ENCYCLICAL LETTER MISERENTISSIMUS REDEMPTION OF THE HIGH PONTIFF Pius XI ON THE ATONEMENT EVERYONE OWE TO THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS.

 

INTRODUCTION

  Appearance of Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary of Alacoque

1. Our Most Merciful Redeemer, after conquering the salvation of the human lineage on the tree of the Cross and before his ascension to the Father from this world, said to his apostles and disciples, distressed at his departure, to console them: «See that I I am with you every day until the end of the world” (Mt 28,20). Sweet voice, pledge of all hope and security; This voice, venerable brothers, comes to mind easily how many times we contemplate from this high summit the universal family of men, of so many evils and miseries toiled, and even the Church, of so many relentless challenges and so many oppressed snares.

 This divine promise, just as at first raised the despondent spirits of the apostles, and raised it ignited and inflamed them to spread the seed of the evangelical doctrine throughout the world, thus later it encouraged the Church to victory over the gates of hell… Certainly at all times our Lord Jesus Christ was present to his Church; But it was with special help and protection whenever it was surrounded by more serious dangers and annoyances, to provide it with the appropriate remedies to the conditions of the times and things, with that divine Wisdom that «touches from end to end with strength and everything. He arranges it gently »(Wis 8,1). But "the hand of the Lord did not shrink" (Is 59,1) in the nearest times; especially when that error was introduced and widely disseminated, of which it was to be feared that it would somehow dry up the sources of Christian life for men, distancing them from love and dealings with God.

But as some of the people perhaps still do not know, and others disdain, those complaints of the most loving Jesus when he appeared to Saint Margarita María de Alacoque, and what he said he hoped and wanted men, for their benefit, placens, venerable brothers, to tell you something about the honest satisfaction to which we are obligated with respect to the Most Holy Heart of Jesus; with the design that what we communicate to you each one of you will teach his flock and excite it to practice it.

2. Among all the testimonies of the infinite benignity of our Redeemer, the fact that, when the charity of the faithful was warmed, the charity of God was presented to be honored with special worship, and the treasures of his goodness were discovered. for that form of devotion with which we worship the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, "in whom are hidden all the treasures of his wisdom and knowledge" (Col 2, 3).

 For, just as God once willed that in the eyes of the human lineage that came out of Noah's ark, "the bow that appears in the clouds" should shine as a sign of a pact of friendship (Gen 2:14), so in the most turbulent times of the modern age, winding around the Jansenist heresy, the most cunning of all, an enemy of God's love and piety, which preached that God should not be loved so much as a father as he should be feared as an implacable judge, the most benign Jesus showed his heart as a banner of peace and charity displayed over the people, ensuring certain victory in combat. To this end, our predecessor Leo XIII, in happy memory, in his encyclical Annum Sacrum, admiring the opportunity of worshiping the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, did not hesitate to write: «When the Church, in the times close to its origin, suffered the oppression of the yoke of the Caesars, the Cross, appeared at the height to a young emperor, was simultaneously the sign and cause of the vast victory immediately achieved. Another sign is offered to our eyes today, most magnificent and most divine: the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus with the Cross superimposed, shining amid flames, with splendid candor. In Him all hopes are to be placed; in Him they must seek and hope for the salvation of men ».

 Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

3. And rightly so, venerable brethren; For in this most splendid sign and in this form of consequent devotion, is it not true that the sum of all religion and even the most perfect standard of life are contained, as it most expeditiously leads the spirits to intimately know Christ Our Lord, and prompts them to love him more passionately, and to imitate him more effectively? No wonder, then, that our predecessors incessantly vindicated this most private devotion to the recriminations of the slanderers and that they extolled it with high praise and earnestly encouraged it, according to the circumstances.

Thus, with the grace of God, the devotion of the faithful to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus has grown from day to day; hence those pious associations, which multiply everywhere, to promote the cult of the divine Heart; hence the custom, now widespread everywhere, of receiving Communion on the first Friday of each month, according to the desire of Jesus Christ.

