St. Pius X

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“But although we had previously experienced sufferings,” said St. Paul to the Thessalonians, “and shameful treatment at Philippi, as you know, we had confidence in our God to preach to you the Gospel of God amid much anxiety” (1 Thess. 2:2).

Today is the feast of St. Pius X, who excelled in continuous service to the Church, first as a parish priest, then as Archbishop of Venice, and finally as Roman Pontiff. He exercised great caution in keeping the faith free from doctrinal error.

He reformed the sacred liturgy and also promoted the custom of frequent reception of Holy Communion. Before his time, Communion might have been once a month or even less. He recommended daily Communion and also, early Holy Communion for children.

The motto of his pontificate was Instaurare Omnia in Christo–“To restore all things in Christ.”

He died on August 20, 1914, just before the First World War. The Entrance Antiphon of today's Mass says, “The Lord sealed a covenant of peace with him and made him a prince, bestowing the priestly dignity upon him forever” (Sir. 45:24).

One of the themes of his pontificate was the need to give doctrine through every possible means. We could contemplate today the importance of doctrine, which are the ideas of Christ that have been passed down to us through the Magisterium of the Church through the Church’s interpretation of the truths of Holy Scripture, and also through the tradition of the Church.

These are ideas that guide our life—“the true light” that has come from Christ (cf. John 1:9).

The early doctrinal formation of children is very important so that we could get good, clear ideas from the beginning in the home, in the school; that these two jive together and cement those basic ideas about the truth of human life and the sacredness of human life; about the Ten Commandments; about the meaning and purpose of our existence, of who created the world.

Very simple basic ideas, but they can have an enormous influence on a person's life. This is part of the great treasure that God has given to us. We have received that treasure, and we have to try and pass it on in all its integrity.

It's not just children who need doctrinal formation. Everybody needs ongoing formation throughout their life because we need to hear those truths again and again.

Each time we hear them, the Holy Spirit drives those truths deeper into our mind, into our soul, into our heart, so that we get a clearer picture of them all the time.

There was a story about a little girl once who was brought to a national park by her Mum. In the national park she saw an elephant for the first time.

She got a very clear idea: the concept of elephants—big animals, big feet, small tails, big tusks, and big trunks.

She went away and became very interested in elephants. She wanted drawing books about elephants and storybooks about elephants.

All through primary school and secondary school, she maintained this interest. She read whenever she could about elephants.

And then she went to university, and she studied zoology. Eventually, she did a Master’s and eventually a Ph.D., all the time specializing in elephants. Then she began to lecture around the world on the latest developments in elephant knowledge. She became a world expert. She wrote many things.

An observer said that all her knowledge of elephants was built upon one simple concept of “elephant” that she learned one day with her mother in the national park.

The moral of the story is that all our ideas, all our knowledge, are built up on a few simple ideas.

Like an architect who may want to add on a room or a building to a house, he first has to go and look at the foundations of that house and see if it can take that extra building or that extra weight, and add on that new structure.

Also, to add to the compendium of knowledge that we already have, we need to go back to the foundations, to those few simple ideas on which everything else is built.

The passage of St. Paul to the Thessalonians continues, “For our exhortation was not from error, nor from impure motives, nor from guile, but as approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We speak not as pleasing men but God, who proves our hearts” (1 Thess. 2:3-4).

St. Paul is emphasizing the importance of those clear ideas. The importance of truth.

Truth is a great liberating phenomenon. The truth will make you free. There is no greater endeavor in which we can be employed than the transmission of truth.

The years of the pontificate of Pius X were particularly difficult. There were many internal upheavals and transformations in many nations. There was a consequent serious impact that it had on the Christian faithful.

An awful lot of the wrong ideas that we are exposed to today were also present at the time of Pius X. There were gale-force winds that were tearing through the Church that were ideological, and also doctrinal, in nature.

St. Pius X had to tackle these things. There were attempts to reconcile the faith with the philosophy whose principles were diametrically opposed to the faith, and this brought numerous widely diffused errors in its wake.

The doctrine of immanentism from the 18th century; a number of wrong philosophical ideas that matured over time and sort of crystallized in the pontificate of Pius X; the errors of modernism—Pius X had to stand very strongly against those ideas, hence his motto: “To restore all things in Christ.”

