Jesus to Fr Ottavio Michelini
My son, write:
faith in my Eucharistic presence in your midst is not enough, no, my son, not all priests who celebrate in sin, and therefore sacrilegiously, are without faith, the majority have faith, weakened, but they have it, nevertheless, they are lousy priests; they believe in Me, but they feel an aversion to Me originated by the state of guilt in which they find themselves.
When a priest is in sin, he voluntarily interrupts the action of the actual graces in his soul, that is, to those impulses of Grace which God infinitely good gives liberally to souls in measure and proportion to their receptivity, and, while practically closing the soul to God, he opens himself to the Devil, who can then without difficulty influence the souls of the guilty to the point of making them his slaves.
If a priest does not feel attracted to the Tabernacle, he is a sprout without a root, he is a branch separated from the trunk. A priest who does not feel any attraction for the Tabernacle where Love resides, can only have a spirit that is withered and infertile.
My son, how many priests today are in this state of aridity and spiritual infertility? So many that you could not count them!
We have some allies
Son, I want to explain to you the doubt that has entered your spirit at this moment; you have thought: if a priest is in sin and has broken all relationship with God, he can give nothing and receive nothing from God; besides, he enters Satan's orbit and then for him or for these, there is no hope of salvation, isn't that so?
Answer: it is not so, son, you must never forget the great struggle between the powers of evil and the powers of good, the action of the Guardian Angel, of the Holy Protector and the action of the Blessed of Paradise, this struggle is ongoing, and it will only end at the end of time.
Even the souls in grace should not fall, but the action of the dark forces of hell is only stopped by death.
It is not enough, then, to believe in the Eucharist, an ineffable mystery of which the priest is also the artisan, but the priest must be aware of the part that God has reserved for him in this great mystery.
In the Holy Mass the priest with Jesus and with the Mother is a protagonist of the mystery of the Cross, a sharer in the real and eternal priesthood of Jesus, he lives in those moments as never before his priesthood with Christ and with the Mother, offering himself as Christ and the Mother to the Father for the remission of sins, and in this offering so neglected and so misunderstood is the true and effective source of the salvation of himself and of souls.
I repeat that if a priest is not convinced of this supernatural reality, he is like one who throws away a very precious gem of incalculable value, not knowing and therefore not appreciating either its beauty or its price.
This offering that the priest must renew with Jesus and with the Mother every time he celebrates is very important, because it must be an effective offering, that is to say, it must work the annihilation of one's own "I", as in Jesus and the Virgin Mary, and this means the moral and spiritual immolation of self.
To be a magnet
This is what makes the priest holy, this is what makes the priest fruitful, this is the source of the leavening leaven of Grace for souls and for all the pastoral action that the priest must carry out.
Today's priests, with the exception of the few truly fortunate ones, are arid, sterile, infertile, dry branches, good only for burning, in spite of the acute fever that agitates them and moves them to work even too actively.
The Holy Mass, celebrated in perfect communion with Christ and with the Blessed Virgin for the same purposes for which Christ continues to immolate Himself and the Virgin offering herself, will be, for the true and holy priest, a terror to the demons who will see countless souls torn from them.
The holy priest who celebrates Mass in union with Me and the Mother is the object of God's love and at the same time a powerful magnet for all souls in need of help and spiritual consolation.
In him these souls will feel the perfume of Christ, they will see in him another Christ, the good odor of Christ will emanate from him; it is in this way that the priest, in conformity with My Heart, becomes a co-redeemer with Me.
Only in this way will the holy priest be the priest without veils, that is to say, without fictions; his limpid and pure soul will be the mirror of so many souls.
The truly holy priest is and will be convinced that he alone is not responsible for souls, for his activity and his apostolate, but he knows well and believes with conviction that the Protagonist of the Redemption is Jesus; he knows that he is a chosen collaborator, believing well in the words: "It is not you who have chosen Me, but I have chosen you".
I bless you, son, pray and love me.
December 3, 1976