Consecration

 4. But, among all that properly concerns the cult of the Most Sacred Heart, the pious and memorable consecration with which we offer ourselves to the divine Heart of Jesus, with all our things, stands out, recognizing them as received from the eternal goodness of God. After our Savior, moved more than by his own right, by his immense charity for us, taught the most innocent disciple of his Heart, Saint Margaret Mary, how much he wanted men to pay him this tribute of devotion, she went, with her spiritual teacher, Fr. Claudio de la Colombiére, the first to render it. In time, private individuals followed, then private families and associations, and finally magistrates, cities, and kingdoms.

 But, as in the previous century and in ours, due to the machinations of the wicked, the empire of Christ our Lord was despised and war was publicly declared against the Church, with popular laws and motions contrary to divine right and law. natural, and there were even assemblies that shouted: "We do not want him to reign over us" (Lk 19:14), because of this consecration that we said, the voice of all the lovers of the Heart of Jesus broke out unanimously opposing staunchly, to vindicate his glory and ensure their rights: “It is necessary that Christ reign (1 Cor 15:25). His kingdom come. From which it was a happy consequence that the entire human race, who by native right possesses Jesus Christ, the only one in whom all things are restored (Eph 1:10), at the beginning of this century, is consecrated to the Most Sacred Heart, by our predecessor Leo XIII..., of happy memory, applauding the Christian orb.

As we already said in our encyclical Quas prima, agreeing to the wishes and repeated and numerous prayers of bishops and faithful, with the favor of God we complete and perfect, when, at the end of the jubilee year, we institute the feast of Christ the King and his solemn celebration throughout the Christian world.

 When we did that, we not only declared the supreme empire of Jesus Christ over all things, over civil and domestic society and over each one of the men, but we also sensed the joy of that most wonderful day when the whole world spontaneously and willingly degree will accept the most gentle domination of Christ the King. For this reason we also ordered that on the day of this feast that consecration be renewed every year in order to obtain more certain and abundant its fruits and to unite all peoples with the bond of Christian charity and the reconciliation of peace in the Heart of Christ, King of Kings and Lord of those who rule.

 THE ATONEMENT OR REPARATION

5. To these duties, especially to the consecration, so fruitful and confirmed on the feast of Christ the King, it is necessary to add another duty, of which a little more extensively we want, venerable brothers, to speak to you in these letters; We refer to the duty to pay to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus that honest satisfaction that they call reparation.

If the first and foremost of consecration is that the love of the creature responds to the love of the Creator, another duty follows spontaneously: that of compensating the injuries somehow inflicted on uncreated Love, if it was scorned with oblivion or outraged with offense. . We vulgarly call this duty reparation.

And if the same reasons compel us to do both, with a more pressing title of justice and love we are obliged to the duty to repair and atone: of, justice, regarding the expiation of the offense made to God for our sins and regarding the reintegration of the violated order; of love, in terms of suffering with Christ patient and "saturated with shame" and, according to our poverty, offering him some consolation.

Sinners as we all are, weighed down with many guilt, we should not limit ourselves to honoring our God with only that worship with which we adore and give the gifts due to his Supreme Majesty, or we supplicatingly acknowledge his absolute dominance, or we praise his absolute dominance with thanksgiving. infinite length; but, in addition to this, it is necessary to satisfy God, the most just judge, "for our innumerable sins, offenses and negligence." To the consecration, then, with which we offer ourselves to God, with that holiness and firmness that, as the Angelic says, are proper to consecration [1], must be added the expiation with which sins are totally extinguished, lest the sanctity of divine justice rejects our impudent unworthiness, and rejects our offering, being ungrateful, instead of accepting it as agreeable.

 This duty of atonement is incumbent on the entire human race, for, as we know from the Christian faith, after the miserable fall of Adam the human race, infected with hereditary guilt, subject to lusts and miserably depraved, had deserved to be thrown into it. the everlasting ruin. Superb philosophers of our times, following the ancient error of Pelagius, they deny this by embracing a certain virtue innate in human nature, which by its own forces continually progresses to higher and higher perfections; But these injections of pride the Apostle rejects when he warns us that "we were by nature children of wrath" (Eph 2,3).

