Dr. Pohle and all modern theologians agree with him. For the decree explicitly states that the preservation is due to a singular grace and privilege; and what does the word 'privilege' mean here, but that only for it Mary would be like the rest of us? Yes; if merely created a daughter of Adam. But at that moment God, in the words of St. Augustine,' did what is to come '-' fecit quae futura sunt.' Consequently, at that self-same moment she was also created worthy to be His Mother. Then, as a result of the SINGULAR GRACE she received, and the effects it produced, is she certainly not a different person from what she would have been, if only a daughter of Eve and nothing more? But being truly sprung from fallen Adam, she must be preserved from contracting the effects of his fallen nature; otherwise her mode of Redemption would not be preservative but reparative. And, again, being also truly the future Mother of God, she must be created in grace in the actual economy that Christ is to be born of one absolutely sinless. 66 Therefore, the grace I claim for the Blessed Virgin was, according to the explanation of Dr. Pierse, 'so fitting as to be due in a loose sense, potuit, decuit, ergo fecit"; not due to nature as such, but to the prospective divine motherhood.' Now, this debitum she had was the plenitude of grace; and grace is by Jesus Christ.' That means, as we shall see in a future issue, with the Editor's kind permission, that Mary is the incarnation of Christ's merits, their flower and perfection. Thus she was free from all sin, since by her very creation she was de jure a Divine Queen. The corollary to all this is that, as the Blessed Virgin had not only the grace which Adam lost but much more ('originale donum jugiter augens "), and as he had the right to be corporally assumed, then, a fortiori, so had Mary. F. O'NEILL. 1 Romans vii, 25. 2 Const. Ineffabilis. CORRESPONDENCE THE THIRTEENTH CENTENARY OF ST. COLUMBAN PATRON OF BOBBIO (Pavia, Italy). THE celebration of the thirteenth centenary of St. Columban, Patron of the City and Diocese of Bobbio, will take place there on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, of September, 1923. The co-operation of all admirers of St. Columban has been invited; but to his compatriots in the land of his birth, and the scattered Fine Ghaedheal, in a special manner, we extend a cordial invitation. Even in this land of great names the thirteen centuries that separate us from his day have not obscured the figure of St. Columban. The admirers of his work are as innumerable to-day as they are universal; our scholars trace back to him that remarkable reawakening abroad of culture and religious life in the sixth and seventh centuries; and they bear willing testimony to the potent influence of the Columban foundations of Luxeuil, St. Gall, and Bobbio-all marked, in their culture as in their missionary apostolate, with the stamp of their founder's personality. Bobbio's scriptorium alone has enriched the greatest depositories of Italian culture-the Ambrosian of Milan, the Vatican, the libraries o Turin and Naples, not to mention the many volumes that found thei way to Vienna and the Escurial, to Paris and Germany. Speaking thei Irish origin in lettering and in ornament, these precious codices are re cognized by paleographists as the source of the calligraphic reform of th ninth century. So Columban's later home in our retired Appenine Valley became goal for pious pilgrims; his monastery a centre of religion, and th honoured and tranquil asylum of learning. Thither followed him man of his countrymen to carry on his work-Congall, Bobbio's fifth Abbo and the Bishop Cumian, whose Irish ashes Bobbio protects and honour with those of Athala and over twenty others of Columban's early disciple In o To his shrine came Francis of Assisi; later came your own Flemin Franciscan scholar and martyr, in company with MacCaghwell. own day we have twice welcomed another Irish Primate, Cardinal Logy whose name appears at the head of our Honorary Committee, and whose vigorous initiative we owe the splendid renovation of the ancie crypt by the Irish nation. Nor have the scattered sons of Ireland shown less devotion to t shrine of their prototype. Many an exile of Irish birth or origin | broken at Piacenza his long pilgrimage to Rome or Ireland, and pai reverent visit to the Irish tomb in this lovely valley of the Trebbia. came Cardinal Moran of Australia; so came, on a memorable occasion, his successor Dr. Kelly; so came Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York; and another we are proud to reckon among our Honorary Committee, the distinguished Rector of the Catholic University of Washington, to whose generosity we owe the admirable biography of our Saint by a gifted Irish authoress. Lastly it is our pride to recall the visit of another pilgrim, Mgr. Achille Ratti, who knelt at your compatriot's tomb when Prefect of the Ambrosian Library-heir of Bobbio's riches. Now, in the Chair of Peter and Gregory, he blesses our effort and sees in our celebrations, as he says in his Letter of January 31st, the dutiful homage of humanity' to the figure of the great monk, who even from out the halo of his heavenly glory shed such light in history that it still illumines the world.' Owing to the Great War it was impossible to hold the thirteenth centenary in its proper year, 1915. Further delay was caused by the necessary repairs and decoration of the Basilica of San Columbano. Now, however, at the initiative of our venerated Bishop, Most Rev. P. Calchi Novati, the celebration of the Thirteenth Centenary is to be carried out during the present year. Already