The Life of St. Pius X

[Music] today's the feast of st. Pius the tenth and that is my holy patron as a monk and here is his official portrait taken soon after you know his election in 1903 one of the interesting things and all I have really is a collection of photos we're going to follow through his life and see where he was from and a little bit of what he did along the way so if anyone wants to shout anything out along the way go right ahead I would point out I don't think I think it's just been cut out of this picture what's interesting about this is he's wearing a borrowed cope the bottom of this cope it's cut off right right here there's the coat of arms of Lela 13th on there so he was always known for his thriftiness and we'll see a little bit more about that you know along the way but truly I think a great man here's a picture of his mother margarita Sansone Sarto as she was born in 1813 and died in 1894 she was born at betta Lago and the region of Venice he spent all of his young life was in that region around Venice which I think at that time he was born at a little place called 3sa this is the the house they lived in his father's name was giovanni battista Sarto sergeant Mason mean tailor he was twice the age of his mother and we don't know a whole lot about him but we know they were married on 13th of February 1833 his father was kind of a minor civil official a postman kind of in charge of a few things around town and so they they would be kind of a lower-middle-class kind of family not a lot of money his mother did sewing and things on the side to help you know make ends meet so this is his birthplace giuseppe melchiorri Sarto i was his name was born the second of June 1835 at 3:00 si a in northwest of Venice he had also had siblings I say he was the eldest we also had Angelo Teresa Rosa Antonia Maria Lucia Anna and Pietro the baby boy of the family his father died in 1852 so here this is the parish church at es dedicated to Saint Matthew it gives you a new perspective on things here the village church was dedicated in 1777 so about the time that the US was founded their parish church was established there and this is the baptismal font in that parish church where the Saint was baptized and back to the this is the kitchen in the in the parish home in re si and there's a view of the village you know from the countryside I believe that that was still in the austro-hungarian Empire at the time of his birth so this is a village where he was known as peppy as a child knows his nickname around town and there was a town this woman working the the well there in the village of ESA and a lot of farmers there's a big Sal there he you know he never lost his love for tradesmen working folk farmers and things she kept that we'll see some even when he's patriarch of we'll see that he often would hang out amongst the the fishermen and this was a later parish priest of that parish there I put that in there because it we can kind of imagine you know his relationship his pastor's name was Don Tito Mussolini and so like like all these little boys was busy about their work in church I love this picture you can see the little altar boy here he can bear these on his tippy-toes to get the book up there but what a beautiful temple to pray and to grow up in a parish church like that is what a blessing to have a just a vision of heaven on earth that was so central you know to the life of his children he also had quite a devotion to Our Lady this is a shrine of Our Lady of the Assumption at Sandra Lee which is also within the same region there as Pope he would have this a church and it's bell tower restored but he refused to them to put a commemorative plaque up for doing that he said I don't want to be turned to stone before my time and and so he he always seemed to maintain a sense of humor but he also in turn that there was also a little bit of a sadness about him too he he had a sense of the weight of the gravity of life as well so he would move between this kind of sadness and this joviality in his life this is a picture of Our Lady that Madonna della Sandra Lee which he also had restored the statue which is the central image you know in that church as you man he went to school at a place called Castle Franco which was walking distance so here's a like aged boy that's not him but a later years a boy on that trip to school so that was his his walk every day and there is the castle and moat of castle Franco this makes you think about a lot of modern schools because when I was a child too for me to go to school I felt like I was going to prison for eight hours then I had to go you know they'd go home and have life again but you know if my school looked like this this is the cloister the school where he went then it maybe it wouldn't have seen so prison like you're surrounded by the beauty of religious art and and faith he went to the seminary at Padua his seminary years were 1850 to 1858 the parish priest recognized his budding vocation the family really didn't have enough money to send him off to Padua to do that so the parish priest paid for his seminary cost and this is a later it's the same chapel that he would have prayed in but taken after his his time there same with this the seminarians taking up the great sport of bocce ball and there is the refectory of the school and this is the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua