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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
15
The Catholic Home.
Believe me, the Church is a tender and loving Mother and
nowhere shows this tenderness and love more than when she
resolutely opposes mixed-marriages. A truly Christian Home
is a great blessing, but every home whose occupants are Chris
tians is not necessarily a Christian Home. The fact that parents
and children are Catholics does not make it a Catholic Home.
What is it that makes a visitor say on coming in: “I see you
are Catholics here.” Is it not because he deteccs that indefinable
thing called the Catholic spirit. Nothing may have been said,
or done, but the Home has proclaimed itself Catholic. What
makes a home a Catholic one? It is not merely the fact that all
are Catholics, because unforunately there are homes where
only Catholics are found, and very decidedly they are not Catho
lic homes. I should expect to find in a Catholic home these
things: Catholic pictures of the Sacred Heart, our Blessed
Lady, and some of the Saints; Catholic papers and books on
the table, showing evidence that they are read; conversation on
Catholic topics at table and in the living room; rosaries and
scapulars worn by all; regular attendance at Sunday Mass ; fre
quent approach to the Sacraments ; a peep in the nursery would
find the little children at mother’s knees saying their night and
morning prayers ; night and morning prayers reverently said by
all. The sound of the Angelus bell recognized; a firm con
viction on the part of all the children that they had the best
Mother and the best Home in the world; manly boys, and wom
anly girls, all desiring to help mother in any way they could ; a
loving deference to the words of Father and Mother, and a
happy union in the family life.
I think I should call that a Catholic Home. And most as
suredly I would not call that home a Catholic Home where I
found these things: no attention paid to the word of Father and
Mother; finding a home on the public streets where the com
panions are vicious or dangerous; the frequenting, without
remonstrance of parents, of dangerous places of amusements;
profanity or vulgarity in speech, of the use of suggestive words ;
habitual missing of Mass on Sundays, and staying away from
Confession. As regards the parents; failing to enforce obedi
ence ; giving bad example by profanity; by failing to go to Mass
every Sunday, or in going to Confession ; permitting the children
to go to any place of amusement, and roaming the streets day
and night. I would not call that home a Catholic home. Ex
ample is, after all, the best teacher and in the last home de
scribed very bad example is given the children in the primary
school, the home, and by teachers who are appointed by God.
One day our Blessed Lord said that the children had guardian
angels, who always saw the face of His father in Heaven. We
know they are there pleading and praying for the little ones
with the hope that at last they may be worthy to receive the
great reward promised to them who persevere. With what
delight do the guardian angels see the care taken by Catholic
parents in a Catholic home, that the children should not offend
God? And what do the guardian angels think of the home
where no such care is taken, and very bad example is given the
little ones of Christ?
Our Lord said once, that if a man gave bad example to a
child, or placed any obstacles in its way to God, it had been bet
ter for him that he had never been born, or that a mill-stone
were tied around his neck, and he be drowned in the sea.
As I sit here writing these lines, I once more recall that
scene in Philadelphia nearly fifty years ago. I wondered then
at what must have been the various emotions aroused by the
wonderful voice of the singer. Some, I am sure, were weeping
for sheer joy as they recalled home, some had pangs of regret as
they recalled how poorly they had requited the tenderness and
care of home; others I feel sure were promising themselves that
they would do all in their power to make their homes real
homes*
Soon the children will be home for vacation, and the home
will resound with their voices. It will be Father and Mother,
a great solace for you at the close of life, that you tried to make
your home a real Catholic home and that your children could
truly say: There is no place like home.
Benjamin J. Keiley,
Bishop of Savannah.
Given at Savannah,
June 3, Feast of the Sacred Heart, 1921.
WHY A GEORGIA METHODIST MINIS
TER ENTERED THE CATHOLIC
CHURCH
(Continued from Page 6)
and deed; and if Catholic Sovereigns used strong
measures against heretics, Luther did not fail to
employ the same arm of force against Catholics, and
would have gone further if he could, but the Catholic
party was too strong. If any one thinks that Luther,
Calvin, or Henry VIII were lenient and merciful let
him read the facts of history, and if he thinks they
were paragons of virtue, let him consider their moral
side. I speak with reverence when I say that it
seems as if the omnipotent God was surely in difficult
straits to find suitable instruments to effect His work,
if He was obliged to use an apostate monk, who had
broken his vows of Religion and who permitted
Philip of Hesse to have two wives at the same time
for no other reason than pure sensuality; or a
“muchly married” King, whose lust, divorces, and
murders recall the execrable house of the Herods; or
a cold-blooded Calvin, who watched from a half-
opened window the dying agony of Michael Servitus,
whom he himself had condemned to be burned at the
stake because he denied the dogmas of the Trinity.
The next thing which had the most powerful in
fluence upon my mind were the doctrinal dissension
among the “Reformers,” in reference to the Sacra
ments, and especially as to whether Christ was really
present in the Holy Eucharist or not. This was the
great wedge which split them into hostile camps.
Luther with all of his daring could never be brought
to deny the real Presence of the Body and Blood of
Christ in this most holy sacrament. He said that he
could not withstand the force of the Holy Scripture
and the witness of past centuries in its favor. Had
he been as honest as to the other dogmas he denied
and derided, he would indeed have been better.
The Beginning of the Dawn.
The problem forced itself upon me. What if the
Roman view of this question is after all the right
one? And certainly it is the view held by the Chris
tian world for sixteen centuries, and which the
greater part, and that the most representative of his
toric Christianity, holds now and more firmly chan
ever. Then if this view is true, what a farce and
travesty is my celebration of the Lord’s Supper!
What opened my eyes still more, was that _ as I
searched into the earliest records of the Christian
faith, such as they are given by even Protestant His
torians for instance, Dr. Schaff, I was astonished to
find the admissions they are compelled to make, that
the early Christians regarded the Holy Eucharist not
only as a sacrament, but also a sacrifice.
When in the course of my reading I came to study
the vicissitudes of the Protestant Church in England,
the Oxford or Tractarian Movement claimed a special
interest. The more I read the greater my interest be
came in the great questions which agitated the soul
of J. H. Newman and led him to renounce the English
Church and enter the Roman. I began to realize
what is meant by the Sacramental Christianity, and
I saw that it had ever been the Christianity of the
past.
About this time a missionary friend of the Ameri-
an Episcopal Church loaned me several books, among
which were one or two of Bishop Gore’s that gave
me additional light upon Sacramental Christianity.
My soul was fully aroused; I longed to know. the
truth. Moreover, I felt compromised as a minister
of the Gospel; for did I not baptize and celebrate
the Lord’s Supper continually and yet did not know
what I ought to believe and teach about these rites?
I knew of course what the Methodist Church taught,
but its teaching was so utterly foreign from that of
early Christianity that I soon began seriously to
doubt its tenets. I had attended also services at the
Angelican Cathedral in Shanghai, and had been im
pressed with the reverance and solemnity of the
services—in such marked contrast with the “free and
easy” way the Methodists and other Protestants who
dislike ritualistic forms conducted theirs. Ceremonies
express some of the profoundest truths of the Chris
tian faith and it seemed to me that such a service
was far better suited for public divine service than
that of non-conformists, whose rituals and forms
often vary more or less according to the tempera
ment and ability of their ministers to pray, preach
and conduct services as the “Spirit moves them.”
(To be Continued)
The thirty-ninth Annual Sunreme Convention of
the Knights of Columbus will be held in San Fran
cisco, August 2-3-4. Over 20,000 Knights from all
parts of the country are exnected to be in attendance.
State Deputy Thomas P. Walsh, Jr., and State Dep
uty-elect John B. McCallum will go from Georgia.