X-Ray of the Priest In a Field Hospital

<p><strong>The Priest: A Sacred Calling</strong></p><p>This book is dedicated to all lay brothers and sisters, to help them better understand, value, and support their dear priests, the wounded and the beaming ones alike. It is also hoped seminarians and young men discerning their calling will find inspiration here. </p><p>What follows is not a systematic treatise, but rather a short presentation. The essential topic of <em>The Blessed Virgin Mary and the Priest</em> has been reserved for a separate publication, although Our Immaculate Lady is referred to in various chapters. A thorough assessment of the importance of the Sacred Liturgy in the life and ministry of priests will have to be addressed separately. </p><p>This book features eight chapters:</p><ul><li><strong>The Fourteen Stations of Priestly Apostasy</strong>: The slow demise of a fictional priest, after a recent film, is used as a cautionary tale to give priests various precautions and securities.</li><li><strong>Ordained a Priest in Dachau</strong>: The inspiring figure of Blessed Karl Leisner is used to prove that Christ can make priests strive in the worst possible surroundings.</li><li><strong>Handling the Right Body</strong>: This chapter explores the deep sacramental motive for priestly celibacy and for the manly fulfilment of the priest in his identification to Christ and his service to the Church.</li><li><strong>In Persona Christi</strong>: This chapter provides various angles to 'unpack' the well-known expression according to which priests act 'in the Person of Christ'.</li><li><strong>Unfolding the Holy Shroud</strong>: This chapter refers to the relic of Our Lord's Shroud to illustrate the priestly mission to teach revealed truth in fidelity and persuasiveness.</li><li><strong>Priestly Unity and Concelebration</strong>: This non-polemical approach exhorts us priests to identify always more precisely what we mean to do and achieve at Holy Mass.</li><li><strong>Building the Bride</strong>: This chapter shows the correspondence between the shaping of Eve and of the Church and how Christ empowers his priests to fulfil this spousal design.</li><li><strong>Consecrated to God, Body and Soul</strong>: This chapter sets the priesthood within the broader calling to consecrated life, including the religious one, and invites young readers in particular to enter the lists.</li></ul><p>We thank you for your interest and commit this slender opus to our glorious models St John Vianney, St Padre Pio, St John Fisher, St John Henry Newman and all our heavenly intercessors, that it might please Our Lord and Our Lady, and might foster, however modestly, priestly sanctification.</p>