The Church

Et unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam! — I can understand why you pause to relish your prayer: I believe in the Church, one, holy, Catholic and apostolic…

What joy to be able to say with all the fervour of my soul: I love my Mother the holy Church!

In that cry serviam! you express your determination to 'serve' the Church of God most faithfully, even at the cost of fortune, of reputation and of life.

Catholic, apostolic, Roman! I want you to be very Roman. And to be anxious to make your 'path to Rome', videre Petrum — to see Peter.

How good Christ was to leave the Sacraments to his Church! They are the remedy for all our needs. Venerate them and be very grateful both to God and to his Church.

Have veneration and respect for the holy Liturgy of the Church and for its ceremonies. Observe them faithfully. Don't you see that, for us poor men, even what is greatest and most noble must enter through the senses?

The Church sings, it has been said, because merely to speak would not satisfy its desire for prayer. You, as a Christian — and a chosen Christian, — should learn to sing liturgically.

'I just can't help singing', said a soul in love, when he saw the wonders that our Lord was working through him

And that is the advice I give to you: sing! Let your grateful enthusiasm for your God overflow into song.

To be 'Catholic' means to love your country and to be second to no one in that love. And at the same time, to hold as your own the noble aspirations of other lands. — So many glories of France are glories of mine! And in the same way, much that makes Germans proud, and the peoples of Italy and of England…, and Americans and Asians and Africans, is a source of pride to me also.

Catholic: big heart, broad mind.

If you have not the highest reverence for the priesthood and for the religious state, it is not true that you love God's Church.

That woman in the house of Simon the leper in Bethany, who anoints the Master's head with precious ointment, reminds us of our duty to be generous in the worship of God.

All beauty, richness and majesty seem little to me.

And against those who attack the richness of sacred vessels, of vestments and altars, stands the praise given by Jesus: 'opus enim bonum operata est in me — she has acted well towards me'.

References to Holy Scripture
References to Holy Scripture
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