Transcript:
This chair is for your reputation, especially the pastor of this parish. And of course, in the first place, I sent my Theo rather, of his diocese, whom I met today. It leads your beautiful city and its terraces of children. It is for me, for the first time, that I am in this part of the world, but I will never forget this experience.
It is really for me, today, the Holy Mass was very moving. We tried, in this Holy Mass, to give a greater honor to our Lord. And so we honored Him, to Him, not to us, but to us, oh Lord, but to us, to thy name is glory. And so we tried to do this in this beautiful Mass this evening. It was only a very inspiring morning to see so these young people, children, young people, seminarians, priests, so you are here, almost all young people. This is the future of the church. This is springtime. And so it is a hope. In the midst of darkness and confusion and hope, there are lights. And these are lights, and this light is here, community, this parish presented to us.
So I would like to share some reflections on the line of the Blessed culture of Austria. In the life of Blessed Karl of Austria, we can see how Divine Providence has prepared and guided this modern saint. Blessed Carl could be truly named an apostolic King, an emperor of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. A religious sister once made a prophetic affirmation about little Carl. She told the priest to whom Carl made his first confession the following words, his religious system. She said, one has to pray much for him, because he will become, one day, Emperor, and he will have much to suffer. He will become a special target of the attacks on Earth.
In the year of his first Holy Confession, Karl received the scaffold of Our Lady from Mount Karma. And during the ceremony, the priest said to little Karl, Wear this immaculately, purely until you return it in the hour of your death to heaven. We can say that Emperor Carl was an emperor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. All his life, he observed the devotions of the first Friday of the Sacred Heart and the Holy Hour which preceded this Friday.
One day before his withdrawal with his future wife, Zita, on the 13th of June 1911, Karl gave her the betrothal ring with these words, Now they must have each other to go to heaven. In the same year, 1911, Zita was received in a private audience by Pope Saint Pius X, even though Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was ahead of the throne, was alive. And nobody thought he would soon die. The Holy Pontiff said prophetically to Zita, Now you are marrying the head of the throne.
Karl had engraved into the wedding rings these words, “Sub Tuum Praesidium,” from the “Sub Tuum Praesidium,” so that they were telling, “we fly for thy protection, O Holy Mother of God.”
October 2, 1918, the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels, was a special day in the life of Blessed Karl and of his family and his people. On this day, the Emperor recited the text of the consecration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He recited the text firmly and fervently, putting his soul into each of the words. On this day, his firstborn son, Otto, received his first Holy Communion. The entire staff of the court made a spiritual retreat before it, and all received Holy Communion. On that day, the Holy Emperor consecrated his family and the entire empire and all its people to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He had a plan to declare the Feast of the Sacred Heart as a state holiday.
On each first Friday of the month, which is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Blessed Karl renewed this solemn consecration of the family to the Sacred Heart. Blessed Karl united the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus with his love for the Holy Eucharist. These two realities were the dominant dimensions in his life of faith and devotion. Therefore, he never passed a church without greeting Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament. This he taught to his children, that they should make a sign of the cross when passing a church. A sister of those times called Blessed Karl “the Eucharistic Emperor.”
On his way to the Swiss exile, he took his book, “Most Sacred Heart, I trust in thee.” In the time of his exile, Blessed Karl had arranged that on the first Fridays of the month, which are dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, there would be celebrated in his private chapel a missa cantata. And the two Archdukes, his sons, Otto and Robert, served Mass.
The emperor had always at his desk and at his bedside an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. People said, “When Emperor Charles was kneeling in prayer, they worship here, he is really an angel.” Due to his exile in Switzerland, he wrote to Pope Benedict XV, “I do not lose courage and have particularly the confidence that the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus will not permit that the country which is consecrated to him will collapse.”
In several letters to his wife, Zita, he made invitations to place unlimited trust in the heart of the Lord. In conversations with people who suffered distress, he often spoke with great conviction these words, “The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus will help you.” Blessed Karl had never lost his trust in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, even though his life and the life of a saint do not have the hallmarks of success, but of the cross.
He prayed the daily Holy Rosary, the spiritual daily, namely, the Litany of the Sacred Heart, the Litany of Loreto and Saint Joseph, and today, Psalm 90, “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High.”
During his last illness, he often invoked the Heart of Jesus, and he entrusted his children, each individually by name, to the love of the Divine Heart. Beneath the headrest on the dying Emperor was an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and he kissed it several times. The day before his death, he said, “How good it is that there is trust in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, otherwise one could not bear all this.” One of his last words to his wife was, “In the Heart of Jesus, we will see each other again.” The very last word of Blessed Carl, the Emperor of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, was “Jesus.”
Blessed Carl dedicated all his life, not only for the temporal welfare of his people, but ultimately for the aim of the exaltation of Jesus Christ as the only King of each human heart and as the only true King of each human society as well. If Jesus’ Divine Heart does not reign in the lives of Christians and in the public, in social life, there will not be a lasting peace.
Blessed Karl, in his titles, King of Hungary, could be named as the worthy successor of the first saint, King of Hungary, Saint Stephen. The life of Blessed Karl did all honor to his title, “Apostolic King,” and to his royal Crown, called the Holy Crown. The cross on the top of the Royal Hungarian Crown is in an inclined position. This symbolizes that its bearer should incline himself before the cross, the cross of Christ. Such a deep spiritual symbolism of his royal crown, Blessed Emperor Karl realized in his life, for his deepest striving consisted in honoring Christ the King and in adoring and loving the Divine Royal Heart of Jesus, and in helping his subjects as well venerate the Divine Heart.
“No one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus.” “Let therefore no person pose upon another outside of the one that has been posed by the hand of God in and which is Christ Jesus, for the peoples as for individuals, for modern societies and for the ancient societies, for the republics, as for the monarchies, there has been no name under heaven given to man in which they can be saved, if it is not the name of Jesus Christ.”
Blessed Emperor Karl lived his life only upon the foundation which is Jesus Christ and showed us a simple and true way. And it is an ardent love for the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Let us ask for the grace through the intercession of Blessed Karl that we may be as well lovers and apostles of the Most Sacred Heart of our Divine Redeemer, so that ever more souls may be attracted to his salvific love and reach eternal salvation.
Blessed Emperor Karl, Apostolic King, and Apostle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pray for us.