Newspaper Page Text
A Brief Encounter
Jottings
By BARBARA C. JENCKS
MOST CATHOLICS at some
time or other in their lives wish
that they had been, could be or
might be strictly cloistered
monks or nuns. Most perhaps
say this when they are fed up
with the world of ‘getting and
spending’, bills, flu-epidemics,
noise, etc. For a fewer num
ber, it is a sincere longing to
be free of the worldly encount
ers which weigh one down and
keep the housewife, business
man, career woman, truck dri
ver, waitress, lawyer or doc
tor from continual concentra
tion on the things of the spirit.
Yet, even monks or cloistered
nuns do not pray all day. They
too, have a routine to follow
of housecleaning, work in the
fields, answering doors, bells,
entering into the work which
keeps the monastery or con
vent operating as a house of
prayer. At Lent, there is oppor
tunity to have a small taste of
the life of contemplation. We
have, in short, a brief encoun
ter with the life lived by a nun
or monk in a strict order. We
can enter into the spirit of this
strict religious life during Lent.
During Lent, then Catholics
have a brief encounter with the
life that is lived all year by the
Church’s strictest religious or
ders. It is a forty-day period
observed by fasting, prayer and
penance. All three forms of
self-denial are in direct con
trast to the spirit of the world.
Contemplative orders like the
Carmelites and Trapposts live
Lent all year long, all during
their religious life. When Ca
tholic laymen do without meat
and add extra devotions to their
daily routine, they will be en
tering into the spirit of the
penitential season. They will
also be better able to understand
the purpose of the strict orders.
The black fast of Ash Wednes
day begins for most of us with
toast, coffee and orange juice.
This is an improvement on the
daily breakfast served at a
Carmelite or Trappists Mon
astery. All year round, it is
bread and black tea or coffee.
Fruit, cheese, milk and bread,
which will make a more frequent
appearance on the Lenten tables
in Catholic homes are the staple
of the cloistered Carmelite and
Trappist. Vegetable plate spec
ials are the major meals for
these religious, not a blue plate
served up for Friday luncheons.
JESUS SAID to his apostles:
“When you fast, do not look,
gloomy like the hypocrites, who
disfigure their faces in order to
appear as men fasting." Did
you ever see a Trappist or a
Carmelite who wasn’t radiant
with joy? But note in contrast
the irritability witnessed by
those who give up cigarettes or
Martinis for a few days or have
pulled themselves out of bed an
hour earlier to go to a seven o’
clock Mass. In summer, the
Carmelites rise at 5:00 a.m.
and in the winter at 6:00 a.m.
The Trappists rise in the night
at 2:00 a.m. to sing their of
fice. This is a form of their
perpetual life of penance even as
Wholesale Plumbing,
Heating And Water Works
Supplies
McKenna
Supply
Company
600 W. 51st St.
AD 2-7141
Savannah
the Catholic laymen’s effort to
rise for daily Mass is part of
his forty-day brush with a life
of self-denial. The Carmelites
say that “they tend constantly
by prayer, penance, a life of
sacrifice to extend the kingdom
of God to procure the salva
tion of souls, to intercede for
the Holy Father, apostles
preachers, theologians, learn
ed men, that they may be filled
with courage and virtue.’’
Trappistine Nun has told me that
when she rises at 2:00 a.m. to
sing her office she offers it
for all who are dying at that
time, those who are in trouble
or sick and for those who are
in sin that they may re
pent. They offer up their lives
and prayers for those who never
give a thought for God. Lay
Catholics can begin to live this
kind of contemplative life in the
world during Lent. Even though
an evening cocktail is foregone
and the reading of a spiritual
book substituted for television
most lay Catholics can count
on a comfortable bed and an at
tractive room for their night’s
sleep. Most contemplative nuns
sleep in what they call * ’cells.’
Each cell is equipped with a bed
of boards, a straw mattress and
pillow, a chair and a table
with a few holy pictures.
ONE of the most difficult as
pects of the life lived by the re
ligious of these two strict or
ders wou}d seem to be the fact
that they keep a rigid silence
Several hours each day is spent
in mental prayer and medi-
votions and the manual work
such as the farming done by the
Trappistines or cleaning and
scrubbing, the religious remain
alone in silence and prayer.
Thomas Merton has made the
Trappist life of strict contem
plation, silence, farming the
fields, known to thousands by
his books. His writings in a way
have “popularized” the life
of those who live Lent all year
round. The life of contemplation
dates back 900 years before the
Christian era when the Prophet
Elias dwelt on Mount Carmel
and gathered about him a group
of disciples who practiced with
him the virtues of an ascetic
and contemplative life. Our
Lord prepared in the desert
alone, praying and fasting for
His Passion and Death. Since
that time thousands of young
men and women have entered
strictly contemplative orders in
America. In Lent for a period
of forty days laity can attempt
by fasting, added penance, pray
ers, to imitate this life of self
dinal. What kind of a nun or
monk would you make?
