TO OUR VENERABLE BRETHREN THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES,
ARCHBISHOPS, AND OTHER LOCAL ORDINARIES
IN PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE.
Venerable
Brethren, Health and the Apostolic Blessing.
Our
Most Merciful Redeemer, after He had wrought salvation for mankind on the tree
of the Cross and before He ascended from out this world to the Father, said to
his Apostles and Disciples, to console them in their anxiety, "Behold I am
with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." (Matt.
xxviii, 20). These words, which are indeed most pleasing, are a cause of all
hope and security, and they bring us, Venerable Brethren, ready succor,
whenever we look round from this watch-tower raised on high and see all human
society laboring amid so many evils and miseries, and the Church herself beset
without ceasing by attacks and machinations. For as in the beginning this
Divine promise lifted up the despondent spirit of the Apostles and enkindled
and inflamed them so that they might cast the seeds of the Gospel teaching
throughout the whole world; so ever since it has strengthened the Church unto
her victory over the gates of hell. In sooth, Our Lord Jesus Christ has been
with his Church in every age, but He has been with her with more present aid
and protection whenever she has been assailed by graver perils and
difficulties. For the remedies adapted to the condition of time and
circumstances, are always supplied by Divine Wisdom, who reacheth from end to
end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly (Wisdom viii, 1). But in
this latter age also, "the hand of the Lord is not shortened" (Isaias
lix, 1), more especially since error has crept in and has spread far and wide,
so that it might well be feared that the fountains of Christian life might be
in a manner dried up, where men are cut off from the love and knowledge of God.
Now, since it may be that some of the people do not know, and others do not
heed, those complaints which the most loving Jesus made when He manifested
Himself to Margaret Mary Alacoque, and those things likewise which at the same
time He asked and expected of men, for their own ultimate profit, it is our
pleasure, Venerable Brethren, to speak to you for a little while concerning the
duty of honorable satisfaction which we all owe to the Most Sacred Heart of
Jesus, with the intent that you may, each of you, carefully teach your own
flocks those things which we set before you, and stir them up to put the same
in practice.
2.
Among the many proofs of the boundless benignity of our Redeemer, there is one
that stands out conspicuously, to wit the fact that when the charity of
Christian people was growing cold, the Divine Charity itself was set forth to
be honored by a special worship, and the riches of its bounty was made widely
manifest by that form of devotion wherein worship is given to the Most Sacred
Heart of Jesus, "In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge" (Coloss. ii, 3). For as in olden time when mankind came
forth from Noe's ark, God set His "bow in the clouds" (Genesis
ix, 13), shining as the sign of a friendly covenant; so in the most turbulent
times of a more recent age, when the Jansenist heresy, the most crafty of them
all, hostile to love and piety towards God, was creeping in and preaching that
God was not to be loved as a father but rather to be feared as an implacable
judge; then the most benign Jesus showed his own most Sacred Heart to the
nations lifted up as a standard of peace and charity portending no doubtful
victory in the combat. And indeed Our Predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII,
admiring the timely opportuneness of the devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of
Jesus, said very aptly in his Encyclical Letter, "Annum Sacrum,"
"When in the days near her origin, the Church was oppressed under the yoke
of the Caesars the Cross shown on high to the youthful Emperor was at once an
omen and a cause of the victory that speedily followed. And here today another
most auspicious and most divine sign is offered to our sight, to wit the most
Sacred Heart of Jesus, with a Cross set above it shining with most resplendent
brightness in the midst of flames. Herein must all hopes be set, from hence
must the salvation of men be sought and expected."
3.
And rightly indeed is that said, Venerable Brethren. For is not the sum of all
religion and therefore the pattern of more perfect life, contained in that most
auspicious sign and in the form of piety that follows from it inasmuch as it
more readily leads the minds of men to an intimate knowledge of Christ Our
Lord, and more efficaciously moves their hearts to love Him more vehemently and
to imitate Him more closely? It is no wonder, therefore, that Our Predecessors
have constantly defended this most approved form of devotion from the censures
of calumniators, and have extolled it with high praise and promoted it very
zealously, as the needs of time and circumstance demanded. Moreover, by the
inspiration of God's grace, it has come to pass that the pious devotion of the
faithful towards the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus has made great increase in the
course of time; hence pious confraternities to promote the worship of the
Divine Heart are everywhere erected, hence too the custom of receiving Holy
Communion on the first Friday of every month at the desire of Christ Jesus, a
custom which now prevails everywhere.
