"Our dearly beloved brother--and I am happy to be the first to call you thus--behold under what favorable auspices you enter this new Jerusalem, the tabernacle of the Lord, 'the Church of the living God, which is the pillar and ground of truth. But before delivering your heart to these emotions of joy, there is one severe lesson it should learn this day; and since I am destined to be the first to announce to you the words of the Gospel, I shall conceal from you nothing of the austerity it inculcates. 'You have understood all,' you say; but let me ask if you have understood the mystery of the cross. Ah! be careful, for it is the foundation of Christianity. I speak now not only of that blessed cross which you lovingly adore, because it places before your eyes Jesus crucified in expiation of your sins, but borrowing the emphatic language of an ancient apologist of our Faith, I shall say to you: 'This is no question of the cross that is sweet for you to adore, but of the cross to which you must soon submit.' _Ecce cruces jam non adorandæ, sed subeundæ._ Behold what you must understand if you are a Christian and what baptism must disclose to you!... Moreover, in vain would I endeavor to dissimulate the truth, by saying that your future may reveal no crosses; I see them in store for you. No doubt, we must venerate them afar off, but it is infinitely better to bend beneath their weight when laid upon us, and courageously carry them. I shall be mistaken, if the evangelic virtues are not increased and fortified in your soul by patience. And blessed be God for it! You have been introduced into Christianity through Mary and the Cross!... It is an admirable mode of introduction! And again I repeat, blessed be God for it! For I say to you, He has given you ears to hear and a heart to feel this language! Son of the Catholic Church you will share your Mother's destiny! Look at Rome, Rome where you have just been born into the Church; her heritage here below, is always to combat and always to triumph. Moreover, nothing astonishes her; and after eighteen centuries of combats and victories, it is here, in the centre of Catholic unity, at the foot of the Apostolic See, that focus whence daily emanate the most vivid and purest rays of Faith, piercing the shades of paganism, error and Judaism, that the Church has poured over your forehead the beneficent water of celestial regeneration. What do I say? It is Peter himself, the Moses of the new law, worthily represented by the first Vicar of his august Successor, who has struck for you the mysterious rock, the immovable stone. _Petra erat Christus_, whence gush forth those waters springing up unto eternal life.