 Indeed, from the beginning men in a certain way recognized the duty of that common atonement and began to practice it guided by a certain natural sense, offering sacrifices to God, even public ones, to appease his justice.

Atonement of Christ

6. But no created force was sufficient to expiate the crimes of men if the Son of God had not taken human nature to repair it. This is how the Savior of men himself announced it through the lips of the sacred Psalmist: «Host and oblation you did not want; the more you appropriated my body. Burnt offerings for sin did not please you; then I said: here I am »(Heb 10,5.7)). And “certainly He bore our diseases and suffered our pains; He was wounded for our iniquities ”(Is 53: 4-5); and "he bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1 Pe 2,24); "Erasing the certificate of the decree that was contrary to us, taking him out of the way and nailing him to the cross" (Col 2,14), "so that, dead to sin, we may live to justice" (1 Pe 2,24).

Our atonement, priests in Christ

 7. But, although the abundant redemption of Christ superabundantly "forgave our sins" (Col 2:13); but, by that admirable disposition of divine Wisdom, according to which what is lacking in Christ's passion for his body, which is the Church, must be completed in our flesh (Col 1:24), even to the prayers and satisfactions "that Christ offered to God in the name of sinners »we can and must add ours as well.

 8. It is necessary to never forget that the entire force of the atonement depends solely on the bloody sacrifice of Christ, who in a bloodless way is renewed without interruption on our altars; for, certainly, “one and the same is the Host, the same is the one that is now offered through the ministry of the priests as that which was previously offered on the cross; only the way of offering oneself is diverse »[2]; For this reason, the immolation of the ministers and of the other faithful must be united with this very narrow Eucharistic sacrifice, so that they also offer themselves as "living, holy hosts, pleasing to God" (Rom 12: 1). Thus, Saint Cyprian does not hesitate to affirm "that the Lord's sacrifice is not celebrated with due sanctification if our oblation and sacrifice does not correspond to passion" [3].

For this reason the Apostle admonishes us that, "bearing in our body the mortification of Jesus" (2 Cor 4:10), and with Christ buried and planted, not only in the likeness of his death we crucify our flesh with its vices and lusts (cf. Gal 5,24), "fleeing from what in the world is corruption of lust" (2 Pe 1,4), but rather "in our bodies the life of Jesus is manifested" (2 Cor 4,10), and, made partakers of his eternal priesthood, "let us offer gifts and sacrifices for sins" (Heb 5,1).

Not only do they enjoy the participation of this mysterious priesthood and of this duty to satisfy and sacrifice those whom our Lord Jesus Christ uses to offer God the immaculate oblation from the east until sunset in every place (Mal 1-2), but that the entire Christian flock, rightly called by the Prince of the Apostles "chosen lineage, royal priesthood" (1 Pet 2,9), must offer for themselves and for the whole human race sacrifices for sins, almost in their own way that every priest and high priest "taken from among men, is constituted in favor of men as far as God is concerned" (Heb 5,1).

 And the more perfectly our oblation and sacrifice respond to the sacrifice of the Lord, which is to immolate our self-love and our lusts and crucify our flesh with that mystical crucifixion of which the Apostle speaks, the more abundant fruits of propitiation and expiation for us and for the rest of us will perceive. There is a wonderful relationship of the faithful with Christ, similar to that between the head and the other members of the body, and also a mysterious communion of saints, which by the Catholic faith we profess, whereby individuals and peoples not only they unite with each other, but also with Jesus Christ, who is the head; "From which the whole body, composed and well connected at all joints, according to the proportionate operation of each member, receives its own increase, building itself up in love" (Eph 4: 15-16). Which the same Mediator of God and men, Jesus Christ near death, asked the Father: "I in them and you in me, so that they may be consummated in unity" (Jn 17:23).

Thus, just as consecration professes and affirms the union with Christ, so the atonement begins this union by erasing guilt, perfecting it by participating in his sufferings, and consummating it by offering sacrifices for the brothers. Such was, certainly, the design of the merciful Jesus when he wanted to reveal to us his Heart with the emblems of his passion and throwing out flames of charity: that looking on the one hand at the infinite malice of sin, and, on the other, admiring the infinite charity of the Redeemer the more vehemently we detest sin and the more ardently we reciprocate its charity.

