XIII – THE MYSTERY OF THE GREAT NAME
- What is the mystery of the great name?
It is the mystery through which a Perfect Person receives priestly power.
- What is a priest?
It is the member chosen by the Church to fulfill the various religious ministries, to celebrate the mysteries and administer the sacraments.
- Who is the head of all priests?
It is the Saviour; it is Jesus, whom Saint Paul declares to be the eternal priest, the sovereign pontiff who unites the earth to the Pleroma, so that nobody can enter it but by him.
- What are the effects of the mystery of the seven voices and the forty-nine powers?
1. It remits all the sins which one could have committed and gives the strength not to sin any more at least for a time;
2. It produces in the subject a characteristic change which remains ineffaceable;
3. It gives priestly power.
- Is priestly power passed on from one priest to another?
No, it is an error of the Greco-Romans to imagine that Jesus gave the priestly power to his apostles to pass it on to the bishops and so on indefinitely. The Saviour chooses, calls the priest, it is said of him that he has his vocation; but priestly power, the strength to worthily carry out his ministry is always given by the Holy Spirit.
- Besides the ordinary preparations necessary for all the sacraments, does one not have to prepare oneself in a special way for priesthood?
Yes, because the priest needs intelligence enlightened by study, a will which nothing breaks and discretion that nothing can corrupt.
- What are the physical and moral qualities of the priest?
The priest must be of irreproachable purity; he must be sober, chaste selfless, inscrutable, impervious to every kind of prejudice or fear, impassive and calm when tested by all contradictions and all sorrows. Be gentle and worthy with everyone; but in social relations, never let himself be absorbed.