Saint Bernard calls Mary Most Holy the Aqueduct of Grace, because through her all the graces and blessings of Christ, the Divine Fountainhead, come to us. Holy Church is also a channel of Grace through the Sacraments. In Her bosom the Body of the Lord is mystically formed in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar; thanks to the Priesthood, the Sacrifice of the Mass perpetuates the presence of Emmanuel, God-with-us.
The cleric, with his austere robe that silently but eloquently recalls the Cross of Christ, penance, renunciation, and mortification, is and must be “outside the world.” For this reason, the world hates everything that recalls heavenly realities, the external signs of Religion, the Cross, the relics of the saints, the sacred images, and also the cassock that today you will put on forever, and which is stripped from those who, although honored with Holy Orders, continue to live in a manner that belongs to the world.
The world hates everything that recalls heavenly realities.
This ceremony is the first step in the itinerarium (path) towards the priesthood. In the Liturgy of the Nativity of Mary Most Holy, and in particular in the Epistle taken from the Book of Wisdom, we find a starting point for spiritual meditation: Therefore, O children, listen to me: Blessed are those who walk in my ways. Hear the teaching, be wise, and do not reject it: Blessed is the man who hears me and watches over me daily at the entrance of my house, and is attentive to the edge of my door. Whoever finds me will find life and receive salvation from the Lord (Prov 8:32-35).
Today the Church of Christ has been obscured and eclipsed by the heretics and corrupt who have occupied it: the Hierarchy has prostituted itself to the world and has made its maxims its own. It no longer recognizes the Lordship of Our Lord, and proclaims along with the Sanhedrin: We have no king but Caesar (Jn 19:15). On the Throne of Peter sits, not the Vicar of Christ, but a usurper devoted to the demolition of the Church. The ostracism that the faithful and clerics suffer for their fidelity to the Lord is therefore not the voice of the Church but rather of its counterfeit. This is why false pastors fear and fight against those who denounce their betrayal.
Yet, despite the efficiency of the organization of the forces of evil and the disorganization of the good, Satan knows he has already lost, this is why he does everything he can to drag as many souls as possible into damnation with him, thus nullifying the Redemption. This is why he wants a world without faith, without hope, without love. This is why he wants a world without priests, without religious and nuns, without expiatory souls. And for this reason – as we see happening – he wants every vocation to be corrupted, perverted, or rendered useless. This is why Satan demands that his arrogant lie not only be tolerated, but that it be accepted as such and that the Truth be condemned. His imposture requires conscious and ostentatious adherence to error, together with the obstinate rejection of the Good. This is the only way to explain the abomination of desolation in the holy place: a man who usurps the Throne of Peter and the sacred authority of Our Lord to impose apostasy and destroy the Church.
Let us therefore make ourselves worthy, with the Grace of God and under the patronage of Mary Most Holy, to reach the goal indicated by the Stella matutina, the Morning Star that announces the Sun of Justice, repeating with filial trust the Marian antiphon: Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis, post hoc exilium, ostende. And after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. And so may it be.