THE SACRED HEART
AND WORLD DISTRESS
(Caritate Christi Compulsi)
May 3, 1932
THE TRIPLE CROWN
OR TIARA
THE POPE'S OFFICIAL HEADDRESS
To The Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops
And Other Ordinaries
In Peace And Communionn With The Apostolic See
ON
OFFERING PRAYER AND EXPIATION TO THE
SACRED HEART OF JESUS IN THE PRESENT
DISTRESS OF THE HUMAN RACE
Venerable Brethren,
Health And Apostolic Benediction
Urged by the Charity of Christ We have invited with the Apostolic Letter "Nova Impendel" of October 2, 1931, all members of the Catholic Church, indeed all men of good will, to unite in a holy crusade of love and succor, in order to alleviate in some measure the terrible consequences of the economic crisis under which the human race is struggling. And truly wonderful was the unanimous enthusiasm with which the generosity and activity of all answered Our appeal. But distress has increased, the number of the unemployed has grown in practically all parts, and subversive elements are making use of the fact for their propaganda; hence public order is threatened more and more, and the peril of terrorism and anarchy hangs over society ever more ominously. Such being the case, the same Charity of Christ moves us to turn once again to you, Venerable Brethren, to the faithful in your charge, to the whole world, and to exhort all to unite, and to resist with all their might the evils that are crushing humanity, and the still graver evils that are threatening.
CHAPTER ONE
If We pass in review the long and sorrowful
sequence of woes, that, as a sad heritage of sin, mark the stages of fallen
man's earthly pilgrimage, from the flood on, it would be hard to find spiritual
and material distress so deep, so universal, as that which we are now experiencing;
even the greatest scourges that left indelible traces in the lives and
memories of peoples, struck only one nation at a time. Now, on the
contrary, the whole of humanity is held bound by the financial and economic
crisis, so fast, that the more it struggles the harder appears the
task of loosening its bonds; there is no people, there is no state, no
society or family which in one way or another, directly or indirectly,
to a greater or less extent, does not feel the repercussion. Even
those, very few in number, who appear to have in their hands, together
with enormous wealth, the destinies of the world, even those very few who
with their speculations were and are in great part the cause of so much
woe are themselvess quite often the first and most notorious victims, dragging
down with themnselves into the abyss the fortunes of countless others;
thus verifying in a terrible manner and before the whole world what the
Holy Ghost had already proclaimed for every sinner in particular: "By what
things a man sinneth, by the same also he is tormented."
This deplorable state of things, Venerable Brethren,
makes Our paternal heart groan; and makes Us feel more and more deeply
the need of adopting, in the measure of Our insufficiency, the sublime
sentiment of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: "I have compassion on the multitude."
But still more deplorable is the root from which springs this condition
of affairs: For, if what the Holy Ghost affirms through the mouth of St.
Paul is ever true, much more is it true at present: "The desire of money
is the root of all evils." Is it not that lust of earthly goods,
that the pagan poet called with righteous scorn "the accursed hunger for
gold;" is it not that sordid egoism which too often regulates the mutual
relations of individuals and society; is it not, in fine, greed, whatever
be its species and form, that has brought the world to a pass we all see
and deplore? From greed arises mutual distrust, that casts a blight
on all human dealings; from greed arises hateful envy which makes a man
consider the advantages of another as losses to himself; from greed arises
narrow individualism which orders and subordinates everything to its own
advantage without taking account of others, on the contrary cruelly trampling
under foot all rights of others. Hence the disorder and inequality
from which arises the accumulation of the wealth of nations in the hands
of a small group of individuals who manipulate the market of the world
at their own caprice, to the immense harm of the masses, as we showed last
year in Our Encyclical Letter "Quadragesimo Anno."
Right order of Christian Charity does not disapprove
of lawful love of country and a sentiment of justifiable nationalsim; on
the contrary it controls, sanctifies, and enlivens them. If, however,
egoism, abusing this love of country and exaggerating this sentiment of
nationalism, insinuates itself into the relations between people and people,
there is no excess that will not seem justified; and that which between
individuals would be judged blameworthy by all, is now considered lawful
and praiseworthy if it is done in the name of this exaggerated nationalism.
