Priest's house

“ Every new house in which a man lives, every new shop which he opens for trade, must be blessed. A man who moves from one lodging to another must have his second lodging purified by religious rites. Ten or twelve times a year, the parish priest, attended by his reader and his deacon, enters into every house in his district, sprinkles the rooms with holy water, cleanses them with prayer, and signs them with the cross. ”

“ Is there anything more sad than the house of death? more desolate than the forsaken home? This house on the Rue de Bethisi had an expression of serious benevolence. The room which Père Antoine occupied, where little Péron came daily for his lessons, was a large one on the second floor, and well lighted by the oriel window. There were no indications of wealth in the furnishings; the polished floor was scantily covered with two threadbare rugs, there were two carved arm-chairs,—one in which the priest always sat, the other turned to the wall and never used. ”

“ Yesterday was Sunday, and I groped my way through the dark passages to the evening service in the Catholic chapel, which has always been attached to the house. An old priest, seated on the steps of the altar, preached a kind of catechetical sermon upon Transubstantiation—‘My flesh is meat indeed’—‘and the poor Protestants have this in their Bibles, and yet they throw away the benefit of the indeed.’ The sight was most picturesque—the dark old-fashioned roof, only seen by the light of the candles on the richly decorated altar, and the poor English peasants grouped upon the benches. ”

“ This was a thing that might easily be managed, not indeed as it was in our house, where the whole household was Catholic, and knew us to be Priests; but a Priest could well live in the upper part of the house, from which all heretics might be kept away, especially now that some of the servants were Catholics. ”

“ It was also requisite that the altar should be kept as clean as might be; the fire upon it would burn the better, and it is decent in a house to have a clean fire-side. 2. God would have the priests themselves to keep it so, to teach them and us to stoop to the meanest services for the honour of God and of his altar. The priest himself must not only kindle the fire, but clean the hearth, and carry out the ashes. God's servants must think nothing below them but sin. ”

“ But this seems to have been really parish property, as it is recorded that it “was sufficient to find all the candles in the church.” Sometimes, no doubt, the priests’ houses would have been larger than they usually appear to have been from the examples that survive or the records which are available. Thus in the early fifteenth century the Bishop of Lincoln granted a priest in his diocese permission to have a private oratory in his rectory house, on condition that the oratory was fittingly adorned, and that no other rite but Mass was celebrated in it. ”

“ The parsonage is close at hand, an ecclesiastical looking house of most appropriate and pleasing aspect; and the abode, as I can testify from personal knowledge, of the true spirit of an English parish priest—such an one as Hooker and Herbert would have rejoiced to foreknow. In his Church the prayers are perpetual; the fire never going out on the altar, and its gates standing open, as it were, night and day. ”

“ The little church adjoins the house, and the school is also under the same roof, while the schoolmaster takes his place as a guest at the family table of the pastor. All is harmony, quiet enjoyment, and peaceful domestic life.
Ah! what a different thing is the existence of a Catholic priest from that of a Protestant pastor! On the one side, we find selfishness, sensuality, and enforced isolation from the purifying influences of home and the domestic affections ”

“ The next moment the figure passed into the circle of light thrown down by a high lamp that glimmered over a Robbia-esque plaque shrine let into the wall, and they saw that it was a cassocked priest from the clergy-house going into church. ”

“ An hour after Mass there is rosary and benediction, after which the people return to their distant homes.
But not always can a church be had for Mass. In some places a room in a private house is all that can be obtained, and the Catholics of the neighborhood, having been warned by letter of the intended service, assemble at the appointed hour. The priest will sit in one room to hear confessions, whilst the people wait in an adjacent one, where a sideboard or table is prepared as an altar. After Mass will often follow baptisms, marriages, or confirmations. ”

“ The rite by which a shop, a shed, a house, is dedicated to God is not without touches of poetic beauty. Notice must be given aforetime to the parish priest, who fixes the hour of consecration, so that a man's kinsfolk and neighbors may be present if they like. The time having come, the priest takes down his cross from the altar, a boy lights the embers in his censer, and, preceded by his reader and deacon, the pope moves down the streets through crowds of kneeling men and women, most of whom rise and follow in his wake, only too eager to catch so easily and cheaply some of the celestial fire. ”

“ Then if they find no Priest nor suspected persons for Priests in any of the chambers or closets, they go presently to search for secret places, and this they do most cunningly and strictly, sounding the floors and walls [pg 037] to see if they can find any hollow places. They do also measure the walls of the house and go round about the house on the outside to see if one part do answer to another, in hope to find some void part left hollow, wherein a man may be hid. ”

“ They first went to the gallery, then the head priest came down into the sacrificial hall and made nine prostrations before the catafalque, without, however, pouring or offering wine. After each third prostration he stood up and raised his clasped hands to a level with his eyes. They then began their weird music, standing on the two sides of the raised platform between the gate and the house, thus allowing a passageway between them for the guests. ”

“ What should a priest do with so fair a house? A prison may beseem his holiness. ”

“ At a window-like opening in the front of the temple, sits the hideous misshapen block, ever ready to receive the adorations of passers-by. The poor god has an attentive priest who twines a robe around his black shoulders, greasy with oily libations, adorns his face with paint, and presents to him flowers, prayers, and incense. ”

“ It is the behind-the-scenes of the temple, and it stretches from the sacristy to the parsonage, from the parsonage to the Palace. The profane world suspects nothing; it passes unconcernedly by without dreaming that tempests are rumbling by its side. But, like the revolutions raised by the eunuchs of the Seraglio, the intrigues of the sacristy have been known to change the face of nations.
The priest is the spy upon the priest.
Misfortune to the cassock which unbuttons itself before another cassock. ”