He had to have a deep concern to stem the tide of the many evils that threatened the faithful. He frequently insisted on the damage that ignorance of the faith produces.

In our own time, Mother Teresa of Calcutta stated that ignorance is the greatest poverty. Interesting words.

He used to say, “It is useless to expect a person without formation to fulfill their Christian duties” (Pius X, Encyclical, Acerbo nimis, April 15, 1905). Time and again he pointed out the need to teach the Catechism.

It's good to have catechetical training in families, to make sure the schools that your children attend also impart that catechetical formation, so that the children hear again and again those basic ideas, to get their principles very clear.

From his uneasiness about the lack of Christian formation, he produced the Catechism of St. Pius X, which has done so much good in the Church.

After the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, it was seen that there was a need also for a Catechism. The Council of Trent also produced its catechism in the 1500s.

So, under the auspices of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in the 1980s, after working on it for a few years, the Church produced the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is full of Scriptural quotations.

If ever you hear of a group that is doing Bible study, recommend to them that while they have the Bible in one hand, they should have the Catechism of the Catholic Church in the other, because Scripture can lend itself to all sorts of different interpretations.

There are 20,000 different Protestant sects, all basing themselves on Scripture, and all saying different things.

The Catholic Church preaches one doctrine. The Magisterium, or the teaching power of the Church, made up of the Pope and the bishops, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, proposes certain truths for our belief.

These are the truths that go to make up the body of Christian doctrine which you find in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and also in other synopsized versions that are made adaptable to families and children.

The traditional means of imparting good doctrine has always been to teach the catechism. We live in a world that is starving for want of those truths. We see people about us all the time hungry for truth, for doctrine.

Many of the errors that St. Pius X fought against have been uncritically accepted in our own day. In countries evangelized almost twenty centuries ago, we have great numbers of people that are ignorant of the most elementary truths of the faith.

In his Apostolic Exhortation, “The Lay Faithful of Christ” (Christifidelis laici, December 30, 1988), Pope John Paul II said many are defenseless with the complicity of their own passions which allow them to be taken in by the erroneous opinions of a few.

We need to be solidly grounded in truth so as not to get waylaid by errors.

This call of St. Pius X to conserve and spread good doctrine is still a fully current and vital issue. This is an area where we could try and have courageous initiative.

How could I use my spare time to spread good ideas? Possibly writing a letter to the newspaper. Or writing an article. Or seeing in my profession if I can have a greater influence. In many professions nowadays there’s a wing or aspects of journalism that have come to be very important.

We live in the age of communication. In the 21st century, everything related to communication is important.

As apostles of the 21st century, we need to be very good communicators. Anything that we can learn that will improve our communication skills is well worth learning. Some people can do it verbally; others with their writing; others in other forms of media.

But it's something to which we all need to pay attention. The apostolate of public opinion and the spreading of doctrine is not just the job of the bishop, or priest, or nuns.

As John Paul II has said in his Apostolic Exhortation, it concerns the role of all Christian faithful.

In whatever way possible, it's urgent to make known the teachings of the Church on the meaning of life. On the end of man and his eternal destiny. On marriage. On generosity in the number of children that you try to have.

On the right and duty of parents to choose the education that children receive, and also to be vigilant about that education. Don't just presume that because I'm sending my child to this Catholic school, or the school of the Catholic ethos, that all the textbooks they're receiving are what I would like them to be. Parents need to be vigilant.

There is an article on the Internet written by a lady, with the title, “You're Teaching My Child What?” Obviously, this mother had discovered all sorts of horrors that her child was being taught in the school without her knowledge.

It's also good to check with children about things their teacher is saying in school, in the classroom. You might have the best textbook on the planet, but one or two disparaging words from the teacher can throw that book into the dustbin.

As somebody once said, “The teacher becomes the curriculum.” Very useful phrase: the teacher becomes the curriculum.

Hence the importance for schools with a Catholic ethos to have an ongoing catechetical formation for teachers, to select the Religion teachers very carefully, and to ensure that the students are receiving what they should be receiving.

All of this is part of the duty of parents, to be vigilant because, as the Second Vatican Council has said so clearly, “Parents are the first educators of their children” (Paul VI, Gravissimum educationis, Point 3, October 28, 1965). The cake gets baked at home. The school only puts the icing on the cake.

