A wake up call for priests
the following is from A Mother's Spiritual Diary (Conchita) Chapter 4(Spanish: pg 224-241)

"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide” (John 15:16)

"And one does not take this honor upon himself; but he is called by God just as Aaron was. "(Heb. 5:4)

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations. " (Jer.1:5) 

It is the Priests' Fault
(Call to repentance)

"If souls lag along the road and their interior life is extinguished, it is the priests' fault. The gates of divine communication opened up for the mystical life, are closed. Why? Through apathy in My service, through dissipation of their lives, through their lack of mortification, through their neglect of study in this domain, through absence of close and conscientious rapport with souls, through want of the spirit of sacrifice, because they do not love enough. Here are the motives, here the cause or rather the many causes which bring about and maintain these results: lack of prayer, of the interior life, of purity of soul, of intimate relations with Me; absence of love and devotion to the Holy Spirit, of union with God.

"The world opens at this moment a large breach in the hearts of priests and you know the number of vices which accompany this redoubtable enemy: an excessive contact with creatures chills their fervor, the neglect of external and interior recollection brings tepidity. Thence, where the world enters, thence the Holy Spirit departs. When the Holy Spirit leaves the heart of a priest, he is ruined, for if anyone has not only the need but the most imperious obligation to live and breathe in the Holy Spirit, it is the priest. To the measure he departs, materialism penetrates. Woe to the priest who founders himself in matter, he can consider himself lost. This is so easy in a dissipated soul, in a heart which does not pray and is not mortified. Out of his infernal hatred for My Church, in a matter of such capital importance for so many souls and for the priest himself, Satan aims at her, his most poisonous arrows. He makes every effort to find the opening through which the world will enter into the priest's heart under any form whatsoever. After that, this unfortunate soul smoothly glides down the slopes toward sin" (Diary, Feb. 14, 1907).

Priests are asleep

"I will tell you a very deep secret. Graces accumulate upon My Church as well as the treasures, the riches, the most fertile sources of the merits of the Incarnate Word, but each day, men, even those who are called Mine, close the doors to the Holy Spirit. Satan determines the Church through the weakness and dissipation of those who should be the guardians of the sanctuary. Souls languish through want of directors possessed by the Holy Spirit. My Church, so beautiful and rich, must leave her treasures locked up for she does not know to whom to distribute them. The saddest thing is that these infinite treasures of grace I bought at the price of My Blood, remain inactive in My Church, due to want of laborers who are holy. They understand in their own way the spiritual life and, due to lack of profound studies in this matter, due to ignorance and negligence they leave unachieved the designs of God on a great number of souls.

"My Heart is saddened because My ministers are sleeping. On many occasions, they are the first to conform themselves to superficial piety. They do not make the Cross enter souls, and still less do they reveal to them the Holy Spirit. I tell you again in greatest confidence that routine has deeply penetrated the sanctuary. This devotion in spirit and in truth is completely extinguished in numerous communities. May My ministers react through the Holy Spirit, may they appreciate to the full the interior life! May they possess it themselves and communicate it through the Holy Spirit! Then the Church will reflourish in her prime vigor. There is lacking in My Church the stamina of the Holy Spirit, it is wanting in seminarians and in members of the clergy. Consequently it is wanting in souls who live and are nourished by this vital essential, called to communicate to them the life of grace.

Conchita says: "Lord of my soul, my divine Jesus, what should I do? My God! May then this Holy Spirit come as soon as possible to set hearts aflame! I would like to be a missionary, My Jesus, and be able to carry out the task of thousands and hundreds of thousands. I would like to be able to travel over the entire world and give my blood on every occasion in the cause of the Church I love each day with a more ardent love burning with a flame I knew not of up to now: Oh Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! (Diary, Feb. 21, 1911).

Call to Holiness

"I want to love in My priests. I want interior life. I want these consecrated souls to live most closely to Me.

"I want to banish apathy from their hearts and make them burn with zeal for My glory. I want to activate the divine life of so many souls who belong to Me and who are failing. I want to destroy the indifference which paralyzes God's action and which deprives priests of My graces.

"The fire must be rekindled and this will be done only by the Holy Spirit, by the divine medium of the Word, offering Him to the Father and asking for mercy" (Diary, Sept. 23, 1927).

The Holy Spirit alone sanctifies

"I want a living, palpitating, clear and powerful reaction of the clergy through the Holy Spirit.

