ORDAINING AN ANNUAL COLLECTION IN FAVOR OF THE HOLY LAND

MARCH 24th, 1882.

PASTORAL LETTER

OF THE

BISHOPS OF THE ECCLESIASTIOAL PROVINCE

OF QUEBEC

We, by the Grâce of God, and of the Apostolic See, Archbishop and Bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of Québec,

To the Clergy Secular and Regular, and to ail the Fait kf ni of the Ecclesiastical Province of Québec, Greeting and Bénédiction in Onr Lord,

Fréquent ly, Our Dearly Beloved Brethren, in the sermons which you hear and the pious books which you read, there is question of the city of Jérusalem and of the other holy places, which Our Divine Saviour has made illustrious and holy by His présence.

Bethlehem recalls to us that immense charity which induced the Son of God to put on our mortal and passible flesh, and to be tempted in ail things like as we are, without sin ; tentatum pei omnia pro similitudine ah.sque peccato (Heb. IV. 15.).

Nazareth shows Him to us living in poverty, obe-

dience to Mary and to Joseph, and the most perfect conformity to the commands of His Heavenly Father ; manifesting more and more, each day, to the world those infinité treasures of wisdom and of grâce with which His Divine Heart overflowed.

On the banks of the Jordan the Divine Redeemer mixes Himself in the erowd of sinners, and goes and receives the baptism of penance, weak image of that sacrament of Baptism which He lias instituted for the régénération of our soûls.

The whole of Judea heard His preaching, beheld with admiration and awe those prodigies which made the witnesses thereof exclaim : A greit prophet is risen up among us : and God hath visited his people : propheta magnus surrexit in nobis et quia Deus visitavii plebem suam (Luke, VII. IB.j.

Hère is the Thabor where He was pleased to give to His disciples an idea and the foretaste of those unspeakable delights with which He wishes His elect to be filled eternally.

In the holy city of Jérusalem, and its environs, there are to-day many sanctuaries which recall some act of His life, or some circumstance of His passion.

Behold the Upper-room wherein Jésus having loved His own (John XIII. 1) vouchsafed, on the eve of His death, to give them a suprême and permanent pledge of His love, by instituting the divine Eucharist.

Hère is the Garden of Olives where His divine and infinitely pure Heart, bruised for our iniquities (Isaiah, LUI. 5.), made His eyes shed floods of bitter tears, and covered His whole body with a bloody sweat, to impress upon us ail that is horrible in sin.

Elsewhere is the palace of that iniquitous judge who, while proclaiming the innocence of the accused one condemns Him to a cruel flagellation, and to an ignominious death

The pions pilgrim who repairs to Jérusalem, makes it a duty to go over the dolorous way which leals from the Judgment-hall to Calvary. He foliows and counts the steps of the new Isaac who bears upon His bloodstained shoulders the wood of the sacrifice ; he stops to kneel at the places where the Divine Redeemer sinks beneath the weight of the cross ; he weeps, with Jésus and Mary, at the spot where the son and the mother meet. Who can tell the émotions with which the Christian is filled, who kueels at the very spot where was consummated the gréâtes t, the most holy, the most efficacious, the most divine of ail sacrifices ?

For ail other men the tomb is the suprême degree of humiliation, on which forgetfnlness soon im presses the seal of a kind of annihilation. But it was written that the root of Jesse shall stand for an ensign of peoples, hi>n the Gentils shall beseech, and his sepidchre shall be glorious ; radlx Jesse, qui stat in signurn populorntri, ipsnm gent/s deprecabuntur, et eril sepalcrum ejus gloriosum (Isaiah, XI. 10.). In effect, for more than eighteen centuries the Holy Sepulchre, whence Jesus-Christ, the conqueror of death, rose with glory on the third day, is the object of ail Christian nations' vénération.

After forty days spent upon earth in instructing His disciples, Onr Lord assembles them or Monnt Olivet, gives them His last instructions, sends them to preach the gospel throughout the world, and, in their présence, He ascends into heaven, imparting to them a last and suprême bénédiction which shall snbsist until the consummation of ag<

Such are, O. D. B. B., the chief vénérable sanctuaries of the Holy Land, which the piety of the faithful has always held it as an honor to préserve and to restore each time that an impious hand has dared to destroy them. In the middle âges the whole of Christendom, seized with holy enthusiasm excited by faith, repaired to Jérusalem to deliver the Holy City, for a long time fa lien under the joke of the most deadly enemies of Christ. Unhappily the ambition, the jealousies of Christian princes, the divisions amono; them, the cooling ot chanty, soon caused it to fa 1 1 again in the hands of Mahometans who still possess it.

In the most calamitous times, and amid the most cruel persécutions, there were always to be found in Jérusalem devoted soûls, that exposed themselves to numberless dangers and insults, and sometimes to death, to watch for the préservation of those sanctuaries which recall so many pious memories. Always they had to appeai to the charity of the nations ot the West, in order to stand at the post of honor, and exercise hospitality towards the numerous pilgrims whom dévotion unceasingly draws to Jérusalem. The humble sons of îSt. Francis of A^sisium for the last five centuries are th* re keeping sentry around the Holy Sepulchre, receiving with one hand the alms of christendom, and with the other using them to préserve the sanctuaries, and to repair the ravages made thereto by time, or by the malice of the enemies of the Christian name.

The Sovereign Pontiffs hâve always made it a duty to aid and to favor thèse pious offerings, and, on the olst July 1779, Pope Pius VI, renewing the Bulls of his predecessors, instituted an annual collection the proceeds ot which were to be employed in relieving the religious wants of the Holy Land.

In remembrance of the passion and of the death of Our Lord Jésus Christ, he ordained that this collection would be taken up on Good Friday, that the faithful might hâve the occasion to show, by the ofTering of a mite, their love and their gratitude to Him who has shed ail His blood for our rédemption, Who will not like, on that great day, to contribute somethirfg t< wards thèse vénérable sanctuaries ?

Such is, O. D. B. B., the good work which we, today, recommend to you, at the spécial invitation made to us by the Holy See in a letter of His Eminence Cardinal Simeoni, dated 17th November 1881.

Wherefore, having invoked the holy naine of God, We rule and ordain as follows :

lst. Each year, on Good Friday, during the morning service, a collection shall be taken up for the Holy Land in the churches of this province. The proceeds thereof shall be sent, as soon as possible, to the secretary of the diocèse, to be remitted to whom it concerna ;

2nd. This collection shall be announced thia year on Palm Sunday, by the reading of ihe présent Pastoral Letter, and, on the following years aeconling to the herein-joined formula.

Given under our signatures, the seal of the Àrchdiocese, and the counter-signature of the assistant-secretary of the Archdiocese, on the twenty-fourth of March, one thousand eight hundred and eighty two.

^ E.-A., ARCH. OF QUEBJC,

^ L.-F., BISH. OF THREE RIVERS, by C.-O.

Caron, Prst., V. G., Administkatok,