

“ However, almost in spite of myself, I was interested in this young priest, and although disposed to believe that he was a knave like the rest, I was sensible of something in him so upright and so loyal that I was, from the very first, prejudiced in his favour.
And besides, these flashes of fiery passion which at times betrayed him, could they serve as an accusation against him? Could one take offence at his not having completely stifled at thirty years the fierce passions of youth and his violent desires? ”

“ The high priest, with wonderful art, had known how to touch and play upon every sensitive and quivering chord of a highly passionate nature, had with sagacious dexterity roused every jealous instinct in her heart, until, blinded by her own passions, she had given herself over, body and soul, to his guidance. ”

“ Yes, Reverend Mother, and the son is like his father, tall, strong, courageous, with all the virtues, all the abilities. But for all that, one whom he loves has left him, and will give herself to the religious life. ”

“ This is their right, when they act by the power of the Priesthood, to direct the child until it is of a proper age, and then hand it over to the husband and father, and into the hands of God, with such faith and such love of virtue and truth, and with such love of God and its parents, that that child can never suppose that it is out of the hand and from under the control of the parent. ”

“ By this regulation our readers may easily perceive, that the penitent is completely at the mercy of the priest—that all family feuds, quarrels, and secrets are laid open to his eye—that the ruling; passions of men's lives are held up before him, the weaknesses and propensities of nature—all the unguarded avenues of the human heart and character are brought within his positive knowledge, and that, too, as they exist in the young and the old, the married and the single, the male and the female. ”

“ It's a sin of your papa, sweet Nanny mine, to shut you up like a nun and let you go nowhere but to church, as if a young creature needed nothing but to be pious. When should one be merry, then, unless it is when one is young? ”

“ Pater that he is ‘a seeker after something in language, that is there in no satisfying measure, or not at all.’ The continual preoccupation with phrase and epithet has its drawbacks as well as its virtues. And yet, when all is said, what wonderful prose it is, with its subtle preferences, its fastidious purity, its rejection of what is common or ordinary! Mr. Pater has the true spirit of selection, the true tact of omission. ”

“ Who, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth, in perfect Trinity, God, world without end. Amen.
Then Add the Following Prayer:
O God, the Shepherd and Ruler of all the faithful, look mercifully down on Thy servant, our Holy Father, Pope N., whom Thou hast chosen to be the shepherd of Thy Church.
Grant, we beseech Thee, that he may both by word and example benefit those over whom he governs, that, together with the flock entrusted to his care, he may come to life everlasting. ”

“ Mothers, remember that when your husbands are engaged in the service of the Church, and are all the time occupied in the duties of the Priesthood, so that they have not time to instruct their children, the duty devolves upon you. Then bring your children up in the ways of truth, and be to them both a father and mother, until they are old enough to perform duties by the side, and under the immediate eye, of their father. ”

“ What canst thou deny me, who hast given me thyself! Govern me, and nothing will be wanting to me, in the place of pasture where thou has placed me, until thou bringest me to the happy pastures of eternal life. ”

“ Amiable shepherd, faithful guide, holy priest, thou who art my protector and my refuge, together with God, and His holy mother, the happy Virgin Mary, obtain me, I pray thee, by thy merits, the grace of triumph over the obstacles the world opposes to my vow of consecrating myself to God without reserve—in return for the property, the pleasures, and honors here below, of which I abandon my part, obtain me spiritual good all the course of my life, and eternal happiness after my death. ”

“ We praise thee that our fathers, from last to first, from now, back to the beginning, can be united with us in indissoluble links, welded by the holy Priesthood, and that as one great family united in thee and cemented by thy power we shall together stand before thee, and by the power of the atoning blood of thy Son be delivered from all evil, be saved and sanctified, exalted and glorified. ”

“ It is your right by virtue of the family ties you have formed, and the holy Priesthood you hold and honor, to stand at the head of your posterity—it is your privilege to call them together to instruct them, and to place your hands upon their heads and bless them; and it is their privilege, through their worthiness, to receive blessings at your hands. When the government of God is fully established on the earth, the patriarchal order will be recognized and will obtain among the Saints. ”

