Cardinal Robert Sarah celebrates Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica Sept. 28, 2019. / Evandro Inetti/CNA
Rome Newsroom, Nov 18, 2021 / 08:00 am (CNA).
In a new book, Cardinal Robert Sarah calls priests to spiritual renewal, saying that it will not come through structural changes, but through rediscovering the priest’s mission and identity as the presence of Christ in the world.
“Christ never created structures. Of course, I’m not saying they aren’t necessary. Organization is useful in society, but it is not first,” Sarah said in a Nov. 16 interview with the Catholic French weekly Famille Chrétienne.
“What is first is the very first word of Christ in the Gospel of Mark: ‘Convert and believe in the Gospel.’”
The Vatican’s former liturgy chief published “Pour l’éternité: Méditations sur la figure du prêtre” (“For Eternity: Meditations on the Figure of the Priest”) in Europe on Nov. 17.
The book, currently available only in French, includes passages from saints and the Church Fathers to encourage meditation on the renewal of the priesthood, which, according to the cardinal, is a necessary step on the way to resolving the crisis in the Catholic Church.
“If priests, if society look to God, then I think things will change,” he told Famille Chrétienne. “If hearts are not changed by the Gospel, politics will not change, the economy will not change, human relationships will not change. It is Christ who is our peace, who will create more fraternal human relations, of collaboration, of cooperation.”
Structures “are also often a danger, because we take refuge behind them,“ he said. “God will not ask accounts of an episcopal conference, of a synod … It is us, bishops, that he will hold accountable: how did you manage your diocese, how did you love your priests, how did you accompany them spiritually?”
Sarah ended a more than six-year term as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in February.
The 76-year-old from Guinea wrote a book on the priesthood, celibacy, and the crisis of the Catholic Church, “From the Depths of Our Hearts,” in 2020. The book attracted controversy centered on whether it was co-authored by Pope emeritus Benedict XVI.
Sarah said that in his new book he wanted to express his affection and encouragement both to priests who are struggling and those who feel strong in their vocation.
“It is about encouraging them not to lose God, to have the courage to follow Christ as they accepted from the beginning, on the day of their ordination,”he explained. “Because the crisis that we are going through today in the Church depends essentially on the priestly crisis.”
The cardinal also commented on the scandal of abuse in the priesthood, saying that the Church “must not be afraid of the truth.”
“We must feel deeply hurt, suffer from it as Christ suffered when Judas betrayed him, when Peter denied him,” he said, adding that the Church and her priests are supposed to be models, and even one case of abuse is too many.
“The discovery of so many sins committed gives us a better understanding of the apparent sterility of our local churches. How could we bear fruit when such cancer was gnawing at us from within? We must rediscover the meaning of penance and contrition,” he said, urging adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament “in reparation for the profanations committed against his image in the souls of children.”
Sarah added that Catholics should not let themselves be overcome by discouragement, however, because the overwhelming majority of priests are faithful, which is a cause for thanksgiving.
“Their daily and hidden fidelity makes no noise, but it silently carries deep seeds of renewal,” he said.
“It is up to us to see how the guilty priests can be punished and, if possible, cared for, healed, accompanied, so that such acts do not happen again,” the cardinal continued. “Above all, it is up to us not to let these horrors turn souls away from Christ and lock up so many innocent victims in suffering.”
Sarah’s book is dedicated to seminarians, and he said he wanted to encourage them too, because they are studying to become priests at a difficult time.
He said that he wanted to tell them that if Christ has called them to the Catholic priesthood, he will also give them the means to really follow him.
“Try to take this call seriously. The Lord who calls you is not going to leave you alone. He will support you with his grace, but you yourself must be a fully realized man, a true, honest, upright man who has all the human qualities,” he said.
Families play an important role in supporting priests, he noted, encouraging people to invite priests into their homes to pray and converse.
A strong prayer life is vital for every priest, he said, citing the example of the saints such as St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars.
When his interviewer pointed out that “the France of the Curé of Ars is not the France of the 21st century,” Sarah responded: “Indeed, but man is the same. Man does not change. He has the same ambitions, he has the same flaws, the same vices from Adam until today.”
“It is only the circumstances that we have created that can confuse us, but man does not change,” he insisted, adding that “the Frenchman of the Curé d’Ars is the Frenchman of today, with the difference that the Frenchman of today has a cell phone … But in his ambitions, in his vices, and his faults, he is the same. We still need holy priests identified with Christ.”
The cardinal also commented on the way that France and other Western countries have closed themselves off to God.
“If France, if the West, thanks to the ministry of priests, rediscover that God has come among us, that he loves us, that he wants our salvation, that he wants us to discover the truth and that this truth will help us will set free, then the mission will be possible,” he said.
“But there is no need to despair,” he continued. “That is why priests must rediscover their mission, priests must rediscover their identity. They are the presence of Christ in the midst of this world. If they conduct themselves well, if they are the presence of Christ, then France and the West can rediscover him little by little.”
[…]
Rogatian & Donatian
A Nantes’ resident told in one of this videos of the cathedral fire that he heard the bells first. It was unusual for a Saturday morning, so he went out into the street and then he saw a fire in the great rosette of the temple.
