Feast of St. Pius V - "The Cardinal of God"

S A I N T    P I U S    V

In 1563, Pope Pius IV, on the anniversary of his Coronation, gave a great banquet to the Cardinals and ambassadors who had come to congratulate him. As they were rising from table the Holy Father declared his intention of raising to the purple Ferdinand de Medici, a boy of thirteen, and Frederic di Gonzaga, a youth of twenty. Taken by surprise, the assembled Cardinals weakly assented. … All but Cardinal Alexandrin [the future Pius V]: “Most Holy Father,” he cried earnestly, “after the Council of Trent has taken such pains to reform abuses, especially among the clergy, and to establish discipline, hitherto so miserably relaxed, what will be thought, if the Vicar of Jesus Christ ignores one of its most important decrees, that of admitting to ecclesiastical dignities only those subjects of suitable age and worth? With all humility I declare to your Holiness that I for one will not wound my conscience by subscribing to this promotion! The Church does not want children in her Councils, she wants strong men. … Let them enter Holy Orders in the usual way, and with their birth and gifts it will surely not be long before they become Cardinals! Your Holiness must also permit me to say that this banquet is not a Consistory, at which alone such claims can be properly decided!”

This electrifying speech, no less remarkable for its courage than its sterling common sense, so impressed those present that the Cardinal of St. Angelo said afterwards: “I would have given all I possessed to have had the courage to speak like that!” The Pope, though startled, was not angry, but the negotiations were too far advanced for him to withdraw, and shortly after the two boys were created Cardinals. When the Florentine ambassador came, as was customary, to thank Cardinal Alexandrin [the future Pius V] for having with his fellows opened the Sacred College to his master, the intrepid answered: “Do not thank me! The promotion was absolutely against my desires! On the contrary, I opposed it with all my might, not out of hostility to the Medici family, but because my conscience would not allow me to approve of a child of thirteen becoming a Cardinal.” The father of the young Prince, when these words were repeated to him, instead of showing anger, exclaimed: “Cardinal Alexandrin [the future Pius V] is in very truth a Cardinal of God!”

Shield given to Juan of Austria by Pius V for the Battle of Lepanto

He exhorted to justice and holiness all grades of magistrates and rulers, and personally supervised their appointment. Numerous were the laws he made for the improvement of public morals —men and women of bad character, and Jewish usurers, being remorselessly banished— and for purity of life. Some of these laws, which sound curious to modern ears, were directed against innkeepers (who were forbidden to sell drink to their fellow citizens at what were houses of entertainment only for travelers and strangers); against brigands, wreckers, and pirates. ... The measures taken against blasphemy in any form were particularly strong.

These laws, at once put into force, were eminently successful. In less than a year the aspect of affairs had changed. Even three months after the Saint’s accession a German nobleman writes of the edifying piety of the whole city of Rome during Lent, and especially in Holy Week, when the churches could not contain the penitents, who slept on the bare ground and fasted rigorously. “As long as I live I shall witness, to the shame of Satan and all his ministers, that I saw in Rome at this time the most marvelous works of penitence and piety. . . . But nothing can astonish me under such-a Pope. His fasts, his humility, his innocence, his holiness, his zeal for the faith, shine so brilliantly that he seems a second St. Leo, or St. Gregory the Great. . . . I do not hesitate to say that had Calvin himself been raised from the tomb on Easter Day, and seen the holy Pope . . . blessing his kneeling people . . . in spite of himself he would have recognized and venerated the true representative of Jesus Christ!”

The Pope’s measures for the reform of the Church were drastic. All bishops were bidden on pain of deprivation to return to their sees within one month; to live there, and to become true Fathers of their people. Seminaries were everywhere established, and at Fribourg a great college. The Decrees of the Council of Trent were to be rigorously observed by all grades of clergy. The most severe laws were passed against the detestable practice of simony. In France, great benefices and even bishoprics were actually held by women, who received all revenues, and paid an ecclesiastic to perform all necessary functions. This terrible state of things was sternly swept away. Strict regulations were made for all religious houses; perpetual enclosure being enjoined upon all convents of nuns, “except in cases of fire, leprosy, or pestilence.” The recital of the Divine Office was strictly enforced in every church, and the strongest measures were taken against irreverence in church. Conversations of any kind, whispering, jokes and laughter were sternly prohibited, as offending Almighty God in the Blessed Sacrament, and most severely punished, in the first instance by a heavy fine; in the second, by prison or exile. Priests, sacristans and officials were charged to enforce this decree. The crowds of beggars which assembled within the churches were no longer allowed to pass beyond the porch, except to pray.