4.
But assuredly among those things which properly pertain to the worship of the
Most Sacred Heart, a special place must be given to that Consecration, whereby
we devote ourselves and all things that are ours to the Divine Heart of Jesus,
acknowledging that we have received all things from the everlasting love of
God. When Our Savior had taught Margaret Mary, the most innocent disciple of
His Heart, how much He desired that this duty of devotion should be rendered to
him by men, moved in this not so much by His own right as by His immense
charity for us; she herself, with her spiritual father, Claude de la
Colombiere, rendered it the first of all. Thereafter followed, in the course of
time, individual men, then private families and associations, and lastly civil
magistrates, cities and kingdoms. But since in the last century, and in this
present century, things have come to such a pass, that by the machinations of
wicked men the sovereignty of Christ Our Lord has been denied and war is
publicly waged against the Church, by passing laws and promoting plebiscites
repugnant to Divine and natural law, nay more by holding assemblies of them
that cry out, "We will not have this man to reign over us" (Luke
xix, 14): from the aforesaid Consecration there burst forth over against them
in keenest opposition the voice of all the clients of the Most Sacred Heart, as
it were one voice, to vindicate His glory and to assert His rights:
"Christ must reign" (1 Corinthians xv, 25); "Thy kingdom
come" (Matth. vi, 10). From this at length it happily came to pass
that at the beginning of this century the whole human race which Christ, in
whom all things are re-established (Ephes. i, 10), possesses by native
right as His own, was dedicated to the same Most Sacred Heart, with the
applause of the whole Christian world, by Our Predecessor of happy memory, Leo
XIII.
5.
Now these things so auspiciously and happily begun as we taught in Our
Encyclical Letter "Quas primas," we Ourselves, consenting to very
many long-continued desires and prayers of Bishops and people, brought to
completion and perfected, by God's grace, when at the close of the Jubilee
Year, We instituted the Feast of Christ the King of All, to be solemnly
celebrated throughout the whole Christian world. Now when we did this, not only
did we set in a clear light that supreme sovereignty which Christ holds over
the whole universe, over civil and domestic society, and over individual men,
but at the same time we anticipated the joys of that most auspicious day,
whereon the whole world will gladly and willingly render obedience to the most
sweet lordship of Christ the King. For this reason, We decreed at the same time
that this same Consecration should be renewed every year on the occasion of
that appointed festal day, so that the fruit of this same Consecration might be
obtained more certainly and more abundantly, and all peoples might be joined
together in Christian charity and in the reconciliation of peace, in the Heart
of the King of kings and Lord of lords.
6.
But to all these duties, more especially to that fruitful Consecration which
was in a manner confirmed by the sacred solemnity of Christ the King, something
else must needs be added, and it is concerning this that it is our pleasure to
speak with you more at length, Venerable Brethren, on the present occasion: we
mean that duty of honorable satisfaction or reparation which must be rendered
to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. For if the first and foremost thing in
Consecration is this, that the creature's love should be given in return for
the love of the Creator, another thing follows from this at once, namely that
to the same uncreated Love, if so be it has been neglected by forgetfulness or
violated by offense, some sort of compensation must be rendered for the injury,
and this debt is commonly called by the name of reparation.
7.