A priest no longer belongs to himself. He is another Me and he must be all to all, but first of all by sanctifying himself, for no one can give what he does not have and only the Sanctifier can sanctify. So then, if he wants to be holy - as it is imperious he must - he must be possessed, impregnated by the Holy Spirit, since if the Holy Spirit is indispensable for the life of any soul whatsoever, for the soul of priests He must be their breath and very life.

"If priests are Jesus, should they not have the Spirit of Jesus? And this Spirit, is He not the Holy Spirit?" (Diary, Oct. 9, 1927).

Pressing Actuality

"I hasten ever on time and most opportunely, no matter what epoch of the world, to the assistance of My Church Militant. In these difficult times My priests have need of this divine reaction for resisting the assaults of the enemy, for repelling the world which has invaded even the Sanctuary, preventing for future evils; for consoling My Heart and for glorifying My Father, purifying and sanctifying more and more the members of My beloved Church.

"As I have told you, there will come even worse times for My Church and She needs holy priests and ministers who will make her triumph over her enemies, with the Gospel of peace, of forgiveness and charity; with My teaching of love which will overcome the world.

"But I have need of an army of holy priests transformed into Myself, who exhale virtues and attract souls with the good aroma of Jesus Christ. I have need of other Christs on the earth, forming one sole Christ in my Church through unity of objectives, intentions and ideals, forming one only Mystical Body with Me, one only will with the will of My Father, one only Soul with the Holy Spirit, one unity in the Trinity, out of duty, out of justice, out of love" (Diary, Dec. 29, 1927).

Transformation into Christ-Priest

This call to priestly holiness has as its object the realization of their personal vocation: the transformation into Christ-Priest.

"My object for priests is to realize their transformation into Me, removing impediments to it, and unifying them in the unity of the Trinity for which they were engendered in the bosom of the Father, created and ordained for My service with the unction and divine action of the Holy Spirit" (Diary, Dec, 29, 1927).

"I ask for this spiritual reaction from My priests, since souls cannot have it, if, before, they do not have My very Spirit, they do not transform themselves into Me" (Diary, Feb. 13, 1928).

There is no question here of copying some of Christ's traits or of imitating some of His virtues. The transformation to priestly holiness brings about full identity with Christ-Priest.

"The transformation of the priest in Me which takes place in the Mass, he must continue in his ordinary life, in order that this life be interior, spiritual and divine.

"When a priest is not transformed into Me, or on the way to such transformation by contact effort to be so, he will be in the Church, but, in a certain sense, separated from the intimacy of the Church, separated from her Spirit, from the transforming nucleus of My Church.

"Yet how many priests there are who do not think about this, who do not seek it, who make no effort to acquire it! They take on the incomparable dignity of the priesthood as if it were just an ordinary secular profession. Such is not the sublime and holy purpose of the priesthood, which consists in perfect transformation into Me through love and through virtues.

"My Father wants to see the priest transformed into Me, not only during the time of Mass, but at all times. He wants to see him transformed in such a way that no matter where or when the priest can truly say, in the interior of his soul, these blessed words, constantly fulfilled in him by his transformation into Me: This is My Body; this is My Blood" (Diary, Dec. 31, 1927).

Transformation into Christ-Victim

"What is wanting to many of My priests is the spirit of mortification, love of the Cross, knowledge of the riches found in suffering.

"Many preach the Cross but do not practice it. They advise abnegation and self-renunciation and they do not even dream of practicing these virtues so necessary for priests, for sacrifice is one of the culminating points and is the base for transformation into Me who was a Victim from the very moment of My Incarnation on to My death.

"To be acceptable to My Father, a victim must be pure and sacrificed. My entire life is reduced to this beautiful work which synthesizes the essence of the Christian and even more that of the priest: immolation! I was voluntarily immolated on earth and I continue this life of immolation on the altars.

"I came into the world to sanctify suffering and to take away its bitterness. I came to bring about love of the cross, and the most perfect transformation into Me must be brought about by loving suffering, by painful love.

"Thus then, a priest who wants to assimilate himself to Me as is his obligation, must love sacrifice, must aspire to voluntary immolation, by devoting himself, by renouncing his own self and sacrificing himself constantly on behalf of souls.

"Priests means one who offers himself and offers, who immolates himself and immolates.

"Priests must love the cross and be in love with Me crucified. I am their model" (Diary, Jan. 1, 1928).

This life of immolation as the ministry demands, is the service of souls. The priest is as Jesus, the Good Shepherd who must give his life for his sheep.