 

If sinners trembled, the saints were jubilant as they witnessed the edifying example of Pius V and the purifying of civic life in the papal domain. They saw in him the patriarchal majesty of the Hebrew prophets from whose penetrating eyes no sins could be hid. Like the old Biblical seers, he inveighed against wickedness in high places; and men of good will recognized in him the Sword of Saint Michael, his namesake and protector, who should “drive into hell Satan and the other evil spirits who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls.” In him, the Church Militant had once again found a leader. God had raised him up for no other purpose. That he was a saint was evident as he went about doing good, washing the feet of the poor, embracing lepers, and visiting the afflicted.

When he died, he was sixty-six years of age and had filled Peter’s Chair with unfailing trust and patience and rigorous discipline for six years, seven months, and twenty-three days. He had fought the heresy of Luther and all its multitudinous off-shoots, the apostasy of England, the recalcitrance of France, the lethargy of Maximilian II, and the laxity of Sigismund Augustus of Poland. The seeds of missionary labor he planted have never ceased to bring forth abundant harvest for the Church. With holy zeal Pius V had dared to beard the Turk in his own lair on the sea. He broke the power of the Ottoman tyrants. He freed Christian slaves. He had, in fact, accomplished the impossible. For no matter how much acclaim Colonna and Don Juan received for their splendid exploits, nor what glory Venier, Doria, and Barbarigo had justly won, it was the indomitable will of Pius V that, in the face of a mountain of opposition, had made all these brave men’s achievements possible! Truly a great statesman and a mighty pontiff departed this earth when Pius V died!

“The great triumph of Lepanto,” says a French writer, “would alone have immortalized St. Pius V.” Its importance will be better realized when it is remembered the Turk had never hitherto been conquered by sea. “The Battle of Lepanto arrested for ever the danger of Mohammedan invasion in the South of Europe.” And Lepanto had been won by prayer! That he was a saint was conceded even by his enemies. It needed only the Church’s official recognition to proclaim his sainthood. … when this valiant soldier of Jesus Christ finally sheathed the sword of Saint Michael which he had wielded so gallantly all his life in defense of Christendom, he might well have uttered the words of the Apostle of the Gentiles: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the Faith.”

Holy Season of Lent - 2020

“Be converted to Me with all your heart, in fasting, in weeping, and in mourning. . . . Blow the trumpet in Sion, sanctify a fast, gather together the people, sanctify the Church” (Joel ii).

May this Holy Season of Lent bring about for you a time of true and salutary penance; may it lead you to forsake the false joys of earth and to be converted to God with all your heart; may your fasting take the place of feasting, your weeping take the place of mirth, and your mourning the place of joy; may your abstinence lead to a great expiation for sin and be practiced in obedience to the spirit of the general law of the Church.

May you follow not only the example of the penitent Ninevites, who, by a penitential fast, averted the destruction with which God had threatened them, but follow also that example of the Innocent Lamb of God, Who, prior to His Mission among men, was pleased to undergo a rigorous fast of forty days and forty nights in the wilderness.

May the holy fast be to you a spiritual springtide; may you polish your spiritual armor, may you breast the waves of evil passions, may you set out like a traveler on his journey heavenwards, and may you prepare like an athlete for the combat.

May you enter on the road which leads to heaven, the rugged and narrow road, and travel along it by buffeting the body and bringing it into subjection.

May your penance consist not merely in mortification of the body, but also in that of the soul, for sin is committed by the will, and therefore it is just that the will, as well as the body, should make atonement.

May you repress the waves of foolish passions and repulse the storm of wicked imaginations, so that your deeds may yield good and fruitful results. If you see a poor man have pity on him, if you see an enemy be reconciled, if you see a friend in good reputation, regard him without envy.

