Sermon X. The Mantle of the Good Shepherd

" Et levavit pallium Eliae." And he took up the mantle of Elias." IV Kinys, ii, 13.

Such was the pledge of power bequeathed by the Prophet to his chief disciple and successor upon earth. He had asked of his master the gift of a his double spirit" that is, a twofold portion of the spirit of prophecy and of power which had rested on Elias; and Elias answered, " Thou hast asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, thou shalt have what thou hast asked... And as they went on walking and talking together, behold, a fiery chariot and fiery horses parted them both asunder: and Elias went up by a whirlwind into Heaven. And Eliseus saw him, and cried: My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the driver thereof! And he saw him no more... And he took up the mantle of Elias that fell from him: and going back he stood bv the bank of the Jordan. And he struck the waters with the mantle of Elias that fell from him, and the waters were not divided. And he said: Where is now the God of Elias? And he struck the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, and Elisens passed over." There is a divine analogy in this mysterious action by which the chief of the Prophets invested his successor with his own authority, and endowed him with a double portion of his own spirit. It was an act of power, like His who said, " Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build mv Church:" " I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not:" " Feed my sheep." Eliseus in the mantle of Elias was head over all the sons of the Prophets; and Peter in his Master s stead was chief of all the Apostles and dis ciples of Jesus. In the ancient Latin version the words run, " Et sustulit meloten Elia?." And he took up the garment of sheepskin, the shepherd s garb of Elias, as Peter succeeded to the office of the Good Shepherd and to the oversight of the whole Flock on earth.

And such in its proportion is the act we celebrate to-day. The Successor of Peter, and the Vicar of the Good Shepherd, bestows the Pallium or token of spiritual power upon a chief pastor of the Church of God. It is perhaps the first time that most who are here have been witnesses of the authoritative delivery of the pall; and some, perhaps, may not know its full and sacred import. It may be well, therefore, briefly to trace out its meaning and intention.

When the great solemnities of Christmas and Epiphany, with all their splendour and beauty, are ended, there comes a Feast dear especially to Rome. On the twenty-first of January is the martyrdom of St. Agnes, the fair-haired child of fourteen years, the type of all that is most graceful, noble, and heroic, both in the order of nature and of grace a lady of patrician blood and a martyr of Jesus Christ. And her Festival has a twofold solemnity in the two beautiful churches sacred to her name: one in the city, over the prisons, where she was miraculously guarded by supernatural power; one without the walls, where she received her crown. In the early morning of her Festival may be seen a stream of people ascending by the streets of the Four Fountains, and then filling the way to the Porta Pia. The old road which leads towards Tibur is alive with a multitude moving onwards to the Church of St. Agnes. Romans, and sojourners in Rome of every nation under Heaven, ecclesiastics of every degree, princes of the Church, prelates from every land, religious of every order, priests of every rite, seminaries and colleges in their various habits, and from every people, walking two and two (among which the English College never fails its place), with the Faithful of all states and conditions, all drawn onward by one attraction to the subterranean shrine of St. Agnes. St. Agnes Day is mostly bright and sunny. It falls at the time when January softens off towards the first harbingers of spring. The air is clear, and crisp, and cold, but with a gentle warmth of sunlight; and though there is snow upon the mountains beyond the Sabine Hills, yet the sprays in the gardens begin to redden with the return of life. They who know the beauty of this Festival will not be weary of these few words of reminiscence of a day so sweet to memory. They will recal the wonderful antique beauty of the subterranean church, with its tribune resting on columns of marble surrounding its three sides, from which the multitude kneeling below before the high altar seem like a vision of the catacombs. In the midst of the Holy Mass an unwonted offering, full of natural and symbolical beauty, is introduced, interweaving itself with the memory of the spotless Saint, and of the unblemished Church of God, and of the Lamb which taketh away the sins of the world. Two spotless lambs are brought before the altar, and dedicated to a sacred use; that is, to yield of their wool the palliums of Patriarchs, Primates, and Archbishops consecrated in the year. Perhaps no better example could be found of the minute and vigilant care with which the Catholic Church provides for the perpetuity of its usages. The duty of overseeing the making and custody of the palls belongs to the apostolic subdeacons, who take care that they shall be made of pure white wool, in the following way. The nuns of the Monastery of St. Agnes offer every year two white lambs upon the altar of that church, upon the feast of their Saint, while the Agnus Dei is being sung in the Solemn Mass. They are then taken by two canons of St. John Lateran, and by them delivered to the apostolic subdeacons, who send them to pasture till the time for shearing. When shorn, the wool is wrought up into palls, which are woven three fingers wide, and then united in a circle to go round the neck, having also a short piece hanging on the breast and at the back; they have four crosses of black thread worked into them. When made, the palls are carried by the apostolic subdeacons to St. Peter s, and are placed by the canons upon the tomb of the Apostle under the high altar, on the eve of the feast, and are left there through the night. They are blessed by the Sovereign Pontiff, and then restored to the custody of the apostolic subdeacons. Such is the elaborate care bestowed upon the making of the pallium, that the canons of the two chief churches of the Lateran and the Vatican, and the Successor of St. Peter, are all required to concur in it.

