St. Pius X and His Example for Us – SSPX Sermons

0:00In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen. Father and Father, dear sisters, dear faithful, a couple of days ago we celebrated the feast of St. Pius X, our patron, and the champion defender of the faith, a real model for us, so that essential virtue on which the whole of Catholic life is based. I would like to cite three examples from his life. First was his reluctance to accept the papal charge. Pius X was an eminently capable man. He was a good administrator, he was intelligent, and he was an experienced and loved pastor of souls.

1:00He nevertheless considered himself on worthy and on fit for the papacy. And when the became clear that members of the Conclay were considering him for that position, he pleaded with them privately. No. And he urged them to tell others not to vote for him. At a given point when it was clear that the momentum was his, and that he might well be elected, he stood up in the midst of the Conclay, and he publicly begged the Cardinals to vote for someone who would do a better job than him. He was overwhelmed with the thought of the responsibility that would be his as Pope, especially in the times that he lived. And he would write about that after his election. From his first encyclical, we feel a certain dread when we consider the disastrous condition of humanity

2:02in this time in which we live. It is impossible to ignore the profound and grave disease which today far more than in the past of Flix Human Society in which is getting worse from day to day, knowing at the very marrow of its bones and dragging it to its ruin. And he identified that disease as a more or less general apostasy. Men and society as a whole were living as if God did not exist. As if there were no God, as if there were no divine law, as if God had no rights. Things had gotten to such a point, this was over a hundred years ago, the pious attempt in his first encyclical speculated that the Antichrist might already walk upon the earth. And so he saw this as it became clear that he was going to be elected,

3:02and at a given point, when that election was complete, the dean of the Cardinals came to him, and he asked him the question, are you willing to accept this charge? A member of the Conclave describes how pious the tenth with quote, eyes full of tears, and with drops of sweat like pearls on his cheeks and seemingly close to collapsing, responded to the dean of the college when asked if he would accept the election since I cannot be spared this chalice. May God's will be done like Chattam. We see the reluctance, we see the trepidation, and yet having been elected, pious the tenth embraced the responsibilities that were his, with a courage and a decisiveness and a vigor that left him universally recognized in this even by his enemies as one of the greatest popes of all time.

4:06The motto of his pontificate, we are well aware of it, to restore all things in Christ. And he said, to this end, we will spare no labor, we will retreat before no tribulation, we are resolved to spend all our strength and our very life. This is the courage with which he embraced the pontificate. The source of his strength was his faith. If God wanted him to have this task, God would give him the wherewithal to carry it out. As the counsel of Trent says, for God commands not impossibilities, but by commanding, both admonishes D to do what thou art able, and to pray for that which thou art not able to do, and aids D that thou mayest be able. Another example of the faith of Pius X was his strength in the clash that took place between the papacy and the French government while he was Pope.

5:11Friends at that point had completely abandoned the faith for the freemasonic principles of liberty, equality, fraternity. And she was seeking absolute independence from the church's influence and authority. More than that, she sought to impose her will on the church in the nomination of bishops. For example, the time of Pius X, when he was elected, there were five dioceses in France that had no bishop because the papacy could not come to a resolution with the French government for who would take that position in each case. The French government likewise declared religious order illegal. She forbade religious from teaching, and now to put pressure on the papacy in what was left of the papacy's rights, indignity, and France.

6:11She threatened the confiscation of all church property unless the papacy backed down. Leo XIII, the predecessor of Pius X, had tried to work with the French government and others were encouraging Pius X to go even further than Leo XIII had, but he would not. Cardinal Mary Davalle, who was the papo-secretary of state, was writing his memoirs that when no principle was at stake, Pius X was one of the most conciliatory people he knew. If it did not matter, he was willing to let it go, always. But when it was a matter of principle, he would pray, he would reflect, he would ask counsel, but once he had decided that it was indeed a matter of principle, he would not butch, nothing could move him, and so it was here. The Pope writes, God's law alone is of importance.

7:16Our mission is to defend it. One truth is at stake. Was the church founded by our Lord Jesus Christ or not, since it was? Nothing can induce us to give up its constitutions, its rights, or its liberty. And then he said to the faithful in France, if they take our churches, follow us into the streets. It's the faith that matters. To this day, it is the state that holds title of the churches in France, because Pius X refused to back down. Churchmen are allowed to use churches when the government gives permission, but the title is held by the government. A third example of the strength of faith of Pius X was the fight he led against modernism. Modernism, this school of thought, that religion is not a question of an objective reality,

8:18to which we must submit, to which all men must submit. Rather, that each man has his own religious sense, his own inclination, that leaves him the right, so to speak, they would say, to embrace whatever is true for him, or good for him, or morally good for him. Following this false principle to its logical conclusions, we come at what we see in the modern church today, religious liberty, well of course there has to be liberty, if it's up to each man to personally decide what's right for him. The humanism, well of course all religions must be equally valid and treated in an equal way, if it's up to the individual man to decide what's right for him. And then lastly, this evolution, so to speak, of dogma,

9:19this belief that the faith must evolve and be updated to fit modern man, and in evolving man, in an evolving world rather, all of this follows on modernism, these false principles. And so we had a crisis, the greatest since the early centuries of the church, and many of the best and the brightest at the time of Pius X held these positions. They considered modernism to be the future of the church, this disease that are special of the faith called spiritual AIDS, because it destroys the immune system of the church. It prevents the church from defending herself from heresy, because traditional teachers are validated as true for their time, but no longer applicable for today. And so the church is defenseless to whatever novelty is proposed or imposed.