Now though in both these matters we are impelled by quite the same motives,
none the less we are holden to the duty of reparation and expiation by a
certain more valid title of justice and of love, of justice indeed, in order
that the offense offered to God by our sins may be expiated and that the
violated order may be repaired by penance: and of love too so that we may
suffer together with Christ suffering and "filled with reproaches" (Lam.
iii, 30), and for all our poverty may offer Him some little solace. For since
we are all sinners and laden with many faults, our God must be honored by us
not only by that worship wherewith we adore His infinite Majesty with due
homage, or acknowledge His supreme dominion by praying, or praise His boundless
bounty by thanksgiving; but besides this we must need make satisfaction to God
the just avenger, "for our numberless sins and offenses and
negligences." To Consecration, therefore, whereby we are devoted to God
and are called holy to God, by that holiness and stability which, as the Angelic
Doctor teaches, is proper to consecration (2da. 2dae. qu. 81, a. 8. c.), there
must be added expiation, whereby sins are wholly blotted out, lest the holiness
of the supreme justice may punish our shameless unworthiness, and reject our
offering as hateful rather than accept it as pleasing.
8.
Moreover this duty of expiation is laid upon the whole race of men since, as we
are taught by the Christian faith, after Adam's miserable fall, infected by
hereditary stain, subject to concupiscences and most wretchedly depraved, it
would have been thrust down into eternal destruction. This indeed is denied by
the wise men of this age of ours, who following the ancient error of Pelagius,
ascribe to human nature a certain native virtue by which of its own force it
can go onward to higher things; but the Apostle rejects these false opinions of
human pride, admonishing us that we "were by nature children of
wrath" (Ephesians ii, 3). And indeed, even from the beginning, men
in a manner acknowledged this common debt of expiation and, led by a certain
natural instinct, they endeavored to appease God by public sacrifices.
9.
But no created power was sufficient to expiate the sins of men, if the Son of
God had not assumed man's nature in order to redeem it. This, indeed, the
Savior of men Himself declared by the mouth of the sacred Psalmist:
"Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldest not: but a body thou hast fitted to
me: Holocausts for sin did not please thee: then said I: Behold I come" (Hebrews
x, 5-7). And in very deed, "Surely He hath borne our infirmities, and
carried our sorrows. . . He was wounded for our iniquities (Isaias liii,
4-5), and He His own self bore our sins in His body upon the tree . . . (1 Peter
ii, 24), "Blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against
us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken the same out of the way,
fastening it to the cross . . ." (Colossians ii, 14) "that we
being dead to sins, should live to justice" (1 Peter ii, 24). Yet,
though the copious redemption of Christ has abundantly forgiven us all offenses
(Cf. Colossians ii, 13), nevertheless, because of that wondrous divine
dispensation whereby those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ
are to be filled up in our flesh for His body which is the Church (Cf. Colossians
i, 24), to the praises and satisfactions, "which Christ in the name of
sinners rendered unto God" we can also add our praises and satisfactions,
and indeed it behoves us so to do. But we must ever remember that the whole
virtue of the expiation depends on the one bloody sacrifice of Christ, which
without intermission of time is renewed on our altars in an unbloody manner,
"For the victim is one and the same, the same now offering by the ministry
of priests, who then offered Himself on the cross, the manner alone of offering
being different" (Council of Trent, Session XXIII, Chapter 2).
Wherefore with this most august Eucharistic Sacrifice there ought to be joined
an oblation both of the ministers and of all the faithful, so that they also
may "present themselves living sacrifices, holy, pleasing unto God" (Romans
xii, 1). Nay more, St. Cyprian does not hesitate to affirm that "the
Lord's sacrifice is not celebrated with legitimate sanctification, unless our
oblation and sacrifice correspond to His passion" (Ephesians 63).
For this reason, the Apostle admonishes us that "bearing about in our body
the mortification of Jesus" (2 Corinthians iv, 10), and buried
together with Christ, and planted together in the likeness of His death (Cf. Romans
vi, 4-5), we must not only crucify our flesh with the vices and concupiscences
(Cf. Galatians v, 24), "flying the corruption of that concupiscence
which is in the world" (2 Peter i, 4), but "that the life also
of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies" (2 Corinthians iv, 10)
and being made partakers of His eternal priesthood we are to offer up
"gifts and sacrifices for sins" (Hebrews v, 1). Nor do those
only enjoy a participation in this mystic priesthood and in the office of
satisfying and sacrificing, whom our Pontiff Christ Jesus uses as His ministers
to offer up the clean oblation to God's Name in every place from the rising of
the sun to the going down (Malachias i, 11), but the whole Christian
people rightly called by the Prince of the Apostles "a chosen generation,
a kingly priesthood" (1 Peter ii, 9), ought to offer for sins both
for itself and for all mankind (Cf. Hebrews v, 3), in much the same
manner as every priest and pontiff "taken from among men, is ordained for
men in the things that appertain to God" (Hebrews v, 1).