Mission Starts
Sunday Mar. 24
At St. Mary’s
AUGUSTA—Father Christo
pher Walsh, Sts. Peter and Paul
Church, Cork City, Ireland, will
give a Mission at St. Mary’s
starting on Sunday, March 24
and concluding on Sunday,
March 31. Father Walsh will
conduct a vocational triduum for
the students of St. Mary’s School
on the first three days of the
Mission.
He will give a Retreat for the
students of Aquinas High School
during Holy Week and will
preach at St. Mary’s Church on
Wednesday, Thursday and Fri
day evenings during Holy Week.
the place ft
or savincfs in the V. <oastai
CURRENT YEARLY RATE ON ALL SAVINGS
mpire
FIR
Savannah’s Largest Savings Institution
DERAL SAVINGS
and Loan Association • ADams 4-8851 all offices
Main Office
Broughton
and
Abercorn Streets
Skidaway Branch
Skidaway Road
at
McAlpin
Garden City Branch
Highway 17
at
Rommel Avenue
ARCHBISHOP PAUL J. HALLINAN is pictured addressing the Hibernian Society of
Savannah. Also pictured are Honorable Carl Sanders, Governor of Georgia and W. Kirk
Sutlive, Chairman of the Speakers Committee.
Archbishop Hallinan
St. Patrick Extolled
As ‘Model Of Justice’
SAVANNAH—S i x hundred
guests at the annual St.
Patrick’s Day banquet of the
Savannah Hibernian Society
heard the Most Rev. Paul J.
Hallinan, archbishop of Atlanta,
extol the Patron Saint of Ireland
as “an inspiration and a model
of justice for every man who
ever lived.”
The archbishop contrasted
the homage paid to St. Patrick
in many American cities with
days in a “dark and shameful”
past.
He recalled the history of
prejudice against the Irish im
migrants of a century or more
ago, and called on “Irishmen
and those of Irish descent” to
lead the way toward elimination,
not only of religious prejudice,
blit also racial bigotry.
The following is part of the
text of Archbishop Hallinan’s
remarks:
“One period of Irish history
has always held my attention,
the first decades of the Irish
immigrant in America, the time
that brought forth and nourished
the noble societies of charity
and philantropy like your own. A
century ago, the exodus from
Ireland was at its peak. The
Spanish, French, English and
Scotch-Irish were already here
with some Dutch, Germans,
Jews and Swedes—then came
the Irish! From 1835 on, some
35,000 a year. By 1850 206,000
were coming each year to swell
the total to nearly a million.
Marist Fathers
To Hold Mission
At Saint James
SAVANNAH—A Parish Mis
sion will begin at St. James
Church, Savannah, on Monday,
March 25. Father James Cum
mings, S.M. and Father Michael
J. McMahon will conduct the
Mission. The first week will be
for women and the second,
starting on Sunday, March 31,
will be for men.
Very Rev. Michael J.
McMahon, S. M.
Rev. James Cummings, S. M.
Services will be held each
evening at “ight o’clock. Daily
Masses will be at o:30, 8 and
11 a.m. A mission for the
children will also be given on
Tuesday, Wednesday, and
Thursday of the first week.
The Marist Mission is call
ed a “Mission of Mercy”. The
sermon topics are The Mercy
of God, Salvation and Sin, Death
and Judgment, Marriage, and
the closing sermon is on the
Blessed Virgin Mary.
Father Cummings is the for
mer pastor of St. Francis Xav
ier Church, Brunswick. He has
been on the Mission Band for
the past two years.
Father McMahon is a native
of Canada, formerly amission
ary in the South Sea Islands,
and now superior of Marist Se
minary, Washington, D. C. He
has also served as pastor of St
Michael Church, Wheeling and
Holy Name of Mary Church,
New Orleans.
Missioner Named
Bishop While
Home For Visit
PHILADELPHIA, (NC) — An
American missioner home for a
visit with relatives here learn
ed that he had been appointed a
bishop in the African nation
where he has served since 1950.
He is Bishop-designate
Dennis Vincent Durning, C.S.
Sp., who has been named by His
Holiness Pope John XXIII to be
first Bishop of newly erect
ed Diocese of Arusha, Tengan-
yika.
The Holy Ghost Father has
been serving in the Diocese of
Moshi. The See he will head
formerly was part of the Moshi
diocese.
CARROLL BURKE
A
[^PHOTOGRAPHER
• Portraits •Children
• Advertising . Wedding
•Commercial -Aerial
Studio Hours 10 A. M. - 5:30 P.M.
AD 2-7731
1708 Abercorn
Savannah
By 1860, it was 1,600,000.
“More than any other immi
grant group they came princi
pally because of starvation.
They had a united faith and a
language common with their new
land,—and little else. If we want
to study a minority group, large
in numbers, small in posses
sions, money and prestige,—
here it is. How did they appear
to the native American? How
were they treated? It is not a
pretty chapter of American his
tory. For each band of noble
Americans like the Hibernian
Society of Savannah, in which
the Irishman and his neighbor,
lived in mutual respect and
Christian honor, there were
scores of cities and dozens of
other societies that despised
them.
