Pope Pius I

Saint Pius I, born in the State of Venice, succeeded Saint Hygin in the year 142 as the ninth successor to St. Peter. During the reign of the emperor Antoninus the Pious, today's saint profited by the comparative peace enjoyed by the Church. He took this period to strengthen the foundations of the mysterious tower raised by the divine Shepherd to the honor of the Lord God. Throughout his pontificate he took great care to make the religion of Christ flourish, and published many beautiful ordinances for the utility of the universal Church. In his decrees he was severe towards blasphemers and with the clergy who showed negligence for the divine Mysteries of the altar. He made a decree, the 'Corpus juris, or 'body of law', concerning those who should carelessly let any portion of the Precious Blood of our Lord, fall upon the ground. These prescriptions are such as to evince the profound reverence shown towards the Mystery of the Altar. The penance enjoined is to be of 'forty days if the Precious Blood have fallen to the ground; and wheresoever it fell, it must, if possible, be taken up with the lips, the dust must be burned, and the ashes would be thrown into a consecrated place.' (Think this should happen these days, when our Lord is daily abused through 'communion in the hand' and sharing the cup? I'm sure Particles are dropped onto the carpet, and then swept up into a hoover, to be later emptied into a trash container)

Justin the Philosopher, commenting on this decree by Pius, states: "We receive not as common bread, nor as common drink, the food which we call the Eucharist; but just as Jesus Christ our Saviour, being made flesh by the word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so have we been taught that the food made Eucharist by the prayer formed of His own word, is both the Flesh and the Blood of this Jesus Who is made flesh." This doctrine, and the measures it so fully justifies, found, towards the close of the same century, other authentic witnesses who, in their turn, would almost seem to be quoting from the prescriptions attributed to Pius. Tertullian, says: We are in the greatest distress, if the least drop from our chalice, or the least crumb of our Bread fall to the ground" And, Origen, appealing to the newly initiated to bear witness to "the care and veneration with which the sacred Gifts were surrounded, for fear the smallest particle should fall; which, if it happened through negligence, would be considered a crime." Continuing on with our blessed Abbot Gueranger makes an observation: 'And yet in our days heresy, as destitute of knowledge as of Faith, pretends that the Church has departed from her ancient traditions by paying exaggerated homage to the divine Sacrament.' (And this last bit was written almost a hundred years ago! Think what the Abbot would say now.)

Saint Pius also ordained that Easter be celebrated on a Sunday throughout the entire Church; in this way the custom which the Apostles had already observed became an inviolable law of the Church.

His pontificate was marked by the efforts of various heretics in Rome, among them the Gnostics Valentinian, Cerdon, and Marcion, to sow their errors in the Church's center. The last-named, when excluded from communion by Saint Pius, founded the heretical group which bears his name. Saint Justin and other Catholic teachers assisted the Pontiff in defending Christian doctrine and preserving it from corruption. After having governed the Church for fifteen years Saint Pius I obtained the crown of Martyrdom by the sword, in the year of Our Lord 150.


Obtain for us, O Pius, the grace to return to the spirit of our fathers; not, indeed, with regard to their Faith, for that we have kept inviolate, but as to the veneration and love with which that Faith inspired them for the Chalice of Inebriation, that richest treasure on earth. May the Pasch of the Lamb unite, as thou didst desire, in one uniform celebration, all who have the honor to bear the name of Christian!