“ In the midst of half-dilapidated, old-fashioned farm-houses, you could always distinguish the priest's dwelling, with a flower-garden in front, and the little chapel or church surmounted by a cross,—both being generally neat, clean, fresh-painted, and forming a strange contrast with the neglect and slovenliness around. ”

“ He is seeking to attain perfection, and he must finish what he has begun. Not until the temple is finished building will he be at liberty to leave his post. The little door of this priest's domicile is sealed up, so he never even steps out into the open air; there is only a small opening in the door or window for an attendant to hand in his meals. ”

“ The entire population, old and young, leave their work and rise obedient to the summons; the children quit their play and troop on together, while the elders follow with grave steps. The priest is kneeling before the altar, where the lamp of the sanctuary, like a throb of the Sacred Heart within the tabernacle, sheds its solemn radiance in the twilight. ”

“ All that is even bordering on heathen voluptuousness should be rigidly excluded. Works of Catholic art should adorn the walls even of the most public and splendid apartments. Every private room should have its crucifix, its Madonna, its vase of holy water, its prie-dieu, and books of prayer and devotion. An oratory, fitted up with the utmost elegance and costliness that is suitable to the circumstances, should be the shrine and chief ornament of the house. ”

“ The question of how to furnish one's rooms must be always a personal one for each priest to settle. To some, the advantage of an attractive room, artistically decorated, both as to furniture and pictures, may be a help towards their work, and induce them to spend time among their books which might otherwise be frittered away. But the effeminate or even luxurious method of furnishing that one has occasionally seen is hard to defend in a priest's room. ”

“ If they wish to join in the prayers and the ceremonies of the altar, let them have the clustering pillars and the purple windows.
Everything turns upon what is meant by a church. What is it for? Is it for liturgical services, or is it for pulpit eloquence? Solve that question, and you solve the Reformation. "My house," saith the Divine Voice, "shall be called the house of prayer." It is "by the foolishness of preaching," said Paul, that men are saved. ”

“ That the chalice be of molten material, never of wood; that all things which approach the altar or belong to the church be purely and worthily appointed, and that there be always lights in the church at mass; that there be no negligence about anything consecrated, holy water, salt, incense, bread, nor anything holy; that no woman come near the altar while the priest celebrates. ”

“ In the sacred conditions represented by the priests' chambers the priests will have their feasts of love, as they rejoice over the consecrated efforts of earth's billions in their progress toward human perfection, and thereafter. When the priests come out to the outer court with the people they will change the holy garments they wore in the priest's chambers and put on other garments. ”

“ The house would be frequently more like a playhouse (I might say a bawdy house) than a minister’s house, were a set of young people would come and behave more indecently than ought to be mentioned. Even one Sunday morning they made such an uproar as that they broke one of the windows, after that they would go with him to his chapel, and, after that, he would give the sacrament to such disorderly people, let their characters be ever so loose. ”

“ It makes a lasting impression upon whomsoever is admitted to familiar intercourse with any of these noble families to see all the members of the household devoutly assembled in the private chapel of the mansion, for the adornment of whose altars no expense has been spared, there to attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; and in the evening to behold the father of the family, by ringing a bell, again summons them into the chapel for evening prayer and examen of conscience, at which the chaplain, but oftener the head of the house, be he old or young, performs the duty of reading the prayers. ”

“ JEAN VALJEAN AUGUSTA STEVENSON (Dramatized from Victor Hugo's Les Misérables)
Scene II
Time: Evening.
Place: Village of D——; dining room of the Bishop's house.
[The room is poorly furnished, but orderly. A door at the back opens on the street. At one side, a window overlooks the garden; at the other, curtains hang before an alcove. Mademoiselle, the Bishop's Sister, a sweet-faced lady, sits by the fire, knitting. Madame, his Housekeeper, is laying the table for supper.]
Mlle. Has the Bishop returned from the service?
Madame. Yes, Mademoiselle. He is in his room, reading. Shall I call him? ”

“ There is nothing grand or striking in their churches; they contain neither altar, chapel, images, nor any ornament whatever, but consist simply of four whitewashed walls. At the lower end is a pulpit, like that used by our priest, in front of which is a table, and around it are seats occupied by the elders. The rest of the church is fitted up with benches, placed in order, on which the congregation seat themselves as they enter.
"I observed that most of them, before they sat down, leaned upon the back of the seat before them, and seemed to be in the act of prayer. ”

“ The cleansing of the sanctuary in the time of the end must, therefore, according to the sure teaching of the type, be the closing ministry of our great High Priest in the heavenly temple, before He lays aside His priestly work to come in glory. ”

“ THE HOLY PLACE AND THE MOST HOLY PLACE.
Children’s Tabernacle.
p. 56.
“Ah, my child, none of us would have dared to have lifted that Veil or to have placed a foot within the Holy of holies!” exclaimed Mrs. Temple. “No mortal was ever suffered to enter that place, most sacred of all, except the High Priest, and that but on one day of the year—the Day of Atonement. Aaron himself, the first High Priest, with trembling awe must have lifted the Veil, and approached the Mercy-seat over which the cherubims spread their wings of gold!” ”

“ They had their own Church there, and there they took their children to be baptized and, when old enough, to worship, be confirmed, and become communicants. There those children have been married, and from there gone out into the world to make new homes. In his house the clergy have been always made welcome, and have visited them when sick, counselled them when necessary, and received much valuable advice in return. ”