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Title: |
Ad Diem Illum Laetissimum
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Descr.: |
On The Immaculate Conception
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Pope: |
Pope St. Pius X
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Date: |
February 2, 1904
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To
the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, and Other
Ordinaries in Peace and Communion With the Apostolic See.
Venerable
Brethren, Health and the Apostolic Blessing.
1.
An interval of a few months will again bring round that most happy
day on which, fifty years ago, Our Predecessor Pius IX, Pontiff of
holy memory, surrounded by a noble crown of Cardinals and Bishops,
pronounced and promulgated with the authority of the infallible
magisterium as a truth revealed by God that the Most Blessed
Virgin Mary in the first instant of her conception was free from
all stain of original sin. All the world knows the feelings with
which the faithful of all the nations of the earth received this
proclamation and the manifestations of public satisfaction and joy
which greeted it, for truly there has not been in the memory of
man any more universal or more harmonious expression of sentiment
shown towards the august Mother of God or the Vicar of Jesus
Christ.
2.
And, Venerable Brethren, why should we not hope today after the
lapse of half a century, when we renew the memory of the
Immaculate Virgin, that an echo of that holy joy will be awakened
in our minds, and that those magnificent scenes of a distant day,
of faith and of love towards the august Mother of God, will be
repeated? Of all this We are, indeed, rendered ardently desirous
by the devotion, united with supreme gratitude for benefits
received, which We have always cherished towards the Blessed
Virgin; and We have a sure pledge of the fulfillment of Our
desires in the fervor of all Catholics, ready and willing as they
are to multiply their testimonies of love and reverence for the
great Mother of God. But We must not omit to say that this desire
of Ours is especially stimulated by a sort of secret instinct
which leads Us to regard as not far distant the fulfillment of
those great hopes to which, certainly not rashly, the solemn
promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception opened the
minds of Pius, Our predecessor, and of all the Bishops of the
universe.
3.
Many, it is true, lament the fact that until now these hopes have
been unfulfilled, and are prone to repeat the words of Jeremias:
"We looked for peace and no good came; for a time of healing,
and beheld fear" (Jer. viii., 15). But all such will be
certainly rebuked as "men of little faith," who make no
effort to penetrate the works of God or to estimate them in the
light of truth. For who can number the secret gifts of grace which
God has bestowed upon His Church through the intercession of the
Blessed Virgin throughout this period? And even overlooking these
gifts, what is to be said of the [First] Vatican Council so opportunely
convoked; or of the dogma of Papal Infallibility so suitably
proclaimed to meet the errors that were about to arise; or,
finally, of that new and unprecedented fervor with which the
faithful of all classes and of every nation have long been
flocking to venerate in person the Vicar of Christ? Surely the
Providence of God has shown itself admirable in Our two
predecessors, Pius and Leo, who ruled the Church in most turbulent
times with such great holiness through a length of Pontificate
conceded to no other before them. Then, again, no sooner had Pius
IX, proclaimed as a dogma of Catholic faith the exemption of Mary
from the original stain, than the Virgin herself began in Lourdes
those wonderful manifestations, followed by the vast and
magnificent movements which have produced those two temples
dedicated to the Immaculate Mother, where the prodigies which
still continue to take place through her intercession furnish
splendid arguments against the incredulity of our days.
4.
Witnesses, then, as we are of all these great benefits which God
has granted through the benign influence of the Virgin in those
fifty years now about to be completed, why should we not believe
that our salvation is nearer than we thought; all the more since
we know from experience that, in the dispensation of Divine
Providence, when evils reach their limit, deliverance is not far
distant. "Her time is near at hand, and her days shall not be
prolonged. For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob and will choose
one out of Israel" (Isaias xiv., 1). Wherefore the hope we
cherish is not a vain one, that we, too, may before long repeat:
"The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, the rod of the
rulers. The whole earth is quiet and still, it is glad and hath
rejoiced" (Ibid. 5, 7).
5.
