From the Preface: "To our lay brothers and sisters we also dedicate this book, to help them better understand, value and support their dear priests, the wounded and the beaming ones alike. In particular, we hope that seminarians and young men still discerning their calling might draw inspiration from this short presentation.
We beg for the leniency of the informed reader towards what is not a systematic treatise. Concision led us to reserve for a separate publication the essential topic of The Blessed Virgin Mary and the Priest - although Our Immaculate Lady is referred to in various chapters. Similarly, a thorough assessment of the importance of the Sacred Liturgy in the life and ministry of priests will have to be addressed separately, God willing.
Chapter One is
The Fourteen Stations of Priestly Apostasy. The slow demise of a fictional priest, after a recent film, is the occasion of detailing various precautions and securities which we priests would do well to apply. In Chapter Two,
Ordained a Priest in Dachau, the beautiful figure of Blessed Karl Leisner proves that Christ can make priests strive in the worst possible surrounding. In a way, this is the dynamic antidote to the fateful failure assessed in Chapter One. Chapter Three is about
Handling the Right Body. It explores the deep sacramental motive for priestly celibacy and for the manly fulfilment of the priest in his identification to Christ and his service to the Church.
In Persona Christi is our longest chapter (Chapter Four). It provides various angles to 'unpack' the well-known expression according to which priests act 'in the Person of Christ'. Chapter Five,
Unfolding the Holy Shroud, refers to the relic of Our Lord's Shroud to illustrate the priestly mission to teach revealed truth in fidelity and persuasiveness. In Chapter Six, we examine
Priestly Unity and Concelebration. Our non-polemical approach exhorts us priests to identify always more precisely what we really mean to do and achieve at Holy Mass.
Building the Bride is our Chapter Seven. With recourse to exegesis, it shows the correspondence between the shaping of Eve and of the Church. Christ the Bridegroom empowers his priests to fulfil this spousal design. Our eighth and last chapter:
Consecrated to God, Body and Soul, sets the priesthood within the broader calling to consecrated life, including the religious one. It opens up the reflection and invites young readers in particular to enter the lists
We thank you for your interest, reader friend, and we commit this slender opus to our glorious models St John Vianney, St Padre Pio, St John Fisher, St John Henry Newman and all our heavenly intercessors, that it might please Our Lord and Our Lady, and might foster, however modestly, priestly sanctification."
Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP left France in 1994 after studying Literature for five years at The Sorbonne in Paris. After teaching French at the Military Academy in Budapest, he joined the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter in 1995 in Bavaria, where he was ordained in 2001. He authored the Art for Souls series of CD-ROMs presenting the Catholic faith through Christian paintings (each of the three volumes was granted official approval by the President of the Pontifical Council for Culture). His first priestly assignment was in London. He served in England since, apart from five years in Switzerland, then in an administrative position at his Fraternity's headquarters. Since 2008, he has been the editor of Dowry, the quarterly magazine of his Fraternity in the UK & Ireland. Several articles originally published in Dowry are included in this book. The book is based on the author's preaching experience, especially to fellow clergy and seminarians. For a dozen years, Fr de Malleray has preached fundamental retreats to clergy on themes such as The Year of Faith, The Year of Mercy, Our Lady and the Priest, The Prayers of the Missal, The Priest and Martyrdom, The Priests and the Church, The Priest and the Four Last Things, etc. Fr de Malleray also gave talks on the Holy Eucharist at the International Eucharistic Congresses of Quebec City (2008) and Dublin (2012), and further talks in preparation for the National Eucharistic Congress in Liverpool (7-9 September 2018), as well as to Eucharistic ministers in the Portsmouth Diocese (on Eucharistic fragments and concomitance). Fr de Malleray has been chaplain to the international Juventutem youth movement since its inception in 2004 (cf www.juventutem.org), and to their London group since 2015. The Juventutem logo is a monstrance and Eucharistic devotion holds pride of place in the movement. With the Juventutem young adults, Fr de Malleray took part in the World Youth Days of Cologne, Sydney, Madrid and Krakow. Juventutem worked hard to secure at World Youth Day official recognition for the Extraordinary Form of the Roman rite, centred on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. What was in 2005 in Cologne a sensational precedent has since become an expected and valued component of Word Youth Day. By appointment from his superiors in the FSSP, since 2007 the author has been chaplain to the Confraternity of St Peter, a nearly 7,000-strong international prayer network in support of priestly ministry and priestly vocations. Since 2015, Fr de Malleray is the rector of St Mary's Shrine in Warrington, Liverpool Archdiocese, where he also oversees the apostolate of his Fraternity in England and promotes vocations to the priesthood.