"The love with which I love My priests is infinite. I ask them to correspond to My love, and since their vocation in My Church is to save souls, they must love Me, they must possess My Spirit, be impregnated by My Spirit, live out of My Spirit, that is, live out of love.

"But my love does not consist only in making some acts of love, but in self-surrender to love unconditionally, by all the immolations the love of God and the love of souls demands.

"I am not deceived. Transformation commits to suffering, to overcoming self, to self-sacrifice, to death. But love is stronger than death, than this death which gives life. The Holy Spirit gave Me the inclination to the Cross. After I had voluntarily embraced it, the Cross changed into love" (Diary, March 14, 1928).

"The Holy Spirit inspired My death on the Cross. This death was the work of infinite love toward My Father and toward souls, but with so noble a purpose as to associate very especially to My Cross, to a life of sacrifice, all My future priests, who on being other Christs, making themselves one with Me would have to perpetuate My Sacrifice in themselves and on the altars to honor My Father, offering themselves and Me as one sole Victim pure and holy who would glorify Him" (Diary, Dec. 12, 1931).

Transformation into Christ demands being with Him at the same time as priest and victim. The grandeur of the priest is essentially a eucharistic grandeur.

A prayer in the Roman Missal expresses this spirituality admirably: "Receive, Lord, these gifts we offer You, and considering Your Christ, Priest and Victim, grant me, who shares His Priesthood, the grace to offer myself each day as an acceptable victim in Your presence" (Offertory prayer of Mass for the priest).

The Holy Spirit alone transforms into Christ

"The Holy Spirit alone sanctifies priests. This divine Spirit alone raises them from the terrestrial to the divine. He alone is capable of urging on, by His breath, priestly souls toward heroism, toward the sublimity of their vocation. He is the delicate and most pure link which eternally unites the Trinity. He is also the link, the sweet and loving chain, which must sweetly unite as all that is His, priests with Me, to carry out the desire of My Father, Unity in Trinity, by the Holy Spirit.

"How much I desire the perfect reign of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of those who are Mine! This interior reign in the soul of My priests, must be His throne and nest. If they are other Christ, My priests must have My same Spirit, the Holy Spirit" (Diary, Jan. 12, 1928).

In the Unity of the Holy Spirit

The Father's salvific intent on sending His Son, was to unite all His dispersed children (cf. Jn 11:52), and to establish a Kingdom of Priests from men of all races, of all tongues and of all nations (cf. Rv 5:9).

"I came into the world with the sole purpose of uniting all men in the Unity of the Holy Trinity, by the Holy Spirit, that is, by Love" (Diary, Dec. 28, 1927).

"On founding the Church, the Father had but one purpose, unity, for neither in Himself, nor in His eternal thoughts, nor in His creation, nor in His desires, nor in His works, can He have other thoughts or intentions than unity. Consequently, when He founded the Church, His idea was not to make priests who departed from this unity, but one sole Priest in Me, one sole Saint in Me, by the Holy Spirit" (Diary, Feb. 13, 1928).

In a text of extraordinary doctrinal density, St. Paul stresses the unity of the Church. "There is but one body and one Spirit, just as there is but one hope given all of you by your call. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and works through all, and is in all" (Ep. 4:4-6). Unity is the most divine characteristic of the Church. So there is no reason for being surprised if the spirit of evil strives to destroy her.

"The devil encourages disunity and in this way he weakens strength. The Holy Spirit seeks to unite, to re-link paternal, filial and fraternal bonds, the breaking of which brings about so many evils in the Church. If I am in the Unity of the Trinity, why do not My priests and My shepherds have one only soul, one only will for My glory, one only heart in My Heart?

"I offered Myself up as a victim most especially for them, and I only asked them to persevere in love, My love which unites. If I desire men to love one another, with far greater reason I want My priests to love each other, and in this group of the elite, particularly chose, I do not want to regret hatred, discord, separations, dissidence of wills and affections, all those miseries which make cold, tepid and separate hearts.

"This division in My Church is a terrible evil in itself which can bring about schism. What is most painful for My Heart, what I regret most, is rejecting My commandments - love one another - they forget that I pronounced these words in particular for My priests, who are human and consequently subject to human passions.

"If I said that it would come about that they are Mine because they love each other, that means that when souls will see this coldness among them, this lack of love, the world will be scandalized and will not recognize them as My disciples.

"I insist, and I will always insist, on this unity of the Trinity and on this unity of charity, which is love, which is union through the action of the Holy Spirit.

