The Virgin Mary and Christian Civilization

‎ ‎ ‎ The individual and social intercession  of Our Lady‎

Taken from the works of CARDINAL PIE, comments by Father Alfredo Sáenz SJ

‎ ‎In several of the sermons where the figure of Our Lady appears, Monseigneur‎ Pie of Poitiers ‎highlights her character as advocate,"mother of holy hope." The entire tradition of the Fathers and Doctors agrees that love for the Virgin Mary is a sign, the truest one, of predestination. Salvation depends on supernatural charity, and Our Lady is the mother of beautiful love, mater pulchrae dilectionis (Eccli 24, 24). By begetting Christ, she gave birth to divine love incarnate, becoming the mother of charity and of beautiful love as a general principle. But she is also a mother with respect to the particular birth of charity in the heart of each one of us human beings.‎

Social Salvation

‎ ‎The saving intercession of our Blessed Mother is not limited only to the personal level. She is also the one who will best lead the entire world to God, the one who will bring the nations back to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. To a society that has been mutilated and wounded for a long time, or better, beheaded, it will only be the Virgin who will obtain from the Mercy of God, that the nations and people's will recognise their true Head, Christ our Lord. ‎  Our Lady will be the best comforter or strengthener of the good in her fight for the social royalty of her Son. ‎Bishop Pie observes that weakness ‎is noticeable everywhere, in individuals, in towns, and even among Catholics themselves. It is true that the number of the wicked is enormous, much greater than in other times. However, the wicked make up a small number compared to the weak. And what is frightening is that the weakness is in the intelligences more than in the wills and the character; or better, the wills are without force, without decision, because the intelligences lack light, conviction. ‎“Our time is intended to be the time of strong ninds; history will call it the time of weak minds. '‎Pusillanimity'‎, this is exactly the right word. Souls are small, without height, without breadth, without width, without depth; they lack firmness, consistency.”‎ ‎ ‎Well, in the face of the spectacle of this multitude of cowards,‎ Pie cries out with all his soul: Sancta María, juva pusillanimes (Holy Mary, help the faint-hearted)‎, asking her to come to the aid of this world of the faint-hearted .She, who has given birth to the Word, who is the power and wisdom of God (cf. 1 Cor 1:24), will cause Christ to live by faith in our hearts (cf. Eph 3:17); and “a soul is no longer small, it is no longer narrow, it is no longer weak; it is big, it is wide, it is strong when it carries Christ in itself"‎.‎ Likewise, Pie begs Our Lady: ‎refove flebiles (revive the discouraged) , referring to the decadent Catholics . "What have we been doing for several years but sigh?" . The fight is indeed extremely arduous; the world rejoices ‎-mundus gaudebit-‎ and we groan ‎-vos autem contristabimini (Job 16,20) -; ‎hence it is more necessary than ever to have to breathe deeply so as to endure and to suffer patiently . Not in vain did Christ say: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" (Mt 5: 5). And none better than Our Lady to abundantly comfort those who weep in battle. ‎May she also help the unfortunate - succure ‎miseris‎ - that is, the whole world. “I know that those who invented the [naturalistic] deification of humanity do not tolerate their satisfaction and well-being being doubted. Divinity is not compatible with misery; And if the world is God, it is logical to proclaim that the world is happy. But the answer to this claim is written in the holy books: "My people, says the Lord, those who declare you blessed" , therefore, those who deify you, "those deceive you" : ‎Popule meus, qui te beatum dicunt, ipsi decipiunt (Is 3, 12)" ‎The modern world is deeply miserable, although it takes pains to affirm the contrary. The most unhappy of all are those who do not feel their unhappiness, those who strut in their helplessness. The greatest calamity of our time is that modern men "being really miserable, miserable, poor, blind, naked, boast of being rich and opulent, of being provided with everything (cf. Rev. 3, 17) [... ] Oh Mary, come to the aid of these unfortunates who are not aware of their own misery; open their eyes on themselves: miseris occuris ” .    May she finally help the surviving remains of Christendom, that is, Christian civilization: Ora pro populo (Pray for the people). In the language of the Church, Pie observes, the faithful people are not only a group of individuals, but the concert of Christian nations, the “respublica christiana” , what David had prophesied when speaking of the union between peoples and kings at the service of a single Lord: ‎In conveniendo populos in unum et reges ut serviant Domino‎. ‎("peoples and kings agreeing to serve the Lord", Ps 101, 23). Well, despite the fact that Christ is, objectively and really that King around whom the peoples and their respective kings must congregate, today there are unfaithful peoples, apostate nations, and the men of our century not only boast of having extirpated Christian society and civilization, but they try to destroy even the key to the vault, so that not even the memory of ancient Christendom remains. Faced with all this, Sancta María, ora pro populo, pray for Christendom for the remnant of the Christian world. ‎El CARDENAL PIE. Lucidez y coraje al servicio de la verdad” Padre Alfredo Sáenz S.J. Serie “Héroes y Santos”‎‎ GLADIUS Buenos Aires 2007‎‎