Instead of the great law of love and human brotherhood, which embraces
and holds in a single family all nations and peoples with one Father Who
is in Heaven, there enters hatred, driving all to destruction. In
public life sacred principles, the guide of all social intercourse, are
trampled upon; the solid foundations of right and honesty, on which the
State should rest, are undermined; polluted and closed are the sources
of those ancient traditions which, based on faith in God and fidelity to
His law, secured the true progress of nations.
Profiting by so much economic distress and so much
moral disorder, the enemies of all social order, be they called Communists,
or any other name, boldly set about breaking through every restraint.
This is the most dreadful evil of our times, for they destroy every bond
of law, human or Divine; they engage openly and in secret in a relentless
struggle against Religion and against God Himself; they carry out the diabolical
program of wresting from the hearts of all, even of children, all Religious
sentiment; for well they know that when once belief in God has been taken
from the heart of mankind they will be entirely free to work out
their will. Thus we see today, what was never before seen in history,
the satanical banners of war against God and against Religion brazenly
unfurled to the winds in the midst of all peoples and in all parts of the
earth.
There were never lacking impious men, nor men who
denied God; but they were relatively few, isolated and individual, and
they did not care or did not think it opportune to reveal too openly their
impious mind, as the inspired Psalmist appears to suggest, when he exclaims:
"The fool hath said in his heart: there is no God." The impious, the atheist,
lost in the crowd, denied God, His Creator, but, in the secret of his heart.
Today, on the contrary, atheism has already spread through large masses
of the people: well organized, it works its way even into the common schools;
it appears in theaters; in order to spread, it makes use of its own cinema
films, of the gramophone and the radio; with its own printing presses it
prints booklets in every language; it promotes special exhibitions and
public parades; it has formed its own political parties and its own economic
and miliatry systems. This organized and militant atheism works untiringly
by means of its agitators, with conferences and projections, with every
means of propaganda, secret and open, among all classes, in every street,
in every hall; it secures for this nefarious activity the moral support
of its own universities, and holds fast the unwary with the mighty bonds
of its organizing power. At the sight of so much activity placed
at the service of so wicked a cause, there comes spontaneously to Our mind
and to Our lips the mournful lament of Christ: "The children of this world
are wiser in their generation than the children of light."
The leaders of this campaign of atheism, turning
to account the present economic crisis, inquire with diabolic reasoning
into the cause of this universal misery. The Holy Cross of Our Lord,
symbol of humility and poverty, is joined together with the symbols of
modern imperialism, as though Religion were allied with those dark powers
which produce such evils among men. Thus they strive, and not without
effect, to combine war against God with men's struggle for their daily
bread, with their desire to have land of their own, suitable wages and
decent dwellings, in fine, a condition of life befitting human beings.
The most legitimate and necessary desires, just as the most brutal instincts,
everything serves their anti-religious program, as if the order established
by God stood in contradiction with the welfare of mankind, and were not
on the contrary its only sure safeguard; as if human forces by means of
modern mechanical power could combat the Divine forces and introduce a
new and better ordering of things.
Now it is a lamentable fact that millions of men,
under the impression that they are struggling for existence, grasp at such
theories to the utter subversion of truth, and cry out against God and
Religion. Nor are these assaults directed only against the Catholic
Religion, but against all who still recognize God as Creator of Heaven
and Earth and as absolute Lord of all things. And the secret societies
always ready to support war against God and the Church, no matter who wages
it, do not fail to inflame ever more this insane hatred which can give
neither peace nor happiness to any class of society, but will certainly
bring all nations to disaster.
Thus, this new form of atheism, whilst unchaining
man's most violent instincts, with cynical impudence proclaims that there
will be neither peace nor welfare on earth until the last remnant of Religion
has been torn up and until its last representative has been crushed out
of existence; as if in this way could be silenced the marvelous concert
in which creation chants the glory of its Creator.
