The Priest is the ambassador of God, appointed to vindicate His honor and to proclaim His glory. “We are ambassadors for Christ,” says the Apostle; “God, as it were, exhorting by us.”[490] If it is esteemed a great privilege for a citizen of the United States to represent our country in any of the courts of Europe, how much greater is the prerogative to represent the court of heaven among the nations of the earth! “As the Father hath sent Me,” says our Lord to His Apostles, “I also send you.”[491] “Going, therefore, teach ye all nations, ... teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you. And, behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation [pg 388] of the world.”[492] The jurisdiction of earthly representatives is limited, but the authority of the ministers of God extends over the whole earth. “Go ye into the whole world and preach the Gospel,” says Christ, “to every creature.”[493]
Not only does Jesus empower His ministers to preach in His name, but he commands their hearers to listen and obey. “Whosoever will not receive you, nor hear your words, going forth from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. Amen, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment than for that city.”[494] “He that heareth you heareth Me; and he that despiseth you despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me despiseth Him that sent Me.”[495]
God requires not only that His Gospel should be heard with reverence, but that the persons of His Apostles should be honored. As no greater insult can be offered to a nation than to insult its representative at a foreign court, so no greater injury can be offered to our Lord than to do violence to His representatives, the Priests of His Church. “Touch not My anointed, and do no evil to My prophets.”[496] God avenged the crime of two and forty boys who mocked the prophet Eliseus by sending wild beasts to tear them in pieces. The frightful death of Maria Monk, the caluminator of consecrated Priests and Virgins, who ended her life a drunken maniac on Blackwell's Island, proves that our religious institutions are not to be mocked with impunity.
When an ambassador is accredited from this country to a foreign court, he is honored with the confidence of the President, from whom he receives [pg 389] private instructions. So does Jesus honor His ambassadors with His friendship and communicate to them the secrets of heaven: “I will not now call you servants; for, the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth. But I have called you friends, because all things whatsoever I have heard of My Father I have made known to you.”[497]
What a privilege to be the herald of God's law to the nations of the earth! “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings and that preacheth peace: of him that showeth forth good, that preacheth salvation, that saith to Sion: Thy God shall reign.”[498] How cherished a favor to be the bearer of the olive branch of peace to a world deluged by sin; to be appointed by Heaven to proclaim a Gospel which brings glory to God, and peace to men; that Gospel which strengthens the weak, converts the sinner, reconciles enemies, consoles the afflicted heart and holds out to all the hope of eternal salvation!
I have often reflected on a remark made to me by Senator Bayard of Delaware: “You of the clergy,” he said, “have a great advantage as public speakers over us political men. You enjoy the confidence of your hearers. You can speak as long as you please, you can admonish and rebuke as much as you please, without any fear of contradiction; while we are constantly liable to interruption.”
O! what a tremendous power is wielded by the Catholic preacher! Hundreds of souls are hanging on his words; hundreds are sustained by him in spiritual life, and leave the Church depending on him whether they go forth fortified with the Bread of life, or famished and disappointed. I can say of every Priest what Simeon said of our Lord, “This man is set for the fall and the resurrection of many in Israel.”
Not only are Priests the ambassadors of God, but they are also the dispensers of His graces and the almoners of His mercy. “Let a man so regard us,” says the Apostle, “as ministers of Christ and dispensers of the mysteries of God.”[499]
How can he be called a dispenser of God's mysteries whose labors are confined to preaching? But he is truly a dispenser of Divine mysteries who distributes to the faithful the Sacraments, the mysterious symbols and efficient causes of grace.
As St. John Chrysostom observes, it was not to angels or archangels, but to the Priests of the New Law that Christ said: “Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven.” To them alone He gave the power to forgive sins, saying: “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven.” To them alone He gave the power of consecrating His Body and Blood and dispensing the same to the faithful. He has empowered the Priests of the New Law to impart the grace of regeneration in Baptism. He has assigned to them the solemn duty of preparing the dying Christian for his final journey to eternity: “Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil, in the name of the Lord.”[500]