"What I complain about is very human, this division among the members of the Church, which opens up great and profound evils which I alone can measure. It is a descent toward the world. But My priests are not of the world, they must not be of the world, they cannot follow the maxims of the world. There are so many materialistic things, vices, passions in the world from which My priests must keep themselves apart!

"Divisions, human respect, envy, self-seeking, and estrangement of hearts, all this comes from the world.

"The Pope, the cardinals, the bishops and priests, the whole ecclesiastical hierarchy, form but one single divine block, a rock in Peter, a rock against which the waves of the world and My enemies crash. But the block must be one, it must not be divided, thence derives the whole divine force against Hell. This is so since it is protected by the unity of the Whole, by the unity of the Trinity" (Diary, April 22, 1928).

"I insist on this unity of wills and minds in Me. Of course, rivers flow to the sea by different routes, and spring from different sources, but I want these rivers, in My Church, to be one in the union of Charity, that is, that My bishops and My priests form but one sole river which flows into one sea, Me. I want My Church in its tributaries to converge in wills and in love.

"Unity, unity of judgment, of wills in Mine is what gives peace to My Church and to hearts.

"How many bishops lament the lack of unity of their clergy, not only with those around them but among them, for their disagreements provoke uncharitableness and criticisms which wound My Heart, which is wholly obedience and charity.

"If the priesthood has so sublime an origin, which is found in the loving bosom of the Trinity, it has the unavoidable obligation to assimilate itself to the Trinity, and this above all in its unity. As the Church was created by the Trinity, she must live and breathe unity in it, in simplicity obeying My will manifested by superiors, that is by the Pope and the bishops on whom the priests depend.

"This unity is lacking in the world, and from this lack flow so many evils which crush the world. Souls are diverted from their center, and thence come the tragedies which oppress fallen mankind. Here is the central and capital point of its ruination, living apart form unity, following erroneous doctrines, in self-opinionated pride, in a multitude of sects, in the midst and obscurity of confusions. The day the world will return to its center, the unity of the Trinity in its Church, that day the world will be saved.

"But what is most sorrowful, and what causes Me most pain, is that even among Mine there exists this disunity which separates them from the center, from the most simple and luminous Trinity, the most holy and most perfect union, in the three Divine Persons" (Diary, Nov. 28, 1927).

Unity cannot be brought about solely by human endeavor. It is a gift which comes from heaven, and that is why Christ at the culminating moment of His life sent up a prayer to His Father asking unity for His Church.

"In the most tender plea to My Father, there rose at the Last Supper, a prayer which came from the innermost depths of My soul, by which I wanted to express to My Apostles, and in them, to My priests of all times, all My sublime tenderness and the quintessence of My soul for them. I asked My Father for what was the greatest, the most beautiful, that we be one, consummated in the unity of the Trinity.

"This request for the consummation of unity in My Father and in Me, has not remained sterile, for from it many graces have poured out on the earth, and in particular on My priests who have thus been able to become other Christs. For this reason, for this reason alone, I have given them My own Spouse, the Church, but with the same duties of fidelity to and of purest love for Her; with the obligation to serve her, to console her, to give her spiritual and holy sons, to extend her kingdom, to respect the hierarchy, to bring about among them on earth this unity, echo of this holy, fecund and most pure unity, that of priests in Me, coming from unity in the Trinity.

"All that rejects this unity is diabolical; all that does not lead to this unity is false; all that separates itself from this unity will be of no worth in heaven" (Diary, March 14, 1928).

Conchita will ever show toward priests a profound respect and a love of predilection. She does not criticize them, she offers her life in expiation for their weakness and to obtain for them the grace of an eminent holiness. She sees, feels, is silent. But she constantly immolates herself, as a victim for the Church, and above all for priests.

"Offer yourself as a victim with Me for the Church.

"Offer yourself up in oblation for My priests. Unite yourself to My sacrifice to obtain graces. It is necessary that in union with the eternal Priest, you carry out your role as priest, offering Me to the Father to obtain graces and mercy for the Church and for her members. You remember how many times I asked you to offer up yourself as a victim for My beloved Church? Don't you see you are all hers since you are Mine and you are Mine because you are all hers? Precisely on account of this special union which links you to My Church, you have the right to participate in her anguish and the sacred obligation to console her by sacrificing yourself for her priests" (Diary, Sept. 24, 1927).

Only the Spirit unifies

"To bring about this ideal of unity of My beloved Father, that which He has for my priests, the indispensable and all-mighty motive force is the Holy Spirit. He alone, and only He, can renew the face of the earth, and unite hearts with the Word, for He is the bond of ineffable love between the Father and the Son. It is He who unifies the Church since He unifies the Trinity in Love. It is He who makes it one since He is Love.

