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I PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, May 25, 1963 First Holy Communion For many Catholic children some day in May will be First Holy Communion Day. It is a time of great happiness and joy for both children and parents. The days and weeks preceding are filled with activity and preparation. Lessons must be learned, clothing must be prepared, arrangements must be made. For the most part, however, these tasks are enjoyable because the re ward is so wonderful. During the instruction period, many im portant lessons were given to the young communicants. They were taught that the Sacraments of Penance and Holy Eucharist were instituted by Christ as a means of giv ing His grace to those who receive these Sacraments worthily. Penance is the Sac rament in which the sins committed after Baptism are forgiven. The Holy Eucharist contains the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord. To receive these Sacraments worthily, the per son in question must be free from mortal sin and must observe the rules regarding the Eucharistic fast. On First Communion day these youngsters are nourished by the "Heavenly Food" for the first time in thier young life. Little wonder then why this day is so happy for all. At times, however, the joy has a short life. The desire on the part of the young ster to receive Our Lord frequently cannot be fulfilled. This frustration arises from an unusual set of circumstances. Remember the school vacation is a short distance away. This means the call of the great outdoors will be heard by many and answered by most. Vacations, picnics, and long motor trips will be the order of the day for many Am erican families and, at times, religious obligations interfere with these pleasures. Sad to say, many times the former suffer. The children are victims of a family plan which goes contrary to the things learned during instructions. The fervent young communicant was taught that the Sunday Mass obligation is serious and failure to hear Mass for a light reason is a mortal sin. He was also en couraged to receive the Sacraments frequently. Now, however, Mother and Dad have made plans which will interfere and perhaps prevent his presence at Mass and eliminate his chance of receiving Holy Communion. The child is naturally confused because one source of authority, his teach er, has given a directive which another source of authority, his parents, have vio lated. Parents are responsible for the religious welfare of their children. Part of this re sponsibility centers around the need for con venience in the practice of religion.—(Ca tholic Light) We Are Agents Of Love God’s World (By Leo J. Trese) The whole spiritual life, as we know, can be summed up in the single phrase, "LoveGod!" It is for this that God made us— that we might love Him. There is no other reason for our ex istence. It is love for God, too, which equips us for the ecstasy of face - to - face union with God in heaven, Without love, a soul could be in the midst of heaven and still be in hell. Such a soul could be surrounded by GcxWby,. angel-s and saints, and be totally unaware of their presence. A soul without char ity is a soul without spiritual vision—a soul totally blind. It is fortunate that God, in baptism, has infused the virtue of charity into our souls, has given us a talent for loving Him. It is not easy to love someone whom we never have seen. It is especially difficult when our love for the unseen God conflicts with our de sire for some lesser but visi ble good. The truth is that, with out God’s help, we really could not love Him at all. On the face of it, it seems a great mystery why our love should mean so much to God. In our honest moments we have to admit that our love, at best, is very imperfect. There is a good bit of self-interest inter mixed even with our most disin terested loves: our love for spouse, for parent, for child, for brother or sister. It may illumine the mystery a bit if we examine what we might call the "anatomy" of our love for God. In the baptism, the greatest thing which happened to us is that we were made one with Christ; incorporated with Christ is the theological expression. We were united with Christ in a way which our human mind cannot quite fathom. Christ shared with us His Spir it, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of divine love. There is no example adequate to illus trate the nature of our union with Jesus, Thedosest that we can come by way of parallel is to imagine the intimacy of union that would exist between two humans who shared one and the same soul between them. In a sense, each would be the other. Similarly, after baptism there is a sense in which you are Christ and Christ is you. Our spiritual merger with Je- sus does not destroy our per sonal freedom. With our cooperation, however, it does make it possible for Jesus to act in and through us. Our own act of love consists simply in identifying our will with God’s. What God wants is what we want. Our love is expressed in our obedience to God’s law, an obedience which involves the sacrifice of self. Our obedience, our act of self - renunciation, creates a clear channel through which Christ’s own love can go, through us to the Father. Our personal love, at its best is ri diculously weak. But our own love is transformed by being made the vehicle of Christ’s love. It is not we who love God. It is Christ Who, through us, loves God. The millions of baptized souls, in the state of sanctifying grace, are like so many prisms. Through them, the infinite love of Jesus is refracted to the Father in lim itless variety. The Holy Spir it, the Spirit of Love, flows from Son to Father in a hun dred million ways. And, since divine lOve 13 "an interchange/ the Father’s love returns to His Son with just- as-many var iations. In loving each of us, God can and does love His Son. We are then, God’s created instruments of love. We are God’s agents in this commerce of infinite love which forever occupies Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is plain that, the more we purify ourselves of self, the more effective an agent each of us is. The more we detach ourselves, not only from mortal sin but also from venial sin, the more perfectly do we fulfill our vocation to love. (Father Trese welcomes letters from his readers. The increasing volume of letters prohibits personal answers but problems and ideas contained in such correspondence