CHAPTER TWO
We know very well, Venerable Brethren, that vain
are all these efforts, and that in the hour He has established God
will arise and His enemies shall be scattered, we know that "the gates
of hell shall not prevail," we know that Our Divine Redeemer, as was foretold
of Him, "shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth and with
the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked," and for those unhappy
beings terrible above all things will be the hour in which they fall "into
the hands of the living God." And this unshaken confidence in the
final triumph of God and the Church is through the Infinite goodness of
the Lord, strengthened for us every day by the consoling sight of the generous
enthusiasm for God on the part of countless souls in every quarter of the
world and in all classes of society. It is indeed a powerful breathing
of the Holy Ghost which is now passing over all the earth, drawing especially
the souls of the young to the highest Christian ideals, raising them
above all human respect, rendering them ready for every sacrifice, even
the most heroic, a Divine breath that stirs all hearts, even in spite of
themselves, and causes them to feel an inward impulse, a real thirst for
God, to be forgiven by those who dare not confess it. It is also
true that Our invitation to the laity to take part in the Apostolate of
the Hierarchy in the ranks of Catholic Action has been everywhere received
with docility and generosity, in the cities and in the country the number
is continuously increasing of those who with all their strength devote
themselves to the propagation of Christian principles and to their practical
application in public life, whilst they themselves strive to confirm their
words with the example of their upright lives.
But none the less, confronted with so much impiety,
such destruction of all the Holiest Traditions, such slaughter of immortal
souls, such offenses against the Divine Majesty, We cannot refrain from
raising Our voice, and, with all the energy of Our Apostolic heart taking
the defense of the downtrodden rights of God, and of the most sacred sentiments
of the human heart that has an absolute need of God; and this is all the
more since these hostile forces, impelled by the spirit of evil, do not
content themselves with mere clamor, but unite all their strength in order
to carry out at the first opportunity their nefarious designs. Woe
to mankind, if God, thus spurned by His creatures, allows in His justice
free course to this devastating flood and uses it as a scourge to chastise
the world. It is necessary, therefore, Venerable Brethren, that without
faltering we "get up a wall for the house of Israel," that we likewise
unite all our forces in one solid, compact line against the battalions
of evil, enemies of God no less than of the human race. For in this
conflict there is really question of the fundamental problem of the universe
and of the most important decision proposed to man's free will. For
God or against God, this once more is the alternative that shall decide
the destinies of all mankind in politics, in finance, in morals, in the
sciences and arts, in the state, in civil and domestic society. In
the East and in the West, everywhere this question confronts us as the
deciding factor because of the consequences that flow from it. Thus
even the advocates of an altogether materialistic conception of the world,
always see rising before them the question of the existence of God, that
they thought had been ruled out once and for all, are ever constrained
to take up again its discussion.
In the name of the Lord, therefore, We conjure individuals
and nations, in the face of such problems and in the throes of a conflict
of such vital interest for mankind, to put aside that narrow individualism
and base egoism that blinds even the most clear sighted, that withers up
all noble initiative as soon as it is no longer confined to a limited circle
of paltry and particular interests. Let them all unite together even
at the cost of heavy sacrifices, to save themselves and mankind.
In such a union of minds and forces, they naturally ought to be the first,
who are proud of the Christian name, mindful of the glorious tradition
of Apostolic time, when "the multitude of believers had but one heart and
one soul." But let all those also loyally and heartily concur, who
still believe in God and adore Him, in order to ward off from mankind the
great danger that threatens all alike. For in truth, belief in
God is the unshaken foundation of all social order and of all responsible
action on earth; and therefore all those who do not want anarchy and terrorism,
ought to bestir themselves with a will in order that the enemies of Religion
may not attain the goal they have so loudly proclaimed to the world.
We are aware, Venerable Brethren, that in this battle
for the defense of Religion we must make use of all lawful means at our
disposal. Therefore following in the wise path of our predecessor
Leo XIII of saintly memory in Our Encyclical "Quadragesimo Anno"
We
advocated so energetically a more equitable distribution of the goods of
the earth and indicated the most efficacious means of restoring health
and strength to the ailing social body, and tranquillity and peace to its
suffering members. For the unquenchable aspiration to reach a suitable
state of happiness even on earth is planted in the heart of man by the
Creator of all things, and Christianity has always recognized and ardently
promoted every just effort of true culture and sound progress for the perfecting
and developing of mankind.