Next, what is the import of this vestment? It is granted by the Sovereign Pontiff to Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops; and all such are bound, within three months of their consecration, to supplicate the pall from the Holy See under pain of deprivation. Until they have received the pall, they can exercise no act of greater jurisdiction, nor even assume the title of Archbishop. They cannot convene synods, or visit their province, or consecrate bishops. When received, they can only wear the pall in the church, and on certain festivals, and in certain acts. They cannot transfer their pall to any other, nor transmit it to a successor: each one must supplicate and obtain his own pall. It becomes so a part of himself, that if the Archbishop die before the pall designed for him is delivered to him, it is to be burned, and the ashes poured into the sacrarium. If he be translated to another archbishopric, he must supplicate for a new pall. When he dies, it is buried with him: if he has received two, one is buried around his neck, and the other under his head. Now, as the Church does no thing in vain, what is the significance of this minute and peremptory usage? We may best learn it from the words used in the act of benediction. The Sovereign Pontiff, after the vespers on the vigil of St. Peter and St. Paul, blesses them with holy water and incense in these words: " O God, the Eternal Pastor of souls, who hast called them by the name of sheep, and by Jesus Christ thy Son hast committed them to be ruled by blessed Peter the Apostle and his successors, the type of the Good Shepherd, and hast ordained that by the signs of sacred vestments the pastoral care should be signified, pour out by our ministry upon these palls, taken from the altar of thy blessed Apos tles, the abundant grace of thy blessing and sanctification."; He then declares the pall to signify "the ful ness of the Pastoral office" " pastoralis officii plenitudinem;" and " the sheep laid upon the shoulders;" " the cross;" " the light and sweet yoke upon the neck;" and finally, " the symbol of unity, the sign of perfect communion with the Apostolic See, and bond of charity" " symbolum unitatis, et cum Apostolica Sede communionis perfects tessera," " caritatis vinculum:" that in the day of the coming revelation of the great God and Chief Pastor Jesus Christ, together with the sheep committed to Him, he who shall bear it may obtain the stole of immortality and glory. Such, then, is the meaning and import of the pallium. It is a gift from St. Peter, " de corpora Beati Petri¹ sumptum," taken from his very person. It contains and conveys a participation in the fulness of the Pastoral office. It is a personal privilege, investing the wearer with an incommunicable power, which attaches solely to himself. It signifies also the unity of the Church and the charity of Rome. Let us draw out these things somewhat more in order.

