De sacrarum stationum veteri instituto a Xisto Quinto pont. max. revocato oratio habita in templo S. Sabinae in die Cinerum

to be clinging to the footsteps of the ancients and following their examples, as to be mixed in with them to attend the Stationes Stations, to visit the Basilicas, to obtain the treasures of indulgences, and, to say it in one word, it is given to us through you to see the restoration of a most glorious institution, which God himself, the Best and Greatest, has seemed to confirm and approve with signs given from heaven. And indeed, we would seem less grateful for divine beneficence if what happened by divine intervention were to be wrapped, if I may say so, in human silence. We do not read these things, hearers, in the monuments of the annals; we did not receive them from others; but how often, I ask, have we ourselves seen, on the day before those days on which the Supreme Pontiff was about to visit the Basilicas according to the restored ancient custom, the most violent rains suddenly stirred up? A deluge of water, the force of winds, a quantity of snow? Indeed, throughout the whole space of the night, everything trembled with thunder? And at the dawn of the day, the cloudy, dark, and turbulent sky, with the strikes of lightning and the crashes of thunder, seemed as if with a certain heavenly clamor to resist the beginning of such a holy work? But when Sixtus V, fearing neither lightning nor thunder, and not terrified by the most frightening weather, had barely moved his sacred feet from the threshold of the Vatican, immediately everything changed, the storms were calmed, serenity was returned by the gentlest south wind, and the sun shone with such a most pleasant light that not only earthly things, but the very heavens themselves seemed to have obeyed such a great Prince? Clearly that enemy of the human race, who was permitted to tempt the most holy Job only to certain limits, that same one—so that the constancy of Sixtus might shine forth more clearly and brightly—had the power to use every effort to deter him from the sacred journeys, yet on the condition that where the fortitude of the Pontiff had resisted, immediately, the difficulties overcome and the frauds deluded, the sky would be restored to its splendor. And for this reason, the sacred custom would be embraced all the more eagerly by all with open arms, because we understood that it is dear to God, even by clear portents. My soul desires to utter something here, Fathers, and I barely place a bridle on my leaping tongue; clearly, if in such great excellence and dignity of things, conveniences and even delights were to be sought, this matter too has been provided for sufficiently and more than enough by this same Pontiff, and now, so that the more famous Basilicas can be visited more conveniently, and the Stationes Stations celebrated with a more frequent gathering of the people, the roads have been made straight, wide, very flat, very spacious, paved, and opened. But I am ashamed of us, and I would not want anyone to understand from my mouth that we could not be led there except through the softest roads, where one would have to walk even through the snows of the Caucasus and the sands of Libya.