The Dialogue

Of the dignity of priests ; and how the virtue of the Sacraments is not diminished by the faults either of the minister or of the recipient; And how God does not wish seculars to occupy themselves in correcting the clergy.

" THUS did the sweet and glorious ministers of whom I spoke to thee, when I wished thee to see their excellence, over and above the dignity which I had given them in making them My Christs, and who, exercising this dignity in virtue, are clothed in the Light of the Sweet and Glorious Sun, Whom I gave into their hands to administer.

"Look at sweet Gregory and Sylvester, and others, their predecessors or successors who have followed the footsteps of My Chief Pontiff, Peter, to whom I gave the keys of the heavenly kingdom of My Truth, saying : ' Peter, I give thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and what thou loosest on earth shall be loosed in Heaven, and what thou bindest on earth shall be bound in Heaven? Now that I have shown thee, dearest daughter, the excellence of their virtue, I will more fully prove to thee the dignity to which I have elected My ministers. They have the key of the Blood of My only-begotten Son, Which unlocks the door of eternal life, which for a long time has remained locked through the sin of Adam.

" For that reason I gave you My Truth ; that is to say, My Word — My only-begotten Son, Who, enduring His passion and death, by His death destroyed yours, making you a bath of His Blood. His Blood and Death, in virtue of the union between the Divine and human natures, un locked the door of eternal life. To whom did He leave the keys of this Blood ? To the glorious Apostle Peter,

244 THE DIALOGUE OF ST. CATHERINE

and to all his successors who are or shall be till the Day of Judgment, all of them having the same authority which Peter had, which is not diminished by any defect of their own, nor is any defect caused thereby to the Blood or to any of the Sacraments, for, as I have already told thee, this Sun does not become defiled by any impurity on which It shines, and does not lose Its light amid the darkness of mortal sin, whether it be in the minister or in the recipient, such sin merely diminishing grace and increasing sin in the unworthy minister or recipient. Thus the Christ on earth holds the keys of the Blood, as, if thou remember, I manifested to thee in this parable, showing thee what reverence seculars ought to have for My ministers, whether they be good or evil, and how much irreverence towards them displeases Me. Thou rememberest that I represented the mystical body of the holy Church to thee under the form of a cellar, in which cellar was the Blood of My only-begotten Son, Which gives efficacy to all the Sacra ments. At the door of the cellar was the Christ on earth, who was charged with the administration of the Blood, and with the choice of co-administrators who should help him to administer It throughout the whole body of Christian people. He who was accepted and anointed by him, became the minister of the Blood, and no others. From him issues the whole order of clerks, each of whom is placed in his particular office to administer the glorious Blood ; and, as the Christ on earth has chosen them for his helpers, the right of correcting their defects belong to him alone, and so I wish it to be. For I have withdrawn them from service and subjection to temporal masters, on account of the excellence and authority which I have given them. Civil law has got nothing to do with their punishment; that right is placed in him whose office it is to govern under the Divine law, for these are My anointed ones, and inasmuch as I have said in the Scripture : ' Do not touch My Christsj no greater ruin can come upon man than to constitute him self their punisher."

A TREATISE OF PRAYER 245