The Young Priests Keepsake

Young Priest's Keepsake, The

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Title: The Young Priest's Keepsake
Author: Michael Phelan
Release Date: July 19, 2005 [EBook #16330]
Language: English
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THE YOUNG PRIEST'S KEEPSAKE
By MICHAEL J. PHELAN, S.J.
Second Edition.
DUBLIN M. H. GILL AND SON, LTD. AND WATERFORD 1909

1st. Edition MAY, 1909. 2nd. -- Enlarged, NOV., 1909.

PREFACE
This little book is written in the hope that it may assist young priests
and ecclesiastical students to meet the demands which the life before
them has in store.
Works specially suited to the priest, the layman and the nun are happily
abundant; but to the young man standing on the threshold of his career
as a priest, how few are addressed. Yet it is while his character is in the
formative stage, and his weapons are still in the shaping, that advice
and direction are of most practical value.
The writer brings to his task only one qualification on which he can
rely--his own personal experience.
After having gone through a long course of preparation in Irish
ecclesiastical colleges, he lived for nearly thirteen years on the
Australian mission, and is now completing a decade spent in giving
missions and retreats in all parts of Ireland. Of the college, therefore,
and of the foreign and home missions he can speak with whatever
authority a long experience and ordinary powers of observation are
supposed to give.
In dealing with the foreign mission he does not rely solely on his own
judgment. Many matters here treated of he heard repeatedly discussed
by priests abroad, who bitterly deplored that, while in college, they
knew so little of the life before them, and regretted that there was then
no kind friend to take them by the hand and show them what was in
store when the day came for them to plunge into a life that was strange
and entirely new. It is to be hoped that this modest volume will, in part
at least, discharge the office of that friend.
It may appear, at first sight, that when writing the fourth chapter, "On
Pulpit Oratory," the author had before his mind an elaborate discourse,
such as is expected only on great occasions. This is not so.
It is true that the various parts of a sermon, when detailed in analysis,

may seem, like the works of a watch spread out on a table,
bewilderingly numerous and complex. But when we come to construct,
it will be found that in synthesis the distracting number of small parts
will disappear, to coalesce and form the few main principles on which
either a sermon or a watch is built. These principles are essential to
every discourse, no matter how brief. As the humble
seven-and-sixpenny "Waterbury" requires its springs and levers equally
with the hundred-guinea "repeater," so the twenty minutes' sermon, to
be effective, must have a fixed plan and definite sequence as well as the
more ambitious effort.
Most of these chapters were written originally for the "Mungret
Annual," with a view to assist the apostolic students who are now, as
priests, rendering such splendid service to the Church of God abroad.
And it was the very generous reception accorded the articles in the
ecclesiastical colleges that suggested the idea of presenting them in the
more lasting form of a book.
Sacred Heart College, Limerick, March 17, 1909, Feast of St. Patrick.

PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION
The rapid sale of the first edition of this work surprised no one more
than the author. It was not addressed to the public in general, but to a
limited section; the price, while moderate, could not be called cheap;
yet within a little over two months the entire edition was exhausted.
It is impossible to express my deep gratitude to the reviewers. From
them the book met with a chorus of approving welcome, without even
one jarring note. To all I now tender my grateful thanks; but the author
of "My New Curate" has placed me under a special obligation for his
thoughtful critique in the _Freeman's Journal_, and Ibh Maine for his
friendly review in the Leader. Nor should I omit to thank the
ecclesiastical colleges, that not only pardoned the blunt candour of

some of the chapters, but gave the book a more than cordial reception.
The present edition includes two entirely new chapters--the two
last--extending