Life of Pope Pius IX - J. G. Shea |
HIS MODE OF LIFE. SUPERNATURAL GIFTS ASCRIBED TO HIM. CONCLUSION.
Pius IX is in stature rather above middle size, his head is large and his forehead broad and high, his hair is white, his complexion very clear, and still rosy in the cheeks, his lips red and rather large; his quick black eyes, though very soft, light up his whole countenance. His head habitually inclines slightly to the right.
His voice is gentle, yet sonorous; in conversation its harmony enchants all, and in the great ceremonies of the Church it rises with singular power and beauty in the vast temples of religion, full of dignity and grandeur.
His life is most simple. While he has spent millions in charitable institutions, especially on orphanages, on churches and their adornment, on the collections of the Vatican, all that he personally requires is an official room and a sleeping-chamber. The last is uncarpeted; plain yellow curtains hang at the windows. His bedstead is a small iron one without curtains, and this constitutes almost the entire furniture of the room, with the prie dieu on which stands his crucifix. No fire is ever lighted there, cold as the weather may be. His sitting-room is small, with a table covered by a plain cloth, two chairs, an arm-chair, and a book-case.
Ever since his elevation to the Pontificate his course of life has been uniform. Unless after unusual fatigue, or by direction of his physician, he rises at half past five and dresses without assistance from his attendant.
After his morning prayer in his room, he proceeds to his little chapel, where he remains for half an hour before the Blessed Sacrament. He then says his mass and hears another while making his thanksgiving. When he is not well enough to celebrate, he hears a mass said by one of his chaplains and receives Holy Communion.
He then gives directions in any urgent matter that will not admit of delay, recites his office, and about nine o'clock takes a cup of black coffee, which is his whole breakfast, and his whole morning refreshment unless on days of unusual fatigue, when he allows himself a cup of light soup. During his breakfast, members of his family who may happen to be in Rome are received in audience. The morning letters are then received, for the mail is brought to his Holiness three times a day, and he not only opens the bag himself, but opens every letter addressed from all parts of the world, and notes in his own hand instructions for his secretary to draw up the answer. In this way no letter of importance ever remains in the Pope's desk at night.
The Cardinal Secretary of State is next received in audience, and on his retirement those persons who have obtained special introductions are admitted, often taking up the whole time till half-past ten o'clock, when the doors of the grand apartments are opened to receive the cardinal prefects of the various congregations, who wait upon the Pope to discuss the general affairs of the Church, and also ministers and other dignitaries for whom audiences have been assigned. Next follow the private audiences of those who have obtained that honor. Except on solemn occasions when the throne-room is used, Pius IX receives them in his simple study.
When the audiences are over, the Pope retires for a time to the chapel to pray before Him whose representative he is on earth. After this he spends a short time in conversation with his chamberlains, and at half-past two dinner is served.
According to Pontifical etiquette the Pope usually dines alone, although exception is at times made in favor of princes or princesses. He is served by his first valet de chamber. The meal consists of soup, a piece of boiled beef, a broil or roast, one dish of vegetables and one of fruit. On days of fasting and abstinence, fish and white meats replace the flesh meats; but no better fare is provided for holidays. He takes a little ordinary white wine, greatly diluted with water, and his supply is purchased day by day, for Pius IX has no wine cellar. When very weary he takes after his dinner a glass of wine, furnished especially by the Sisters of St. Joseph at Bourdeaux, made from a vineyard named after the Pope and cultivated with their own hands.
All other delicacies offered him, and they are not few, are sent to the hospital. He never touches pastry or preserves.
After dinner he takes a siesta of a quarter of an hour in an arm-chair.