10.
But the more perfectly that our oblation and sacrifice corresponds to the
sacrifice of Our Lord, that is to say, the more perfectly we have immolated our
love and our desires and have crucified our flesh by that mystic crucifixion of
which the Apostle speaks, the more abundant fruits of that propitiation and
expiation shall we receive for ourselves and for others. For there is a
wondrous and close union of all the faithful with Christ, such as that which
prevails between the head and the other members; moreover by that mystic
Communion of Saints which we profess in the Catholic creed, both individual men
and peoples are joined together not only with one another but also with him,
"who is the head, Christ; from whom the whole body, being compacted and
fitly joined together, by what every joint supplieth, according to the
operation in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the
edifying of itself in charity" (Ephesians iv, 15-16). It was this
indeed that the Mediator of God and men, Christ Jesus, when He was near to
death, asked of His Father: "I in them, and thou in me: that they may be
made perfect in one" (John xvii, 23).
11.
Wherefore, even as consecration proclaims and confirms this union with Christ,
so does expiation begin that same union by washing away faults, and perfect it
by participating in the sufferings of Christ, and consummate it by offering
victims for the brethren. And this indeed was the purpose of the merciful
Jesus, when He showed His Heart to us bearing about it the symbols of the
passion and displaying the flames of love, that from the one we might know the
infinite malice of sin, and in the other we might admire the infinite charity
of Our Redeemer, and so might have a more vehement hatred of sin, and make a
more ardent return of love for His love.
12.
And truly the spirit of expiation or reparation has always had the first and
foremost place in the worship given to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and
nothing is more in keeping with the origin, the character, the power, and the
distinctive practices of this form of devotion, as appears from the record of
history and custom, as well as from the sacred liturgy and the acts of the
Sovereign Pontiffs. For when Christ manifested Himself to Margaret Mary, and
declared to her the infinitude of His love, at the same time, in the manner of
a mourner, He complained that so many and such great injuries were done to Him
by ungrateful men - and we would that these words in which He made this
complaint were fixed in the minds of the faithful, and were never blotted out
by oblivion: "Behold this Heart" - He said - "which has loved
men so much and has loaded them with all benefits, and for this boundless love
has had no return but neglect, and contumely, and this often from those who
were bound by a debt and duty of a more special love." In order that these
faults might be washed away, He then recommended several things to be done, and
in particular the following as most pleasing to Himself, namely that men should
approach the Altar with this purpose of expiating sin, making what is called a
Communion of Reparation, - and that they should likewise make expiatory
supplications and prayers, prolonged for a whole hour, - which is rightly
called the "Holy Hour." These pious exercises have been approved by
the Church and have also been enriched with copious indulgences.
13.
But how can these rites of expiation bring solace now, when Christ is already
reigning in the beatitude of Heaven? To this we may answer in some words of St.
Augustine which are very apposite here, - "Give me one who loves, and he
will understand what I say" (In Johannis evangelium, tract. XXVI,
4).