“ I reason with her; hang it, I can't do everything in a day. When she goes from time to time to Mass, on Sunday, it does not follow that she is becoming religious. I am a free-thinker, but I am a father also, and what would you have a father do when two pretty arms take hold of your neck and a sweet little coaxing voice whispers to you, "Let me go there, my darling papa." Hang it, one is not made of wood, after all!
—Neither is the Curé made of wood.
—You make one shiver. Can my daughter have anything in common with your peasants' Curé? ”

“ The poor neat-herd's son, if he were a Noble of Nature, might rise to Priesthood, to High-priesthood, to the top of this world,—and best of all, he had still high Heaven lying high enough above him, to keep his head steady, on whatever height or in whatever depth his way might lie! ”

“ What wonder if a layman yield to lust?
And shame it is, if priest take thought for keep,
A shitty shepherd, shepherding clean sheep.
Well ought a priest example good to give,
By his own cleanness, how his flock should live. ”

“ But come, setting this duello of wit aside, I have overheard your confession and your casting about for a father, and in troth, in mere charity, came in to relieve you. In the scroll of beasts, horses and asses, that have fed upon this common of yours, you named one Pendant: faith, wench, let him be the father. He is a very handsome gentleman, I can tell you, in my lord's favour. I'll be both secret and your friend to my lord. Let it be him; he shall either reward thee bountifully, or marry thee. ”

“ As a rule a padre is a padre, an officially recognised representative of religion, whatever church he belongs to. The same kind of character, the same general line of conduct, are expected in all padres. We shall get a side light, if no more, on the much-discussed question of the religion of the army if we can arrive at an understanding of the way in which the padre strikes the average man. ”

“ When, therefore, a young man has arrived at the parting of the ways, there sounds in his ear more or less plainly, sometimes within his own heart, sometimes from an exterior voice, the call of God: "I have destined you to be the father of a family; I have thought to lay upon you the dignity and burden of a priest; I desire to see you lead a pious life within the walls of a convent." ”

“ Really he is that obsolescent phenomenon the fool of the family dumped on the Church by his father the patron, clamorously asserting himself as father and clergyman without being able to command respect in either capacity. ”

“ The First Commandment of the Second Table is, Honour thy Father and Mother, in which we are explicitly commanded to honour our parents, both in temporal and in spiritual matters; but implicitly, and in a secondary sense, every man is by this commandment to be honoured according to his proper degree; not only our natural father and mother are intended, but our spiritual parents, the Bishop of the Diocese and the Priest of the Parish, may be said to be our fathers ”

“ It was a strange, wild contrast, the venerable priest within pronouncing even then the nuptial blessing, and proclaiming over the bright young pair the union made by God, which thenceforth no man should dissever—the tearful happiness of the blushing bride, the serious gladness of the stalwart husband, the kneeling peasantry, the wreaths of innocent flowers; and at the gate, the stern, dark men-at-arms, with their scarred savage features,92 and their gold-gleaming harness and raised weapons. ”

“ I have been trying to tell you how you may raise children to hold the Priesthood and be holy unto the Lord; and if all would take a right and proper course in regard to rearing children, from the commencement until they are grown up, and not take a course to weary the tree while it is maturing fruit, many would do far better than they now do. ”

“ Let fathers be willing to be taught by the Holy Priesthood, then let them in all mildness, by example and precept, teach their families; and let wives be one with their husbands in this labor of salvation, that the rising generation may be a better class of people than is the present. ”

“ Thirdly, they are the fathers of their people. Having no wives or children of their own, the people are their children. The term "father" by which they are addressed is a true expression of the feeling which the people have towards them, because they have a truly parental affection for them. That priest must be a monster who does not love his people, as a general thing so devoted and affectionate to him. ”

“ Verily, if a man be called of my Father, as was Aaron, by mine own voice, and by the voice of him that sent me, and I have endowed him with the keys of the power of this priesthood, if he do anything in my name, and according to my law, and by my word, he will not commit sin, and I will justify him. ”

“ If with integrity of heart we consider the priestly office which we administer, the concord of personal charity ought so to unite us with our sons that, as we are fathers in name, so we should be proved by our affection to be so in deed. While, then, we ought to be such as has been said above, we wonder why such a mass of complaints has arisen against thy Fraternity. ”