It is, in a word, a pledge of participation in the Pastoral office and vesture which Jesus conferred in ful ness on Peter, and from Peter is distributed in measure to the chief pastors of the Church. For to Peter alone was given the plenitude of jurisdiction over the whole Flock of God. He alone had right of immediate di rection over all; all others received their portion and participation from him. " The other apostles," as St. Cyprian says, " were what Peter was, endowed with an equal honour and power;" and yet to Peter was given a prerogative which no other received. All alike were built into the foundation with him, but he alone was still the Rock on which the foundation rested. All received the power of the keys, but he had them first and alone. All were ordained to the Priesthood of Sacrifice, and commissioned to make disciples of all nations, but to Peter were given those great and sole prerogatives by which all these are ordered and controlled. First, he was made the special support of the faith of his brethren. " Satan hath desired to have you" was spoken to all; but, "I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not; and when thou art strengthened confirm thy brethren," was spoken to Peter alone. Next, to him alone was committed the whole flock, sheep and lambs. " Feed my sheep" was spoken to no other, nor can any other exercise authority over the Flock of God except with and through Peter. His jurisdiction extends over all the world. The plenitude of the pastoral office descended from Jesus to His vicar, and resides in him alone. And by virtue of these prerogatives, Peter became the type and the fountain of unity: the type, as a symbol to express it as a law; the fountain, because the unity which flows from one binds all in one by a divine relation of dependence and inherence. Jesus associated Peter to Himself in the fulness of His office and solicitude; but others only to a part and to a share. To all He gave the office of the apostleship; but to Peter the power to regulate its exercise. The power of Order is one thing the power of jurisdiction is another. The power to preach, to baptize, to ab solve, resides habitually in every one who is validly ordained; the right to use that power comes from another source. Every Priest possesses the power of Order, but until he is put in charge with a particular flock, he possesses no jurisdiction over souls. He has the power of the Priesthood, but none on whom to exercise it, until a flock is committed to him. Ordination invests his person with the sacerdotal character, but this gives no authority over the souls of men. This authority can descend only from the Vicar of Jesus Christ, to whom the whole flock was alone com mitted. And as with the priest, so with the bishop. Though validly consecrated, he has no jurisdiction over a diocese until he receives it direct from the successor of St. Peter, who alone can assign a portion of the flock to his episcopal care. And as with the bishop, so with the archbishop, to whom is committed the care, not only of the flock, but also of the pastors. Until invested with the pall from the tomb or person of St. Peter, he can take no acts of jurisdiction. By his consecration he is a bishop only, and a pastor of the Faithful. By his investiture with the pallium he becomes a pastor of pastors, and has jurisdiction over the bishops of his province. And this is expressed by the fact, that until invested with the pallium he can do no archiepiscopal acts, as they are called, of the greater jurisdiction that is, of authority over the bishops and pastors of the flock nor can he even take the name of Archbishop, because this authority and name do not come by consecration to the episcopate, but by the direct and sole authority and grant of the successor of St. Peter and Vicar of Christ.

And from this simple and beautiful principle of the divine economy arises the Hierarchy of the Church, in its complexity and symmetrical perfection. The Apostles were organised around Peter into a perfect unity of living energy and order. The Episcopate is organised in like manner around the successor of Peter. On him alone rests the care of all the Churches. He is, as St. Avitus says, not so much a single bishop as the Episcopate itself. From him descend the Patriarchal powers. Wheresoever the shadow of Peter fell or his foot had trod, a virtue remained. Antioch and Alexandria for his sake be came patriarchal thrones, and, with Rome, represent to the Church the authority of Peter: as St. Gregory calls them, " one See in three places."² Then arose Jerusalem, then Constantinople. In another order, and from the earliest day, Primates and Metropolitans bound together the Episcopate in its provinces, as stars in constellations make up the unity of the firmament. Then Archbishops, in lesser spheres of jurisdiction, completed the gradations of the Hierarchy, from the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the fountain of all these derived and local jurisdictions over the pastors of the Church, to the humblest Bishop of a missionary see. This order of relation in the Hierarchy is of ecclesiastical creation, and is constituted by the distribution of jurisdiction delegated to each in its measure and proportion by the successor of St. Peter, who alone possesses the universal oversight of the whole Church on earth; or, in the words of the pontifical benediction already cited, " For the Church which is the chief of all so entrusts to the other Churches a concession of its office, and they are called to a share, not to the fulness of its power." The Apostolate was equal in all except in the sole supremacy of jurisdiction. This invested St. Peter with a Primacy which bound all in unity and harmony. The Episcopate likewise is the same in all, from the episcopate of the Bishop of Rome to the episcopate of the lowest bishop of the Church; but the gradations and distributions and pro portions of jurisdiction create an order of relation and interdependence among the pastors of the Church, by which all are compacted together in the unity of the Catholic Hierarchy. Of this hierarchical order and jurisdiction the pallium is the symbol.

Ipsa namque Ecclesia, quae prima est, ita reliquis ecclesiis vices suas credit largiendas, ut in partem sint vocatse solicitudinis, non in plenitudinem potestatis." Ferraris J3ibl. t Can., in voc. Archiep. quoad Pallium, p. 220,

It is, therefore, as the words of the benediction express it, the u vinculum caritatis," the sign and pledge of Catholic unity. It is this dependence upon One which holds the universal Church together. If we would see the power of the Pallium to maintain the order and the unity of the Church below, contrast Canterbury with the Pallium, with Canter bury without it. In those days when Lan franc went to Rome to receive it from the hands of the Vicar of our Lord, and St. Anselm walked barefoot to take it from the altar, and then gave it to be kissed by all who stood by, in reverence to St. Peter and to his successors in those days England was of one heart and of " one life," because of one Faith, in the unity of the universal Church of God. I will not stay to draw out the havoc of internal division and unbelief which has flowed in these three hundred years since the heresy and the schism which spoiled the See of Canterbury of the Pallium, and, with it, of the influx of the light and the jurisdiction of the Apostolic See; nor to contrast the titled and endowed Hierarchy of the Anglican Establishment feeble, vacillating, subservient to the world, and disunited against itself with the majestic unity and firmness of the Episcopate of France. I do not, in this contrast, imply, what is not the fact, that a Priesthood and Episcopate really survive in the

