August 2003

This month of August marks an important celebration for the Church and especially for our little Society of Saint Pius X. This year we celebrate the centennial anniversary of the election of our patron, Giuseppe Sarto, as Pope Pius X on August 4, 1903.

Many realize the great impact this saintly Pope had upon our modern world and have given expression to these thoughts. Among these we have the allocution at the canonization of Saint Pius X, given by Pope Pius XII which briefly lays out the Saint’s recipe for holiness and thereby the means to restore all things in Christ. A large part of this allocution is quoted below for your reflection and inspiration to work towards the same.

"Sanctity which was the inspiration and direction force of the undertakings of Pius X, is still more clearly discernible in his personal life. Before applying it to others, he put into practice in his own life his program of unifying all things in Christ.

"First as a humble parish priest then as a Bishop, and finally as Supreme Pontiff he was intimately convinced that the sanctity to which God called him was priestly sanctity. For what sanctity is more pleasing to God in a priest of the New Law than that which belongs to him as representative of Jesus Christ, Eternal High Priest, Who left to His Church in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass a memorial for all time and a perpetual renovation of His Sacrifice on the Cross, until He shall come for the Last Judgement; and Who in the Sacrament of the Blessed Eucharist has given Himself as the food of the soul: ‘He who eats this bread shall live forever’?

"A priest above all in the Eucharistic ministry, this is the most faithful portrayal of Saint Pius X. To serve the mystery of the Blessed Eucharist as a priest, and to fulfill the command of Our Savior, ‘Do this in remembrance of Me’, was his goal. From the day of his sacred ordination until his death as Pope, he knew no other faith than this in order to arrive at heroism in his love for God and to make a wholehearted return to that Redeemer of the world, Who by means of the Blessed Eucharist ‘poured out the wealth of His Divine Love on men.’

"One of the most expressive proofs of his consciousness of his priesthood was the extreme care he took to renew the dignity of divine worship. Overcoming the prejudices springing from an erroneous practice, he resolutely promoted frequent and even daily Communion of the faithful, and unhesitatingly led the children to the banquet of the Lord, and offered them to the embrace of the God hidden on the altars. Then the spouse of Christ experienced a new springtime of the Eucharistic life. In the profound vision which he had of the Church as a society, Pius X recognized that it was the Blessed Eucharist which had the power to nourish its intimate life substantially, and to raise it high above all other human societies. Only the Eucharist, in which God gives Himself to man, is capable of laying the foundations of a social life worthy of those who live it, cemented more by love than by authority, rich in activity and aimed at the perfection of the individual, a life that is hidden with Christ in God. What a providential example for the world of today, where earthly society is becoming more and more a mystery to itself, and is feverishly trying to rediscover its soul! Let it look, then, for its model at the Church, gathered around its altars. There in the Sacrament of the Eucharist mankind really discovers and recognizes that his past, present and future are a unity in Christ. Conscious of and strong in his solidarity with Christ and his fellowmen, each member of either society, the earthly and the supernatural one, will be enabled to draw from the altar an interior life of personal worth, such as today is almost lost through insistence on technology and by the excessive organization of existence, of work and even of play.

"Only in the Church, the Holy Pontiff seems to repeat, the Universal Church, which is ‘life hidden with Christ in God’, is to be found the secret and source of renewed social life. Hence follows the grave responsibility of ministers of the altar, whose duty it is to disclose to souls the saving treasure of the Eucharist. Many indeed are the activities which a priest can exercise for the salvation of the modern world. One of them, and undoubtedly one of the most efficacious and the most lasting in its effects, is to act as dispenser of the Holy Eucharist, after first nourishing himself abundantly with It. His work would cease to be sacerdotal if, even through zeal for souls, he were to put his Eucharistic vocation in a secondary place. Let priests conform their outlook to the inspired wisdom of Pius X, and let them confidently exercise their whole apostolate under the sign of the Blessed Eucharist. Similarly, let religious men and women, those who live under the same roof as Jesus Christ and are daily nourished with His Body, take as a safe norm in the pursuit of the sanctity proper to their state what the Holy Pontiff once declared on an important occasion, namely, that the bonds through which their vows and community life link them with God are not to be subordinated to any other activity, however legitimate for the good of their neighbor.

"In the Blessed Eucharist the soul should strike the roots for nourishing the interior life, which is not only a fundamental treasure of all souls consecrated to the Lord, but also a necessity for every Christian whom God calls to be saved. Without interior life, any activity, however praiseworthy, is debased and become purely mechanical in action, without any vitalizing effect. The Holy Eucharist and the interior life: this is the supreme and universal lesson which Pius X, from the height of glory, teaches in this hour to all souls. As apostle of the interior life, he becomes, in the age of the machine, of technology and of organization, the saint and guide of men of our time."

Thus it is no surprise that the enemies of the Church seek to destroy Her by attacking the Holy Eucharist. If they can but do away with the Holy Eucharist, the Sacrament of Sacraments, a great source of nourishment will be cut off and souls will wither. To this purpose they seek to destroy the means God has given to bring the Holy Eucharist to men: the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and Christ’s sacred Priesthood. The former they try to destroy by changing the Mass into merely a memorial meal; putting aside its sacrificial nature and the substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharistic species. The latter is no longer viewed in terms of the power the priest alone possesses to consecrate in persona Christi the real Body of Christ and thus make the sacrificial offering. Instead the priest is seen merely as the head of the People of God who themselves bring about the spiritual presence of the Lord by virtue of their coming together.

Recent statistics seem to indicate that the Church’s enemies are winning this battle. Consider some statistics recently compiled.

• In 1965 there were 58,000 priests in the U.S. This number had dropped to 45,000 in 2002 and the majority of these were over the age of 80.

• The number of ordinations has declined 350%, from 1,575 in 1965 to 450 in 2002. If we consider ordinations, deaths and departures, in 1965 we had a net gain of 725 priests. In 1998 there was a net loss of 810.

• A recent study done at Fordham University reported that 65% of Catholics regularly attended Sunday Mass in 1965, while the rate dropped to 25% in 2000.

• According to a recent New York Times / CBS poll 70% of Catholics age 18-44 believe the Eucharist is merely a "symbolic reminder" of Jesus.

To restore all things in Christ by restoring the priesthood and all that concerns it is just the continuation of Saint Pius X’s work into our own times. It is no accident that Archbishop Lefebvre chose Saint Pius X as the heavenly patron to guide this work of our little society.

Thus in honor of this centennial of our patron and to seek his intercession for the Church and our own nation I propose that the following prayer, taken from the same allocution of Pope Pius XII, be recited for one month beginning August 4 and ending on the feast of Saint Pius X —September 3.

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