May you fast not only by your mouth by forbidding it to utter tales of slander, but also with your eyes by averting them from unlawful sights, and with your hands by restraining them from deeds of violence, and with your feet by not entering places of pernicious amusements, and with your ears by stopping them from listening to gossip and detraction.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

Introduction to "The Sacred Ceremonies of Low Mass"

By Rev. Felix Zualdi, CM

 

The august Sacrifice of the Mass comprises in itself all that is most sublime and sacred in our Holy Religion. All the sacrifices of the Old Testament were only shadows of that of the new, which, as St. Leo says, really offers to God what the Jewish sacrifices only promised. The offering should bear some proportion to the person to whom it is made; but since the ancient sacrifices were only weak and needy elements, they could in no way satisfy for man’s debts to God and hence another sacrifice was required. The old victims were insufficient, the Levitical priesthood was impotent in the sight of God, therefore it was necessary, as the Fathers of the Council of Trent express it, that by the ordination of God the Father of Mercies, another Priest, according to the order of Melchisedech, our Lord Jesus Christ, should arise, who would consummate and bring to perfection all who were to be sanctified. Although Our Lord fully consummated the sacrifice by offering Himself to God the Father, and by dying on the altar of the Cross for our redemption yet His priesthood was not to expire with His death, but was to continue visible in His Church to the end of ages, as He Himself promised at His Last Supper when, instituting the Eucharistic Sacrifice, He gave the same Divine authority to the Apostles and to their successors. Every Priest can, therefore, say to himself when ascending the altar: I am no longer a mere man of clay, a weak creature—being identified with Jesus Christ through the power and the infinite value of the Victim I am about to offer. With what a high degree of virtue ought such a dignity be accompanied!

          There are four kinds of worship given to God in the Sacrifice of the Mass. The first is called Latreutic, which is due to Him and can be given to His Infinite Majesty alone, and which is rendered by the Sacred Victim along with the adoration of the faithful, of the Saints, and of the Angelic Hosts, who, according to the opinion of the Fathers, reverently surround the altar. The second form of worship is termed Eucharistic, by which man raises his voice in perfect thanksgiving to his most generous Benefactor. In it, the excess of the Divine Goodness invests us with the power of offering abundant satisfaction to Him; and the greatest advantage we derive from this benefit is, that we can thereby make an adequate return for what we have received from God. God delivers us from the abyss; we present to Him the Deliverer. He opens Heaven to us; we offer to Him the Heir. So much does the supreme goodness shine forth in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, that not only is our act of thanksgiving in keeping with the great benefits conferred upon us, but forms a return in some way suitable for the great love manifested in His conferring them upon us. We do this not merely once, as St. Gregory Nazianzen remarks, as when our Blessed Lord offered Himself in the Incarnation to His Eternal Father, but a thousand times, when we offer that Divine Son in the Mass, impassible and glorious as a worthy victim of thanksgiving.

The third act of worship is Propitiatory—to appease the anger of God, to satisfy the demands of His justice, and to obtain the pardon of our sins. Man should appease the Lord to whom he has been ungrateful, and avert His anger lest he might be cast off forever. All other creatures cried for vengeance against sinful man: Jesus Christ appeared and immolated Himself upon the Cross; peace came upon the world, man’s sins notwithstanding, and the unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass pours out on him the grace of repentance and reconciles him with Divine justice. The Sacrifice of Calvary supplied the treasures, that of the Mass distributes them. From the treasury, judge of the key; and if the Passion of Jesus Christ fits us for the benefits of Redemption, the Sacrifice of the Mass enables us to enjoy them, for St. Chrysostom says : “Tantum valet celebratio Missae quantum mors Christi in cruce,” and the Church herself moreover assures us of it in these words: “Quoties hujus hostiae commemoratio celebratur, opus nostrae Redemptionis exercetur.”

          But the worship we render to God, as the Author of every good gift, is based upon our prayers, serving as we do a Lord who wishes us to pray to Him, uniting His own glory with our best interests. “Call upon Me,” He says, “in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me.” Prayer constitutes the fourth act of worship, called Impetratory, for the due rendering of which to God the Mass furnishes us with the best of all means of moving the Divine liberality in our favour. We are unworthy not only to be heard but even to ask, and consequently unworthy of receiving, from the very fact that we are obliged to ask. The Word of God prayed for us, and “was heard for His reverence.” In the Mass He prays to the Father continually for us, in the same manner as He did, bathed with tears and blood, on the Cross, and we through Him are heard. On the altar the word of Salvation is raised, the life-giving Host is laid, and there is worked the most sublime miracle, ravishing in ecstasy of wonder earth and heaven. The Son of God, the invisible High Priest, the Holy Pontiff, just, innocent, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens, and able to compassionate us in our infirmities, intercedes for us with unutterable groanings, and becomes our propitiation, our victim: and the Eternal Father, who promised to hear everyone invoking Him in the name of His Son, cannot refuse the Son Himself praying, and offering Himself for us. “O Father!” we may suppose Him to exclaim in the Mass, “O Father! wilt Thou not remember the sacrifice which I consummated on Calvary? Look down on the renewal of it, that Thou mayst bestow on My brethren the graces I gained by My death.”