Reparative Communion and Holy Hour

 9. And certainly in the cult of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus the spirit of expiation and reparation has the primacy and the main part; nor is there anything more consistent with the origin, nature, virtue and practices of this devotion, such as history and tradition, the sacred liturgy and the acts of the Holy Pontiffs confirm.

 When Jesus Christ appears to Saint Margaret Mary, preaching to her the infinity of his charity, together, as saddened, he complains of so many insults as he receives from men for these words that were to be engraved on pious souls so that they will never be forgotten: « Here is this Heart that has loved men so much and has filled them with so many benefits, and that in return for its infinite love finds no gratitude, but outrages, sometimes even from those who are obliged to love it with special love ». To repair these and other faults, he recommended, among other things, that men take communion with the intention of expiation, which is what they call Reparative Communion, and supplications and prayers for an hour, which is properly called the Holy Hour; exercises of piety that the Church not only approved, but also enriched with copious spiritual favors.

Comfort Christ

10. But how can these acts of reparation comfort Christ, who happily reigns in heaven? We respond with the words of Saint Augustine: "Give me a heart that loves and will feel what I say" [4].

 A truly loving soul of God, if he looks to the past, sees Jesus Christ working, suffering, suffering very harsh pains "for us men and for our salvation", sadness, anguish, shame, "broken by our faults" (Is 53 , 5) and healing us with his wounds. From all of which the pious souls penetrate the more deeply the clearer they see that the sins of men at any time committed were the cause of the Son of God giving himself over to death; And even now this same death, with its same pains and sorrows, again infers him, since each sin renews in its own way the passion of the Lord, according to that of the Apostle: «Again they crucify the Son of God and expose him to reproach. »(Is 5). That if because of our future but foreseen sins, the soul of Christ Jesus was sad to death, without a doubt it would receive some comfort from our future reparation, but foreseen, when the angel from heaven (Lk 22:43) He appeared to her to console her Heart oppressed with sadness and anguish. Thus, we can and must still console that most sacred Heart, incessantly offended by the sins and ingratitude of men, by this admirable but true way; for sometime, as it is read in the sacred liturgy, Christ himself complains to his friends of helplessness, saying through the lips of the Psalmist: «Insult and misery waited for my heart; and I looked for someone to share my sadness and there was none; I looked for someone to console me and I did not find him »(Ps 68:21).

The passion of Christ in his Body, the Church

11. Add that the gleaning passion of Christ is renewed and in a certain way continues and is completed in the mystical Body, which is the Church. Well, using other words of Saint Augustine [5]: «Christ suffered what he should have suffered; nothing is lacking according to your passion. Passion is complete, but in the head; the passions of Christ were still lacking in the body. Our Lord deigned to declare this same thing when, appearing to Saul, "who breathed threats and death against the disciples" (Acts 91,1), he said to him: "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" (Acts 5); clearly meaning that in the persecutions against the Church it is the divine Head of the Church who is harassed and challenged. With good reason, then, Jesus Christ, who still suffers in his mystical Body, wishes to have us as partners in the atonement, and this asks with him our own need; because being as we are "the body of Christ, and each one for his part a member" (1 Cor 12:27), it is necessary that what the head suffers, the members suffer with it (Ibid.).

 Current need for atonement for so many sins

12. How much, especially in our times, the need for this atonement and reparation will not be hidden from those who see and contemplate this world, as we said, "in the power of the wicked" (1 Jn 5,19). Cry of peoples who groan, whose princes or rectors gathered together and conspired together against the Lord and his Church (2 Pet 2, 2) rises to Us from everywhere. Through those regions we see all divine and human rights trampled; the temples were demolished and destroyed, the men and women religious expelled from their homes, afflicted with outrages, torments, jails and hunger; multitudes of boys and girls torn from the womb of Mother Church, and led to deny and blaspheme Jesus Christ and the most horrendous crimes of lust; all the Christian people severely threatened and oppressed, put in the trance of apostatizing from the faith or suffering the most cruel death. All of which is so sad that these events seem to manifest "the beginnings of those pains" that were to precede "the man of sin who rises up against everything that is called God or that is worshiped" (2 Thess 2,4). .