However, in the face of this satanic hatred of Religion,
which reminds Us of the "mystery of iniquity" referred to by St. Paul,
mere human means and expedients are not enough, and we should consider
ourselves wanting in Our Apostolic Ministry if We did not point out to
mankind those wonderful mysteries of light, that alone contain the hidden
strength to subjugate the unchained powers of darkness.
When Our Lord, coming down from the splendors of
Thabor had healed the boy tormented by the devil, whom the Disciples had
not been able to cure, to their humble question, "Why could not we cast
him out," He made reply in the memorable words "This kind is not cast
out but by praying and fasting." It appears to Us, Venerable Brethren,
that these Divine Words find a peculiar application in the evils of our
times, that can be averted only by means of prayer and penance.
Mindful then of our condition, that we are essentially
limited and absolutely dependent on the Supreme Being, before everything
else let us have recourse to prayer. We know through Faith how great
is the power of humble, trustful, persevering prayer; and to no other pious
work have ever been attached such ample, such universal, such Solemn Promises
as to prayer! "Ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall
find, knock and it shall be opened to you. For everyone that asketh,
receiveth, and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall
be opened." "Amen, amen I say to you if you ask the Father anything
in My Name He will give it to you."
And what object could be more worthy of our prayer
and more in keeping with the adorable person of Him Who is the only "Mediator
of God and men, the Man Jesus Christ" than to beseech Him to preserve on
earth faith in one God living and true? Such prayer bears already
in itself a part of its answer; for in the very act of prayer a man unites
himself with God and, so to speak, keeps alive on earth the idea of God.
The man who prays, merely by his humble posture professes before the world
his faith in the Creator and Lord of all things; joined with others
in prayer he recognizes that not only the individual but human society
as a whole has over it a Supreme and Absolute Lord.
What a spectacle for Heaven and earth is not
the Church in prayer! For centuries without interruption, from midnight
to midnight, is repeated on earth the Divine Psalmody of the inspired Canticles;
there is no hour of the day that is not hallowed by its special Liturgy;
there is no stage of life great or small that has not its part in the thanksgiving,
praise, supplication and reparation of the common prayer of the Mystical
Body of Christ, which is the Church. Thus prayer of itself assures
the presence of God among men, according to the promise of the Divine Redeemer:
"Where there are two or three gathered together in My Name, there am I
in the midst of them."
In addition, prayer will remove the fundamental
cause of present day difficulties which We have mentioned above, that is
the insatiable greed for earthly goods. The man who prays looks above
to the goods of Heaven whereon he meditates and which he desires; his whole
being plunged in the contemplation of the marvelous order established by
God, which knows not the frenzy of success and does not lose itself in
futile competitions of ever increasing speed; and thus automatically, as
it were, will be reestablished that equilibrium between work and rest,
whose entire absence from society today is responsible for grave dangers
to life physical, economic and moral. If therefore those who through
the excessive production of manufactured articles have fallen into unemployment
and poverty made up their minds to give the proper time to prayer there
is no doubt that work and production would soon return to reasonable limits
and that the conflict which now divides humanity into two great camps struggling
for transient interests would be changed into a noble and peaceful contest
for goods Heavenly and Eternal.
In like manner will the way be opened to the peace
we long for, as St. Paul beautifully remarks in the passage where he joins
the precept of prayer to holy desires for the peace and salvation of all
men: "I desire therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions
and thanksgivings be made for all men; for kings and all that are in high
station, that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all piety and chastity.
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God Our Savior, Who will
have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of Truth."
Let peace be implored for all men, but especially for those who in human
society have the grave responsibilities of government; for how could they
give peace to their peoples if they have it not themselves? And it
is prayer precisely that, according to the Apostle will bring the Gift
of Peace; prayer that is addressed to the Heavenly Father Who is the Father
of all men; prayer that is the common expression of family feelings,
of that great family which extends beyond the boundaries of any country
and continent.