His next occupation is to say his beads, and recite vespers and compline. After this Pius IX, in other times, drove out to one of the great promenades of Rome; and this moment of the day was anxiously looked for by visitors to the Eternal City, who wished to see the Pope. The favored ranged themselves on each side of the gallery through which he passed to his carriage in his white cassock, red cape, and hat. A dragoon riding in advance announced his coming, and a line was formed on either side of the streets to receive his blessing. When he reached the appointed destination for the day, it was the custom of Pius IX to alight and mingle with the crowd, exchanging kind words with any whom he recognized, and these were always many, for he possesses a wonderful memory, and recollects almost every one presented to him.
Now of course that he is a prisoner this is impossible, and the very fact is one of the strong proofs that he is actually a prisoner, in spite of the guarantees proposed by Mazzini and carried out by Victor Emmanuel, the Pope is so completely under the surveillance of the police that, on the occasion of his twenty-eighth anniversary in 1874, when he appeared at a window in the Vatican, and the rapturous vivas arose among the people, all who thus showed their attachment were arrested and punished. For the few then assembled, there would be tens of thousands who would crowd to hail the Pope, were he to drive out as of old through the streets of Rome, and the King of Sardinia would either shoot down the people or leave the city to its true ruler.
Now the Pope takes his promenade in the galleries or in the gardens of the Vatican, where one alley lined with orange trees is his favorite resort. He is fond of sitting beneath a weeping willow at its extremity near the Zitella fountain, and throwing crumbs to some beautiful white pigeons kept there.
Notwithstanding his advanced age his step is firm and quick, and his cane seems not required as a support. He sometimes laughs at his own activity, as he waits for the younger companions of his promenades.
In other days he frequently walked out, and was most happy to find himself among the poor, whom he could relieve and console, or children whom, he could question and encourage; for his early interest in the young, shown at Tata Giovanni, has never decreased, and if in the future he should ever be placed on our altars, he will be the patron of the children of the poor.
Rome is full of anecdotes of his kindness to those in humble circumstances, of his remembrance of all who rendered him service, of the affectionate intercourse between him and the young.
The Pope returns to his rooms at the Angelus, and after reciting matins and lauds of the next day with one of his chaplains, used formerly to give audiences on matters connected with his government. At nine o'clock he takes his frugal supper, consisting of a plate of soup, two potatoes, and a single fruit. At ten o'clock precisely he retires to his room, after a visit to the Blessed Sacrament.
There is pomp in the great functions where the Pope appears as Pontiff or king; but in his private life, what can be conceived more simple, more poor, more frugal, more pious than this daily life of Pope Pius IX? The greatness is the greatness of his position; the firmness is the firmness of duty; in person he is simple, temperate, unostentatious; and this simple, holy life, upborne by the spirit of prayer and confidence in almighty God, makes him a power which all the efforts of the world to crush only exalt.
Many of those separated from our faith profess to think the change at Rome for the best; but not one in his heart will say that the new ruler as a man in all that constitutes a pure, good man can be compared to Pius IX; not one will show by facts that Rome and the Papal States are better governed, or that the general happiness of the people has been increased. If the change gives these States an inferior ruler, a less successful government, why should it stand?
In the eyes of a Catholic such a comparison is almost an insult to one who is not only beloved as a wronged and persecuted high-priest of God, but revered as one whose life is so holy in the sight of heaven that the Almighty makes him the channel of supernatural favors. From time to time cures and other remarkable graces are reported as having been obtained by the prayers, the blessing, or the touch of something belonging to Pius IX. If any juridical examination has been made in these cases it is not communicated to the public, and we cannot, therefore, attest the facts. But they are believed by thousands who have witnessed and examined them, and in themselves attest the deep-seated feeling in Catholic hearts that God would grant extraordinary favors solicited through his servant.
It cannot be said that Catholics always look upon the Pope as a saint; their respect for his high dignity has nothing in common with that instinct of the Catholic heart which in rare cases fixes upon a person as a saint raised above the ordinary level of the good and pious, moving as it were on another plane, Elias-like still living, but associated with the glorified.