But the first and chief reason, Venerable Brethren, why the
fiftieth anniversary of the proclamation of the dogma of the
Immaculate Conception should excite a singular fervour in the
souls of Christians lies for us in that restoration of all things
in Christ which we have already set forth in Our first Encyclical
letter. For can anyone fail to see that there is no surer or more
direct road than by Mary for uniting all mankind in Christ and
obtaining through Him the perfect adoption of sons, that we may be
holy and immaculate in the sight of God? For if to Mary it was
truly said: "Blessed art thou who hast believed because in
thee shall be fulfilled the things that have been told thee by the
Lord" (Luke i., 45); or in other words, that she would
conceive and bring forth the Son of God and if she did receive in
her breast Him who is by nature Truth itself in order that
"He, generated in a new order and with a new nativity, though
invisible in Himself, might become visible in our flesh" (St.
Leo the Great, Ser. 2, De Nativ. Dom.): the Son of God made man,
being the "author and consummator of our faith"; it
surely follows that His Mother most holy should be recognized as
participating in the divine mysteries and as being in a manner the
guardian of them, and that upon her as upon a foundation, the
noblest after Christ, rises the edifice of the faith of all
centuries.
6.
How think otherwise? Could not God have given us, in another way
than through the Virgin the Redeemer of the human race and the
Founder of the Faith? But, since Divine Providence has been
pleased that we should have the Man-God through Mary, who
conceived Him by the Holy Ghost and bore Him in her breast, it
only remains for us to receive Christ from the hands of Mary.
Hence whenever the Scriptures speak prophetically of the grace
which was to appear among us, the Redeemer of mankind is almost
invariably presented to us as united with His mother. The Lamb
that is to rule the world will be sent - but He will be sent from
the rock of the desert; the flower will blossom, but it will
blossom from the root of Jesse. Adam, the father of mankind,
looked to Mary crushing the serpent's head [that is, Satan], and he dried the tears
that the malediction had brought into his eyes. Noë thought of
her when shut up in the ark of safety, and Abraham when prevented
from the slaying of his son; Jacob at the sight of the ladder on
which angels ascended and descended; Moses amazed at the sight of
the bush which burned but was not consumed; David escorting the
arc of God with dancing and psalmody; Elias as he looked at the
little cloud that rose out of the sea. In fine, after Christ, we
find in Mary the end of the law and the fulfillment of the figures
and oracles.
7.
And that through the Virgin, and through her more than through any
other means, we have offered us a way of reaching the knowledge of
Jesus Christ, cannot be doubted when it is remembered that with
her alone of all others Jesus was for thirty years united, as a
son is usually united with a mother, in the closest ties of
intimacy and domestic life. Who could better than His Mother have
an open knowledge of the admirable mysteries of the birth and
childhood of Christ, and above all of the mystery of the
Incarnation, which is the beginning and the foundation of faith?
Mary not only preserved and meditated on the events of Bethlehem
and the facts which took place in Jerusalem in the Temple of the
Lord, but sharing as she did the thoughts and the secret wishes of
Christ she may be said to have lived the very life of her Son.
Hence nobody ever knew Christ so profoundly as she did, and nobody
can ever be more competent as a guide and teacher of the knowledge
of Christ.
8.
Hence it follows, as We have already pointed out, that the Virgin
is more powerful than all others as a means for uniting mankind
with Christ. Hence too since, according to Christ Himself,
"Now this is eternal life: That they may know thee the only
truly God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent" (John xvii.,
3), and since it is through Mary that we attain to the knowledge
of Christ, through Mary also we most easily obtain that life of
which Christ is the source and origin.
9.
And if we set ourselves to consider how many and powerful are the
causes by which this most holy Mother is filled with zeal to
bestow on us these precious gifts, oh, how our hopes will be
expanded!
10.
For is not Mary the Mother of Christ? Then she is our Mother also.