We need to spread ideas about the social doctrine of the Church, love for the Pope and his teachings, the evil of abortion and all the other things that may be promoted in society, in the newspaper, in movies, as normal. Gender issues, likewise.

In Pope John Paul II’s Encyclical, “The Mission of the Redeemer” (Redemptoris missio, December 7, 1990), he said we should do all we can, spreading good books, and daily conversations about faith and morals. John Paul II liked to say that “faith is strengthened by sharing it” (Ibid.).

If you have something material, and you give a part of that material something away, like a piece of cake, you have less cake.

But in the spiritual realm, if you have a spiritual treasure and you share that spiritual treasure with somebody else, then that treasure grows within you.

One of the ways we love the Church and the Pope is by spreading his teachings.

This also means that when the Pope or the bishops come out with a new Encyclical or Apostolic Exhortation or Pastoral Letter, we should make it our business to be informed, to make that document our spiritual reading, so that we are up to date in what the Pope and the bishops are saying.

Very often you will find that the Pope and the bishops say wonderful things. We can be very proud of our Church. Very often our bishops come out with beautiful truths and express them in a beautiful way, in a very rich way from the point of view of language and culture.

These things enrich us, not just spiritually, but also humanly. To spread those things around the parish is a very good service to the Church.

Serving the Church as she wants to be served, by spreading her message, by being in tune with what the Holy Father is saying, united to the Word.

St. Pius X loved and served the Church with great fidelity. From the beginning of his pontificate, he brought about a series of far-reaching reforms.

In a special way, he gave attention to priests, from whom he expected everything, because he often said, in different ways, that the sanctity of the Christian people depends in large measure on the holiness of their priests.

St. Josemaría very much subscribed to these ideas. He had a great devotion to St. Pius X. He made him an intercessor for the Prelature of Opus Dei with the Holy See.

All matters related to the serving of the Church by the Prelature of Opus Dei—he entrusted that to the care of St. Pius X. Also, originally, the juridical solution of Opus Dei, whereby it became a Personal Prelature, was all under the care and intercession of St. Pius X.

He's a very good person to pray to for your parish priest for your bishop, for your local seminary. Or ask him for vocations to the priesthood.

On the fiftieth anniversary of his own ordination, St. Pius X dedicated an Apostolic Exhortation to all clerics entitled, “On the Kind of Priest the Church Needs” (Haerent animo, August 4, 1908).

In a different era, John Paul II has done something similar. During his pontificate he wrote about five or six major documents on the priesthood, stating very clearly the sort of priest the Church wants for the 21st century. Above all, St. Pius X said that he asked for saintly priests, entirely given to the work for souls.

St. Josemaría likewise wanted the same thing: priests who spent time in the confessional box, administering the sacraments, saying Mass, giving spiritual direction, giving classes of formation very much focused on the purpose of their priesthood. Spreading doctrine in all sorts of ways.

He liked to say we should have a passion, and every layperson should have a passion, for spreading good doctrine.

As many of the problems, and needs, and circumstances that were evident at the time of St. Pius X are still very relevant, we have great things to learn from him.

Today can be a good day to examine the quality of our love for the Church, as shown in deeds. How do I love the Church?

“Love is not just sweet words. Love is deeds” (cf. Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, Point 498).

We have to have a living consciousness of being members of the Church. John Paul said in that same document Christifidelis laici, “We have to have a consciousness of a personal, irreplaceable, and non-transferable task entrusted to us for the good of all.

We have a great role to play. We have a job to do. The Second Vatican Council has made all of us missionaries.

And if we look to the future of the Church, we need to look to young people: a special concern for the formation of young people—future vocations—so that our family, our neighborhood, and our parish, becomes a seedbed of vocations for the universal Church.

We see that the calling by God of one of our children to serve Him in some supernatural family to be the greatest joy and privilege of our entire existence. A great grace for our family. Something to be encouraged at all costs.

And if we try to sow good doctrine in every way that we can, hopefully, God will reward us with such vocations.

We could ask St. Joseph, in this Year of St. Joseph (January 1, 2020 to December 8, 2021), to give us that creative initiative that he had, to find ways to create occasions to spread doctrine; to help others to find their way to reconciliation with God through sacramental Confession.

Or casting our net, in the second part of the year, to bring people to a retreat, and to pray each day and offer hours of work—work well finished—for the sanctity of priests.