On the same day, i.e. on July 18, the third Saturday of the month, the annual Santa Maria Greca festival was held in Corato [https://luisapiccarreta.me/santa-maria-greca]. Before people saw this acheiropoieton (made without hand) image, they first heard the sound of an invisible bell. In Corato, touched by the plague in the year of Our Lord 1656, the Holy Madonna appeared with the Child holding the royal orb. She herself was holding a three-armed papal cross in her right hand. The Most Holy Virgin as Pope? Crowned and not the boy? Because She, as Our Mother Holy CHurch, is the Regent of an underage ruler, both spiritual and secular.
Who is this? This is the fire promised by the Lord Jesus [Lk 12:49]: “I have come to throw fire on the earth, and how much I wish that it should already be kindled.” Actually, the Fire, because it is a person, not an element. I identify him with the promised Paraclete and the great monarch of the end times.
What does the fire in Nantes have to do with it? The cathedral here has the invocation of St. Peter and Paul. I suppose St. Clair, the first bishop of the place, erected the Cathedral of St. Peter, because he had brought the nail from Rome from the crucifixion of the Prince of the Apostles. This is also indicated by the location of the temple in St. Peter’s Square. Paul appeared on the stage of the Church after the apostles had been dispersed and after Peter on the Atlantic Loire. Saint Paul the Apostle is an antitype of the Second Comforter. The coat of arms of the Nantean cathedral chapter – a sword crossed with a key – perfectly illustrates the unity of the spiritual and temporal power entrusted to the Paraclete.
Nantes is famous for the sanctity of the martyrs Donatian and Rogatian. Known as the Nantean Children, they have their basilica here (which was hit by a large fire on June 15, 2015). Their personal history, like that of Peter and Paul, is a kind of prefiguration of the relationship between Jesus Christ and the Paraclete. From the words of the Gospel [John 14:16]: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may be with you forever …” [Latin Vulgate DRBO: “…et ego rogabo Patrem, et alium Paraclitum dabit vobis, ut maneat vobiscum in aeternum…”], it can be deduced that the requester is Rogatian, and the given (requested) is the Donatian. Besides, the Apostle of the Nations himself, before he was baptized, Paul (= Small) was known as Saul (= Asked for, Prayed for). If Rogatian represents Lord Jesus and Peter, then Donatian is the antitype of the Paraclete, Paul, and the great end-time monarch.
The fire entered the cathedral of Nantes, consumed the organ (He likes Roman music) and the stained glass window donated by Anne the Duchess of Brittany. This is the Year of Saint Anne, because July 26 falls on Sunday, the main patroness of Brittany since her apparitions in Santez Anna Wened in 1623-1625. Saint Anne appeared to Ivo Nikolazic with a burning candle (torch) in her hand, heralding the arrival of the promised Fire-Paraclete. A century earlier, in 1510 (probably on May 26), Saint Anne appeared to Małgorzata Błażkowa in Prostynia on the Bug river, Poland. Did the Holy Matron also appear there in connection with the promised Fire? It can be assumed that it is, because the Mother of God’s Mother appeared there on the feast of the Holy Trinity, i.e. the octave of Pentecost.
My variations on the Fire at Nantes are perfectly grounded in the words of the Lord Jesus to Marie Julie Jahenny in June 1882:
“I will make my choice; I will call the true Comforter for my people and for my Church. It is He who will rebuild My temples destroyed by fire and brutal civil war, which, however, will end soon. I cannot name this war that will break out in France other than a civil war. ”
The spiritual guardian (until 1877) of this Breton stigmatic was Félix Fournier, the then bishop of Nantes, the same who in 1873 initiated the construction of the magnificent basilica of the Nantean Children, Donatian and Rogatian.
Santa Maria Greca appeared in Corato – many facts indicate this date – July 15, 1656, feast of the Dispersion of the Apostles. The first Twelve were sent personally by the Lord Jesus. Whom will the Paraclete send, no longer as a Child under the protection of the Holy Regent, but still in the closest relationship with the Virgin Mother of the Church? Whom will He send? He will send the end-time apostles!
July 23, 2020, octave of Our Lady of Mount Carmel; Madonna di Altino, Albino, Bergamo, Lombardy, Italy; commemoration of Saint Bridget and Ezekiel the Prophet
P.S.
Today, i.e. on July 26, French media revealed the name of the arsonist: ‘Emmanuel’, Rwandan, longtime altar boy (rather Catholic), cathedral cleaner and sacristan, volunteer. Thus we got an unexpected confirmation of the line of my interpretation of the fire in Nantes – I suppose Saint Anne the Mother intervened in this matter, this is her Sunday and her Year. All this dramatic event in Nantes, on July 18 22020, can be summed up as the Emmanuel’s Fire!
An associated Polish thread appears here:
Two weeks earlier, on July 4, 2020, at dawn, the roof of Saint Paul’s* Church in Corbeil-Essonnes, belonging to the French-Polish parish, completely burned down. Firefighters participating in the action described this fire as “the small Notre-Dame” compared to the conflagration of the Paris Cathedral on April 15/16, 2019. ‘The Small’ means ‘Paul’ in close relation to ‘Notre-Dame’ in the Polish-French backyard! Interesting, isn’t it?
* https: //pl-pl.facebook.com/stpaulcorbeil/ The main image of the Apostle of the Nations in this temple gives the impression of a two-headed figure, just like the Roman Janus. Saint Paul survived the fire near Paris along with the One of whom he is antitype – the Paraclete.
For the record: The Nantean Cathedral was built on the site of the ancient temple of Janus.