For any one who has great love of God, if he will look back through the tract
of past time may dwell in meditation on Christ, and see Him laboring for man,
sorrowing, suffering the greatest hardships, "for us men and for our
salvation," well-nigh worn out with sadness, with anguish, nay
"bruised for our sins" (Isaias liii, 5), and healing us by His
bruises. And the minds of the pious meditate on all these things the more
truly, because the sins of men and their crimes committed in every age were the
cause why Christ was delivered up to death, and now also they would of
themselves bring death to Christ, joined with the same griefs and sorrows,
since each several sin in its own way is held to renew the passion of Our Lord:
"Crucifying again to themselves the Son of God, and making him a
mockery" (Hebrews vi, 6). Now if, because of our sins also which
were as yet in the future, but were foreseen, the soul of Christ became
sorrowful unto death, it cannot be doubted that then, too, already He derived
somewhat of solace from our reparation, which was likewise foreseen, when
"there appeared to Him an angel from heaven" (Luke xxii, 43),
in order that His Heart, oppressed with weariness and anguish, might find
consolation. And so even now, in a wondrous yet true manner, we can and ought
to console that Most Sacred Heart which is continually wounded by the sins of
thankless men, since - as we also read in the sacred liturgy - Christ Himself,
by the mouth of the Psalmist complains that He is forsaken by His friends:
"My Heart hath expected reproach and misery, and I looked for one that
would grieve together with me, but there was none: and for one that would
comfort me, and I found none" (Psalm lxviii, 21).
14.
To this it may be added that the expiatory passion of Christ is renewed and in
a manner continued and fulfilled in His mystical body, which is the Church.
For, to use once more the words of St. Augustine, "Christ suffered
whatever it behoved Him to suffer; now nothing is wanting of the measure of the
sufferings. Therefore the sufferings were fulfilled, but in the head; there
were yet remaining the sufferings of Christ in His body" (In Psalm
lxxxvi). This, indeed, Our Lord Jesus Himself vouchsafed to explain when,
speaking to Saul, "as yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter" (Acts
ix, 1), He said, "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest" (Acts ix,
5), clearly signifying that when persecutions are stirred up against the
Church, the Divine Head of the Church is Himself attacked and troubled.
Rightly, therefore, does Christ, still suffering in His mystical body, desire
to have us partakers of His expiation, and this is also demanded by our
intimate union with Him, for since we are "the body of Christ and members
of member" (1 Corinthians xii, 27), whatever the head suffers, all
the members must suffer with it (Cf. 1 Corinthians xii, 26).
15.
Now, how great is the necessity of this expiation or reparation, more
especially in this our age, will be manifest to every one who, as we said at
the outset, will examine the world, "seated in wickedness" (1 John
v, 19), with his eyes and with his mind. For from all sides the cry of the peoples
who are mourning comes up to us, and their princes or rulers have indeed stood
up and met together in one against the Lord and against His Church (Cf. Psalm
ii, 2). Throughout those regions indeed, we see that all rights both human and
Divine are confounded. Churches are thrown down and overturned, religious men
and sacred virgins are torn from their homes and are afflicted with abuse, with
barbarities, with hunger and imprisonment; bands of boys and girls are snatched
from the bosom of their mother the Church, and are induced to renounce Christ,
to blaspheme and to attempt the worst crimes of lust; the whole Christian
people, sadly disheartened and disrupted, are continually in danger of falling
away from the faith, or of suffering the most cruel death. These things in
truth are so sad that you might say that such events foreshadow and portend the
"beginning of sorrows," that is to say of those that shall be brought
by the man of sin, "who is lifted up above all that is called God or is
worshipped" (2 Thessalonians ii, 4).
16.
But it is yet more to be lamented, Venerable Brethren, that among the faithful
themselves, washed in Baptism with the blood of the immaculate Lamb, and
enriched with grace, there are found so many men of every class, who laboring
under an incredible ignorance of Divine things and infected with false
doctrines, far from their Father's home, lead a life involved in vices, a life
which is not brightened by the light of true faith, nor gladdened by the hope
of future beatitude, nor refreshed and cherished by the fire of charity; so
that they truly seem to sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. Moreover,
among the faithful there is a greatly increasing carelessness of ecclesiastical
discipline, and of those ancient institutions on which all Christian life
rests, by which domestic society is governed, and the sanctity of marriage is
safeguarded; the education of children is altogether neglected, or else it is
depraved by too indulgent blandishments, and the Church is even robbed of the
power of giving the young a Christian education; there is a sad forgetfulness
of Christian modesty especially in the life and the dress of women; there is an
unbridled cupidity of transitory things, a want of moderation in civic affairs,
an unbounded ambition of popular favor, a depreciation of legitimate authority,
and lastly a contempt for the word of God, whereby faith itself is injured, or
is brought into proximate peril.