And we must in truth hold that Christ, the Word made Flesh, is
also the Savior of mankind. He had a physical body like that of
any other man: and again as Savior of the human family, he had a
spiritual and mystical body, the society, namely, of those who
believe in Christ. "We are many, but one sole body in Christ"
(Rom. xii., 5). Now the Blessed Virgin did not
conceive the Eternal Son of God merely in order that He might be
made man taking His human nature from her, but also in order that
by means of the nature assumed from her He might be the Redeemer
of men. For which reason the Angel said to the Shepherds:
"Today there is born to you a Savior who is Christ the
Lord" (Luke ii., 11). Wherefore in the same holy bosom of his
most chaste Mother Christ took to Himself flesh, and united to
Himself the spiritual body formed by those who were to believe in
Him. Hence Mary, carrying the Savior within her, may be said to
have also carried all those whose life was contained in the life
of the Savior. Therefore all we who are united to Christ, and as
the Apostle says are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His
bones (Ephes. v., 30), have issued from the womb of Mary like a
body united to its head. Hence, though in a spiritual and mystical
fashion, we are all children of Mary, and she is Mother of us all.
Mother, spiritually indeed, but truly Mother of the members of
Christ, who are we (S. Aug. L. de S. Virginitate, c. 6).
11.
If then the most Blessed Virgin is the Mother at once of God and
men, who can doubt that she will work with all diligence to
procure that Christ, Head of the Body of the Church (Coloss. i.,
18), may transfuse His gifts into us, His members, and above all
that of knowing Him and living through Him (I John iv., 9)?
12.
Moreover it was not only the prerogative of the Most Holy Mother
to have furnished the material of His flesh to the Only Son of
God, Who was to be born with human members (S. Bede Ven. L. Iv. in
Luc. xl.), of which material should be prepared the Victim for the
salvation of men; but hers was also the office of tending and
nourishing that Victim, and at the appointed time presenting Him
for the sacrifice. Hence that uninterrupted community of life and
labors of the Son and the Mother, so that of both might have been
uttered the words of the Psalmist "My life is consumed in
sorrow and my years in groans" (Ps xxx., 11). When the
supreme hour of the Son came, beside the Cross of Jesus there
stood Mary His Mother, not merely occupied in contemplating the
cruel spectacle, but rejoicing that her Only Son was offered for
the salvation of mankind, and so entirely participating in His
Passion, that if it had been possible she would have gladly borne
all the torments that her Son bore (S. Bonav. 1. Sent d. 48, ad
Litt. dub. 4). And from this community of will and suffering
between Christ and Mary she merited to become most worthily the
Reparatrix of the lost world (Eadmeri Mon. De Excellentia Virg.
Mariae, c. 9) and Dispensatrix of all the gifts that Our Savior
purchased for us by His Death and by His Blood.
13.
It cannot, of course, be denied that the dispensation of these
treasures is the particular and peculiar right of Jesus Christ,
for they are the exclusive fruit of His Death, who by His nature
is the mediator between God and man. Nevertheless, by this
companionship in sorrow and suffering already mentioned between
the Mother and the Son, it has been allowed to the august Virgin
to be the most powerful mediatrix and advocate of the whole world
with her Divine Son (Pius IX, Ineffabilis). The source, then, is
Jesus Christ "of whose fullness we have all received"
(John i., 16), "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.,
16). But Mary, as St. Bernard justly remarks, is the channel (Serm.
de temp on the Nativ. B. V. De Aquaeductu n. 4); or, if you will,
the connecting portion the function of which is to join the body
to the head and to transmit to the body the influences and
volitions of the head - We mean the neck. Yes, says St. Bernardine
of Sienna, "she is the neck of Our Head, by which He
communicates to His mystical body all spiritual gifts" (Quadrag.
de Evangel. aetern. Serm. x., a. 3, c. iii.).
14.
We are then, it will be seen, very far from attributing to the
Mother of God a productive power of grace - a power which belongs
to God alone. Yet, since Mary carries it over all in holiness and
union with Jesus Christ, and has been associated by Jesus Christ
in the work of redemption, she merits for us de congruo, in the
language of theologians, what Jesus Christ merits for us de
condigno, and she is the supreme Minister of the distribution of
graces. Jesus "sitteth on the right hand of the majesty on
high" (Hebrews i. b.). Mary sitteth at the right hand of her
Son - a refuge so secure and a help so trusty against all dangers
that we have nothing to fear or to despair of under her guidance,
her patronage, her protection. (Pius IX, Ineffabilis).
15.
