In the first place, we have hope in a change which, grace aiding it, the events recently accomplished, and those which are continuing to take place in Europe, will work on the minds of men. Events have their logic, and it imposes itself also upon the nations. The alternative indicated above, and which will force minds to recognize the divinity of the Catholic Church, will become an evident fact, and God will do the rest.
We hope because Alexander II. has emancipated the peasantry, and we may be allowed to see in the emancipation of the peasantry the prelude to the emancipation of the Russian Church. We shall return to this point.
We hope because the spirit of apostolate, by faith and charity, is now more powerful than ever in the Catholic Church. As soon as the doors of Russia shall be open to her, and she can there freely exercise her action, her priests, her missionaries, her religious orders, her Sisters of Charity, her Little Sisters of the Poor, will present themselves of their own accord. God will do the rest.
Again, we hope because of the “Associations of Prayer,” which have already preceded and powerfully prepared the way for the return of Russia to the Catholic faith. The favor demanded is a great one, and therefore we have chosen all that Christian piety, the church, God himself, offers us as having most power to prevail with him. Rather than depend alone on disseminating leaflets of prayers, or engaging pious souls to remember Russia, thus giving to these associations a form which, in one way or another, might injure their character of universality, we have endeavored to obtain the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. For this intention we have asked for Masses.[12] In the Holy Mass it is Jesus Christ himself who prays, and he is always heard.
A plenary indulgence, attached to these Masses, invites the faithful to unite their prayers with those of the divine Intercessor. If the faithful fail, still Jesus pleads; for faith this is enough.
Lastly, we hope because eighteen centuries which have passed away since Jesus Christ quitted the earth in human form have not been able to diminish in anything the creative power of his words. Jesus Christ promised to faith—and to faith possessed in the measure of a grain of mustard-seed—that it should move mountains (S. Matt. xvii. 19; S. Luke xvii. 6). Thus it was with happiness, at the last General Congress at Mechlin, in 1867, we made a public act of faith in proclaiming our unlimited confidence in prayer, and, we added, “in prayer presented to God by Mary.”[13] This public act of faith we here repeat.
At the same Congress of Mechlin we also spoke of our confidence in the special benediction which His Holiness Pius IX. had deigned to grant to us, and which is thus expressed: Benedicat te Deus et dirigat cor et intelligentiam tuam.
This confidence has assuredly not diminished since that time. Far from this, if there is one teaching which imposes itself with an irresistible force upon our mind, it is this: that in the Vicar of Jesus Christ, no less than in Jesus Christ himself, is fulfilled the declaration of our divine Saviour, “He that gathereth not with me, scattereth” (S. Luke xi. 23).
And further, Jesus Christ spoke thus to his disciples: When you shall have done all the things that are commanded you, say: We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which we ought to do (S. Luke xvii. 10). After this it is not even humility, but simple Christian logic, to attach a high value to the works of the apostolate, to the benediction of the pope; lest we should be not only unprofitable servants—which is always the case—but dangerous servants.
It is that, in the first place, the benediction of the pope, while it encourages zeal, requires that we should correct whatever there may be of human or of reprehensible in the manner in which our zeal expresses itself and the means which it employs. The Vicar of Jesus Christ cannot and does not bless anything but what is pleasing to Jesus Christ and conformable to his will. That which is not conformable to these, far from participating in this benediction, dishonors and in some sort vilifies it. The benediction of the pope imposes an obligation.