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Title: |
Miserentissimus Redemptor
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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 8, 1928
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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.
1.
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 truth, 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, nonetheless 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 behooves 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), "escaping 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 [ourselves as] 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 behooved 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
Christ], 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.
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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.
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