These principles laid down, and to return to our design, who will
not see that we have with good reason claimed for Mary that - as
the constant companion of Jesus from the house at Nazareth to the
height of Calvary, as beyond all others initiated to the secrets
of his Heart, and as the distributor, by right of her Motherhood,
of the treasures of His merits, - she is, for all these reasons, a
most sure and efficacious assistance to us for arriving at the
knowledge and love of Jesus Christ. Those, alas! furnish us by
their conduct with a peremptory proof of it, who seduced by the
wiles of the demon or deceived by false doctrines think they can
do without the help of the Virgin. Hapless are they who neglect
Mary under pretext of the honor to be paid to Jesus Christ! As if
the Child could be found elsewhere than with the Mother!
16.
Under these circumstances, Venerable Brethren, it is this end
which all the solemnities that are everywhere being prepared in
honor of the holy and Immaculate Conception of Mary should have in
view. No homage is more agreeable to her, none is sweeter to her
than that we should know and really love Jesus Christ. Let then
crowds fill the churches - let solemn feasts be celebrated and
public rejoicings be made: these are things eminently suited for
enlivening our faith. But unless heart and will be added, they
will all be empty forms, mere appearances of piety. At such a
spectacle, the Virgin, borrowing the words of Jesus Christ, would
address us with the just reproach: "This people honoureth me
with their lips, but their heart is far from me" (Matth. xv.,
8).
17.
For to be right and good, worship [that is, veneration] of the Mother of God ought to
spring from the heart; acts of the body have here neither utility
nor value if the acts of the soul have no part in them. Now these
latter can only have one object, which is that we should fully
carry out what the divine Son of Mary commands. For if true love
alone has the power to unite the wills of men, it is of the first
necessity that we should have one will with Mary to serve Jesus
our Lord. What this most prudent Virgin said to the servants at
the marriage feast of Cana she addresses also to us:
"Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye" (John ii., 5).
Now here is the word of Jesus Christ: "If you would enter
into life, keep the commandments" (Matt. xix., 17). Let them
each one fully convince himself of this, that if his piety towards
the Blessed Virgin does not hinder him from sinning, or does not
move his will to amend an evil life, it is a piety deceptive and lying, wanting as it is in proper effect and its natural fruit.
18.
If anyone desires a confirmation of this it may easily be found in
the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. For leaving aside
tradition which, as well as Scripture, is a source of truth, how
has this persuasion of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin
appeared so conformed to the Catholic mind and feeling that it has
been held as being one, and as it were inborn in the soul of the
faithful? "We shrink from saying," is the answer of
Dionysius of Chartreux, "of this woman who was to crush the
head of the serpent [that is, Satan] that had been crushed by him and that Mother
of God that she had ever been a daughter of the Evil One"
(Sent. d. 3, q. 1). No, to the Christian intelligence the idea is
unthinkable that the flesh of Christ, holy, stainless, innocent,
was formed in the womb of Mary of a flesh which had ever, if only
for the briefest moment, contracted any stain. And why so, but
because an infinite opposition separates God from sin? There
certainly we have the origin of the conviction common to all
Christians that Jesus Christ before, clothed in human nature, He
cleansed us from our sins in His blood, accorded Mary the grace
and special privilege of being preserved and exempted, from the
first moment of her conception, from all stain of original sin.
19.
If then God has such a horror of sin as to have willed to keep
free the future Mother of His Son not only from stains which are
voluntarily contracted but, by a special favor and in prevision of
the merits of Jesus Christ, from that other stain of which the sad
sign is transmitted to all us sons of Adam by a sort of hapless
heritage: who can doubt that it is a duty for everyone who seeks
by his homage to gain the heart of Mary to correct his vicious and
depraved habits and to subdue the passions which incite him to
evil?
20.
Whoever moreover wishes, and no one ought not so to wish, that his
devotion should be worthy of her and perfect, should go further
and strive might and main to imitate her example. It is a divine
law that those only attain everlasting happiness who have by such
faithful following reproduced in themselves the form of the
patience and sanctity of Jesus Christ: "for whom He foreknew,
He also predestined to be made conformable to the image of His
Son; that He might be the first-born amongst many brethren"
(Romans viii., 29). But such generally is our infirmity that we
are easily discouraged by the greatness of such an example: by the
providence of God, however, another example is proposed to us,
which is both as near to Christ as human nature allows, and more
nearly accords with the weakness of our nature. And this is no
other than the Mother of God. "Such was Mary," very
pertinently points out St. Ambrose, "that her life is an
example for all." And, therefore, he rightly concludes:
"Have then before your eyes, as an image, the virginity and
life of Mary from whom as from a mirror shines forth the
brightness of chastity and the form of virtue" (De Virginib.
