ng of high flavor and so rank as to burn an ordinary
mouth. On the one hand, with the freedom of language and the boldness
of deduction characteristic of the method, the sentiment of the priest's
dignity is exalted. What is the priest?"He is, between God who is in
heaven and the man who tries to find him on earth, a being, God and
man, who brings these nearer by his symbolizing both.[5281].. I do not
flatter you with pious hyperboles in calling you gods; this is not
a rhetorical falsehood.... You are creators similar to Mary in her
cooperation in the Incarnation.... You are creators like God in time....
You are creators like God in eternity. Our creation on our part, our
daily creation, is nothing less than the Word made flesh itself.... God
may create other worlds, he cannot so order it that any act under the
sun can be greater than your sacrifice; for, at this moment, he reposes
in your hands all that he has and all that he is.... I am not a little
lower than the cherubim and seraphim in the government of the world,
I am far above them; they are only the Servants of God, we are his
coadjutors.... The angels, who behold the vast riches passing through
our hands daily, are amazed at our prerogative.... I fulfill three
sublime functions in relation to the god of our altars--I cause him
to descend, I administer his body, I am his custodian... . Jesus dwells
under your lock and key; his hours of reception begin and end through
you, he does not move without your permission, he gives no benediction
without your assistance, he bestows nothing except at your hands, and
his dependence is so dear to him that, for eighteen hundred years, he
has not left the Church for one moment to lose himself on the glory of
his Father."--On the other hand, they are made to drink in full
draughts the sentiment of subordination, which they imbibe to their very
marrow.[5282] "Ecclesiastical obedience is... a love of dependence, a
violation of judgment.... Would you know what it is as to the extent
of sacrifice? A voluntary death, the sepulcher of the will, says Saint
Climaque.... There is a sort of real presence infused into those
who command us...." Let us be careful not to fall "into the crafty
opposition of liberal Catholicism.... Liberalism, in its consequences,
is social atheism.... Unity, in Roman faith, is not sufficient; let us
labor together in the unity of the Roman spirit; for that, let us
always judge Rome with the optimism of affection