special missions and a course of conferences and devout pilgrimages are being held, and on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of next September, a great religious and civil festival will be held at Bobbio, attended by many distinguished personages and illustrious prelates. Conveying to His Holiness the intentions of the people of Bobbio, our Bishop wrote: In celebrating here the memory and work of the great Saint, it is especially intended to single out for public gratitude the sacred island that gave him birth, and to bind still closer the relations which existed in the Middle Ages, and which have been renewed in recent decades between Ireland and Bobbio.' From that urn which drew so many hither in the past we voice Columban's call to his Gaelic kindred. Together we will renew before that urn the old Irish spirit of faith and learning, here so harmoniously entwined in the ardent heart of the Saint and in the glowing pages of his writings. Here, too, we will seek his intercession for the welfare of the two countries dearest to him—the land of his birth and that where he breathed his last. Those who cannot come, but who are desirous to associate themselves in celebrating the Centenary can help towards the heavy expenses incurred in renovating the Basilica and organizing the celebrations. Already we have received help, both by gift and encouraging support, from His Eminence Cardinal Logue and from the Irish College, Rome. Offerings, which will be published in La Trebbia, can be sent to any of the Executive or Honorary Committees, which include His Eminence Cardinal Logue, the Bishop of Bobbio, the Rectors of the Catholic University of Washington, and the Irish College, Rome. We confidently rely then on the association of our Irish friends to make the celebration worthy of their great countryman. In this we are sustained by the recollection of former co-operation, and above all by the blessing and promised intervention of the Holy Father himself. Writing to our Bishop on January 31st, the Cardinal Secretary of State assures him: 'The Holy Father therefore wishes that your Lordship's noble and praiseworthy initiative will be crowned with the happiest and most complete success. Reserving to himself to intervene with his august word to make the auspicious event all the more solemn, he grants the Apostolic Blessing to all those who will be zealous collaborators in the holy enterprise.' MGR. BOBBI, V.G. MGR. BISETTI, President of Seminary. CANON C. MUZIO. HONORARY COMMITTEE.1 CANON TASSI. CANON G. GINOCCHIO. GIOVANNI PERTUSI. HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL LOGUE, Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland. THE RT. REV. THE BISHOP OF BOBBIO. THE MOST REV. THE ARCHBISHOP OF FERMO. THE RT. REV. THE BISHOP OF BERGAMO. THE RT. REV. THE ARCH-ABBOT OF MONTE-CASSINO. THE RT. REV. MGR. T. SHAHAN, Rector of the Catholic University of Washington. RT. REV. THE RECTOR OF THE IRISH COLLEGE, ROME. THE RT. REV. ABBOT LUGANO. PROF. EUGENE MARTIN, NANCY. THE VERY REV. THE PROVOST OF SAN COLOMBANO AL LAMBRO. NOTICE. The nearest railway station to Bobbio (Pavia, Italy), is Piacenza, from which a varied service of motor cars and motor omnibuses run to Bobbio, a distance of 45 kilometers or 22 Irish miles. Good hotel accommodation can be had at Piacenza. 1 Among the names of those forming part of the Committee in 1915 was that of Mgr. Achille Ratti, then Prefect of the Vatican Library, and now gloriously reigning as Pius XI. DOCUMENTS ALLOCUTION OF PIUS XI ON THE OCCASION OF THE RECENT CONSISTORY (May 23, 1928) ACTA PII PP. XI SACRUM CONSISTORIUM Die 23 mai 1923, in Palatio Apostolico Vaticano, habitum est Consistorium secretum, cuius acta ex ordine referuntur : I. CAMERARIATUS SACRI COLLEGII Revñus Cardinalis Van Rossum perulam Sacri S. R. E. Cardinalium Collegii detulit ac reddidit Ssmo Dão Nostro Pio PP. XI, qui eam tradidit Revño Cardinali Frühwirth pro hoc anno eiusdem S. R. E. Cardinalium Collegii Camerario. II. ALLOCUTIO SS. D. N. PII PP. XI CREATIO ET PUBLICATIO S. R. E. CARDINALIUM VENERABILES FRATRES Gratum nobis est admodum quod vos iterum coram congregatos intueri licet, et de gravissimis Ecclesiae causis alloqui, in quibus cum Dei gloria salus animarum vertitur: idque eo magis gratum accidit, quia non desunt, divinae bonitatis munere, talia quae cum periucunde Nos commemoremus, tum vos perlibenter audiatis. Primum omnium dicimus Sanctissimae Eucharistiae honores per Italiam atque adeo toto orbe catholico tam mirifica magnificentia hodie tribui solitos, ut in pulcherrimis de Augusto Sacramento Ecclesiae fastis iure numerare possimus. Etenim magnanima priscorum christianorum studia, subita pietatis publicae inflammatio ab haereticorum erroribus in contrarium omni tempore excitata, divina plurifariam facta prodigia, magnorum Conciliorum decreta et canones, assiduae Romanorum Pontificum curae eorumque solemnia et crebra praescripta de moribus institutisque eucharisticis, ut de festo Corporis Christi, de supplicatione in quadraginta horas habenda, de Sacramenti adoratione perpetua, de pueris quamprimum et quam religiosissime ad sacram Synaxim comparandis, de Eucharistia frequenter, ut oportet, sumenda, de religiosis familiis Eucharistiae colendae unice addictis; haec omnia profecto declarant, et Ecclesiam sanctam nullum aliud unquam habuisse divini cultus vel caput vel centrum vel rationem maximam, omnisque supernaturalis vitae vel fontem vel pabulum, nisi sacratissimam Eucharistiam, et ipsius Eucharistiae quotidianum perennemque cultum per intervalla maximis quibusdam ac splendidissimis religionis popularis significationibus |