Depuis le Jour §8

⁸ We know, Venerable Brothers, the solicitude which you bestow on these institutions so justly dear to your pastoral zeal, and we congratulate you on it. The priests who labor, under your superintendence, for the formation of the youth called to enroll itself later on in the ranks of the sacerdotal army, cannot too often meditate before God on the exceptional importance of the mission with which you entrust them. They have not simply to instruct their children in the elements of letters and human science, like the general run of masters - that is the least part of their task. Their attention, zeal and devotion must be ever on the watch and active, in order, on the one hand, to study continually, under the eye and in the light of God, the souls of the children and the indications of their vocation to the service of the altar, and, on the other, to help the inexperience and feebleness of their young disciples in order to protect the precious grace of the Divine call against all deadly influences, both from without and from within. They have therefore to exercise a ministry that is humble, laborious and delicate, and requires constant abnegation. To sustain their courage in the fulfilment of their duties, they will take care to temper it in the purest sources of the spirit of faith. They must never lose sight of the fact that the children whose intelligence, heart and character they are engaged in forming are not being prepared for earthly functions, however legitimate or honorable. The Church confides those children to them in order that they may one day be fit to become priests; that is to say, missionaries of the Gospel, continuers of the work of Jesus Christ, distributers of His Grace and His Sacraments. Let this purely supernatural consideration incessantly imbue their double function as professors and educators, and be the leaven, so to say, which is to be mixed with the best flour, according to the Gospel parable, so as to transform it into sweet and substantial bread.(5)