Men who in every nation pray to the same God for
peace on earth cannot be at the same time bearers of discord among peoples;
men who turn in prayer to the Divine Majesty cannot foment that nationalistic
imperialism which of each people makes its own god; men who look to the
"God of Peace and of Love," who turn to Him through the mediation of Christ,
Who is "Our Peace," will know no rest until finally that peace which the
world cannot give, comes down from the Giver of Every Good Gift on
"men
of good will."
"Peace be to you," was the Easter greeting of
Our Lord to His Apostles and first Disciples; and this blessed greeting
from those first times until our day has never been absent from the Sacred
Liturgy of the Church, and today more than ever it should comfort and refresh
aching and oppressed human hearts.
CHAPTER THREE
But to prayer we must also join penance, the spirit
of penance and the practice of Christian penance. Thus Our Divine
Master teaches us, Whose first preaching was precisely penance: "Jesus
began to preach and to say, 'Do penance'." The same is the teaching
of all Christian Tradition, of the whole history of the Church: in the
great calamities, in the great tribulations of Christianity, when the need
of God's help was most pressing, the faithful either spontaneously or more
often following the lead and exhortations of their Holy Pastors, have always
taken in hand the two most mighty weapons of spiritual life--prayer
and penance. By that sacred instinct, by which unconsciously
as it were, the Christian people are guided when not led astray by the
sowers of tares, and which is none other than that "Mind of Christ" of
which the Apostle speaks, the faithful have always felt immediately
in such cases the need of purifying their souls from sin with contrition
of heart, with the Sacrament of reconciliation and of appeasing Divine
Justice with external works of penance as well.
Certainly We know, and with you, Venerable Brethren,
We deplore the fact that in our day the idea and the name of expiation
and penance have with many lost in great part the power of rousing enthusiasm
of heart and heroism of sacrifice. In other times they were able
to inspire such feelings, for they appeared in the eyes of men of faith
as sealed with a Divine mark in the likeness of Christ and His Saints:
but these days there are some who would put aside external mortifications
as things of the past; without mentioning the modern "autonomous man" who
despises penance as bearing the mark of servitude. As a fact the
notion of the need of penance and expiation is lost in proportion as belief
in God is weakened, and the idea of an original sin and of a first rebellion
of man against God becomes confused and disappears.
But We on the other hand, Venerable Brethren, have
the duty of the Pastoral Office of bearing aloft these names and ideas
and of preserving them in their true meaning, in their genuine dignity,
and still more in their practical and necessary application to Christian
life. To this We are urged by the very defense of God and Religion,
which We sustain, since penance is of its nature a recognition and reestablishment
of the moral order in the world that is founded on the Eternal Law, that
is on the Living God. He who makes satisfaction to God for sin recognizes
thereby the sanctity of the highest principles of morality, their internal
binding power, the need of a sanction against their violation. Certainly
one of the most dangerous errors of our age is the claim to separate morality
from Religion; thus removing all solid basis for any Legislation.
This intellectual error might perhaps have passed unnoticed and appeared
less dangerous when it was confined to a few, and belief in God was still
the common heritage of mankind, and was tacitly presumed even in the case
of those who no longer professed it openly. But today, when atheism
is spreading through the masses of the people, the practical consequences
of such an error become dreadfully tangible, and realities of the saddest
kind make their appearance in the world.
In place of moral laws which disappear together
with the loss of faith in God, brute force is imposed trampling on every
right. Old time fidelity and honesty of conduct and mutual intercourse
extolled so much even by the orators and poets of paganism, now give place
to speculations in one's own affairs as in those of others without reference
to conscience. In fact, how can any contract be maintained and
what value can any treaty have, in which every guarantee of consicence
is lacking? And how can there be talk of guarantees of conscience
when all faith in God and all fear of God has vanished? Take
away this basis, and with it all moral law falls, and there is no remedy
left to stop the gradual but inevitable destruction of peoples, families,
the state, civilization itself.
Penance then is, as it were, a salutary weapon
placed in the hands of the valiant soldiers of Christ, who wish to fight
for the defense and restoration of the moral order in the universe.