Anglican Establishment. The revolt which forfeited the bond of unity and the vestment of pastoral jurisdiction over souls, dissolved the whole order of the Catholic Hierarchy. For the Pallium is the protest and witness against the Erastianism of national pride. It is the evidence of a Sovereignty not of man or by man, which transcends all civil powers, and claims obedience from them all. They who bear it are the foremost in the conflict; witness at this moment Turin, and Milan, and Cagliari, and many more beside.

Finally, it is by the influence of its supreme jurisdiction that the Holy See is present, and makes itself felt as a principle of order and of unity, throughout the whole Church on Earth; and every Patriarch, Primate, Metropolitan, and Archbishop becomes the witness and the evidence of its presence and power. Therefore the Pallium is said to be " perfectae cum Apostolica Sede unionis tessera," the pledge of perfect union with the Apostolic See. And in this we see the perfect fulfilment of St. Ambrose s words, " Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia"³ " where Peter is, the Church is;" and of St. Leo s, " that Peter may rule over the flock, as his own sheep, over which Christ rules in chief;"* and again, " as that which Peter believed in Christ is perpetual, so that which Christ instituted in Peter may never cease."f

The act, then, of to-day is no mere ceremonial of an ancient usage, but a living and energetic reality in the government and action of the Church. The Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, bearing himself the Pall of St. Augustine, in the name of the Vicar of Christ, invests the Archbishop of a distant Church with this symbol of the greater jurisdiction. It makes him to be a Pastor of pastors, with a power of rule even within the Episcopate.

It is not for me, Most Reverend Father, to remind you of the admonitions of that investiture. The words f of the Sovereign Pontiff have been, by anticipation, spoken over you: " Quicunque Te largiente ea gestaverit intelligat se ovium Tuarum pastorem, atque in opere exhibeat quod signatur in nomine." " Who soever, by Thy grace, shall bear this pall, let him know himself to be a shepherd of Thy sheep, and in works show himself what is expressed in the name." It is to you the symbol of unity, of authority, of power, of⁴⁵ the love of souls, of generosity for Christ s sake. It admonishes you to be " the imitator of the good and great Shepherd, who laid the lost sheep upon His shoulders, and brought it back to the flock, for which He laid down His life." It bids you, "after His example, to be watchful in the custody of the Flock, to be vigilant and circumspect, lest any fall into the jaws of the wolf; to be strict in discipline, seeking out that which is lost, bringing back that which is astray, binding up that which is wounded, and guarding that which is sound." It admonishes you to be " crucified to the world," and to hasten in the way of God s commandments, before all others, as a light and example of holy obedience. Such are not my words, but the words of the Vicar of Jesus Christ standing over the tomb of the Apostle, and praying, " ut fiat in te duplex spiritus," that a double portion of the apostolic spirit may rest upon you: of which this Pall shall be your pledge.

It will be with you in life, in every hour of need. Virtue will go out from it for every conflict. And conflict will be round about it, wheresoever you may o, for where the shadow of Rome falls, the world rises against it. The will of the flesh and the will of man are unchangeably opposed to the will of the Vicar of Jesus Christ; and you bear the token of the vesture that was dyed in blood: the prophecy of suffering and the gage of victory.

It will be with you also in death,⁶ laid with you in the grave, when the toils and pains of life are over, and you shall taste of the first rest which henceforth remains to you the first rest, and also the last in the day when the Good Shepherd of the sheep shall appear, and this vesture shall be exchanged for the stole of immortality, before the throne of His glory.

Footnotes

1. Ferraris BibL Can., in voc. Pallium. ↩

2. " Tribus locis una sedes." S. Greg. M., torn. II, p. 888-9. ↩

3. Sti. Anibroaii Opera, torn, i, p. 879. ↩

4. " Oranes tamen proprie regat Petrus, quos principaliter regit Christus." S. Leon., Serm. iii. In ami. die Assump. ↩

5. Sicut permanet quod in Christo Petrus credidit, ita permanet quod in Petro Christus instituit." S. Leon., Serm. ii. In. die Assump. ↩

6. We little thought then how soon this would be realized. In less than a year and a-half the Pastor and the Pallium were laid in the grave, with the love and lamentations of his flock, to whom even his short episcopate had greatly endeared him. ↩