Among the cases to which we refer were those of Mr. Bodenham, of London, restored on his death-bed, at the moment, in 1865, when the Pope united his prayers with those of the dying man; of a paralyzed novice at Digne cured in August, 1866, and a young man at Paris, similarly paralyzed, cured in the same year by applying a stocking worn by the Pope. In 1875 a lady of the Sacred Heart at Rome, whose right arm was paralyzed, obtained an audience of the Pope, and when he raised the afflicted limb and bade her make the sign of the cross, she did so and found herself completely cured.
One day when Plus IX entered the Hospital of San Spirito, a mason who had fallen from a building was brought in to all appearance dead. He was utterly unconscious, and a cloth was laid over his face, so persuaded were all that the soul had left the body. The Pope went up and removed it. He blessed the senseless form and said, "Do you hear me, my son?" Not the slightest tremor betrayed the presence of life; he lay still and silent. "Make the sign of the cross," said the Pope. To the wonder of all, the man not only made the sign but pronounced the words. "Here, my son," said Pius IX, "here is something to help you live till you are completely well," giving him a considerable alms. The poor man thanked the Holy Father over and over, and Pius IX blessing him again went his way. The next morning the mason was taken home, and another day saw him completely restored.
When any of these cases are referred to the Pope always turns the conversation off with one of his pleasantries. So when the young Parisian in his gratitude hastened to Rome, and having obtained an audience, burst forth in expressions of thanks, Pius IX laughingly remarked, "That is very strange; all my trouble is in my legs, and though I wear my stockings all day they do not cure me."
We have thus traced the life of the present Pope from his birth to his entrance upon the thirty-second year of his pontificate. It may seem to some that our words have been simply those of eulogy, that we have painted all in brightest colors, and have in their brightness made the shades disappear. But we have indulged in no exaggerations. The tongue of slander has never assailed the personal character of Pius IX. Nothing unbecoming a young Christian gentleman has ever been raked up from real or imaginary sources to throw a shade over his early manhood. The clumsy invention that he was admitted into a condemned secret society is the only charge, and in this country we need little proof to show it an invention. The devoted young priest and the archbishop stand equally untarnished. As Pope King, no ruler sought more actively and honestly the greatest good of the people of his States, ruled with greater justice, mercy, economy: as head of the Church his course has met the enthusiastic adherence of the whole body of the faithful.
That in his own self-examination he finds steps that may have ill-judged, something for self-reproach, cannot but be true, for the Pope like every other child of the Church kneels at the foot of his confessor to avow his faults; but history shows no more unblemished character through a long and active life.
The life of Pope Pius IX is not closed, and the prayers of millions ascend to heaven, that the life so wonderfully prolonged may still be extended to permit him to behold the triumph of right and truth. His pontificate has been one marked by commemorations; he has celebrated not only the twenty-fifth, but the thirty-first anniversary of his election; the fiftieth of his priesthood, the fiftieth of his episcopate. Born when religion seemed prostrate in France; crushed in England; fettered and weakened in Germany; when in the United States a bishop, with the whole country for his diocese, was just endeavoring to see what could be done to save the few Catholics in the land, Pius IX has lived to see the Church, like an army ranged in array, battling, but full of life, earnestness, and zeal, meeting the enemy at every point, growing stronger by being ever under arms, encouraged by his words and zeal and sufferings and, great deeds, inspired by tokens of Heaven's approval, the apparitions of Our Lady at La Salette, Lourdes, and Marpingen, the wonders wrought there reviving pilgrimages throughout the world, the living image of the Crucified in Louise Lateau, the extended devotion to the Sacred Heart encouraged by the beatification of the Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque, pilgrimages to Paray-le-Monial, and his own consecration of the whole Church and every diocese to our loving Redeemer under that same consoling title. He has seen it under his eyes united more closely than ever, its doctrines made definite and distinct by his decrees and those of a General Council. The priest who sought the children of the people, as Pope has made the Catholic body feel that its strength lay not in the favor of kings and princes, but in the hearts and the energy and devotedness of the Catholic people throughout the world.