J.M.J. Today's Saint, Pius X (1903-1914), wrote his Encyclical, Ad Diem Illum Laetissimum, which was dated February 2, 1904, to commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception by his Predecessor, Blessed Pius IX (1846-1878).
It is very well worth reading:
Here is only a very brief passage.
"25. This same charity we desire that all should earnestly
endeavor to attain, taking special occasion from the extraordinary
feasts in honor of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. Oh
how bitterly and fiercely is Jesus Christ now being persecuted, and the
most holy religion which He founded! And how grave is the peril that
threatens many of being drawn away by the errors that are afoot on all
sides, to the abandonment of the faith! 'Then let him who thinks he
stands take heed lest he fall' (I Cor. x., 12). And let all, with
humble prayer and entreaty, implore of God, through the intercession of
Mary, that those who have abandoned the truth may repent. We know,
indeed, from experience that such prayer, born of charity and relying on
the Virgin, has never been vain. True, even in the future the strife
against the Church will never cease, 'for there must be also heresies,
that they also who are reproved may be made manifest among you' (I Cor.
xi., 19). But neither will the Virgin ever cease to succor us in our
trials, however grave they be, and to carry on the fight fought by her
since her conception, so that every day we may repeat: 'To-day the head
of the serpent of old was crushed by her' (Office Immac. Con., 11. Vespers, Magnif.). "
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