17.
But all these evils as it were culminate in the cowardice and the sloth of
those who, after the manner of the sleeping and fleeing disciples, wavering in
their faith, miserably forsake Christ when He is oppressed by anguish or
surrounded by the satellites of Satan, and in the perfidy of those others who
following the example of the traitor Judas, either partake of the holy table
rashly and sacrilegiously, or go over to the camp of the enemy. And thus, even
against our will, the thought rises in the mind that now those days draw near
of which Our Lord prophesied: "And because iniquity hath abounded, the
charity of many shall grow cold" (Matth. xxiv, 12).
18.
Now, whosoever of the faithful have piously pondered on all these things must
need be inflamed with the charity of Christ in His agony and make a more
vehement endeavor to expiate their own faults and those of others, to repair
the honor of Christ, and to promote the eternal salvation of souls. And indeed
that saying of the Apostle: "Where sin abounded, grace did more
abound" (Romans v, 20) may be used in a manner to describe this
present age; for while the wickedness of men has been greatly increased, at the
same time, by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, a marvelous increase has been
made in the number of the faithful of both sexes who with eager mind endeavor
to make satisfaction for the many injuries offered to the Divine Heart, nay
more they do not hesitate to offer themselves to Christ as victims. For indeed
if any one will lovingly dwell on those things of which we have been speaking,
and will have them deeply fixed in his mind, it cannot be but he will shrink
with horror from all sin as from the greatest evil, and more than this he will
yield himself wholly to the will of God, and will strive to repair the injured
honor of the Divine Majesty, as well by constantly praying, as by voluntary
mortifications, by patiently bearing the afflictions that befall him, and
lastly by spending his whole life in this exercise of expiation.
19.
And for this reason also there have been established many religious families of
men and women whose purpose it is by earnest service, both by day and by night,
in some manner to fulfill the office of the Angel consoling Jesus in the
garden; hence come certain associations of pious men, approved by the Apostolic
See and enriched with indulgences, who take upon themselves this same duty of
making expiation, a duty which is to be fulfilled by fitting exercises of
devotion and of the virtues; hence lastly, to omit other things, come the
devotions and solemn demonstrations for the purpose of making reparation to the
offended Divine honor, which are inaugurated everywhere, not only by pious
members of the faithful, but by parishes, dioceses and cities.
20.
These things being so, Venerable Brethren, just as the rite of consecration,
starting from humble beginnings, and afterwards more widely propagated, was at
length crowned with success by Our confirmation; so in like manner, we
earnestly desire that this custom of expiation or pious reparation, long since
devoutly introduced and devoutly propagated, may also be more firmly sanctioned
by Our Apostolic authority and more solemnly celebrated by the whole Catholic
name. Wherefore, we decree and command that every year on the Feast of the Most
Sacred Heart of Jesus, - which feast indeed on this occasion we have ordered to
be raised to the degree of a double of the first class with an octave - in all
churches throughout the whole world, the same expiatory prayer or protestation
as it is called, to Our most loving Savior, set forth in the same words
according to the copy subjoined to this letter shall be solemnly recited, so
that all our faults may be washed away with tears, and reparation may be made
for the violated rights of Christ the supreme King and Our most loving Lord.
21.