“Every social historian of
the 19th century writes of the
signs on factories and offices,
—’No Irish need Apply”. Ed
ward E. Hale, the great Ameri
can patriot, urged the United
States to cut the number of
Irish admitted down to eight for
every 100 native-born Ameri
cans.
“Irish girls were hired as
servants for $4 to $7 and board
a month. In Pennsylvania coal
mines, the men worked fifteen
hours a day for 50 cents. The
Catholic churches were label
led “Paddy churches”, and even
Tammany Hall issued an edict:
“No Irish and other foreigners
admitted.” Lyman Beecher
called the Irish “a deadmass of
ignorance and superstition”.
The Chicago Post proclaimed
“Scratch a convict and you will
scratch the skin of an Irish
Catholic.” One Bostonian held
his nose, and wrote “The goril
la is superior to the Irishman
in muscle, and hardly inferior
in moral sense.”
“They were truly a race set
apart, clinging to the lowest
rung of the political, economic
and social ladder, segregated by
their race, segregated by their
faith. The Italians who come
later, the Slavic, Balkan and
mid-East peoples still, suffer
ed the same stigma, restric
tions, bigotry and discrimina
tion. But the Irish of mid-19th
century America set the pattern
for assimilation, almost wrote
the formula of how to become an
American. Unwanted and des
pised, they set their course to
become a real and living part
of a nation that seemed to want
only the taxes they paid and the
The Southern Cross, March 23, 1963—PAGE 3
blood they were ready to shed
in her wars.
“The assimilation went on,
in great part due to their tena
cious hold on their religious
faith! They had Patrick to thank
for that. Partly, it was due to
their buoyancy and hope and
gaiety in the darkest depths of
trouble. But I find a deeper
element at work in this process
of assimilation. Its bed-rock
is Justice, and this too goes
back to Patrick. Very few Irish
men today know of the Senchus
Mor, Patrick’s Law. Today,
the young politician in the House
of Senate, of city council or
state legislature, probably has
never heard of it. But his ances
tors knew about it, and to them
may be traced that impulse for
the right, that instinct for Jus
tice, that he feels within him,
but cannot fully explain. When
the Saint first came to Ireland
to preach the Catholic faith, he
found a land whose civil laws
bristled with injustice,—man’s
rights, as well as God’s, were
disregarded; man was not judg
ed on his merits as a man;
human law reflected many
things but it did not reflect
human dignity and—worst of all,
these inequalities were not
aberrations, they were written
into the very marrow of the law
itself. Patrick conferred with
the native chiefs, proud and
haughty men. The force of reli
gion was brought to bear upon
the morals of men. Justice be
came the theme of Celtic law,
not just a word to shout about
on the holidays, not a patriotic
virtue to be mocked at the polls,
in the legislatures, in the
courts, but a fact upon which
all human dignity could be re
newed.
“The young Irishmen of the
19th century, the immigrants
who were helped because the
early Savannahians were men of
justice too,—these Irish were
not saints. They harbored their
own bigotries and prejudices.
But down deep, they knew that
these were emotional lapses,
and eventually had to be squared
with the law of Justice. So they
moved forward, from hodcar-
rier, to section boss, to police
man, lawyer, city and state and
federal leader. Sometimes they
carried their prejudices with
them, against the Chinese in
California, Negroes in the
South, the French-Canadians in
New England, but they carried
deeper within their souls the
awareness of Patrick’s Senchus
Mor, the Law of Justice.
"In this tremendous process
of assimilation, we must see not
just this or that completed chap
ter of American history. Assi
milation is the American
contribution to the world, and it
will never end. Great Societies
such as yours have played their
part in it, nobly, charitably,
benevolently. There is still as
similation to be done; may we
earnestly recognize that it will
always be there to be done.
“Tonight we celebrate the
Feast Day of the Saint, the birth
day of your Society made up of
men of varying nationalities and
creeds.
“We raise a Toast to the Day
We Celebrate, the Saint we
honor, and we find that we are
toasting the very bulwark of the
American Nation.
“May the Irish spirit of fair
play for every man of whatever
creed, or race, or color, or
nation, be blended with that
same spirit in the hearts of
every other nation that has given
her sons to the United States.
“May this mighty blend of
Justice and Charity become in
every part of our land the mark
of God’s favor and His Blessing.
A Toast, Gentlemen, to the Day
we celebrate, the feastday of
Patrick, a Saint for the Irish,
a man of courage and a model
and an inspiration for every
man who lives.”
OF/SAVANNAH
The Largest And Finest
Department Store
In The Coastal Empire
NEAL-BLUN
COMPANY
For All Your Building Needs
3500 Montgomery St., At 50th
Savannah
Thomas-Driscoll-Hutton
$ Architects And Engineers
Savannah, Georgia