Novena to St. Pius X - Day 4
Lover of Mary
The Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau chose St. Pius X as their patron saint and we have done the same for this newsletter and media project. Throughout his life, and particularly during his papacy, St. Pius X was a bold defender of the Church and her traditions; opposing modernist ideologies and promoting scholastic theology. Join us in praying this novena as we ask for St. Pius X’s intercession.
This novena comes from a booklet written by Rev. Lawrence G. Lovasik in 1954.
Lover of Mary
Reflection
Saint Pius wrote of the Blessed Virgin: "For can any one fail to see that there is no surer or more direct road than by Mary for uniting all mankind in Christ and obtaining through Him the perfect adoption of sons, that we may be holy and immaculate in the sight of God? For if to Mary it was truly said: 'Blessed art thou who hast believed, because in thee shall be fulfilled the things that have been told thee by the Lord' (Luke 1: 45); or in other words, that she would conceive and bring forth the Son of God ; and if she did receive in her womb Him who is by nature Truth itself... the Son of God made man, being the 'author and finisher of faith,' it surely follows that His Mother most holy should be recognized as participating in the divine mysteries and as being in a manner the guardian of them, and that upon her as upon a foundation, the noblest after Christ, rises the edifice of the faith of all centuries.
"And it cannot be doubted that through the Virgin, and through her more than through any other means, we have a way of reaching the knowledge of Jesus Christ offered to us, when it is remembered that with her alone of all others Jesus for thirty years was united, as it behooves a son to be united with his mother, in the closest ties of intimacy and domestic life. Who more than His Mother could have a far-reaching knowledge of the admirable mysteries of the birth and childhood of Christ, and, above all, of the .mystery of the Incarnation, which is the beginning and the foundation of faith? She not only kept in her heart the events of Bethlehem and what took place in Jerusalem in the Temple of the Lord, but sharing as she did the thoughts and secret wishes of Christ, she may be said to have lived the very life of her Son. Hence nobody ever knew Christ as profoundly as she did, and nobody can ever be more competent as a guide, and teacher of the knowledge of Christ.”
+ St. Pius X, Feb. 7, 1904
Prayer
St. Pius, I venerate you as a true lover of Mary, the Mother of God. It was while kneeling at the feet of this Madonna that you received the grace of a holy vocation to the Priesthood of Her Son. You ever entrusted your life to her loving protection. Under her guidance and by the power of her prayers, you obtained the grace to love God and your neighbor in a high degree, so that today you are numbered among God's saints. I beg you to obtain for me a tender love for the Blessed Virgin Mary, my spiritual mother. As Jesus in His in fancy. depended upon the loving care of His Mother, and in death, when He was abandoned by all even by His Father - still had the heart of His Mother, so let me ever rely with childlike confidence on the heart of my heavenly Mother Mary. And as the last beat of the Sacred Heart was in unison with the beat of her heart just as the first had been - may each beat of my heart, especially my last, be an expression of my love for God and for Mary.
I beg you, Saint Pius, to give me a tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, such as you always had. Make me believe of Mary what the Church believes of her, and love her as the Church loves her. In imitation of Jesus, may I love her more and more. May she be for me the "Morning Star" on my journey through life, the "Mother of Mercy" in my sinfulness, and finally, the "Gate of Heaven" at the hour of my death. Amen.
Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be.
Saint Pius, lover of Mary, pray for us.