L. ii., c. ii.)
21.
Now if it becomes children not to omit the imitation of any of the
virtues of this most Blessed Mother, we yet wish that the faithful
apply themselves by preference to the principal virtues which are,
as it were, the nerves and joints of the Christian life - we mean
faith, hope, and charity towards God and our neighbor. Of these
virtues the life of Mary bears in all its phases the brilliant
character; but they attained their highest degree of splendor at
the time when she stood by her dying Son. Jesus is nailed to the
cross, and the malediction is hurled against Him that "He
made Himself the Son of God" (John xix., 7). But she
unceasingly recognized and adored the divinity in Him. She bore
His dead body to the tomb, but never for a moment doubted that He
would rise again. Then the love of God with which she burned made
her a partaker in the sufferings of Christ and the associate in
His passion; with him moreover, as if forgetful of her own sorrow,
she prayed for the pardon of the executioners although they in
their hate cried out: "His blood be upon us and upon our
children" (Matth. xxvii., 25).
22.
But lest it be thought that We have lost sight of Our subject,
which is the Immaculate Conception, what great and effectual
succour will be found in it for the preservation and right
development of those same virtues. What truly is the point of
departure of the enemies of religion for the sowing of the great
and serious errors by which the faith of so many is shaken? They
begin by denying that man has fallen by sin and been cast down
from his former position. Hence they regard as mere fables
original sin and the evils that were its consequence. Humanity
vitiated in its source vitiated in its turn the whole race of man;
and thus was evil introduced amongst men and the necessity for a
Redeemer involved. All this rejected it is easy to understand that
no place is left for Christ, for the Church, for grace or for
anything that is above and beyond nature; in one word the whole
edifice of faith is shaken from top to bottom. But let people
believe and confess that the Virgin Mary has been from the first
moment of her conception preserved from all stain; and it is
straightway necessary that they should admit both original sin and
the rehabilitation of the human race by Jesus Christ, the Gospel,
and the Church and the law of suffering. By virtue of this
Rationalism and Materialism is torn up by the roots and destroyed,
and there remains to Christian wisdom the glory of having to guard
and protect the truth. It is moreover a vice common to the enemies
of the faith of our time especially that they repudiate and
proclaim the necessity of repudiating all respect and obedience
for the authority of the Church, and even of any human power, in
the idea that it will thus be more easy to make an end of faith.
Here we have the origin of Anarchism, than which nothing is more
pernicious and pestilent to the order of things whether natural or
supernatural. Now this plague, which is equally fatal to society
at large and to Christianity, finds its ruin in the dogma of the
Immaculate Conception by the obligation which it imposes of
recognizing in the Church a power before which not only has the
will to bow, but the intelligence to subject itself. It is from a
subjection of the reason of this sort that Christian people sing
thus the praise of the Mother of God: "Thou art all fair, O
Mary, and the stain of original sin is not in thee." (Mass of
Immac. Concep.) And thus once again is justified what the Church
attributes to this august Virgin that she has exterminated all
heresies in the world.
23.
And if, as the Apostle declares, faith is nothing else than the
substance of things to be hoped for" (Hebr. xi. 1) everyone
will easily allow that our faith is confirmed and our hope aroused
and strengthened by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. The
Virgin was kept the more free from all stain of original sin
because she was to be the Mother of Christ; and she was the Mother
of Christ that the hope of everlasting happiness might be born
again in our souls.
24.
