than by subtil doctrine, they will perceive what reverence, obedience, and submission they ought to bear towards us, to whom, in the person of Peter, Christ our Lord said, "Feed My lambs—feed My sheep," and in those words entrusted and committed to us the supreme care and power over the universal Church.'
'Moreover, you also, Venerable Brethren, in the exercise of your sacred ministry, will reap a signal fruit from this reverence towards the Apostolic See; for in the measure in which you are bound by closer bonds of relationship, faith, and love to the cornerstone of this mystical building, in that measure, as the history of the Church in all times teaches, you will be more and more clothed with that fortitude and strength which are needed by the amplitude of your ministry against the attacks of the enemy and the adversity of events. For what else did Christ our Lord intend us to understand when he set Peter as head to defend the stability of his brethren, saying, "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not?" He intended, as S. Leo implies, that "the Lord took a special care of Peter, and prayed expressly for Peter's faith, as if the state of the others would be more certain if the mind of their chief were unconquered. In Peter, therefore, the fortitude of all was guarded, and the help of Divine grace was so ordained that the stability which was given by Christ to Peter, by Peter should be bestowed on the rest of the Apostles." Wherefore, we are always assured, it cannot be but