known as the Santo and he always maintained a strong attachment to Padua and eventually the Bishop of Padua would would be a lifelong friend of his there and they had a love for it and when he went home once he was in the seminary is his mother decided that he deserved a little more dignity now that he was a seminarian and so he got his own room in the house so that is the the room not not the room that he grew up in as a child but once he he was home from the seminary that's where he would stay in the house the same house sir a tree si and there is the Cathedral Church of a soul lower and Giuseppe Sarto was confirmed the 1st of September 1845 at the age of 10 he received tonsure at the hands of the Bishop of treviso here in that same church on the 20th of September 1851 and there is his ordination picture young Saint to be taken in the year of his ordination 1858 he was ordained at the age of 23 so he didn't waste any time he applied himself you know it and he doesn't really have the reputation of a great scholarship he has more of the reputation of solid intellectual kind of catechesis it wasn't like a speculative theologian he's someone that that has zeroed in on the truth of the church and and lived that and proclaimed that you know for the whole of his life and there is the Cathedral Church of Castle Franco where he was ordained on the scepter September 18th of 1858 here is his mass register you can see masses looked to me like they were two to three lira or whatever they were using I tell you truth I'm not even sure what the what the currency was there but there he was keeping track of his masses said there's the parish church at tombolo where the new father Sarto was made a curate and it was a place that gave him fits because it was it was a village beset with cursing a rough language all over the place there but and so one of the things that he would tell the parishioners there over and over again he said Holy Communion is the shortest and surest way to heaven and that you can see that became a theme in his life just as later as Pope he would lower that age of Holy Communion I think says he was just so convinced that that Holy Communion staying close to our Lord sacramentally was going to be the way to heaven so here are some of the cursors one of the cattlemen it looks he looks kind of colorful and you can see that they got it a little excitable once in a while here they are again selling cattle in the village there he matter of fact he he that they love to make deals of you know about their camels so father Sarto made a deal with them that he would teach them to read and write if they would refrain from blaspheming so he would change it would trade studies for if this that they'll just hold their tongues a little bit and this is the curates residence it cost 50 lira a year due annually on st. Martin's day and so that's where he stayed and there is his journal and lamp and pen and his personal financial accounts I guess a you know he was kind of a a frugal character he didn't like wasting things and he stored corn in the house this is corn that he he used as almsgiving so when people come to him in need of things he he would had a corn loft in that house so you would hand out corn to people and then he his time there at tombolo was over in 1867 he was made that parish priest so he became a pastor there at Sal's oh no and this is the parish church of st. Bartholomew and here's a look at the village and here's just a little look at his signature down it at the bottom here don't Joe seppings signature as as priests you know how I mentioned that he was thrifty this was a pawn shop in the village that he used he used to when he would run out of money for almsgiving he would start selling stuff and he would take it to this pawn shop and he would sell things that he didn't think he needed and then he could use that to re replenish his stores for for giving alms in here soon after this 1875 Father Sarto was made a cannon the cathedral of treviso and spiritual director of the Dawson seminary and there's three rooms here in the middle that are marked these were his rooms they're in the seminary and here is pictured with bishop as Zanelli and the seminary faculty in 1876 so here he is here looking older already have a life of a pastor you know it's a little work and when he was appointed there he said I'm only a simple country priest come here to do the will of God he never is not someone who he always had a tremendous confidence in God but but I don't think he was ever overflowing in self-confidence he always was was that well God's going to do this he'll have to because I I'm really not up to the task and we'll see that happen a few more times and this is the pectoral cross of the canons of the cathedral and tour visa and this was worn by Monsignor Sarto during the years that he was also a chancellor of that diocese 1875 to 1884 and that is the Cathedral of treviso and within it the Cathedral Choir where he prayed on the Divine Office every day this is the bishops chapel at through visa where this Bishop Zanelli apolonio Cinelli told Monsignor Sarto that he was now made the new Bishop of Mantua which is another seat of the region and that was his Episcopal portrait of the new Bishop of Mantua he was appointed by pope leo xiii and 1884 he said my shoulders do not have the strength to bear this