Such is the excellence of the sacrifice of our altars. Would to Heaven that all the Priests going forth every day with joy to the mystic Calvary, animated with sublime sentiments of religion, and covered with the blood of Our Redeemer, would present themselves to the Father, uniting, as St. Gregory the Great remarks, by an interior and invisible sacrifice, their groans to those of the Victim who died for men, and showing themselves alive to their solemn office and to the wants of poor souls. Then would they, by the Mass, honour the majesty of God, thank Him for His benefits, appease His justice, and implore His mercy. And since of all our functions, the Mass is the most holy and the most divine, fulfilling, as it does, the four great ends already mentioned, it appears very clear that no study or diligence should be omitted by the Priest in order that such a sacrifice may be celebrated with the greatest possible interior purity and exterior devotion, as the Council of Trent directs, declaring that the terrible anathemas fulminated by the Prophet against those who perform negligently the functions prescribed for divine worship apply rigidly to the ministers who celebrate Mass with irreverence. In order then that the Priest may avoid so great a fault, and the divine malediction consequent on it, let us remind him in the Introduction to this work what he ought to do before celebrating, while celebrating, and after having celebrated. All may be reduced to these three points: 1^st, Preparation; 2^nd, Reverence and Exactness; 3^rd, Thanksgiving.

 

1. The Preparation is remote and immediate; the remote consists in the pure and virtuous life, which should be led by the Priest, in order that he may celebrate worthily. Therefore, his acts, his words, his thoughts should breathe of purity, that he may be fit to celebrate with proper dispositions. If he who handled the sacred vessels of old should be pure, how much more so must the Priest be, who bears in his hands and in his breast the Incarnate Word of God? This purity of life consists, first, in preserving himself undefiled from every sin, not only mortal, as he is necessarily bound to—but also, to secure greater purity, every deliberate venial sin, and even from every affection to venial sin; and secondly, it consists in applying himself most diligently and constantly to the acquisition of every virtue. “Qui justus est, justificetur adhuc, et sanctus, sanctificetur adhuc” (Apoc. xxii. ii). For the immediate preparation, mental prayer is requisite. The venerable John of Avila prescribes an hour and a half; St. Alphonsus reduces the time of immediate preparation to half an hour, and even to a quarter; but he adds, indeed, a quarter of an hour is too little. The Passion of Jesus Christ should be the continual thought of the Priest. Having finished his meditation it is meet he should recollect himself for some time before proceeding to celebrate, and consider the great action he is about to perform. He should seriously ponder, says St. Augustine, these four thoughts: “Cui offeratur, a quo offeratur, quid offeratur, pro quibus offeratur.” On entering the sacristy, he should say with St. Bernard: “Worldly affections and solicitudes, wait here until I have celebrated Mass.” The Priest should likewise consider that he is about to call from heaven to earth the Word Incarnate, to sacrifice Him anew to the eternal Father, to be fed with His sacred flesh; he should in fine, reflect upon his most serious responsibility in becoming at the altar the mediator between God and man.

2. Reverence and Exactness.—It is necessary in celebrating, to manifest all the reverence due to so great a sacrifice. This reverence means that due attention be paid to the words of the Mass, and that all the ceremonies prescribed by the Rubrics be exactly observed. As to the attention, the Priest sins by willful distractions while saying Mass; and these willful distractions, if occurring at the consecration of the sacred species, or during a notable portion of the Canon are, according to a large body of theologians, mortal sins. It is not considered possible that a Priest so acting could fulfil what is prescribed by the Rubric in these words: “Sacerdos maxime curare debet ut . . . distincte et apposite proferat . . . non admodum festinanter, ut advertere possit quae legit.” Exactness regards the fulfilment of the ceremonies enjoined by the Rubrics, in the celebration of the Divine Sacrifice. The Bull of St. Pius V., found in the beginning of the Missal, strictly commands that the Mass be celebrated according to the rite of the Missal, so that no willful omission, even though it be trivial, of what is prescribed for the actual celebration of Mass, whether in word or in action, can be excused from the guilt of, at least, venial sin. It is commonly held this does not apply to what we have said of the preparation for the sacrifice and thanksgiving after it. Words half pronounced, genuflections half formed, incomplete signs, and confused and hurried actions, may lead to grave sacrilege. There are some who hurry over the Mass in such a way that the interrogation might be put regarding them which Tertullian used for another purpose: “Sacrificat, an insultat?” Of such ministers it might be said they are not Priests but executioners, who insult the Passion of Jesus Christ; they are perfidious Jews, who, instead of pleading for pardon, bring upon their souls everlasting malediction. Add to this the scandal given by him who celebrates without devotion. The people respected our Divine Saviour in the beginning of His public life, but when they saw Him despised by the priests they lost all reverence for Him, and cried out for His death. The greater number of authors, including Benedict XIV., Clement IX., and other very learned Pontiffs, declare that the celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass should not occupy more than half an hour, nor less than the third part of an hour. Such a space of time is prudently considered sufficient, both to secure a due and reverent celebration and to prevent weariness on the part of those assisting. Whoever fails herein merits reprehension; but he who gets through the Mass in a less space of time than a quarter of an hour is, as St. Alphonsus holds, guilty of mortal sin.

