The Legacy of St. Pius X
Summary of Headings
- St. Pius X and the Eucharist
- Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary
- Standing Against Modernism
- The Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis
- Living the Virtues of St. Pius X
St. Pius X and the Eucharist
We get to celebrate the great St. Pius X. Truly, not just the most important Pope of modern times, but he's also one of the most important Popes in all of history. Next to St. Pius V, next to Pope St. Leo the Great, next to St. Peter himself. He is truly one of the greatest Popes the world has ever known. And he is so for very many reasons. A lot of different reasons. One of them being, of course, his tremendous devotion to the Eucharist. And what he did for us, for the Eucharist, he opened the Eucharist up for people as young as seven years old. Any child who is able to make a true distinction between the host before and after the consecration who can explain or understand to any sort of degree about that distinction is ready to receive First Communion thanks to him. The fact that we are able to receive Communion on a daily basis is thanks to him. Beforehand, we didn't have that ability.
Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary
He opened the Blessed Sacrament up for so many. Also for his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. He was extraordinary in this sense. I was surprised and edified by how many graces he gave to pilgrims to go visit Our Lady of Guadalupe. The fact that she has a basilica. The fact that it is a universal, universal pilgrimage site. The fact that there is indulgences attached to visiting Our Lady of Guadalupe is thanks to him. Many other devotions to Our Lady were encouraged and promoted by him in his pontificate. The fact that he stood up to the government of France and he defended the church's rights against the modernist and the Masonic government of France that ended up taking all of the property away from the church, which is still the problem to this day. The fact that he stood up to that government and he defended the church's rights no matter what. The fact that he defended the church against the illegal occupation of Rome by the Italian government,
defending the Vatican's property even though it made him the prisoner of the Vatican. His humility. He didn't want to be Pope. He hid from the possibility of being Pope. Famously, when he realized what the cardinals were doing, he fled the Sistine Chapel. And at the time, Archbishop Mary Duval, Secretary of the Conclave, had to be sent in search for him and found him before Our Lady weeping, begging her to take this away from him. And when he was finally brought back, after being consoled by Mary Duval, he came back and he accepted the pontificate but only as a cross that he could unite to the cross of Christ.
He was a model of poverty, and it was actually one of his few things that he was quite proud about. In his final will and testament, he said, I was born poor, I lived poor, I die poor. He had nothing for himself. And he insisted on that very strongly. With all the pomp and circumstance surrounding the pontificate, with all the riches that he was surrounded by, he kept nothing for himself. Ever. And he did so in a quiet, unassuming way, not a loud bombastic way. And he was a man of the We can also praise his pastoral care. Famously, when he made Cardinal Mary Duval his Secretary of State, he found a child weeping in St. Peter's.
And he asked him, why? Well, he was from the Trastevere part of Rome, where Mary Duval had worked with the youth. And he said, well, Holy Father, I'm angry at you. And he said, why? Because you took my confessor away from me. Mary Duval, Cardinal Mary Duval, you took him away from me. And St. Pius X took him and guided him through the Vatican and showed him where Mary Duval's office was and says, go get your confession right now. And he said, and if Cardinal Mary Duval is too busy to hear your confession, there's my office, I'll hear your confession. He was always a priest first, even above all the other ranks and gifts that he was given as a Cardinal.
As a bishop and whatever else. As a bishop, famously, a parish priest walked into his parish very late for his confessions and he found his bishop, at the time Bishop Sarto, in the confessional, hearing the confessions that that priest was supposed to be hearing.
Standing Against Modernism
He was always a priest first. We can marvel at all of these things, but one of the most important things that he did was, of course, his condemnation of modernism. And his great encyclical, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, he defended the Catholic Church's doctrine against the new infection that was creeping through the Church at the time, and which has since taken over the Church to a large extent, and that is the infection of modernism. He defended the Church against this, what he called the syllabus of errors, the syllabus of all, or the, sorry, the synthesis of all heresies. All heresies can be found in modernism.
It defies and denies the nature of Christ. It denies the nature of the Trinity. It denies the nature and the rights of the Catholic Church itself. And somehow it has gained so much momentum that now we can go anywhere in the world and find this infection. But what St. Pius X did is he gave us a core argument against modernism. One of the most pernicious things about modernism is that it is so slippery. Someone one time described it as trying to wrestle with a wet snake with greased hands. Because it's always trying to slip away. The way it does is by redefining terms, by maneuvering away from the argument itself, trying to manipulate language, trying to use the so -called Marxist dialectic to be able to hide its true meanings.
But St. Pius X, knowing that the devil loves shadows and darkness, shone a bright light on all of these errors. And he demonstrated before the world what modernism truly is. It was not a popular document. Several high -ranking bishops and even cardinals objected to it. After the death of St. Pius X, they accused Cardinal Mary Duval of being the one who actually wrote it, trying to say that Pope St. Pius X was not actually the one responsible for it. But unlike most popes, he actually, actually wrote it himself. Cardinal Mary Duval assisted him and encouraged him, but it was entirely St. Pius X's work. And that's evident by the clarity and the simplicity of the writing.
