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Title: |
Caritate Christi Compulsi
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Descr.: |
On Reparation To The Sacred Heart
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Pope: |
Pope Pius XI
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Date: |
May 3, 1932
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To
the Venerable Brethren the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops,
Bishops, and Other Ordinaries of Localities Having Peace and
Communion with the Apostolic See.
Venerable
Brethren, Health and the Apostolic Benediction.
1.
Constrained by the Charity of Christ, in Our Encyclical Letter
Nova impendet on the second day of October in last year, we
incited the children of the Catholic Church - and, indeed, all men
of good heart - to a pious emulation in love and in helpful
action, so that the terrible evils that come from the economic
crisis, and are everywhere oppressing human society, might be in
some measure mitigated. Our invitation, indeed, was warmly
welcomed with remarkable unanimity, through the active liberality
of all. Nevertheless, since the distress is increasing and the
hosts of men in affliction by enforced idleness are almost
everywhere growing greater; and since seditious men make use of
these difficulties and turn them to the advantage of their own
several factions, it has come to pass that public institutions
themselves are in a most critical situation, so that a very grave
danger of disturbances and of a general upheaval is threatening
civil society. In this state of things, Venerable Brethren.
stirred up by the selfsame charity of Christ, We once more address
you all, and the faithful committed to your care, and indeed all
men, exhorting all and several that with all their forces united
in a spirit of charity they should endeavor to withstand, by every
possible effort, the calamities by which civil society is now
afflicted and those yet graver calamities threatening it in the
future.
2.
Anyone who considers carefully the prolonged and bitter series of
sufferings, the unhappy heritage of sin, whereby, as by so many
stages, we mark the course of fallen man in this mortal
pilgrimage, can hardly find any occasion since the flood, when the
race of man was so deeply and so commonly tried by so many and
such great distresses of body and of mind as those which we lament
to see in the present troubles; for even the most terrible
calamities and disasters which have left indelible traces on the
records and the life of nations did but devastate now one people,
now another. But in this troubled time the whole human race is so
pressed by the scarcity of money and by the straits of the
economic crisis that the more it struggles to get free, the more
it feels itself inextricably fettered. And from this it comes that
there is now no nation, no state, no society, no family, that is
not either itself oppressed, more or less gravely, by these
calamities, or else seems likely to be dragged down headlong by
the ruin of others. Nay more, those very men, very few indeed, who
since they are endowed with immense riches, seemed to control the
government of the world, those very few, moreover, who, being
addicted to excessive gain, were and are in great part the cause
of such great evils; those very men - we say - are often, with
little honor, the first to be ruined, grasping the goods and the
fortunes of very many unto their own destruction; so that we may
see how the judgment, spoken by the Holy Spirit concerning guilty
individual men, is now verified in the whole world: "By what
things a man sinneth, by the same also he is tormented"
(Wisdom xi. 17).
3.
Lamenting this unhappy state of things from our innermost heart,
We are compelled as by a certain necessity to express, according
to our weakness, the same words that came from the love of the
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, crying out in like manner: "I
have compassion on the multitude" (Mark viii. 2). But,
indeed, the root itself from which this most unhappy state of
things arises is yet more to be lamented; for if that judgment of
the Holy Spirit, proclaimed by the Apostle St. Paul, "the
desire of money is the root of all evils," was always in
close agreement with the facts, this is more than ever true at the
present time. For is not that avidity for perishable goods which
was justly and rightly mocked, even by a heathen poet as the
execrable hunger of gold, "auri sacra fames"; is not
that sordid seeking for each one's own benefit, which is very
often the only motive by which bonds between either individuals or
societies are instituted; and, lastly, is not this cupidity, by
whatsoever name or style it is called, the chief reason why we now
see, to our sorrow, that mankind is brought to its present
critical condition? For it is from this that come the first shoots
of a mutual suspicion which saps the strength of any human
commerce; hence come the sparks of an envy which accounts the
goods of others a loss to itself; hence comes that sordid and
excessive self-love which orders and subordinates all things to
its own advantage, and not only neglects but tramples upon the
advantage of others; and, lastly, hence come the iniquitous
disturbance of affairs and the unequal division of possessions, as a result of which the wealth of nations is
heaped up in the hands of a very few private men, who - as We
warned you last year, in Our Encyclical Letter Quadragesimo anno -
control the trade of the whole world at their will, thereby doing
immense harm to the people.
4.
