THE GLORIOUS REIGN OF LEO XIII

 

THE GLORIOUS REIGN OF LEO XIII

The question we have to confront ourselves now is this. How has the church come down to the present day enriching the world with the blessings of the kingdom of Christ? We now have Pope Leo XIV and its relieving and what he has so far said and intends to steer this Church into deep waters as a captain is clear, and his focus is optical. But before we indulge ourselves into this euphoria lets journey backwards a little bit to know what we may be dealing with in areas of evangelization and mission mandate. Let’s bring to light Pope Leo XIII. What we could consider as the glorious reign of Leo XIII, the great Pope.

When Pius the IX died, he was succeeded by the Archbishop of Perugia, Cardinal Pecci, who took the name of Leo XIII. He was an old man at the time, being sixty-eight years of age, and was in poor health. No one expected him to live very long but in the providence of God he was destined to rule the Church for twenty-five years.

Leo XIII was a man of great learning. He understood the hearts of men and was deeply interested in everything that promised to bring more happiness to human beings. Right from the beginning he proved that he was a brilliant statesman by interesting himself in the troubles of the Church in Germany and bringing about a settlement that was satisfactory to all.

In the year that followed, the Pope had many opportunities to use his diplomatic skill and he won for the Holy See the respect of the nations.  Even non-Catholic kings and emperors came to visit him and to pay him their respects. Though he had no temporal power and did not go outside the Vatican, his influence in the affairs of the world was as great as that of any Pope from the beginning.

Pope Leo XIII, The Teacher of the Nations

Pope Leo XIII can be considered as a teacher of the nations. Great changes had taken place in human society since the French Revolution and there were still more changes to come. The middle classes had broken the power of the kings and the nobles, but now they are in turn were being forced to recognize the rights of the lower classes. The world no longer made its living the way it did in ages past. There had been great mechanical inventions and the things that people used to make with their hands were now being made by machine. The working man who used to own his own tools and manufacture articles of one kind or another in his own home now went to work in the factory. The factory was owned by someone else who told the laborer how long he had to work and decided what wages he would receive.

The people who owned factories and those who supplied them with the money to carry on their business wanted to be free to run things as they saw fit. They did not want the State to interfere with them in any way. They admitted that workers were often underpaid and that at times there was much unemployment. People who invested their money in business and manufacturing often lost it. From time to time things seemed to go entirely wrong and there would be hard times during which the common people suffered very greatly. In spite of this, those who were in control of industry said that in the long run everything would work out better if the Government did not meddle with business and if they were allowed to follow their own policies.

The workers did not agree with them. They wanted the State to pass laws protecting them against their employers. Some of them wanted to go even further and have the Government take over the control of industry, so that it would be run for the good of all the people and not for the profit of the capitalists. Those who held this point of view were known as Socialists.

Pope Leo XIII felt that it was his duty as the Father of Christendom to help the world to think right about all these things. The method that he chose to teach the doctrine of true Christian democracy was the encyclical Letter. An encyclical is a letter that the Pope writes to the whole world. Leo’s Encyclicals on Social Question were studied everywhere. They taught the true doctrine concerning the State and its relation to individual men and women. They explained to laborers their rights and their duties and reminded employers of their obligation to obey the laws of social justice. Everywhere the Pope was acclaimed as a friend of the workingman.

Meanwhile Leo XII was interested in the advance of learning and science. He aroused new interest in the writings and the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas and did everything to encourage scholars to study them more and more deeply and to learn from them how to solve the problems of the day. In the Vatican archives there were preserved documents of the greatest interest to historians, and the Pope announced to the world that students were free to use them.

Of course the greatest desire of the Pope was that piety should flourish and that his children should become more and more holy. He wrote a beautiful Encyclical on devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He did everything he could to encourage the devotion of the Holy Rosary and urged fathers and mothers to dedicate their families to the Holy Family.

Leo XIII and the Missions

It was at this time that the nations of Europe were turning their eyes in the direction of Asia and Africa with the idea of gaining control of parts of these continents and making colonies out of them. They needed raw materials for their factories and foodstuffs for their people to eat. Moreover, their countries were becoming crowded and they needed more room for their population. Leo XIII became the champion of the natives in these colonies. He took a strong stand against slavery and sent missionaries along with the colonists to preach Christ to the pagans. Under his inspiration, zeal for the missions became worldwide. The religious orders prepared priests and nuns for this great work and the laity, through the parishes and the different mission societies, contributed most generously to the propagation of the Faith.

The Little Flower

One day, Leo XIII was holding an audience. He sat on his throne as the people came forward one by one to kneel and receive his blessing. All had been warned that good etiquette required that they should not speak to the Holy Father.  A little girl approached the throne. Bowing herself to the ground, she kissed his foot. The Pope reached out his hand to her and grasping it, she looked up to him with tears in her eyes and said: “Holy Father, I have a great favor to ask of you. “All of those present were shocked at her boldness, but Leo XIII bent and asked her what favor was. “Holy Father,” she answered, “allow me to enter Carmel when I am fifteen years old.” The little girl had been brought to Rome from France by her father and they were accompanied by the Vicar General of their diocese, who now stepped forward and said: “Holy Father, this is a child who desires to become a Carmelite, and the superiors of the Carmel are looking into the matter.” “Well my child” said His Holiness, “do whatever the superiors may decide. “But this did not satisfy her. “Holy Father” she said, “if only you were to say, “Yes” everyone else would be willing.” Looking into her eyes as though he were reading her very soul, the Pope said: My child, you will enter if it be God’s Will. “This little girl was Marie Francoise Therese Martin, who was born at Alencon in France on the second of January, 1873. Her mother died when she was five years old and she was left to the care of her saintly father, who moved to the town of Lisieux. From the earliest childhood the love of God burned in her soul. Through the intercession of our Blessed Lady, she was cured of an illness the doctors could not understand when she was ten years old. When she made her First Communion, she begged our blessed Savior to turn all the consolations of the world into bitterness for her.

She wanted to become a Carmelite nun, but the mother superior thought she was too young and wanted her to wait until she was twenty-one years old. But Therese would not be out off. She prayed hard and at last was admitted to convent though she was but fifteen years of age.

As a Carmelite nun, Sister Therese led a life of the greatest penance and mortification. She had a great devotion to priests and missionaries and offered up all of her prayers and sufferings for them.

“Unless ye become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven.” Sister Therese meditated constantly on these words of our blessed Savior and she strove to advance in humility and obedience and simplicity and all the other virtues of childhood. She chose to go to our Savior by means of what she called “the Little Way.” She looked forward to the time when our Savior would take her to Himself and she promised that she would take her to Himself and she promised that she would spend her time in heaven doing good on earth and that when she died a shower of roses would fall to earth.

Her health was never good and yet she did not spare herself. She died on the thirtieth of September, 1897, when she was but twenty-four years of age. She could say in all truth that she had never denied our blessed Savior anything.

After her death her promise was fulfilled. A shower of roses fell to the earth in the form of favors, both spiritual and temporal, that were granted to those who asked for them in her name. Soon, the world over, people were honoring her and begging her intercession. In the seventeenth of May, 1825, St. Therese of the Child Jesus was canonized by Pope Pius XI.