What is a priest? A man who holds the place of God -- a man who is invested with all the powers of God. When the priest remits sins, he does not say, “God pardons you”; he says, “I absolve you.” At the Consecration, he does not say, “This is the Body of our Lord”; he says, “This is My Body…”Saint Bernard tells us that everything has come to us through Mary; and we may also say that everything has come to us through the priest; yes, all happiness, all graces, all heavenly gifts. If we had not the Sacrament of Orders, we should not have our Lord. Who placed Him there, in that tabernacle? It was the priest.
Go to confession to the Blessed Virgin, or to an angel, will they absolve you? No. Will they give you the Body and Blood of our Lord? No. The Holy Virgin cannot make her Divine Son descend into the Host. You might have two hundred angels there, but they could not absolve you. A priest, however simple he may be, can do it; he can say to you, “Go in peace; I pardon you.” Oh, how great is a priest! The priest will not understand the greatness of his office till he is in Heaven. If he understood it on earth, he would die, not of fear, but of love. Without the priest, the Death and Passion of our Lord would be of no avail.
The priest is not a priest for himself; he does not give himself absolution; he does not administer the Sacraments to himself. He is not for himself, he is for you. After God, the priest is everything. Leave a parish twenty years without priests; they will worship beasts. When people wish to destroy religion, they begin by attacking the priest, because where there is no longer any priest there is no Sacrifice, and where there is no longer any Sacrifice there is no religion. Who makes ready the feast, and who serves the table? The priest. And what is the Food? The precious Body and Blood of Our Lord. O God! O God! How You have loved us! See the power of the priest; out of a piece of bread the word of a priest makes a God. It is more than creating the world.
If I were to meet a priest and an angel, I should salute the priest before I saluted the angel. The latter is the friend of God; but the priest holds His place. Saint Teresa kissed the ground where a priest had passed. When you see a priest, you should say, "There is he who made me a child of God, and opened Heaven to me by holy Baptism; he who purified me after I had sinned; who gives nourishment to my soul.
What joy did the Apostles feel after the Resurrection of our Lord, at seeing the Master Whom they had loved so much! The priest must feel the same joy, at seeing our Lord whom he holds in his hands. Great value is attached to objects which have been laid in the drinking cup of the Blessed Virgin and of the Child Jesus, at Loretto. But the fingers of the priest, that have touched the adorable Flesh of Jesus Christ, that have been plunged into the chalice which contained His Blood, into the pyx where His Body has lain, are they not still more precious? The priesthood is the love of the Heart of Jesus. When you see the priest, think of our Lord Jesus Christ.
~Saint Jean Marie Vianney~