Now if this excessive love of self and of one's own, by an abuse
of the legitimate care for our country and an undue exaltation of
the feelings of piety towards our own people (which piety is not
condemned but hallowed and strengthened by the right order of
Christian charity) encroaches on the mutual relations and the ties
between peoples, there is hardly anything so abnormal that it will
not be regarded as free from fault; so that the same deed which
would be condemned by the judgment of all when it is done by
private individuals, is held to be honest and worthy of praise
when it is done for the love of the country. In this way, a
hatred, which must needs be fatal to all, supplants the Divine law
of brotherly love which bound all nations and peoples into one
family under one Father who is in Heaven; in the administration of
public affairs the Divine laws, which are the standard of all
civic life and culture, are trampled under foot; the firm
foundations of right and faith, on which the commonwealth rests,
are overturned; and, lastly, men corrupt and obliterate the
principles handed down by their ancestors, according to which the
worship of God and the strict observance of His law form the
finest flower and the safest pillar of the state. Furthermore -
and this may be called the most perilous of all these evils - the
enemies of all order, whether they be called Communists or by some
other name, exaggerating the very grave straits of the economic
crisis, in this great perturbation of morals, with extreme
audacity, direct all their efforts to one end, seeking to cast
away every bridle from their necks, and breaking the bonds of all
law both human and divine, wage an atrocious war against all
religion and against God Himself; in this it is their purpose to
uproot utterly all knowledge and sense of religion from the minds
of men, even from the tenderest age, for they know well that if
once the Divine law and knowledge were blotted out from the minds
of men there would now be nothing that they could not arrogate to
themselves. And thus we now see with our own eyes - what we have
not read of as happening anywhere before - impious men, agitated
by unspeakable fury, shamelessly lifting up a banner against God
and against all religion throughout the whole world.
5.
It is true, indeed, that wicked men were never wanting, nor men
who denied the existence of God; but these last were very few in
number, and, being alone and singular, they either feared to
express their evil mind openly, or thought it inopportune to do
so. The Psalmist, inspired by the Divine Spirit, seems to hint
this in those words: "The fool hath said in his heart: There
is no God" (Ps. xiii. 1, lii. 1); as though he showed us such
an impious man, as one solitary in a multitude, denying that God
his Maker exists, but shutting up this sin in his innermost mind.
But in this age of ours, this most pernicious error is now
propagated far and wide amid the multitude, it is insinuated even
in the popular schools, and shows itself openly in the theaters;
and in order that it may be spread abroad as far as possible, its
advocates seek aid from the latest inventions, from what are
called cinematographic scenes, from gramophonic and radiophonic
concerts and discourses; and possessed of printing offices of
their own, they print books in all languages, and, taking a
triumphant course, they publicly display the monuments and
documents of their impiety. Nor is this enough; for dispersed
among political, economical and military parties, and closely
associated with them, through their heralds, by means of
committees, by pictures and leaflets, and all other possible
means, they labor diligently in the evil work of spreading their
opinions among all classes and societies, and in the public ways;
and to carry this further, supported by the authority and work of
their universities, they succeed at last by forceful industry in
binding fast those who have incautiously allowed themselves to be
aggregated to their body. When We consider all this careful labor
devoted to the advantage of an unlawful cause, that most sad
complaint of Christ our Lord spontaneously rises in our mind and
on our lips: "The children of this world are wiser in their
generation than the children of light" (Luke xvi. 8).
6.
Now, the leaders and authors of this iniquitous faction do all
they can to turn the present distress and need of all things to
their own purpose; and they seek, by infamous cavils, to persuade
the people that God and religion are to blame as the cause of all
these great evils; and that the sacred Cross of Christ our Savior
itself, the ensign of poverty and humility, may be compared with
the ensigns of the modern lust of domineering; as though,
forsooth, religion was joined in friendly union with those
conventicles of darkness which have brought such an immense mass
of misery upon the whole world. And by this line of argument they
strive, not without fatal effect, to mix up the struggle for daily
food, the desire to possess a smallholding, to have a fair wage,
an honorable home and, lastly, those conditions of life that are
not unworthy of a man, with their iniquitous war against God. It
may be added that these same men, going beyond all measure, treat
alike the legitimate appetites of nature and its unbridled lusts,
so long as this seems to favor their impious plans and
institutions; as though the eternal laws promulgated by God were
in conflict with man's happiness, whereas they create it and
preserve it; or as if the power of man, however much it may be
augmented by the latest inventions of art, could prevail against
the most mighty will of God the Best and Greatest and give to the
world a new and a better order.
7.
And now, indeed, which is much to be lamented, immense multitudes
of men, having completely lost touch with the truth, adopt these
delusions, and believing that they are fighting for livelihood and
culture utter violent invectives against God and against religion.
Nor is this directed against the Catholic religion alone; for it
is against all those that acknowledge God as the Author of this
visible world, and as the Supreme Ruler of all things. Moreover,
the Secret Societies, which by their nature are ever ready to help
the enemies of God and of the Church - be these who they may - are
seeking to add fresh fires to this poisonous hatred, from which
there comes no peace or happiness of the civil order, but the
certain ruin of states.