3. Fervour in Thanksgiving after Mass is a sure proof that the Priest has offered the Sacrifice with a heart animated with holy affections. If he has celebrated, with the fire of the love of God it will not be easily extinguished in him. Every benefit claims its acknowledgment. Now, let us consider what gratitude is due to God by the Priest who has been just permitted to say Mass! “Oh! what an abuse and what a shame,” cries out St. Alphonsus, “to behold so many Priests who, after having celebrated Holy Mass, after having received from God the honour of offering to Him in sacrifice His own Divine Son, and after having been fed with His most Sacred Body, with tongues still purpled with His most Precious Blood, having hurried over some short prayers coldly and inattentively, commence immediately to discourse of useless things or of worldly business; or else go forth carrying about the streets Jesus Christ, who is still reposing in their breasts under the sacramental species.” With such might we deal, as the Venerable John of Avila once did with a Priest who left the church immediately after having celebrated. He sent two clerics, bearing lighted torches, to attend him, and they, when asked by the Priest what they meant, replied: “We accompany the Blessed Sacrament which you carry in your breast.” Alas! How sad: and yet this is the fittest and most precious time to treat of our eternal salvation and to gain new treasures of grace. This is the propitious hour in which we should present to our Saviour devout offerings and thank Him for the privileges just conferred. After Communion, as St. Teresa says, let us not lose so good an opportunity of treating with God, since His Divine Majesty is not wont to reward sparingly him from whom He receives a hearty welcome.

As long as the Sacramental Species remain every act of virtue possesses greater value and merit, because of the strict union which then exists between the soul and Jesus Christ, as He Himself declared: “Qui manducat meam carnem et bibit meum sanguinem, in me manet et ego in illo.” Therefore acts performed at this time have the highest degree of efficacy and value, for, says St. Chrysostom; “Ipsa re nos in suum efficit corpus.” Jesus places Himself in the soul as on a throne, and He seems to say to her, as He formerly did to the man born blind, “Quid tibi vis faciam?” . . . Would it not then be most advisable that every Priest should entertain Himself with Jesus Christ for half an hour after Mass, says St. Alphonsus; or even for a quarter of an hour?

The first portion of the time of thanksgiving should be devoted by the Priest to the recital, more with his heart than with his lips, of the customary prayers proposed by the Church, which are found in all Missals and Breviaries. The second part should be spent in loving communion with Jesus, in sentiments of adoration, of thanksgiving, of oblation, and of supplication. The Priest should pray for himself and for the Church; he should pray for all the people in general, and in particular for those of his own diocese, of his country ; for his relatives; for the living and for the dead; for all the members of the Catholic Church;  particularly for those under his own charge (parishioners, penitents, etc.); he should pray for all, that all may come to know, to love, and to serve God on earth, and so afterwards to glorify Him with the angels and saints in Heaven.

Old Catholic Photos

Augustinian

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Spanish Vestments

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Pontifical Requiem

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Carthusian Monks

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Cistersians

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Blessing of Bells



Mary in the Life of the Carthusian Monk

“There is one other aspect of Carthusian life, the monks agree, that cannot be passed without mention. Every monk nourishes a deep practical devotion to the Virgin Mary. Carthusians have clung to the tradition of reciting the ‘Little Office’ of the Virgin before the regular canonical hours. They also feel that Mary guides them through their solitary lives each day. ‘When I think of what I’d do without the Blessed Mother,’ one monk says, and his voice trails off. The three monks sit in silence for a moment, shaking their heads, as if an absurdity has been introduced into the conversation. A Carthusian life unaided by Mary is unthinkable.”

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