St. Pope Pius X: Pope of True Devotion to Mary
Fr. Frank A. Setzer, SMM
Pope of True Devotion to Mary
T HE approaching canonization of Pope Pius X, scheduled to take place in the very heart of the Marian Year, affords us an excellent opportunity to recall a few of the Marian highlights in the life of this Pope, Slave of Mary. They should serve to stir up in us a greater admiration for this great Pontiff. They should also encourage us to draw us after him ”To Jesus through Mary!”
”I have always had a great devotion to our Blessed Mother; and I have always felt that I grew up under her protection. The shrine near Riese which I love is hers; my church at Mantua is under her protection. And now I am going to Venice. Where, at every street corner, there are monuments to her.” Thus spoke Cardinal Sarto, the future Blessed Pope Pius X. He said this after his elevation to the cardinalate. When taking possession, at Rome, of his titular church of St. Bernard, he was the singer of praises of Mary.
And, indeed, from the regular Sunday afternoon visits of the peasant boy to the shrine of Our Lady outside his native Riese, to the daily visits of the Supreme Head of Christendom to the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in the Vatican gardens, there is manifest in the life of Joseph Sarto a constant expression of genuine and elective love for Mary. He is the Pope of the Eucharist, the Pope of Christian Instruction, the Pope of Anti-modernism ; with equal reason may we call him the Pope of Mary.
A Great Love For Mary
No picture of his life is complete without mention of the shrine of the Madonna delle Cendrole. This shrine occupied in his memory and affection throughout his life. His made frequent childhood pilgrimages to this chapel. It is located a short distance from his home. These visits were repeated each time he returned to his home, as a priest, bishop and cardinal. As Patriarch of Venice he restored and beautified it; as Pope he wrote a letter to his co-villagers, commending it to their continued care.
On the day of his coronation, of a delegation from Riese he asked for prayers. He asked for these prayers in the name of the Madonna delle Cendrole. This little shrine was dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption. Perhaps it was there that was born in him that love for this prerogative of Our Lady. This love inspired his reply in this episode: ”Pius IX was the Pope of the Immaculate Conception; Leo XIII of the Holy Rosary, ” was said to him one day; ”May Your Holiness . . .”—”Be the Pope of the Assumption, ” completed Pius X.
He Prayed to Mary Daily
As a seminarian, we find him, on vacation, offering to Mary the daily homage of the recitation of her Little Office. As a priest, he preached Mary in his numerous sermons. He introduced and promoted the pious practice of the month of May. When his nomination to the episcopacy arrived, it was before the altar of the Blessed Mother that he received it. And one of the first things he did after his consecration was to make a pilgrimage. He went to the shrine of Our Lady of Loreto. Chief among the simple furnishings of his study, even as Supreme Pontiff, was always either a statue or a picture of Our Lady.
The Pope’s Motto: Restore All Things in Christ
Just before leaving for the conclave that was to elect him to the See of Peter, he asked that special prayers be offered at this altar of Our Lady of Grace so she might protect him on his journey. During the conclave, when he realized that the wishes of the assembled cardinals were inevitably converging on him, he protested his un-worthiness and, after he had spoken, he withdrew to the Pauline Chapel and fell upon his knees before the picture of Our Lady of Good Counsel.
Among the official papal documents issued during the eleven-year reign of Pius X, we count ninety-five treating of Marian subjects.
In his first encyclical, “E Supremi Apostolatus Cathedra,” issued August 4, 1903, he set forth the whole program of his pontificate. In this program he epitomized in this motto, “Restore all things in Christ.” The means he proposed to use to accomplish this was the Blessed Virgin Mary. He returned to this theme more at length in 1904. He did so in his immortal encyclical, “Ad diem illum laetissimum,” commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
“The chief reason,” he wrote, ”why (this) anniversary should arouse a singular fervor in the Christian people is to restore all things in Christ. . . .
For who does not know that there is no surer or easier way than Mary for uniting all persons with Christ and obtaining through Him the perfect adoption of sons that we may be holy and immaculate in the sight of God?”
St. Pope Pius X
“The chief reason,” he wrote, ”why (this) anniversary should arouse a singular fervor in the Christian people is to restore all things in Christ. . . .
For who does not know that there is no surer or easier way than through Mary? There is No surer way for uniting all persons with Christ. No surer way than obtaining through Him the perfect adoption of sons. There is no surer way that we may be holy and immaculate in the sight of God!”
Devotion to Mary
Devotion to Mary, then, in the mind of Pius X, is not just another pious exercise, a work of supererogation, a side-chapel, as it were, in the great Church of Christ. It is an integral part of the economy of salvation, the means God chose to come to us, the means we are to use to return to Him. And, in truth, how else could the role of Mary be conceived by one who was so penetrated with the teaching of de Montfort: who had read and re-read his Treatise of TRUE DEVOTION TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY.
He praised it so highly and granted his Apostolic Benediction to all who would read it; who acknowledged having perused it once more before composing his eminent Marian encyclical ; who made the Total Consecration to Mary, according to St. Louis de Montfort, had himself enrolled in the Confraternity (later to be renamed, The Association) of Mary, Queen of All Hearts, and the (Company) Association of the Priests of Mary, both of which have as their aim the practice and spreading of the Montfortian consecration?
A Member of Queen of All Hearts
If we seek to understand the hidden part devotion to Mary played in his life, we can look to no better source of information than to his own words; and in his explanation of what devotion to Mary should be, we find the definition of what his devotion to her was! ”The only genuine devotion to the Mother of God is that which flows from the heart .’ And the acts of the ‘body, when separated from the soul , have absolutely no value or utility in this matter. . . . If devotion (one ) professes towards the Blessed Virgin does not keep one from sin, it is a lying and deceptive devotion, since it lacks its own natural fruit, etc.
That true devotion to Mary was thus elective imitation and not only sterile admiration of her virtues was the subject of his frequent admonition, notably in his messages addressed to the participants of the Marian Congresses at Rome and Freiburg.
Fr. de Montfort says that Mary is “the beautiful mold where Jesus was naturally and divinely formed”. And ”he who is cast in this mold is presently formed and molded In Jesus Christ” (T.D. 21 ) . Pius X was cast in this mold. Without a doubt, he is one of the great saints of the latter times fore-told by Fr. de Montfort, ”full of grace and zeal . .. they will consecrate themselves to her service, as subjects and slaves of love; by their words and example, they shall draw the whole world to true devotion to Mary”. (T.D. 48, 55) .