cross my steps are too feeble for this road to Calvary and this boot in he wrote that to bishop Caligari of Padua that Bishop would stay a close confidant of his for the rest of their lives and there is a close-up of his pectoral cross there's the Cathedral of st. Peter at Mantua he took over the role as rector the Dawson seminary there as well he said having only one priests and one Deacon to ordained that year he said when I think that I what I could do with 40 new priests this year I have a hundred and forty seven students but what an appetite they have I think they would devour the doors of the place if I let them screws and locks and all but he was not happy he was not happy with the Dawson seminary when he got there that's why he became rector of it yes probably yeah have the voracious happened I'd say yeah yeah you can imagine how they eat you know and and they were not a well-disciplined crowd either yeah there was a lot of unhappiness in the seminary as a matter of fact one source that I was reading pointed out that he immediately app soon after becoming a bishop of Mantua and then becoming rector of the seminary that he picked out he hand-picked about a half dozen men and sent them to Padua to for further advanced studies and he came back and really kind of restarted the seminary and they tell a story of and I'm not sure what what it was a one source said that he had got heard he got in a report there was another priest he didn't live at the seminary he was rector of he didn't live there and so the kind of the priest that was about the vice rector or such that was in residence there called him or went sent a message to him say we've got a problem here and I think the problem was some of the seminarians had been caught making cat calls at people and and it so upset him that he came down to the seminary and called the whole school to the other and and he started to talk to them to tell him how unhappy he was about this this bad behavior and he broke down in tears he was just so upset that that men who had aspired the priesthood could do something so base as make sexually suggestive comments you know to someone and and it brought him to tears and they say that that that so shamed the seminarians that that really was the basis of the reform that they never wanted to make the bishop cry again and uh well it's working you know if it works that's great but that also shows that they must have had an awful lot of heart if they would respond they know two bishops are toll like that here is a high mass in the in the Cathedral of st. Andrew with a co-cathedral they're in the Diocese of Mantua one of the things I always get a kick out of when you look at Roman old Roman liturgies you see the clergy sitting on the steps that that is Center an utterly Roman thing to do is to sit on the steps during a liturgy like that and here is a view this was an interesting time this is a picture of Venice because they were there in the region of Venice on June 1893 bishops Sarto was made a cardinal by Pope Leo the 13th the first Cardinal for the for the sea of Mantua in two hundred and fifty years so he was made a cardinal before he was sent to the Sea of Venice which you would expect you know to be a cardinal there but Leo the 13th was very making a point by doing that saying that this man is worth the red hat it's not just the sea that has the red hat but this man does and part of that also was the Italian government was in to inherit the rights of the Venetian Republic and the austro-hungarian Empire to make appointments to the sea of Venice and so they were still trying to appoint their own Bishop to it so it took 17 months of negotiations but eventually on the sounds of September 1894 Giuseppe Sarto became patriarch Venice there's the great tower of the Cathedral there in Venice and that is his arrival there on the 24th of November 1894 and that is a Pontifical high mass taking place there that's not a bishop Sarto though doing that this was taken a little bit later this is the throne room for the and the patriarch of venice one of the main things that went on in this room this tells you a little something about Giuseppe Sarto as well this was the site of the annual children's Christmas party so the throne room was one of its main purposes was was kind of for entertaining things he else he always the whole of his life he he felt burdened slightly humiliated in a way by the grandeur that was very typical of his time but one of the things that I think is interesting and there's a parallel I think to Pope Benedict the 16th they very much knew that it wasn't about them it wasn't for them to rearrange the custom of the Venetians he when he when he was made patriarch of venice he became the patriarch of venice you know he wore the shoes they gave him he slept in the bed they gave him did all of this he just lived inside the office that that the lord you know gave to him and that I think is a great humility to just accept you know everything of the office you know that you're given even if you do use the throne room for children's parties and there is some of his correspondence as patriarch here's one of my favorite pictures of him writing his friendly mule up Montegrappa in order to dedicate a new statue in a shrine to our lady you can see he was very much at home on the spotted mule and that's his official portrait as patriarch of