Page:Pastoral Letter Promulgating the Jubilee - Spalding.djvu/13



Venerable Brethren of the Clergy:

the first Pastoral Letters, which duty requires Us to address to you, it is Our happy privilege to be the bearer of good tidings of great joy. Our venerated and beloved Chief Pastor, Pius IX., has again opened the treasury of the Church to all the faithful of Christendom, and proclaimed a solemn Jubilee of thanksgiving and supplication.

This is the fifth Jubilee which he has announced, during his eventful Pontificate of nineteen years. The first was one of joy, on the occasion of his auspicious election to fill the Chair of Peter, in 1846; the second was in 1850, the regular period for the Jubilee, and it was one partly of joy for his return from exile at Gaeta, and partly of sorrow for the terrible ravages made by a bloody and uncalled for revolution, which had driven him from his See; the third—in 1854—was one of united supplication, to implore the light of heaven to guide him in the momentous question of authoritatively defining the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception; the fourth—in 1858—was inspired by the holy joy which overflowed his paternal heart, after he had witnessed the devoted loyalty of his people during a triumphant