AAS 31 (1939), p. 539
symbolism, We see its power to refine and to elevate, to strengthen and
to fortify souls. We see, besides, in that consecration a penetrating
wisdom which sets itself to restore and to ennoble all human society and
to promote its true welfare. It unfolds itself to Us ever more clearly
as a message of comfort and a grace from God not only to His Church
but also to a world in all too dire need of help and guidance : to a world
which, preoccupied with the worship of the ephemeral, has lost its way
and spent its forces in a vain search after earthly ideals. It is a message
to men who in ever-increasing numbers have cut themselves off from
faith in Christ and, even more, from the recognition and observance of
His law; a message opposed to that philosophy of life, for which the
doctrine of love and renunciation preached in the Sermon on the Mount
and the divine act of love on the Cross seem to be a stumbling-block
and foolishness. Even as the Precursor of the Lord proclaimed one day to
those who sought and questioned him: Behold the Laml) of God
(St. John, 1, 29), in order to warn them that the Desired of the nations
(cf. Aggeus, 2, 8) dwelt, though as yet unrecognized, in their midst, so
too the representative of Christ addressed his mighty cry of entreaty :
Behold your King (St. John, 19, 14) to the renegades, to the doubters,
to the wavering, to the hesitant, who either refused to follow the glorious
Bedeemer, living ever and working in His Church, or folloAved Him with
carelessness and sloth.
From the widening and deepening of devotion to the divine Heart of
the Redeemer, which had its splendid culmination in the consecration
of humanity at the end of the last century, and farther in the introduction,
by Our immediate Predecessor of happy memory, of the feast of
Christ the King, there have sprung up benefits beyond description for
numberless souls—as the stream of the river which maheth the city of
Qod joyful (Psalm 45, 5). What age had greater need than ours of these
benefits? What age has been, for all its technical and purely civic
progress, more tormented than ours by spiritual emptiness, and deepfelt
interior poverty? May we not, perhaps, apply to it the prophetic words
of the Apocalypse: Thou sayest: I am rich, and made wealthy, and
have need of nothing : and knowest not, that thou art wretched, and
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked (Apocalypse, 3, 17)?
Can there be, Venerable Brethren, a greater or more urgent duty
than to preach... the unsearchable riches of Christ (Ephesians, 3, 8) to
the men of our time? Can there be anything nobler than to unfurl the
ensign of the King before those who have followed and still follow false
standards, and to win back to the victorious banner of the Cross those
to fortify souls. We see, besides, in that consecration a penetrating
wisdom which sets itself to restore and to ennoble all human society and
to promote its true welfare. It unfolds itself to Us ever more clearly
as a message of comfort and a grace from God not only to His Church
but also to a world in all too dire need of help and guidance : to a world
which, preoccupied with the worship of the ephemeral, has lost its way
and spent its forces in a vain search after earthly ideals. It is a message
to men who in ever-increasing numbers have cut themselves off from
faith in Christ and, even more, from the recognition and observance of
His law; a message opposed to that philosophy of life, for which the
doctrine of love and renunciation preached in the Sermon on the Mount
and the divine act of love on the Cross seem to be a stumbling-block
and foolishness. Even as the Precursor of the Lord proclaimed one day to
those who sought and questioned him: Behold the Laml) of God
(St. John, 1, 29), in order to warn them that the Desired of the nations
(cf. Aggeus, 2, 8) dwelt, though as yet unrecognized, in their midst, so
too the representative of Christ addressed his mighty cry of entreaty :
Behold your King (St. John, 19, 14) to the renegades, to the doubters,
to the wavering, to the hesitant, who either refused to follow the glorious
Bedeemer, living ever and working in His Church, or folloAved Him with
carelessness and sloth.
From the widening and deepening of devotion to the divine Heart of
the Redeemer, which had its splendid culmination in the consecration
of humanity at the end of the last century, and farther in the introduction,
by Our immediate Predecessor of happy memory, of the feast of
Christ the King, there have sprung up benefits beyond description for
numberless souls—as the stream of the river which maheth the city of
Qod joyful (Psalm 45, 5). What age had greater need than ours of these
benefits? What age has been, for all its technical and purely civic
progress, more tormented than ours by spiritual emptiness, and deepfelt
interior poverty? May we not, perhaps, apply to it the prophetic words
of the Apocalypse: Thou sayest: I am rich, and made wealthy, and
have need of nothing : and knowest not, that thou art wretched, and
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked (Apocalypse, 3, 17)?
Can there be, Venerable Brethren, a greater or more urgent duty
than to preach... the unsearchable riches of Christ (Ephesians, 3, 8) to
the men of our time? Can there be anything nobler than to unfurl the
ensign of the King before those who have followed and still follow false
standards, and to win back to the victorious banner of the Cross those