venice there's a Corpus Christi procession look reminiscent of this morning's activities I had a wonderful little chat with Archbishop sample upstairs just both of us seeing about what a beautiful thing it was you know while we were out there doing this to think about well what are we doing this is kind of an odd thing to go parading around in with the Blessed Sacrament all dressed up in canopies and singing in all of this when you look at the broader culture that we're in it's a very unusual thing to do but but but it seems like such in a way such an obvious thing to do as well that you know the Holy Eucharist is this greatest gift of God giving himself to us so we take the fruit of that beautiful that loving sacrifice of our God and of course we parade around with it you know this this is this is Christ's body blood soul and divinity and it is such a gift to us and when we have something to petition our Father about today it was all about petitioning the Father for the the safety and the care of Christians in the Holy Land that of course what we want them to hear is not just our kind of cacophonous you know voices we want him to hear the voice of his beloved son so that's what we did this morning you know the beloved son then and we by virtue of our baptisms are members of that body we saw that body there sacramentally we saw that body there mystically and that was the voice of the beloved speaking to the father to beg him to take care you know of our brothers and sisters that mystical body of Christ in the Holy Land and it was just a really a wonderful experience and and so I was happy to have that little chance with the archbishop that both of us were kind of slightly giddy at the opportunity to do it so at one of the monks as soon as we got back into the into the cloister there one of the monks came up to me says we should do this every year so maybe we started something we'll see there he is in the Corpus Christi procession you'll notice that this is funny and jovial as he often was you'll often you'll see this again that gravity on his face he he had a seriousness about him here's a picture of his beretta and gle arrow and this small black cap is what he often the wore around especially when he would hang out on the docks he loved you know being with the fishermen and things and these are some like his his rochet and coppa and this was a picture this is a painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a baby and that hung in in his room as a child and so he eventually ended up with that you know in his home there and there's something that he was very fond of and here he is he's looking kind of happy there he well of course he's happy he's attending the st. Roch festivities that's in 1902 and there is the the Rio de canonical and the Bridge of Sighs and he had his personal gondolier his his name was a cup of odd Kyle Colville Dora and he did add the people of Venice gave him his own gondola although you know he was subject to motion sickness but there he is doing a pretty good job getting off that gondola there matter of fact you know what he's doing there this was kind of late in his time at at Venice he was saying the gondola on his way to the train station where he is headed to the Conclave to elect a successor to Pope Leo the 13th stepping into the train he declared dead or alive I'll be back [Music] well he was dead in a sort my time he got back and that is the first letter he wrote after being elected Pope the fourth of August 1903 and again he wrote that to his friend Bishop Caligari of Padua and again he says I have not yet really recovered from the shock which I received when this tremendous cross was laid upon me and there he is preaching an audience and he took up the practice of preaching from the Sunday gospel so often his audiences were were from the gospel of Sunday he catechetical were always an important thing to him when he was Bishop of Mantua they were supposed to be like adult catechism on Sunday afternoons people go to church and the priest would teach well it seems like many of the priests often ended up in the taverns on Sunday afternoons and so he when he would hear reports of this he would go himself to the parish and look around and if there was no priest teaching catechism on a Sunday afternoon he would then go down to the tavern and he was been known to pull more than one priest out of the tavern and put them back into teaching there he is being quite entertained by those acrobats that's on the 11th of july 1904 another great thing that Pope Pius the tenth did in 1904 was on the 24th of March of that year when he elevated the Priory of Saint Benedict here to the of a tional status so he is the Pope who made us an abbey and there he is again smiling from the balcony overlooking the court of Saint Damasus the man in the corner is his friend and former secretary Monsignor Giovanni Breslin from Treviso and Mantua he had long relationships with with people and there was at a Pontifical ceremony in Saint Peter's Basilica and there's that kind of look again on his face again it's it's a gravity he he often pondered the seriousness of things and we know from his writings his encyclicals and Motu Proprio 'he's the great thing he was dealing with really was modernism what I call you know the synthesis of all heresies what worried him so much about that was that there was just no