8.
In this wise, this new form of impiety, while it removes all
checks from the most powerful lusts of man, most impudently
proclaims that there will be no peace and no happiness on earth
until the last vestige of religion has been uprooted, and the last
of its followers beheaded - as though they thought that the
wondrous concert wherein all created things "show forth the
glory of God" (cf. Ps. xviii. 2) could ever be reduced to
everlasting silence.
9.
We know very well, Venerable Brethren, that all these efforts will
come to nought, since without doubt, and in His own appointed
time, "God shall arise, and his enemies shall be
scattered" (Ps. Ixvii. 2); We know that the gates of Hell
shall never prevail (cf. Matt. xvi. 18); We know that Our Divine
Redeemer, as was foretold of Him, "shall strike the earth
with the rod of his mouth" (cf. Isaias xi. 4); and there will
be a dreadful hour for those wretched men, when they shall fall
"into the hands of the living God" (cf. Heb x. 31).
10.
Our unshaken hope in this complete victory of God and of the
Church receives daily confirmation (such is the infinite mercy of
God!) from the noble ardor of innumerable souls whom we see
turning themselves to God, in every country and in all classes of
society. For most certainly a very powerful afflatus of the Holy
Spirit is rushing through all lands, and is moving the hearts,
especially the hearts of the young, to mount upwards to the
highest summits of the Christian law, and, raising them above the
vain observance of men, makes them ready to undertake even the
most arduous deeds. This divine afflatus, We say, stirs the souls
of all, even those who were unwilling, filling them with an
intimate solicitude, and gives the yearning for God even to those
who do not dare to acknowledge it. In like manner Our invitation
to laymen, calling them to join the hosts of Catholic Action in
order that they might become partakers in the apostolate of the
hierarchy, has been accepted by the multitudes of the docile and
the magnanimous in all lands; and the number of those who are
striving with all their strength to defend the Christian law and
to bring the whole life of the commonwealth into harmony with it,
is daily growing both in the cities and in the country; and these
men strive likewise to confirm the principles they preach, by the
example of a blameless life. But when We behold so much impiety,
so much trampling under foot of the most holy institutions, such
great destruction of immortal souls, and lastly such great
contempt of the Divine Majesty, We cannot refrain, Venerable
Brethren, from pouring out the most bitter sorrow by which We are
oppressed, and from lifting up Our voice with all the strength of
the apostolic heart, in defense of the outraged rights of God, and
of the holy desires of the human soul in its absolute need of God;
and We do this the more readily because these hostile hosts,
raging with diabolical spirit, are not content with declamation,
but are striving with all their strength to give effect to their
nefarious plans as speedily as possible. Woe to the race of men if
God, being treated with such contempt by the natures He has made,
should leave an open course to these floods of devastation, and
should use them as scourges to punish the world withal!
11.
It is needful, therefore, Venerable Brethren, that we should
unflinchingly set up "a wall for the house of Israel" (Ezechiel
xiii. 5), and that we too should join all our forces together into
one solid band against these hostile ranks which are hostile both
to God and to mankind. For in this fight we are contending for the
greatest question that can be proposed to human liberty: either
for God or against God; here, again, is a debate in which the fate
of the whole world is concerned; for in every matter, in politics,
in economics, in morals, in discipline, in the arts, in the state,
in civic and domestic society, in the East and in the West,
everywhere we meet with this debate, and its consequences are a
matter of supreme moment. And so it comes to pass that even the
masters of that sect which foolishly says that the world is
nothing but matter, and boasts that it has already shown for
certain that there is no God - even these are constrained, again
and again, to institute discussions about Him, though they thought
they had done away with Him altogether.
12.
Wherefore, We exhort all, private individuals as well as states,
in the Lord, that now when such grave matters are agitated,
critical questions concerning the welfare of all mankind, to lay
aside that sordid and selfish regard for nothing but their own
advantage, which blunts even the keenest minds, and cuts short
even the noblest enterprises if they go the least bit beyond the
narrow bounds of self-interest. Let all, then, join together, if
need be even at the cost of serious loss, so that they may save
themselves and all human society. In this union of minds and of
forces, those who glory in the Christian name ought surely to take
the foremost place, remembering the illustrious examples of the
Apostolic age, when "the multitude of believers had but one
heart and one soul" (Acts iv. 32). But besides these, all
whoever sincerely acknowledge God and honor Him from their heart
should lend their aid in order that mankind may be saved from the
great peril impending over all. For since all human authority must
needs rest on the recognition of God, as on the firm foundation of
any civil order, those who would not have all things overturned
and all laws abrogated, must strive strenuously to prevent the
enemies of religion from giving effect to the plans which they
have so openly and so vehemently proclaimed.
13.
