An Excerpt from the Dignity and Duties of the Priest by St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
Priests are the dispensers of the divine graces and the companions of God. “Consider the priests,” says St. Ignatius, Martyr, “as the dispensers of divine graces and the associates of God.” “They are,” says St. Prosper, “the glory and the immovable columns of the Church; they are the doors of the eternal city; through them all reach Christ; they are the vigilant guardians to whom the Lord has confided the keys of the kingdom of heaven; they are the stewards of the king’s house, to assign to each according to his good pleasure his place in the hierarchy.”