4. The reason for my tears (from the Blue Book)
“(…) Yes, you have truly consoled Me: you have changed my tears into a smile, my sorrow into joy. I have smiled on you, I have blessed you.
The reason for my tears, for a Mother’s tears, is my children who, in great numbers, live unmindful of God, immersed in the pleasures of the flesh, and are hastening irreparably to their perdition. For many of these my tears have fallen in the midst of indifference and have fallen in vain.
Above all the cause of my weeping is the Priests: those beloved sons, the apple of my eye, these consecrated sons of mine.
Do you see how they no longer love Me? How they no longer want Me? Do you see how they no longer listen to the words of my Son? How they frequently betray Him? How Jesus present in the Eucharist is ignored by many, left alone in the tabernacle; often sacrilegiously offended by them, with wanton negligence?
You have offered Me the Marian Movement of Priests: I receive it on my Heart and I bless it. These will all be my Priests: consecrated to Me, and they will do whatever I command them.
The time is near when I will make my voice heard by them, and when I will place myself at the head of this, my cohort, prepared for battle. For the present they must be formed in great humility and at my directions: loving and being totally united with the Pope and the Church, living and preaching only the Gospel. This is so necessary today!
I love them, I bless them one by one.”
Two participations in the one priesthood of Christ 1546 Christ, high priest and unique mediator, has made of the Church “a kingdom, priests for his God and Father.”20 The whole community of believers is, as such, priestly. The faithful exercise their baptismal priesthood through their participation, each according to his own vocation, in Christ’s mission as priest, prophet, and king. Through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation the faithful are “consecrated to be . . . a holy priesthood.”21
1547 The ministerial or hierarchical priesthood of bishops and priests, and the common priesthood of all the faithful participate, “each in its own proper way, in the one priesthood of Christ.” While being “ordered one to another,” they differ essentially.
22 In what sense? While the common priesthood of the faithful is exercised by the unfolding of baptismal grace –a life of faith, hope, and charity, a life according to the Spirit–, the ministerial priesthood is at the service of the common priesthood. It is directed at the unfolding of the baptismal grace of all Christians. The ministerial priesthood is a means by which Christ unceasingly builds up and leads his Church. For this reason it is transmitted by its own sacrament, the sacrament of Holy Orders.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
In the Old Testament, priests were set up to offer sacrifice between God and Man. In the New Testament, Jesus has fulfilled that. However, we are all called to participate in that One Sacrifice through the Eucharist and then by living a sacrificial life ourselves…when we truly become what we eat…we must become Eucharist for others. Broken and distributed.
THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST (Catechism of the Catholic Church)
1322 The holy Eucharist completes Christian initiation. Those who have been raised to the dignity of the royal priesthood by Baptism and configured more deeply to Christ by Confirmation participate with the whole community in the Lord’s own sacrifice by means of the Eucharist.
1323 “At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood. This he did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet ‘in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.'”135