And also, that people would generously help to sustain the Church and its good works; to contribute to the spreading of the teaching of the Pope and the bishops, particularly in matters that refer to social justice, public morality, education, and the family.

St. Josemaría said in The Way (Point 518): “What joy to be able to say with all the fervor of my soul: I love my Mother, the holy Church!”

That means also that we have to take the Church on our shoulders—feel responsible for it, responsible to build churches, or to find the liturgical vestments and items that are needed in so many places.

And here in Africa, and in Kenya in particular, where things are spreading and flourishing so much, there is a whole pile of what are called outstations.

Sometimes each parish can have fifteen, twenty, twenty-five outstations. All like little chapels that need everything for Mass to be said.

We have some possibility in our parish, someplace, to send some of those items that may be replaced in our parish, or not of use anymore—there is plenty of welcome for them here.

St. Josemaría also said, “Let us also examine our filial love for the Pope, a love which is for all Christians a delightful passion, since in him we see Christ” (J. Escrivá, In Love with the Church, Point 13).

Cardinal Sin of Manila—who has now passed on—liked to tell a story about how one time he was in Rome. He had a particular intention he was praying for those days. He had to rebuild his seminary.

He needed a lot of money. So he was praying a lot while he was in Rome for that intention.

He decided to do a pilgrimage to the Altar of St. Pius X, which was located on the left, just inside St. Peter’s Basilica. So, every day, at a certain time, he would go there to pray.

On the third or fourth day, a man came along and asked him if he was Cardinal Sin. He said yes, and the man introduced himself and said, “I would like to invite you to lunch.”

He took him to lunch, and he explained, “You see, I'm an Italian businessman. I'm an executive in a very important corporation. And you see, we have a Filipino household helper in our house. I have one son and it was his seventh birthday recently.

“We asked our son what he would like for his birthday, expecting him to say, ‘Well, I want a bicycle’ or ‘I want this type of toy’ or something. And this kid said, ‘Well, what I would like is that you and Mom would stay home from work, and that we would all go to Mass together.’”

He said, “My wife and I were shocked. It was something so spiritual. And we realized we hadn't taught him these things. We also realized that we had been very busy lately. We maybe had been omitting Mass. We had been busy with our work. We hadn't been spending the time with him that perhaps we should have been spending.

“It led to a whole examination of our family life, and of our home and of our domestic Church, and we have come to make radical resolutions to change matters. We also realized that these beautiful values and treasures and things that he had learned—he had learned them from the Filipina household helper. She was the one who was teaching him these beautiful things.

“We felt a bit ashamed that we had not fulfilled our duty as well as we could have, and this young girl had done such a fine job. I was wondering if you might have any projects that you might still need some help with.”

Cardinal Sin said, “Here is the answer to my prayers to St. Pius X.”

He explained, “Well, you see, I have this seminary and I'm trying to rebuild the seminary in Manila. It has a lot of problems…” and this and that.

The man took out his checkbook and wrote a check for $50,000. Cardinal Sin, who had a great sense of humor, added, “So I told him, ‘And that's just my first project.’”

I don't know what happened after that, but it was a good story. He knew how to capitalize on the moment when he saw the ease with which the man wrote a check for $50,000.

If you have things that need to be built, today is a good day to ask St. Pius X for those apostolic institutions.

We can thank God for all the popes that he has sent us. I heard a famous priest saying once how in the last 100 years, ever since the Church gave up her papal states, and gave up all temporal power, the popes have focused very much on the spiritual. Each pope, one after the other, has done wonderful things. It's been a gem.

And when you think about it, in the last 30 or 40 years, we have had two or three saints: St. John XXIII, St. Paul VI, and St. John Paul II. And John Paul I is now in the process of beatification. (Update: He was beatified in September 2022.) It's quite a story.

We have a lot to be proud of, to be grateful for. Also, as we have grown up, we have come to know the gems contained in the doctrine of the Church that have been handed down through so many centuries, packaged for us in palatable ways.

Our response has to be to try and become more familiar with that teaching, to know it better, to make it our own, make it the life of our life.

That's a good resolution to make on this feast of St. Pius X.

We can ask Our Lady, Mother of the Church, that she might give us a greater love for this doctrine; greater love for the popes, and gratitude to them; and that we might renew our desires to serve the Church and serve the pope in similar ways, and with a similar passion with which St. Pius X did.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

MVF