Most popes are very florid in their way of writing. He was very clear, very simple in his writing. Each and every one of us can read it and understand what he is saying very easily. As a matter of fact, I'm going to encourage you very strongly to read it. I've asked the bookstore to order copies of it. Each and every one of us should read it, should have parts of it memorized by heart because it is so very crucial for the fight that we have today. Again,
The Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis
modernism has evolved and has become something far more than what it was in the time of St. Pius X, but the seed, the root, is still the same. It is still based upon the same erroneous idea of who Christ is, and of what the church is. It is still pernicious. It is still the synthesis of all heresies. St. Pius X has shown a bright light on it, which is why it was so unpopular, why it is so hated, and which, by the way, it has not been cited by any pope since the 1960s, or sorry, the 1950s. All of them have avoided it. He speaks clearly, and he speaks precisely. He defines his terms.
He clarifies the ambiguities and the errors that surround modernism. But most importantly, he thunderously defies, sorry, thunderously crushes modernism with his language. He condemns it utterly. There is no more defense for modernism after he is done. The reason for that, is because the church needed that clarity. It needed that voice. He did not hesitate to excommunicate the father of modernism within the church, or at least the very first one to be very publicly and openly modernist, Father Alfred Loisy. No longer father, he was excommunicated and he was laicized. On the one hand, Pope St. Pius X had no qualms about excommunicating the first man, because what he was preaching was wrong.
And he refused to repent, and he refused to back down. But in private, St. Pius X actually sent him a letter begging him to change. Begging him to back down. The reason that Archbishop Lefebvhe chose St. Pius X as our patron saint, was precisely because of the fact that he was a Christian. of the essence of this battle. And one of the aspects of this battle is the fact that we cannot become that which we despise. We cannot become someone who just simply reacts. But we have to know what it is we are fighting for. We have to know what it is we are defending. We have to know why we stick with this Mass.
We have to know why we put so much emphasis on the true priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have to know the Catholic doctrine and we have to know why that doctrine exists and why we have to defend it even with our very blood. We have to know all of these things. We have to know right from wrong and we have to be able to choose right. We have to know what virtue is and we have to live that virtue. Because St. Pius X did. At the end of his life, again famously, when Pius XII was pushing so hard to get him canonized, the rest of the church did not want it.
It was only by the will of Pius XII that he ended up getting canonized. The rest of the church was putting up so many obstacles because the rot of modernism had already crept in so thoroughly. But when Pius XII was pushing this canonization through, the devil's advocate was looking for anything by which they could deny the canonization of the Church. And St. Pius X, as was supposed to be the way that canonizations occurred, the worst thing that they could find about him was that he used tobacco once in a while. That was the very worst thing that they could throw at him.
His virtue was so complete. What was it about his virtue? How did he find the way to practice this virtue? Very simply, the love of God above all things. And that is what needs to inspire every action in our lives. That is the most important aspect of our lives. That we love God so very much that we are willing to do anything for Him. To sacrifice anything for Him. That we are willing to stand up for His rights even if it's not popular. That we are willing to defend Him against everybody in our lives if it's need be. That we are willing to fight no matter what it is we are supposed to, whom we are supposed to fight.
The devil himself, it does not mean that we are supposed to fight against anybody. The entire world, it does not matter. Whatever it is we have to sacrifice, it does not matter. But we have to stand firm and we have to make sure that we understand that we are supposed to live this virtue, not simply just react. Yes, we see all the problems in the church. Yes, we see the modernism.
Living the Virtues of St. Pius X
Yes, we know that there are horrible things going on. And yes, if we want to play the act of comparison between St. Pius X and recent popes, well, we know how that would go. But we have to understand that we shouldn't just have a gut reaction to that. We need to become saints within the mold of St. Pius X himself. We need to follow his example of charity, of poverty, of humility, of true priestly zeal for the mission of the church, for the sanctification and salvation of souls, our own first and foremost. That is what we must live. That is what we must live. That is how we become saints in his example, in his model.
That is how we are supposed to live every day of our lives. It is not easy, but it's not supposed to be, because the way of Christ is the way of the cross. And just as St. Pius X picked up the heaviest cross that exists on this earth of being the pope, the representative of Christ for the entire world that hates Christ, we must also pick up our crosses, no matter how painful and no matter how heavy. We must be willing to sacrifice our very lives to that. After the credo, we will have the introduction of the new members of the Third Order of the Society of St. Pius X. And to you, specifically, those members, I ask you to contemplate what it is you are offering yourself to, because you are the first to be a member of the Society of St. Pius X.
Because being a member of the Society of St. Pius X doesn't just mean that you are a part of a club, as it were. You are taking upon yourselves a part of the load that each priest of the Society of St. Pius X is supposed to carry, which is that very model of virtue and sanctification that St. Pius X represented and gave to us. That is going to be your mission now. That is going to be your cross now. You are now given a greater portion of that same cross. Understand it for what it is, accept it for the beauty of what it is, embrace it with all the charity of your hearts, and with the same charity, with the same love of Christ that St. Pius X lived his life by.
Because that way, we can offer ourselves more completely to him, and we can find ourselves at his feet eternally, and eternally, in heaven. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Summary
St. Pius X is celebrated as one of the most important Popes in history, known for his devotion to the Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin Mary. He made significant changes to the Church, allowing children to receive First Communion at a younger age and promoting daily Communion. His battle against modernism was a defining aspect of his papacy. Through his encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, he provided a clear and precise argument against the errors of modernism, which he called the synthesis of all heresies. St. Pius X's virtues of humility, poverty, and pastoral care are a model for Catholics today. His life encourages us to live with a deep love for God, standing firm in our faith and embracing the cross as he did.