“Jesus Christ has made priests, as it were, his co-cooperators in procuring the honor of his eternal Father and the salvation of souls, and therefore when he ascended into heaven, he declared that he left them to hold his place, and to continue the work of redemption which he had undertaken and consummated. ‘He made them,’ says St. Ambrose, ‘the vicars of his love.’” From The Dignity and Duties of the Priest by St. Alphonsus Liguori.