It is a weapon that strikes at the root of all evil, that is, at the dust
of material wealth and the wanton pleasures of life. By means
of voluntary sacrifices, by means of practical and even painful acts of
self denial, by means of various works of penance, the noblehearted Christian
subdues the base passions that tend to make him violate the moral order.
But if zeal for Divine Law and brotherly love are as great in him as they
should be, then not only does he practice penance for himself and his own
sins, but he takes upon himself the expiation of the sins of whole generations,
imitating even the Divine Redeemer, Who became the Lamb of God "Who taketh
away the sins of the world."
Is there not perchance, Venerable Brethren, in this
spirit of penance also a sweet mystery of peace? "There is no peace
to the wicked" says the Holy Ghost, because they live in continuous struggle
and conflict with the order established by nature and by its Creator.
Only when this order is restored, when all peoples faithfully and spontaneously
recognize and profess it, when the internal conditions of peoples and their
outward relations with other nations are founded on this basis, then only
will stable peace be possible on earth. But to create this atmosphere
of lasting peace, neither peace treaties, nor the most solemn pacts, nor
international meetings or conferences, not even the noblest and most disinterested
efforts of any statesman will be enough unless in the first place are recognized
the Sacred Rights of natural and Divine Law. No leader in public
economy, no power of organization will even be able to bring social conditions
to a peaceful solution, unless first in the very field of economics there
triumphs moral law based on God and conscience. This is the underlying
value of every value in the political life as well as in the economic life
of nations; this is the soundest "rate of exchange." If it is
kept steady all the rest will be stable, being guaranteed by the immutable
and Eternal Law of God.
And even for men individually, penance is the foundation
and bearer of true peace detaching them from earthly and perishable goods,
lifting them up to goods that are eternal, giving them, even in the midst
of privations and adversity, a peace that the world with all its wealth
and pleasures cannot give. One of the most pleasing and joyous songs
ever heard in this vale of tears is without doubt the famous "Canticle
of the sun" of St. Francis. Now the man who composed it, who wrote
and sang it, was one of the greatest penitents, the Poor Man of Assisi,
who possessed absolutely nothing on earth, and bore in his emaciated body
the painful stigmata of his crucified Lord.
Prayer then and penance are the two potent inspirations
sent to us at this time by God, that we may lead back to Him mankind that
has gone astray and wanders about without a guide; they are the inspiratios
that will dispel and remedy the first and principal cause of every revolt
and every revolution, the revolt of man against God. But the peoples
themselves are called upon to make up their minds to a definite choice;
either they entrust themselves to these benevolent and beneficent inspirations
and are converted, humble and repentant, to the Lord and the Father of
Mercies, or they abandon themselves and what little remains of happiness
on earth to the mercy of the enemy of God, to the spirit of vengeance and
destruction.
Nothing remains for Us therefore save to invite
this poor world that has shed so much blood, has dug so many graves, has
destroyed so many works, has deprived so many men of bread and labor, nothing
else remains for Us, We say, but to invite it in the loving words of the
Sacred Liturgy: "Be thou converted to the Lord thy God."
CHAPTER FOUR
What more suitable occasion can We point out
to you, Venerable Brethren, for such a union of prayer and reparation than
the approaching Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus? The proper spirit
of this Solemnity, as we amply showed four years ago in Our Encyclical
Letter, "Miserentissimus" is the spirit of loving reparation,
and therefore it was Our will that on that day every year in perpetuity
there should be made in all the Churches of the world a public act of reparation
for all the offenses that wound that Divine Heart.
Let therefore this year the Feast of the Sacred
Heart be for the whole Church one of holy rivalry of reparation and supplication.
Let the faithful hasten in large numbers to the Eucharistic Board, hasten
to the foot of the Altar to adore the Redeemer of the World, under the
veils of the Sacrament, that you, Venerable Brethren, will have solemnly
exposed that day in all the Churches, let them pour out to that Merciful
Heart that has known all the griefs of the human heart, the fullness of
their sorrow, the steadfastness of their faith, the trust of their hope,
the ardor of their Charity. Let them pray to Him, interposing likewise
the powerful patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces,
for themselves and for their families, for their country, for the Church;
let them pray to Him for the Vicar of Christ on Earth and for all the other
Pastors who share with him the dread burden of the spiritual government
of souls; let them pray for their brethren who believe, for their brethren
who err, for believers, for infidels, even for the enemies of God and the
Church that they may be converted, and let them pray for the whole of poor
mankind.