And it is even sadder, venerable brethren, that among the faithful themselves, washed in baptism with the blood of the Immaculate Lamb and enriched with grace, there are so many men, of every order or class, who with incredible ignorance of divine things, infused with false doctrines, they live a life full of vices, far from the Father's house; life not illuminated by the light of faith, nor encouraged by hope in future happiness, nor warmed and fostered by the warmth of charity, so that they truly seem to sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. In addition, the carelessness of ecclesiastical discipline and those ancient institutions on which the whole of Christian life is founded and with which domestic society is governed and the sanctity of marriage is defended is also spreading among the faithful; the education of children was totally disparaged or depraved with flattery, even denied to the Church the faculty of educating Christian youth; the deplorable neglect of Christian modesty in life and especially in women's dress; the unbridled greed for perishable things, the unbridled longing for a popular aura; the defamation of legitimate authority, and, finally, the contempt of the word of God, with which faith is destroyed or brought to the brink of ruin.

 The accumulation of these evils is formed by the laziness and folly of those who, sleeping or fleeing like the disciples, wavering in their faith miserably forsake Christ, oppressed by anguish or surrounded by the satellites of Satan; no less than the perfidy of those who, in imitation of the traitor Judas, either recklessly or sacrilegiously take communion or go to enemy camps. And so even involuntarily the idea is offered that the times foretold by our Lord is approaching: "And because iniquity has increased, the charity of many has grown cold" (Mt 24:12).

 The burning desire to atone

13. How many faithful piously meditate on all this, they will not be able to but feel, fired in love for the sorrowful Christ, the burning desire to atone for their faults and those of others; to repair the honor of Christ, to seek the eternal health of souls. The words of the Apostle: "Where crime abounded, grace abounded all the more" (Rom 5,20), somehow also fit to describe our times; For although the perversity of men grows exceedingly, marvelously it also grows, inspiring the Holy Spirit, the number of the faithful of both sexes, who with resolute spirit seek to satisfy the divine Heart for all the offenses that are done to it, and They still do not hesitate to offer themselves to Christ as victims.

 Whoever meditates with love what we have said and engraves it in the depths of his heart, cannot but hate and abstain from all sin as from the utmost evil; He will surrender to the divine will and will strive to repair the offended honor of the Divine Majesty, already praying assiduously, patiently suffering voluntary mortifications and afflictions that ensue, and finally, ordering atonement all his life.

Here have their origin many religious families of men and women who, with fervent zeal and as ambitious to serve, propose to act day and night as the Angel who consoled Jesus in the Garden; hence the pious associations also approved by the Apostolic See and enriched with indulgences, which also make this office of atonement their own with appropriate exercises of piety and virtues; hence finally the frequent and solemn acts of reparation aimed at repairing divine honor, not only for the individual faithful, but also for parishes, dioceses and cities.

 DEVOTION TO THE HEART OF JESUS

Cause of many goods

14. Well then: venerable brethren, just as the devotion of consecration, in its humble beginnings, extended later, begins to have its desired splendor with our confirmation, thus the devotion of atonement or reparation, from the beginning holyly introduced and holy propagated. We very much hope that, more firmly sanctioned by our apostolic authority, more solemnly it is practiced throughout the Catholic universe. To this end we dispose and command that every year on the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus - a feast that on this occasion we order to be raised to the liturgical degree of double first class with an octave - in all the temples of the world the act of reparation be solemnly recited. To the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, whose prayer we put at the bottom of this letter so that our faults are repaired and the violated rights of Christ, High King and most loving Lord, be repaired.

It is not to be doubted, venerable brothers, but that, from this holy devotion established and sent to the whole Church, many and illustrious goods will come not only to individuals, but to sacred, civil and domestic society, since our The Redeemer himself promised Saint Margaret Mary "that all those who with this devotion would honor his Heart, would be filled with heavenly graces."

