You are a priest forever....

"To touch the Sacred Species with their own hands and to distribute them is a privilege of the ordained." Pope John Paul II
[Dominicae Cenae, No. 11]

"Without the priest the death and passion of our Lord would be no use; the priest has the key of the heavenly treasures; he is God's steward and the administrator of His goods...
What is the priest? A man who holds the place of God, a man clothed with all the powers of God. Go, our Lord said to the priest, As my Father hath sent me, I also send you.
At the consecration the priest does not say, 'This is the Body of our Lord.' He says, 'This is my Body.'
Behold, the power of the priest! The tongue of the priest makes God from a morsel of bread! It is more than creating the world. Someone said, 'Does St. Philomena, then, obey the Cure of Ares?' Certainly, she may well obey him, since God obeys him. The Blessed Virgin cannot make her divine Son descend into the host. A priest can, however simple he may be.
How great is the priest! He will only rightly understand himself in heaven...to understand it on earth would make one die, not of fear, but of love...
If I were to meet a priest and an angel, I should salute the priest before the angel. The latter is the friend of God, but the priest stands in His place. St. Teresa used to kiss the ground where a priest had passed.
Great value is attached to objects which have been laid in the porringer of the blessed Virgin and the child Jesus at Loreto. But the fingers of the priest which have touched the adorable Flesh of Jesus Christ, been dipped in the chalice which has held His Blood, and in the ciborium which has held His Body--are they not more precious?"
--St. John Vianney, The Cure of Ars, Eucharistic Meditations (2001).