Jesus to Priest Ottavio Michelini
I WANT THEM ALIVE.
My son, I am not satisfied with the barely formal adherence of many of my priests.
Son, I want my priests to actively participate in my Redemption.
I want my priests with me on Calvary; many refuse to follow me in my painful ascent.
I want my priests praying and working with me in the Eucharist. Some do not even believe in my presence on the altars, others abandon me and forget about Me, others, new Judas, betray me.
I want my priests to be builders of my Kingdom in souls, not devastators of my Kingdom!
I want love from my priests, because I love them infinitely from eternity. The soul of love is suffering: love is measured by how much one suffers. But today many flee from suffering, and therefore from love.
Son, I want my priests to be conscious, responsible, and aware of their role in the Mystical Body. I want them alive, vibrant with grace, faith, love, and therefore suffering.
How much time lost, how much good left undone, how many obstacles and impediments in my Mystical Body! What a waste of the supernatural... because many, many have only scant faith, hope, and love as support.
Poor my priests who walk gropingly in darkness! I love them, I want their conversion, son.
Therefore, does it surprise you then if I ask you to suffer a little and pray for them?
I want them to be conscious
—Jesus, help me understand what you want from us, priests.
I have already told you: I want you to be conscious of your vocation. I have chosen you with special predilection and love.
I want my priests to be conscious of their participation in my Sacrifice, not symbolic but real. This involves union and fusion of their suffering and mine. It is not external formalism, but a marvelous and tremendous reality: the Holy Mass!
The priest must unite with Me in offering Myself to the Father. What kind of Mass is it when the priest lacks this consciousness and conviction?
Think, my son, what dignity, greatness, and power I have given to my priests! The power to transubstantiate bread and wine into Myself: into my Body, my Blood, myself entirely. Every day, the miracle of the Incarnation is repeated in their hands.
I have appointed them custodians and dispensers of the divine fruits of the Mystery of Redemption. I have conferred upon them the divine power to forgive or retain sins. Like my putative Father, I have made them my guardians on earth. But for many, what a difference between the love with which Saint Joseph guarded me and his neglect of Me in the Tabernacle!
Son, I have entrusted my priests with the task of proclaiming my word. But how is this important task of the priestly ministry carried out? It is evidenced by the general sterility that accompanies preaching.
My priests are entrusted with the task of fighting against the dark forces of Hell, but who takes care to do so, to cast out demons? To do this, one must strive for holiness; likewise, to heal the sick, prayer and mortification are needed.
My son, I want my priests to be saints because they must sanctify. They should not rely on human means for their ministry, as many do. They should not trust in creatures but in my Merciful Heart and in the Immaculate Heart of My Mother.
Priests are truly my ministers but, with few exceptions, they are unaware of their position.
They are my ambassadors, accredited by Me among men, families, and peoples.
They go with the world
Priests are truly participants in my eternal Priesthood. The priest is a protagonist, in the Mystical Body, of great supernatural acts and events.
Priests must be hosts to give themselves and to immolate themselves for the salvation of their brothers.
It is a grave sin to think of saving souls with one's own human resources of intelligence and activity. Any external activity of the priest that lacks faith, love, suffering, and prayer is null, it is vain.
Priesthood is service. The one who serves is different from the served; he does not identify with the persons served. The priest must differentiate himself from the souls entrusted to him, just as the shepherd differs from his flock.
If priests saw the greatness of their dignity, the sublime supernatural power they are clothed with (as Saint Francis of Assisi saw these things), they would have great and devout respect for themselves and their fellow priests.
Son, unfortunately, some seek themselves, forgetting Me. Many others go with the world, even knowing that the world is not of God but of Satan.
Some betray me, others are demolishing my Kingdom in souls by sowing errors and heresies. Others are arid due to lack of the vital sap of the soul: love, whose true soul is suffering.
Therefore, you must pray and offer yourself, with a tangible response to my invitations, for reparation, penance, and prayer so that all my priests may convert. Yes, may they convert and each take his place in the Mystical Body: ad majorem Dei gloriam and for the salvation of souls.
Real renewal
—To my question about what I wanted to make clear when I said: "I want my priests praying and working with Me in the Eucharist," the answer was:
"What have I done and continue to do in the sacrifice of the Cross and the Holy Mass? How have I prayed to the Father? 'Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, but not my will but yours be done.'
Do not forget (as many forget) that the sacrifice of the Holy Mass is the real renewal of the sacrifice of the Cross.
In the sacrifice of the Cross is my prayer to the Father united with the abasement of my will, total annihilation. It is the total offering of Myself with an act of infinite love and infinite suffering; it is the immolation of Myself for souls.
The priest who unites himself, and whom I want united to Me in this suffering, participates more than ever in my Priesthood. He is never as much a priest as when he does this with Me.
Wastage of the supernatural
How many Holy Masses are private, lacking this vital soul, this intimate and fruitful union!
The priest attests his love for God and neighbor in the most important act of his day when, responsibly united with Me, he humbles himself in the effective offering of his will to the Father and accepts to be immolated for the souls for whom I constantly immolate myself.
In other words: the priest in the Holy Mass must truly give himself with Me to the Father to be given by the Father to the souls.
This must precede all other activity of the priest; otherwise, it is a waste of time and the supernatural; otherwise, all his activity becomes sterile from the root.
Son, if I showed you how many, many Holy Masses are celebrated, you would be terrified to the point of dying...
In this sense, I repeat: I want praying and working priests like I was and am; only thus are they made instruments, for themselves and for their brothers, of true spiritual renewal.
How many useless activities, my son, because they are deprived of their natural soul!