Sinners, certainly, "seeing the one they pierced" (Jn 19,37), and moved by the groans and cries of the whole Church, grieving for the injuries inflicted on the High King, "will return to his heart" (Is 46,8 ); lest they be stubborn and unrepentant in their faults, when they see the One whom they wounded "coming in the clouds of heaven" (Mt 26,64), late and in vain they cry over Him (cf. Rev 1,7).

The just more and more will justify and sanctify themselves, and with new fervor they will give themselves to the service of their King, whom they look at so despised and fought and with so many outrages outraged; but especially they will feel enraged to work for the salvation of souls, penetrated by that complaint of the divine Victim: "What use in my blood?" (Ps 19.10); and of that joy that the most sacred Heart of Jesus will receive "for a single sinner who does penance" (Lk 15,4).

We especially long and hope that that justice of God, who for ten righteous people moved with mercy forgave those of Sodom, much more will forgive all men, pleadingly invoked and happily appeased by the entire community of the faithful united with Christ, their Mediator and Head.

The Repairing Virgin

 15. Finally, the most benign Virgin Mother of God is pleased with our wishes and efforts; that when he gave us the Redeemer, when he fed him, when at the foot of the cross he offered him as a host, because of his mysterious union with Christ and the singular privilege of his grace, it was, as it is piously called, restorative. Trusting us in his intercession with Christ, who being the "only Mediator between God and men" (Tim 2,3), wanted to associate himself with his Mother as advocate for sinners, dispenser of grace and mediator, we lovingly give you as Pledge of the heavenly gifts of our paternal benevolence, to you, venerable brothers, and to all the flock entrusted to your care, the Apostolic Blessing.

 Given in Rome, together with Saint Peter, on May 8, 1928, the seventh of our pontificate.

 PIUS XI

EXPIRATIONAL PRAYER

TO THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS

 

Sweet Jesus, whose charity poured out on men is so ungratefully paid for with forgetfulness, disdain and contempt, look at us here prostrate before your altar. We want to repair with special expressions of honor such unworthy coldness and the insults with which your loving Heart is hurt everywhere by men.

 Remembering, however, that we, too, have so often stained ourselves with evil, and now feeling great pain, we first of all implore your mercy for us, ready to repair with voluntary expiation not only the sins that we committed ourselves, but also those of those who, lost and far from the path of health, refuse to follow you as shepherd and guide, stubborn in their unfaithfulness, and have shaken off the most gentle yoke of your law, trampling on the promises of baptism.

 At the same time that we want to atone for all the accumulation of such deplorable crimes, we propose to repair each one of them in particular: the immodesty and the clumsiness of life and clothing, the tricks that corruption tends to innocent souls, the desecration of the holidays, the miserable insults directed against you and your saints, the insults launched against your Vicar and the priestly order, the negligence and the horrible sacrileges with which the very Sacrament of divine love is profaned and, finally, public guilt of the nations that despise the rights and the magisterium of the Church founded by you.

Hopefully we can wash away these crimes with our blood! In the meantime, as reparation for the divine honor violated, we present to you, accompanying her with the expiations of your Mother the Virgin, of all the saints and of the pious faithful, that satisfaction that you yourself offered one day on the cross to the Father, and that you renew every day on the altars. We promise you with all our heart to compensate as far as it is on our part, and with the help of your grace, the sins committed by us and by others: indifference to such great love with the firmness of faith, the innocence of life , the perfect observance of the evangelical law, especially of charity, and also prevent with all our strength the injuries against you, and attract as many as we can to follow you. Accept, we beg You, most benign Jesus, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary Reparatrix, the voluntary offer of atonement; and with the great gift of perseverance, keep us most faithful until death in worship and service to you, so that one day we may all arrive at the homeland where you with the Father and with the Holy Spirit live and reign forever and ever… Amen.

 Notes

 [1] S. Th. II-II q.81, a.8c.

 [2] Conc. Trid., Sess.22 c.2.

 [3] Epist. 63 n.381.

 [4] In Ioan. tr.XXVI 4.

 [5] In Ps. 86.