"Love alone unites, simplifies, sanctifies. Love alone reconciles, embraces, tightens bonds and brings hearts together.

"Love is the motive power of the Church and of the sacraments. It is love which engendered priests in the Father, for the whole Trinity as alone the essence and will, without beginning. Love, fashioning priests, who, if they were engendered from all eternity in the mind of the Father, will be born under the impulse of the loving and sorrowful beating of My Heart on the Cross, and consumed from beginning to end by love.

"If you see unity in one only essence of the Trinity, then you will see how the Church is a reflection of the Trinity itself, and how all her activity on earth is summed up in bringing about the unity of one flock under one Shepherd.

"Unity is what is most beautiful for God, for unity describes Him since He is the Supreme Unity. God is most simple in His Being and His greatest joy, His only joy is to love Himself, to be Three Persons in one sole substance and essence of love, even though Love be personified in the Holy Spirit; to rejoice in one sole infinite point, which fills Him wholly, which absorbs all, which produces all: souls, worlds, products of love, of a most pure love which makes the heavens marvel and makes created beings cry out: 'Holy, Holy, Holy!', in ecstasy before these infinite perfections which surprise, amaze, divinize and unify in God all things.

"Why have I spoken to you about this most holy, most sublime, most perfect unity, which enraptures God Himself who is eternal and infinite in His perfections?

"Because this unity, produced by love, reflected by My Church which must be one consonant with the unity of the Holy Spirit, does not exist in the case of many of My bishops and priests… I wanted to show you this pain which afflicts My God-Man's Heart; the painful picture of the disunion of will of so many members of My Church.

"What is the use if externally wills are united by human respect, if interiorly there is discord, criticism, intrigues which I alone clearly see, but which at times provoke scandals? This hurts Me, this lack of fraternal, filial and even paternal union. This harms Me for from it come so many evils which sadden Me, and which are felt in My Church, harming her in many ways.

"They should carry on their work united, united in thought and attitudes. But this must be really so, not feigned or by participation! The Trinity should be imitated, by striving to bring about unity so that the whole Episcopate has but one single heart and soul, forming only but one family in Me by My Spirit. I repeat: My concern is for what is interior.

"Priests on their part must bring their wills into accord with that of the bishop, respecting his decisions, without dissension. As for the bishop, he should avoid more than anyone else being uncharitable in this point which is more important than it seems.

"I insist that for this it is necessary to go to the Holy Spirit, the Conciliator who unifies minds and wills. He reflects unity in souls, since He is an intrinsic part of unity by essence. The Holy Spirit, the soul of the Church, is the standard bearer of unity, its principle, its center and its object, for He is Love.

"May bishops and priests have recourse assiduously and with ever growing love to the Holy Spirit, and He will be their light, their director, their guide, to bring them to unity.

"I want but one only apostolate in My Church, one only faith, one only truth, one only objective. One martyrdom, if all bear witness; one joy, if all rejoice; one triumph, if all succeed; one Calvary, if all suffer; that is, a bond of charity which unites, the very link which forms unity by love, the Holy Spirit. There must be one son, Jesus, God-Man, who warns them, and one goal, My Father, since all goes to Him through the Holy Spirit and through Mary" (Diary, Nov. 27, 1927).

Consummation in the Unity of the Trinity

"Consummation in Unity" comes about when the Christian and particularly the priest, loves with the Holy Spirit, that is, when his charity is not practiced in a human manner under the influence of infused prudence, but supernaturally under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Charity perfected by gifts loves with the Holy Spirit.

"The Church is love, she is charity, since her origin and her being and her life proceed from the Father's fecund love. That is why Christians must be love, all love, raised to the summit of unity by love. What is Love if it is not the Holy Spirit? This Spirit was My Spirit, and through Him, I loved the Father. Likewise I want My priests and all Christians to love the Father as I love Him, with the same Holy Spirit. Such is the perfection of love.

"It is a love which unites you with the Trinity, which simplifies in holiness, which unites you, which engenders what My love desires, what My Father desires, that all priests be one only priest in Me, one only Christ on whom rests His love gaze and on whom He finds pleasure.

"Do you understand that on founding the Church, such was my ideal? I in the Pope, as head and all priests forming in Me but one only Body and one only will with that of My beloved Father. After priests, My chosen souls, all Christians must unite in Me, consummated in Unity" (Diary, July 5, 1930).