Leaving aside charity towards God, who can contemplate the
Immaculate Virgin without feeling moved to fulfill that precept
which Christ called peculiarly His own, namely that of loving one
another as He loved us? "A great sign," thus the Apostle
St. John describes a vision divinely sent him, appears in the
heavens: "A woman clothed with the sun, and with the moon
under her feet and a crown of twelve stars upon her head" (Apoc.
xii., 1). Everyone knows that this woman signified the Virgin
Mary, the stainless one who brought forth our Head. The Apostle
continues: "And, being with child, she cried travailing in
birth, and was in pain to be delivered" (Apoc. xii., 2). John
therefore saw the Most Holy Mother of God already in eternal
happiness, yet travailing in a mysterious childbirth. What birth
was it? Surely it was the birth of us who, still in exile, are yet
to be generated to the perfect charity of God, and to eternal
happiness. And the birth pains show the love and desire with which
the Virgin from heaven above watches over us, and strives with
unwearying prayer to bring about the fulfillment of the number of
the elect.
25.
This same charity we desire that all should earnestly endeavor to
attain, taking special occasion from the extraordinary feasts in honor
of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. Oh how
bitterly and fiercely is Jesus Christ now being persecuted, and
the most holy religion which he founded! And how grave is the
peril that threatens many of being drawn away by the errors that
are afoot on all sides, to the abandonment of the faith!
"Then let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he
fall" (I Cor. x., 12). And let all, with humble prayer and
entreaty, implore of God, through the intercession of Mary, that
those who have abandoned the truth may repent. We know, indeed,
from experience that such prayer, born of charity and relying on
the Virgin, has never been vain. True, even in the future the
strife against the Church will never cease, "for there must
be also heresies, that they also who are reproved may be made
manifest among you" (I Cor. xi., 19). But neither will the
Virgin ever cease to succor us in our trials, however grave they
be, and to carry on the fight fought by her since her conception,
so that every day we may repeat: "Today the head of the
serpent of old [that is, the devil] was crushed by her" (Office Immac. Con., 11.
Vespers, Magnif.).
26.
And that heavenly graces may help Us more abundantly than usual
during this year in which We pay her fuller honor, to attain the
imitation of the Virgin, and that thus We may more easily secure
Our object of restoring all things in Christ, We have determined,
after the example of Our Predecessors at the beginning of their
Pontificates, to grant to the Catholic world an extraordinary
indulgence in the form of a Jubilee.
27.
Wherefore, confiding in the mercy of Almighty God and in the
authority of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, by virtue of
that power of binding and loosing which, unworthy though We are,
the Lord has given Us, We do concede and impart the most plenary
indulgence of all their sins to the faithful, all and several of
both sexes, dwelling in this Our beloved City, or coming into it,
who from the first Sunday in Lent, that is from the 21st of
February, to the second day of June, the solemnity of the Most
Sacred Body of Christ, inclusively, shall three times visit one of
the four Patriarchal basilicas, and there for some time pray God
for the liberty and exaltation of the Catholic Church and this
Apostolic See, for the extirpation of heresies and the conversion
of all who are in error, for the concord of Christian Princes and
the peace and unity of all the faithful, and according to Our
intention; and who, within the said period, shall fast once, using
only meager fare, excepting the days not included in the Lenten
Indult; and, after confessing their sins, shall receive the most
holy Sacrament of the Eucharist; and to all others, wherever they
be, dwelling outside this city, who, within the time above
mentioned or during a space of three months, even not continuous,
to be definitely appointed by the ordinaries according to the
convenience of the faithful, but before the eighth day of
December, shall three times visit the cathedral church, if there
be one, or, if not, the parish church; or, in the absence of this,
the principal church; and shall devoutly fulfill the other works
above-mentioned. And We do at the same time permit that this
indulgence, which is to be gained only once, may be applied in
suffrage for the souls which have passed from this life united in
charity with God.
28.
We do, moreover, concede that travelers by land or sea may gain
the same indulgence immediately they return to their homes
provided they perform the works already noted.
29.
To confessors approved by their respective ordinaries We grant
faculties for commuting the above works enjoined by Us for other
works of piety, and this concession shall be applicable not only
to regulars of both sexes but to all others who cannot perform the
works prescribed, and We do grant faculties also to dispense from
Communion children who have not yet been admitted to it.
30.