10:26Pius X saw clearly and he tackled the problem without hesitation, the decree lamentablely, the encyclical Pichendi, where he enmasked and condemned modernism. And then he imposed the obligation to take the anti-modernist oath on all clergy religious appears and most notably seminary professors. It was that way until 1967, when Pope Paul VI said, no, that's not necessary anymore, we of course still take it in tradition. So the Pope made these steps clear, decisive, firm, and he was met with a storm of criticism from the liberal media, from liberal church men, but he did not back down. Dear friends, we need a faith like that of Pius X, each one of us.

11:30It's that kind of faith that is asked of us in today's world. We must be men and women, a principle, as was he, that cannot be convenience or pleasure or public opinion or the avoidance of inconvenience or hardship, that is the factor which pushes us in this direction or that and making a decision whether it be for the priest, with the parish, or the school, or whether it be for you fathers and mothers, for your family, for the souls that are entrusted to you. It's got to be the faith, it's the faith that matters. We need to be men and women, a principle, and we need like Pius X to know how to meet the difficulties that we are asked to face in this world. So many Catholics become embittered mainly, or in fact, who would say, because of their lack of faith,

12:30the rangui at the whole world, they just want God to cast fire down from heaven and just give everyone what they deserve. They forget that God remains master of the situation in our world, that he is the Lord of the history, and they forget that the answer is a supernatural one. The answer to the woes of our world, the answer to the apostasy of our world, is the sanctity of Catholics. It's Catholics being Catholic. It's souls being holy and drawing the grace of God, the mercy of God, its souls being holy and drawing other souls to the church, because they see the strength and they see the beauty of the faith. So we mustn't allow ourselves to fall into a bitterness or into a discouragement that can even go to the point of despair. Again, it comes from a lack of faith at base. We don't believe in the greatness of our God.

13:31We don't believe in His ability to solve the problems of our world, to turn things around. We don't believe in His ability or perhaps willingness to help us and our family and our children, concretely speaking, to make our way on the path through this world in which we live. No, we must be souls of faith, like pious attendants. When you look at the photos of the Holy Father, same pious attendants, there are two things that jump out at you. It's unmistakable. The first is the deep, deep sadness that was His as Pope. It's written all over His face. But the second with that sadness is His profound peace of soul. It's the same with the Archbishop.

14:32A Father always. Pious, the tenth, the dissed, died of a broken heart. He died shortly after the outbreak of World War I. But he was a father to the end. If you ever read any of his writings, it's that fatherliness that comes through. He was broken-hearted, like our lady at the foot of the cross. But he was at peace, and he was firm, strong. How are we going to have a faith like that? Well, let's start with knowing our faith. It's always been a serious obligation, a grave obligation. Perhaps, though, never more so than today, for ourselves, and for our children entrusted to us, we have to make sure they are taught the faith. But we also have to make sure that we take the means to keep our balance

15:32in our day-to-day life. And that's prayer and that spiritual reading. How are we going to keep things in perspective if we don't make a concrete effort to lift our gaze to the great realities every day? It's like the pole, the tightrope walker. He's got to make his way across that rope and beneath him is nothing but open air and death that he falls. And he's got that pole to help him. It helps him keep his balance. Well, that's what prayer and spiritual reading do for us in today's world. They help us keep our balance. And likewise, a yearly retreat if we can do it. Or every couple of years at the most, for the Archbishop, that was the key to strength of Catholicism in today's world. If we would be strong Catholics, he said, we need to make retreats. Because the world's going so fast and there's so much diffusion

16:32and we have so little time to reflect, we have to make this significant effort periodically to step away and put things back in perspective. This is how we keep our balance. Lastly, we must know to lift our gaze and lift our gaze often to the God that we serve, to the God as he really is. And I end with a quote from St. Pius X, which is a beautiful act of faith that we can make our own in today's world. My hope is in Christ, who strengthens the weakest by his divine help. I can do all things in him who strengthens me. His power is infinite. And if I lean on him, it will be mine. His wisdom is infinite. And if I look to him for counsel, I shall not be deceived. His goodness is infinite. And if my trust be stayed in him, I shall not be abandoned.

17:36St. Pius X pray for us, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.