Let this spirit of prayer and reparation be maintained
with keen earnestness and intensity by all the faithful during the entire
octave, to which dignity we have determined to raise this feast; and during
this octave, in the manner that each of you, Venerable Brethren, according
to local circumstances, shall think opportune to prescribe or counsel,
let there be public prayers and other devout exercises of piety for the
intentions We have briefly touched on above, "that we may obtain mercy
and find grace in seasonable aid."
May this be indeed for the whole Christian people
an octave or reparation and of holy sadness; let these be days of mortification
and of prayer. Let the faithful abstain at least from entertainments
and amusements however lawful; let those who are in easier circumstances
deduct also something voluntarily, in the spirit of Christian austerity,
from the moderate measure of their usual manner of life, bestowing rather
on the poor the proceeds of this retrenchment, since almsgiving is also
an excellent means of satisfying Divine Justice and drawing down Divine
Mercies. And let the poor, and all those who at this time are facing
the hard trial of want of work and scarity of food, let them in a like
spirit of penance offer with greater resignation the privations imposed
on them by these hard times and the state of society, which Divine Providence
in an inscrutable but ever loving plan has assigned them. Let
them accept with a humble and trustful heart from the hand of God the effects
of poverty, rendered harder by the distress in which mankind is now struggling;
let them rise more generously even to the Divine sublimity of the Cross
of Christ, reflecting on the fact that if work is among the greatest values
of life, it was nevertheless love of a suffering God that saved the world;
let them take comfort in the certainty that their sacrifices and their
troubles borne in a Christian spirit will concur efficaciously to hasten
the hour of mercy and peace.
The Divine Heart of Jesus cannot but be moved at
the prayers and sacrifices of His Church, and He will finally say to His
spouse, weeping at His feet under the weight of so many griefs and woes:
"Great is thy faith; be it done to thee as thou wilt." With this
confidence, strengthened by the memory of the Cross, Sacred Symbol and
Precious Instrument of our Holy Redemption, the glorious invention of which
we celebrate today, to Venerable Brethren, to your Clergy and people, to
the whole Catholic world, We impart with paternal love the Apostolic Benediction.
Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, on the Feast of the
Invention of the Holy Cross, the third of May in the year of 1932,
the eleventh of our Pontificate.
POPE PIUS XI
DESCRIPTION OF MAGNIFICENT
PAPAL CORONATION
As Peter was given a new name so does the new Supreme
Pontiff become known by another. After the election he extends his
first blessing to the people -- a Benediction which was not given in the
open for years until Pope Pius XI established the custom.
The Coronation, one of the most magnificent of
Vatican Ceremonies, takes place shortly after the election. With
the Pope carried high in a golden chair and attended by brilliantly
attired
chamberlains and soldiers, the Coronation Mass is an unrivaled spectacle
of beauty, dignity, and ancient pageantry. At the Coronation, in
the midst of the pomp and splendor, a master of ceremonies recites in Latin:
"Holy Father, thus does the glory of the world pass away." As the
first Cardinal Deacon places the three-crowned Tiara on the head of the
Pope, he says: "Receive the three-crowned Tiara, and know that thou are
the Father of Princes and Kings, the Pastor of the earth, and Vicar of
Jesus Christ, to Whom be honor and glory forever. Amen."
The CORONATION of Pope Pius XII took place on
the balcony of St. Peter's in March 1939. (From the book "The
Vatican and Holy Year" by Stephen S. Fenichell & Phillip Andrews --
1950 edition.)
(Tradition is an equal part [along with the Bible] of the Authoritative Teaching of the Church -- From the book "The Immaculate Way" by Brian Farrely, S.S.M. -- 1963 edition.)
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