The ordination last week in Winona of seven young men, two Canadians and five Americans, to the priesthood of Our Lord Jesus Christ is a great consolation, and this not just because they will henceforth be able to administer the sacraments to us. The more profound reason for our happiness is to see these generous souls pledging their lives to the Blessed Eucharist, in sacrifice and sacrament. For if the priest is to be a man of God, if he is to share in Christ’s mediation between heaven and earth, if he is truly to be another Christ, it is only by centering his whole life on the Blessed Eucharist, literally fulfilling in himself the sacred words of the Gospel:

"As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me." (Jn 6:58)

The priest’s unity with Christ does not just consist in saying the words of consecration in persona Christi. It is especially his devotion to the Blessed Eucharist inasmuch as it is a sacrifice, the unbloody renewal of Calvary, and a sacrament. He is united to the Blessed Eucharist as a priest to his sacrifice inasmuch as he is impelled to "orient his life towards that sacrifice in which he must needs offer and immolate himself with Christ" (Pius XII Menti nostrae, §32) and to transform his soul to the state of victim, being conformed to the sufferings of our Redeemer, that he might "participate intimately in the sacrifice of Christ" (Ibid. §33). His unity with Christ likewise consists in his continual devotion to the Real Presence, to the Blessed Eucharist as a sacrament, with whom he shares the same roof and to whose company he has dedicated his whole life. The desire to abide in Christ, that Christ might abide in him, is the most important lesson of the Seminary, as Pope Pius XII likewise points out:

"These (Faith, obedience, chastity) and all the other priestly virtues can be easily acquired and firmly possessed by seminarians if from the beginning they have acquired and cultivated a sincere and tender devotion to Christ Jesus present ‘truly, really and substantially’ in our midst in the most august Sacrament, and if they make of Him the inspiration and the end of all their actions and their inspirations." (Ibid. §100)

Your great consolation, as these new priests come to visit you in your chapels over the coming two months, is consequently not just that they are newly ordained priests, but that you desire to receive the First Blessings from priests who have been trained and tried on their fervent devotion to the Blessed Eucharist. It is not the individual, nor the words nor the personal qualities that count, but the conformity with Christ Crucified through devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. As Pope Pius XI points out in his 1935 encyclical on the Catholic Priesthood (Ad catholici sacerdotii), it is likewise not the number of priest that counts, but their holiness. Explaining that bishops and superiors should never diminish the stringent requirements for the priesthood for fear of a diminishing number of priests, he goes on to quote St. Thomas Aquinas:

"God never abandons His Church; and so the number of priests will be always sufficient for the needs of the faithful, provided the worthy are advanced and the unworthy sent away… Should it ever become impossible to maintain the present number, it is better to have a few good priests than a multitude of bad ones."

These are important words for all the faithful to remember when they suffer from the lack of priests, infrequency of Masses, overcrowding in church, long confession lines etc. Thank God for the genuinely pious and well-trained priests that the Society provides you with, even if they are small in number; thank God for priests who do not believe in themselves, their ideas or their words, but whose only desire is to dispense to souls the graces obtained through their own intimate union with their Divine Savior in the Blessed Eucharist.

It is lack of devotion to the Blessed Eucharist that is the hallmark of the post-Conciliar Church —as is clear from the practices of communion in the hand, removal of the tabernacle from the altar and central place of the church, absence of holy hours and perpetual adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, and so on —and so it is the fervent devotion to the Blessed Sacrament that must be the hallmark of our traditional churches and chapels. The Blessed Sacrament and the priesthood are inseparable. We cannot adore the first without honoring the second, and we cannot love the second without being devoted to the first. You have the consolation of new priests. Be also their consolation, by spending time before the Blessed Sacrament, whether it be a regular meditation, or a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, or (let’s be really radical) making a proper thanksgiving after receiving Holy Communion. Pray for your priests, that their fervent love for the Blessed Eucharist ever grow, and especially pray for vocations that are drawn to the Blessed Sacrament, real supernatural vocations. If our priests and ordinations are few in number, it is because few are the young men who have the required devotion to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Let us be convinced that the preparation of vocations is a very lengthy process, and that the key issue is developing a true spirituality of the Real Presence, of the Blessed Eucharist, amongst our children and young people. It is under this veil of Faith that the reality of our prayer becomes transparent.

May these words of Saint Peter Julian Eymard be accomplished not only in our priests and religious, but also in many of you:

"To possess Jesus and be possessed by Him, that is love in its highest manifestation; that is the life of union between the soul and Jesus, which is nourished reciprocally by the gift of each one to the other. The Beloved in the Blessed Sacrament belongs wholly to me by the entire and perfect, personal and perpetual gift of Himself. I must belong to Him in the same manner."

Fr. Peter R. Scott