3-5 September 2026
September 3 is the traditional feast of Pope St Pius X, whose biographer tells us that when he travelled to Rome for the conclave that followed the death of Leo XIII, it did not even occur to him that he might not come back to his patriarchal see of Venice. When one of the cardinals remarked to him somewhat snobbishly that he could not become pope because he did not speak French, he is said to have replied: ‘Thank God then! I will not be pope!’
God had other plans, however, but it would take Giuseppe Sarto some time to see it and accept it. As the two favoured cardinals were in a deadlock and there was no way of electing one of them, the cardinal electors started looking in another direction. The Patriarch of Venice, while of very humble extraction, was greatly loved and universally revered, not just as a holy man, but as a very competent one, who succeeded in whatever he undertook and whose only thought as pope would be for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
As he heard the votes coming out increasingly in his favour, Cardinal Sarto was alarmed, and to such an extent that he begged the other cardinals, with tears, to simply forget him. Not surprisingly, this only increased their esteem for him. They knew they were dealing with a saint, and they knew a saint is what the Church needed. But Sarto was adamant: he could not accept a position for which he considered himself to be utterly incompetent.
And so, the dean of the sacred college sent the secretary of the conclave, a young and up to then rather unknown prelate by the name of Mgr Raphael Merry del Val, to ask Cardinal Sarto if he would accept. Mgr Merry del Val found him in prayer in the Pauline Chapel, in the dark, in tears. He approached him with the message that had been entrusted to him. When Sarto reaffirmed his intention to refuse, and asked that he be forgotten, the secretary was inspired to say words that no doubt secured his consent: ‘Have courage, Eminence. God will help you’.
‘God will help you’. What more can a man desire in a difficult situation? God will help you. What need is there for anything else, if God Himself is to stand with you? Cardinal Sarto must have meditated long upon this word, for the next morning, when the number of votes was reached to elect him, he gave his consent, famously saying: ‘I accept the pontificate as a cross’. A far cry from the Renaissance pope who said: ‘God has given us the pontificate. Let us enjoy it!’
This gives us all a profound lesson. Whatever burdens may be placed upon our shoulders, let us not refuse them, but rather, let us ask God to be with us, to help us. And if, in spite of God’s help, the cross is heavy – as it so often is in life – let us remember that such burdens allow us to unite our sufferings with the passion of Christ, thus giving them to be fecund for the salvation of many souls.
May St Pius X help us convert our souls to these divine truths, to not run away from pain and suffering, but rather to embrace them with all our might, knowing with absolute certitude that the path chosen by the Son of God has to be the best of all, the one that leads to the eternal kingdom. Per crucem ad lucem – Through the cross to eternal light.