Nor are We unaware, Venerable Brethren, that in this fight for our
altars we must also use all the legitimate human arms which are
ready to our hands. For this reason, in Our Encyclical Letter
Quadragesimo anno, following in the footsteps of Our predecessor,
Leo XIII of illustrious memory, We contended so strenuously for a
more equal division of earthly goods, indicating all those things
by which the health and vigor of all human society may be most
efficaciously restored, and peace and tranquillity may be given to
its laboring members. For since a most vehement desire of
obtaining a certain honorable happiness, even on this earth, has
been implanted by the Maker of all things in the minds of mortal
men, the Christian law has ever regarded with benevolence and
actively fostered all legitimate efforts to promote the progress
of true science, and to lead men by the right path to a higher
condition.
14.
However, in the face of this satanic hatred of religion, which
reminds Us of the "mystery of iniquity" (Thess. ii. 7)
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 prayer and fasting" (Matth. xvii. 18, 20). It appears
to Us, Venerable Brethren, that these divine words find a peculiar
application in the evils of our times, which can be averted only
by means of prayer and penance.
15.
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. To no other
pious work has 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 every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth;
and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened" (Matth. vii.
7). "Amen, amen I say to you, if you ask the Father anything
in my name He will give it you" (Io. xvi. 23).
16.
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" (I Tim.
ii. 5), 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.
17.
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 that has not its part in the
thanksgiving, praise, supplication and reparation in common use by
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" (Matth. xviii. 20).
18.
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 is plunged in the contemplation of the marvelous
order established by God, which knows not the frenzy of earthly
successes nor the futile competitions of ever increasing speed;
and thus automatically, as it were, will be re-established 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 goods 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 be brought within 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.
19.
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" (I Tim. ii. 1-4). 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.
20.
Men who in every nation pray to the same God for peace on earth
will not kindle flames of discord among the peoples; men who turn
in prayer to the divine Majesty will not set up in their own
country a craving for domination; nor foster that inordinate love
of country which of its own nation makes its own god; men who look
to the "God of peace and of love" (II Cor. xiii. 11),
who turn to Him through the mediation of Christ, who is "our
peace" (Eph. ii. 14), will never rest until finally that
peace which the world cannot give comes down from the Giver of
every good gift on "men of good will" (Luc. ii. 14).
21.
"Peace be to you" (Io. xx. 26) 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 ever found place
in the sacred Liturgy of the Church, and today more than ever
should comfort and refresh aching and oppressed human hearts.
22.
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" (Matth.
iv. 17). 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 is guided when not
led astray by the sowers of tares, and which is none other than
that "mind of Christ" (I Cor. ii. 16) 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.
23.
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 likeness of Christ
and His Saints: but nowadays there are some who would put aside
external mortifications as things of the past; without mentioning
the modern exponent of liberty, the "autonomous man" as
he is called, 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.
24.
But We, on the other hand, Venerable Brethren, in virtue of Our
pastoral office, must bear aloft these names and these ideas, and
preserve 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 a re-establishment of the moral order in the world
which 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 conscience 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.
25.
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 right at the root of all evil, that is at
the lust 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 noble-hearted Christian subdues the base passions that tend to
make him violate the moral order. But if zeal for the 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 others, imitating
the Saints who often heroically made themselves victims of
reparation for the sins of whole generations, imitating even the
divine Redeemer, who became the Lamb of God "who taketh away
the sins of the world" (lo. i. 29).
26.
Is there not perchance, Venerable Brethren, in this spirit of
penance also a sweet mystery of peace? "There is no peace to
the wicked" (Is. Iviii. 22), says the Holy Spirit, 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, nor
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 ever 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.
27.
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 most joyous songs ever heard in this vale tears
is without doubt the famous "Canticle of the Sun" of St.
Francis. Now the man who composed it, who wrote it 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.
28.
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
inspirations that will dispel and remedy the first and principal
cause of every form of disturbance and rebellion, 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 hand over themselves and what little remains of
happiness on earth to the mercy of the enemy of God, to the spirit
of vengeance and destruction.
29.
Nothing remains for Us, therefore, but 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."
30.
What more suitable occasion can We indicate, 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.
31.
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 Bread,
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 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
unbelievers, 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.
32.
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 it has pleased Us 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." (Hebr. iv. 16.)
33.
May this be indeed for the whole Christian people an octave of
reparation and of holy austerity; 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 renunciation 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 unemployment and scarcity 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 its 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 trials
borne in a Christian spirit will concur efficaciously to hasten
the hour of mercy and peace.
34.
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." (Matth.
xv. 28.)
35.
With this confidence, strengthened by the memory of the Cross,
sacred symbol and precious instrument of our holy redemption, the
glorious Finding of which we celebrate today, to you, 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 Finding of the Holy
Cross, the third day of May in the year 1932, the eleventh of Our
Pontificate.
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