St. John Eudes: A Terrible Punishment
The
greatest sign of God's anger and His most terrible
punishment on this world is to deliver His people into the
hands of nominal pastors who treat the sheep with the cruelty
of wolves rather than with the love of affectionate
guardians, who tear and devour the sheep they are assigned to
feed, leading them to Satan instead of to God, to hell instead of
heaven, and acting as poison and darkness instead of as the salt
of the earth and the light of the world.
"For
we pastors and priests," says St. Gregory the Great, "We
shall be condemned before God as the murderers of all the
souls who go daily to eternal death through our silence and
through our neglect" (12 Homily on Ezekiel).
In
the 27th Homily, this same Saint reasons, "For since there
is nothing which so outrages God (and consequently provokes
His anger and draws more malediction on both pastor and
flock, on priests and people) than when He sees "those whom
He has commissioned to correct others give themselves the bad
example of depraved lives, and instead of preventing God's being
offended, they themselves are the first to persecute Him. When
these pastors are indifferent to the salvation of souls and
think of nothing but their own comfort or convenience; when
all their affections are for earthly creatures, seeking
avidly for human esteem, using their blessed ministry for
private ambition, abandoning God's service to serve the
world; occupying themselves in worldly and profane matters instead
of the work of sanctification"—
When
God permits such a state of affairs, it is a most certain
proof that he is extremely angry with His people, and this
state itself the most frightful retribution that He can
impose on the world. This is why He unceasingly cries out to
all Christians: "Be converted to Me and I will give you
pastors according to my own Heart" (Jer. 3-15).
What
shows most conclusively that the evil lives of pastors are a
punishment for the sins of the people, and that, on the
other hand that God's greatest mercy on the people and the
most precious grace He can impart is when He gives pastors
and priests according to His own Heart—men who seek only His
glory and the salvation of souls. The richest gift and the
most precious favor that divine goodness can effect in a church is to
give it a good pastor whether bishop or priest. This is the
grace of graces, and the gift of gifts comprehending within
it all the other graces and gifts. For what is a pastor or a
priest who is 'according to the Heart of God'? An inestimable
treasure containing an immensity of Goods...
St. John Eudes
In THE PRIEST, HIS DIGNITY AND OBLIGATIONS. New York, P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1947.