The object of your zeal must not be earthly and transient things but things eternal. The resolution of priests aspiring to holiness must be this: to labor solely for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. How many priests, even in the straitened circumstances of our time, have taken the example and the warnings of the Apostle of the Gentiles as a rule of conduct! The Apostle of the Gentiles, content with the indispensable minimum, declared: “. . . but having food and sufficient clothing, with these let us be content”.67I Tim., VI, 8.
Through this disinterestedness and this detachment from earthly things worthy of the highest praise, in conjunction with trust in Divine Providence, the priestly ministry has given the Church ripe fruits of spiritual and social good.