During the 1300s, St. Bridget of Sweden received a divine revelation regarding the dual nature of the Catholic priesthood, highlighting both its unparalleled honor and the heavy weight of its accountability.
In this vision, Christ explained that before His ascension, He placed His most precious treasure, His own Body, into the hands of priests. He described these chosen men as being elevated in status even above the angels. To equip them for this sacred role, He bestowed upon them five specific spiritual gifts:
- The faith of Christ
- The keys to hell and heaven
- The ability to make an angel out of an enemy
- The ability to consecrate My Body
- The gift of handling Christ's most pure Body with their own hands.
Yet the Lord revealed to her that many priests treated Him as the Jews treated Him after the miracles, denying, mocking, and betraying. The Lord said:
"They preach their own pleasure and think nothing of what I did for them… They have lost the key with which they were to open heaven for the wretched. They love, however, the key that opens hell…
They make a wicked man out of a righteous one, a devil out of the simple-hearted… anyone who turns to them with three wounds receives a fourth from them."
The Lord then revealed to her that priests who are sinners will find themselves deeper in hell than all the other damned: "Their condemnation will be greater than that of others, because they go astray in their conduct and hurt others by their example.”
St. Bridget was told by the Lord that bad priests are not truly His priests, but true betrayers, worse than Judas in some ways, because they sell Christ after He has already redeemed the world. They handle the sacred Host while living in lust, greed, and double lives, then return to sin with firm intention.
The priesthood is the greatest dignity on earth, but also carries the strictest judgment (James 3:1).
JMT (X)