The Grace to Be a Priest

These pages aim to help Catholic priests and those who love priests to ponder properly the grace that these consecrated men have received and its implications for their lives. ~Romanus Cessario, O.P.

The Grace to Be a Priest represents the fruit of one Dominican’s service as a priest of Jesus Christ. For more than thirty-five years, Romanus Cessario has taught and advised candidates for the priesthood. In this text, Father Cessario explains how the vocation to the priesthood comes to a man as both gift and mystery. God chooses priests to serve as both instruments of his will and spiritual fathers for his people. They fulfill this divine mission in various ways. Priests become chaste lovers, faithful friends, obedient sons, and shining lights in God’s holy Church. Priests administer the seven Sacraments even as they follow the Christ who came to serve not to be served. Again, priests teach the truth with love even as they pray God for the salvation of all people. Drawing on the riches of the Dominican tradition as well as the general principles of Catholic theology, Father Cessario richly illuminates the nature of the priesthood with insights that will instruct priests, seminarians, and laypeople alike.

Romanus Cessario, O.P., serves as a professor of theology at St. John's Seminary in Brighton, Massachusetts. He is a fellow of the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the author of some hundred articles and many books, including Thomas and the Thomists: The Achievement of Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters; Theology and Sanctity; Introduction to Moral Theology; and The Virtues, or The Examined Life.