4. Following close upon these messages We were called upon to experience personally and for the first time what St. Paul has called "my daily instance, the solicitude for all the churches." (II Cor. xi, 28) To Our everyday duties there were added many extraordinary ones, as for example, those most important affairs already well advanced towards a solution before Our election and which We had to rush to completion, which had to do with the Holy Places, which affected the welfare of Christianity itself, or the status of dioceses numbered among the most important of the Catholic world. Then there were to be considered international meetings and treaties which deeply influenced the future of whole peoples and of nations. Faithful to the ministry of peace and reconciliation which has been confided to Our care by God, We strove to make known far and wide the law of justice, tempered always by charity, and to obtain merited consideration for those values and interests which, because they are spiritual, are none the less grave and important. As a matter of fact, they are much more serious and important than any merely material thing whatsoever. We were occupied, too, with the almost unbelievable sufferings of those peoples, living in districts far remote from Us, who had been stricken with famine and every kind of calamity. We hastened to send them all the help which Our own straitened circumstances permitted, and did not fail to call upon the whole world to assist Us in this task. Finally, there did not escape Us those uprisings accompanied by acts of violence which had broken out in the very midst of Our own beloved people, here where We were born, here where the hand of Divine Providence has set down the Chair of St. Peter. For a time these troubles seemed to threaten the very future of Our country, nor could We rest until We had done everything within Our power to quiet such serious disorders.
There were, on the other hand, certain extraordinary events which filled Our soul with joy. Such were, for example, the Twenty-Sixth International Eucharistic Congress and the Three Hundredth Anniversary of the establishment of the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith. These celebrations brought to Us such inexpressible consolation and such great spiritual joy that We never imagined such a thing possible at the very outset of Our Pontificate. We also saw at that time practically all the members of the hundreds of bishops who had come to Rome from every part of the world. Under normal circumstances it would have taken several years to interview a like number of bishops. We gave audience also to many thousands of the faithful and blessed with Our fatherly blessing large and dignified representations of that immense family "from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation" as we read in the Book of the Apocalypse, (v, 9) which God has confided to Us. Together with them We were privileged to assist at spectacles which were little short of divine, for We witnessed Our Blessed Redeemer reassume His rightful place as King of all men, of all states, and of all nations when, though hidden behind the veils of the Eucharistic species, He was carried in a magnificent and truly royal triumph of faith through the streets of Our own city, Rome, accompanied by an immense concourse of people representing every nation on earth. We beheld, too, the Holy Spirit, as it were, descend into the hearts of both priests and faithful as He did on the first Pentecost Sunday, to rekindle in them the spirit of prayer and of the apostolate. We were overjoyed to behold the fervent faith of the inhabitants of Rome proclaimed once again to the world, to the great glory of God and to the edification of souls.