The Priestly Life: A Retreat

by Ronald Knox

God has no need for anything, proclaims St. Paul in the midst of the Areopagus. God has no need for He creates men and women out of pure generosity. The priesthood, remarks Monsignor Ronald Knox, is similarly the fruit of the Divine God “could have done without [priests], but he preferred to have, once more, a kind of tool through which his action should express itself. Tools in his hand, that is what we priests were to be.” Comprising sixteen retreat talks, The Priestly Life meditates upon the character and purpose of the priestly office. The priest is an essential instrument in the economy of salvation; “he lends his hands, to be Christ’s hands, his voice, to be Christ’s voice, his thoughts, to be Christ’s thoughts; there is, there should be, nothing of himself in it from first to last, except where the Church allows him, during two brief intervals of silence, to remember his own intentions before God.” Delivered with the rhetorical poise and spiritual substance typical of Knox’s preaching, The Priestly Life is a spirited affirmation of the dignity and duties of the priesthood, one certain to lend support and inspiration to those men called to be alter Christi .

176 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1958

About the author

Monsignor Ronald Arbuthnott Knox was a Roman Catholic priest, theologian, author of detective stories, as well as a writer and a regular broadcaster for BBC Radio.

Knox had attended Eton College and won several scholarships at Balliol College, Oxford. He was ordained an Anglican priest in 1912 and was appointed chaplain of Trinity College, Oxford, but he left in 1917 upon his conversion to Catholicism. In 1918 he was ordained a Catholic priest. Knox wrote many books of essays and novels. Directed by his religious superiors, he re-translated the Latin Vulgate Bible into English, using Hebrew and Greek sources, beginning in 1936.

He died on 24 August 1957 and his body was brought to Westminster Cathedral. Bishop Craven celebrated the requiem mass, at which Father Martin D'Arcy, a Jesuit, preached the panegyric. Knox was buried in the churchyard of St Andrew's Church, Mells.

Reviews

[Kevin de Ataíde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like most things from Monsignor Knox, this is all gold. He speaks of how the priesthood is both Martha and Mary, both energetic and in perfect repose, both practical and living in the cloister. Already in the mid-twentieth century, the priests as ambassadors of Christ were under bitter attack as being contrary to the march of modernity, or progressivism, and Father Knox speaks of the sins that can damage the priestly ministry, presenting the Apostle S. Paul as an inspiration and a model for modern priest. The author speaks also about obstacles to an effective ministry in (i) the type of murmuring against authority that is given by the Israelites in the desert after their escape from Egypt; and in (ii) the type of lukewarmness in religion that is criticised in the New Testament. There are brief talks in this book about priestly virtues, such as the fear of God, abandonment of self, true obedience to authority, and perseverance in the midst of difficulties. The collection ends with discourses on prayer, on the place of Mary in the Church, and on the final things, ending with the place of the apostolic leadership of the priests in the modern world. I would recommend this book for priests and for students in seminary. Absolute gold, as I said.