There is surely no reason for doubting, Venerable Brethren, that from this
devotion piously established and commanded to the whole Church, many excellent
benefits will flow forth not only to individual men but also to society,
sacred, civil, and domestic, seeing that our Redeemer Himself promised to
Margaret Mary that "all those who rendered this honor to His Heart would
be endowed with an abundance of heavenly graces." Sinners indeed, looking
on Him whom they pierced (John xix, 37), moved by the sighs and tears of
the whole Church, by grieving for the injuries offered to the supreme King,
will return to the heart (Isaias xlvi, 8), lest perchance being hardened
in their faults, when they see Him whom they pierced "coming in the clouds
of heaven" (Matth. xxvi, 64), too late and in vain they shall
bewail themselves because of Him (Cf. Apoc. i, 7). But the just shall be
justified and shall be sanctified still (Cf. Apoc. xxii. 11) and they
will devote themselves wholly and with new ardor to the service of their King,
when they see Him contemned and attacked and assailed with so many and such
great insults, but more than all will they burn with zeal for the eternal
salvation of souls when they have pondered on the complaint of the Divine
Victim: "What profit is there in my blood?" (Psalm xxix, 10),
and likewise on the joy that will be felt by the same Most Sacred Heart of
Jesus "upon one sinner doing penance" (Luke xv, 10). And this
indeed we more especially and vehemently desire and confidently expect, that
the just and merciful God who would have spared Sodom for the sake of ten just
men, will much more be ready to spare the whole race of men, when He is moved
by the humble petitions and happily appeased by the prayers of the community of
the faithful praying together in union with Christ their Mediator and Head, in
the name of all. And now lastly may the most benign Virgin Mother of God smile
on this purpose and on these desires of ours; for since she brought forth for
us Jesus our Redeemer, and nourished Him, and offered Him as a victim by the
Cross, by her mystic union with Christ and His very special grace she likewise
became and is piously called a reparatress. Trusting in her intercession with
Christ, who whereas He is the "one mediator of God and men" (1 Timothy
ii, 5), chose to make His Mother the advocate of sinners, and the minister and
mediatress of grace, as an earnest of heavenly gifts and as a token of Our
paternal affection we most lovingly impart the Apostolic Blessing to you,
Venerable Brethren, and to all the flock committed to your care.
Given
at Rome, at St. Peter's, on the eighth day of May, 1928, in the seventh year of
Our Pontificate.
♔ Prayer
of Reparation ♔
O
sweetest Jesus, whose overflowing charity towards men is most ungratefully
repaid by such great forgetfulness, neglect and contempt, see, prostrate before
Thy altars, we strive by special honor to make amends for the wicked coldness
of men and the contumely with which Thy most loving Heart is everywhere
treated.
At the same time, mindful of the fact that we too have sometimes not been free
from unworthiness, and moved therefore with most vehement sorrow, in the first
place we implore Thy mercy on us, being prepared by voluntary expiation to make
amends for the sins we have ourselves committed, and also for the sins of those
who wander far from the way of salvation, whether because, being obstinate in
their unbelief, they refuse to follow Thee as their shepherd and leader, or
because, spurning the promises of their Baptism, they have cast off the most
sweet yoke of Thy law.
We now endeavor to expiate all these lamentable crimes
together, and it is also our purpose to make amends for each one of them
severally: for the want of modesty in life and dress, for impurities, for so
many snares set for the minds of the innocent, for the violation of feast days,
for the horrid blasphemies against Thee and Thy saints, for the insults offered
to Thy Vicar and to the priestly order, for the neglect of the Sacrament of
Divine love or its profanation by horrible sacrileges, and lastly for the
public sins of nations which resist the rights and the teaching authority of
the Church which Thou hast instituted. Would that we could wash away these
crimes with our own blood!
And now, to make amends for the outrage offered to
the Divine honor, we offer to Thee the same satisfaction which Thou didst once
offer to Thy Father on the Cross and which Thou dost continually renew on our
altars, we offer this conjoined with the expiations of the Virgin Mother and of
all the Saints, and of all pious Christians, promising from our heart that so
far as in us lies, with the help of Thy grace, we will make amends for our own
past sins, and for the sins of others, and for the neglect of Thy boundless
love, by firm faith, by a pure way of life, and by a perfect observance of the
Gospel law, especially that of charity; we will also strive with all our
strength to prevent injuries being offered to Thee, and gather as many as we
can to become Thy followers.
Receive, we beseech Thee, O most benign Jesus, by
the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Reparatress, the voluntary
homage of this expiation, and vouchsafe, by that great gift of final
perseverance, to keep us most faithful until death in our duty and in Thy
service, so that at length we may all come to that fatherland, where Thou with
the Father and the Holy Ghost livest and reignest God for ever and ever. Amen.