Moreover to the faithful, all and several, the laity and the
clergy both secular and regular of all orders and institutes, even
those calling for special mention, We do grant permission and
power, for this sole object, to select any priest regular or
secular, among those actually approved (which faculty may also be
used by nuns, novices and other women living in the cloister,
provided the confessor they select be one approved for nuns) by
whom, when they have confessed to him within the prescribed time
with the intention of gaining the present jubilee and of
fulfilling all the other works requisite for gaining it, they may
on this sole occasion and only in the forum of conscience be
absolved from all excommunication, suspension and every other
ecclesiastical sentence and censure pronounced or inflicted for
any cause by the law or by a judge, including those reserved to
the ordinary and to Us or to the Apostolic See, even in cases
reserved in a special manner to anybody whomsoever and to Us and
to the Apostolic See; and they may also be absolved from all sin
or excess, even those reserved to the ordinaries themselves and to
Us and to the Apostolic See, on condition however that a salutary
penance be enjoined together with the other prescriptions of the
law, and in the case of heresy after the abjuration and retraction
of error as is enjoined by the law; and the said priests may
further commute to other pious and salutary works all vows even
those taken under oath and reserved to the Apostolic See (except
those of chastity, of religion, and of obligations which have been
accepted by a third person); and with the said penitents, even
regulars, in sacred orders such confessions may dispense from all
secret irregularities contracted solely by violation of censures
affecting the exercise of said orders and promotion to higher
orders.
31.
But We do not intend by the present Letters to dispense from any
irregularities whatsoever, or from crime or defect, public or
private, contracted in any manner through notoriety or other
incapacity or inability; nor do We intend to derogate from the
Constitution with its accompanying declaration, published by
Benedict XIV, of happy memory, which begins with the words
Sacramentum poenitentiae; nor is it Our intention that these
present Letters may, or can, in any way avail those who, by Us and
the Apostolic See, or by any ecclesiastical judge, have been by
name excommunicated, suspended, interdicted or declared under
other sentences or censures, or who have been publicly denounced,
unless they do within the allotted time satisfy, or, when
necessary, come to an arrangement with the parties concerned.
32.
To all this We are pleased to add that We do concede and will that
all retain during this time of Jubilee the privilege of gaining
all other indulgences, not excepting plenary indulgences, which
have been granted by Our Predecessors or by Ourself.
33.
We close these letters, Venerable Brethren, by manifesting anew
the great hope We earnestly cherish that through this
extraordinary gift of Jubilee granted by Us under the auspices of
the Immaculate Virgin, large numbers of those who are unhappily
separated from Jesus Christ may return to Him, and that love of
virtue and fervor of devotion may flourish anew among the
Christian people. Fifty years ago, when Pius IX, proclaimed as an
article of faith the Immaculate Conception of the most Blessed
Mother of Christ, it seemed, as we have already said, as if an
incredible wealth of grace were poured out upon the earth; and
with the increase of confidence in the Virgin Mother of God, the
old religious spirit of the people was everywhere greatly
augmented. Is it forbidden us to hope for still greater things for
the future? True, we are passing through disastrous times, when we
may well make our own the lamentation of the Prophet: "There
is no truth and no mercy and no knowledge of God on the earth.
Blasphemy and lying and homicide and theft and adultery have
inundated it" (Os. iv.,1-2). Yet in the midst of this deluge
of evil, the Virgin Most Clement rises before our eyes like a
rainbow, as the arbiter of peace between God and man: "I will
set my bow in the clouds and it shall be the sign of a covenant
between me and between the earth" (Gen. ix.,13). Let the
storm rage and sky darken - not for that shall we be dismayed.
"And the bow shall be in the clouds, and I shall see it and
shall remember the everlasting covenant" (Ibid.16). "And
there shall no more be waters of a flood to destroy all
flesh" (Ibid.15.). Oh yes, if we trust as we should in Mary,
now especially when we are about to celebrate, with more than
usual fervor, her Immaculate Conception, we shall recognize in her
that Virgin most powerful "who with virginal foot did crush
the head of the serpent [that is, Satan]" (Off. Immac. Conc.).
34.
In pledge of these graces, Venerable Brethren, We impart the
Apostolic Benediction lovingly in the Lord to you and to your
people.
Given
at Rome in St. Peter's on the second day of February, 1904, in the
first year of Our Pontificate.
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