part of the church that was unaffected you know by it and it was in a way the modernism was the art of the half-truth but one of the one of the tenants of it was something called vital Eman ISM basically meaning that man is it has this innate desire for the divine so far so good which you know because that's true God has written that on our hearts to have a relationship to two he was greater than than than we are but but where the vinyl Eman ISM went with that was more that that what we see as the church was was really the product of of that that emanates from man meaning that religion is a human construct we have formed it because it's beneficial to us that the church is not revealed and given to us you know by God and so if religion is is a human construct a good thing that has come about through the development over centuries because it helps us you know reach the divine the problem with that is well if we made it then we can change it when we decide it should get us in a different direction well that's just more development of rather than then the church really being that mystical body of Christ that is given to us and the church the faith being revealed to us so that became the great battle really of his life there when I have to say it probably didn't win but but he certainly made a contribution you know to that then here he is this is an important picture because know what he's doing there is consecrating Monsignor Giacomo and della chiesa that's December of 1907 and we might recognize that della chiesa name as the future Benedict the 15th so here's Pius the tenth and this man will become Benedict the 15th and there I is as the Pope another one of his great struggles was with the secularization and going on in France and in Portugal basically where the church was being removed for much of public life and here he's ordaining 14 French bishops there he is at prayer that's the ninth anniversary of his coronation in 1912 and here he is wearing what's called the greca the the white coat he's Darius in the Vatican gardens and at work in his desk you notice the the statue there of Saint John Vianney we had a great devotion to and he eventually canonized Saint John Vianney in the 8th of January 1905 and he's sitting for those newfangled things those photos that's the 1903 there's his slippers in his skull cap and his shaving kit he he insisted on doing his own shaving which was not the customary way really at the time but he said that in in Rio where he grew up there was a shop called Sarto and Barbieri tailor and barber so there was nothing extraordinary about this tailor this Sarto also being a barber so he took care of his own shaving and there are what they called the miner cabinet ministers some of his sisters who that the spinster sisters who came to the Vatican and helped out in the household and things and some of the other Vatican employees refer to them as the minor cabinet ministers I imagine they got a fair amount done and here is Pope Pius the tenth this is what they called the the noble guard then over here you have the Swiss garden and here is in the carriage 1911 riding with a couple of his secretaries and he loved to sit out in the garden and read and I mentioned that he suffered from motion sickness both in those gondolas this is a city of Jessa Toria you know the elevated chair that they're carried by the noblemen and these are inherited you know positions you know your father did this and your grandfather did this and they still exist today they often act today as since they don't use the city of Jessa Toria what they practice for the whole life really is to is to carry his coffin so the men remember John Paul's funeral and the group of men and the grey coats carrying the funerals that that's their great honor and then it's called the flow belly the ostrich feathers there which had the practice they were big fans in your keep bugs away and that kind of stuff but he often said that you know as much as they practiced to keep him steady that slight movement kinda like being on a camel or something was just a little more than then he liked and he it was also known on his lighter side he liked to take a little snuff once in a while and one time they were waiting for one of the very long papal liturgies that that again they were they were a tough part of life you know for him but so he took a little bit of snuff while he was waiting and one of one of the emcees said to him oh your Holy Father the Eucharistic fast and he said well I dispense myself [Laughter] so this photo was taken near the end of his reign you can see the age on him there in 1914 and here is his last words were I am in God's hands do whatever you think best and at 1:16 I am the 20th of August 1914 as it died without a stir like a farmer tired after a long day's work in the fields he was canonized on the 29th of May 1954 in st. Peter's Square and on the 17th of February 1952 his relics were placed in the altar the presentation of Our Lady and st. Peter's Basilica it says on his tomb born poor and humble of heart undaunted champion of the Catholic faith zealous to restore all things in Christ crowned a holy life with the holy death [Music] you'll see [Music]

Channel: Sacred Heart

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Id: iJjY8dwCvJA

Length: 40min 58sec (2458 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 15 2016