can be the basis of future columns. Ad dress all letters to Father Leo J. Trese, care of this news paper.) Cut From Vietnamese Jungle History Made As 1st Plane Lands On New Airfield By Father Patrick O’Connor Society of St. Columban RANG RANG, Vietnam, (NC) —"It’s good to see history being made,’’ said Capt. Robert Raf ferty with a pleased grin. He was watching the first air plane landing dustily on the new airstrip here in the middle of the jungle. It is also in the middle of "Zone D," an area compris ing parts of three provinces, where the Viet Cong (com munist) guerrillas have roamed almost at will for about 16 years. Capt. Rafferty, who grew up in St. Martin of Tours parish, Brooklyn, N. Y., and makes his home now in San Antonio, Texas, was right. This may be only a sentence in the history of the de fense of south Vietnam against communism but it is an important one. It has taken weeks of dogged, dangerous work by Vietnamese army engineers to write it. Vietnamese army Rangers, pa trolling the jungle, made the work possible. American Army advisers, assisting the Viet namese officers, and American equipment helped to put Rang Rang airfield on th,e map. During the first week bullets from communist snipers, lurk ing in the jungle, cut through the dust that rose cloudily around the bulldozers. Commu nist mines were placed in the soft earth. Two men were killed, four were wounded. Since then there have been no more casual ties, thanks to the Ranger units and the clearing of the jungle on both sides. The angry opposition of the Viet Cong communists was ex pected. Zone D was their pre serve even when the French Army was here. When they launched their large scale guer rilla warfare against the Repub lic of Vietnam in 1959, they made this zone a staging area and a haven. Thinly populated, largely jungle, it gave them an extensive hideout some 30 miles from Saigon. To make pursuit difficult for government troops, they cut trenches across the few dirt roads that thread the jungle and they dismantled bridges. Now Capt. Rafferty and his comrades, Vietnamese and Am erican, have not only pushed through the jungle, rebuilding nearly 20 miles of raod and re pairing a steel bridge. They have built a landingfield in less than three weeks, the first air field in Zone D. And on May 1 the first plane ever to land in side Zone D taxied smoothly to a halt on this field. It was a U. S. Army Caribou, twin-en • - - : ' -v gined, piloted by Capt. Ted Phillips of Walhalla, S. C., and CWO Jody Moeller of Dallas, Texas. The construction was done by the oldest engineering battalion in the young Vietnamese Army, the 301st. Youthful-looking Capt. Le van Tu, now eight years with the battalion, has helped to build 10 airfields. His American counterpart, Capt. James Ellis, Ranger and engineer from St. Louis, has high praise for him and his men. He described the arduous work of reopening the road before they could even reach Rang- Rang. "We decided to build the air field here because we found two hills of laterite," he explained. "That’s what the bed of the air strip is composed of. We had to bulldoze the two hills and lift the laterite on to the air strip site by truck." Helicopter* could land before a plane could. One of the Cari bou pilots flew in on the same ’copter as this correspondent, to size up the new field. One quick look was enough. In a few minutes he whirled away again in the helicopter, to return shortly as copilot of the two- engined Caribou, bearing a group of Vietnamese and Americans. Must Make Choice pj. Y. World’s Fair WASHINGTON, (NC) — Rep. Hugh L. Carey of New York has predicted that Congress must eventually either aid the edu cation of “nonreligionists’’ only or treat all schools alike. Carey, in a statement in the Congressional Record (May 14), said a congressional showdown on the Federal aid to education issue is inevitable and added: "We will have the choice of assisting only the nonreligion ists—thereby advancing their specific religiosity—or aiding all approved and accredited schools, regardless of their sectarian, nonsectarian or sectless public nature. ‘VINTAGE YEAR ?... NOT IF I CAN HELP IT !’ An Ode To Two In One It Seems to Me Marriage, simply as such, makes people good when they give it a decent chance. There is a very old tradition that Adam and Eve, although they fell, lived to rise into holi ness. And why not? Yes, they sinned, but they bore the purifying con sequences; and they obeyed with courage and patience the first com mandment God ever gave to mankind: "In crease and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it.” Something that I think most theologians do not keenly real ize—because most theologians are unmarried—is the depth of the humility, the trust in God, and the cooperation with God, that husbands and wives must have. They can enter lightheartedly and youthfully into marriage, but with the conception of the first child they can hardly fail to see that they have surrend ered their lives and their love to the divine will. THEY SPEAK lightly to oth ers, but deep in them is the realization—which comes now and then to the forefront of their minds—that they have accepted the certainty of some pain, and the possibility of worse, to partner God in creating. There will be long months of waiting; there will be anxiety mixed with anticipation; there will be optimism about the outcome, but there will be uncertainty too. What I mean is that even in ’receiving each other, a husband and wife sooner or later, with more or less poignancy, know that they are sacrificing them- JOSEPH BREIG selves and each other to God’s purposes. All may go well;they hope it will, but maybe it won’t. Maybe they will have to lay their child on the altar of the mystery of mortality that came upon humanity when our first parents were estranged from their Creator. A MAN AND WOMAN marry because they love and need each bfher. They become two in one flesh, and the result is not only that their capacity for joy is doubled; so is their capacity for fear and sorrow. Where be fore, each had one heart that could be wounded, now each has two; and with the arrival of children, more hearts are added to them. The unity of marriage is as deep as that. A husband and wife must live with the realization that either may die; and so each lives in an unspoken willingness to give up to God, if so it should be, the most treasured of pos sessions—so treasured that to lose it is like being nearly des troyed. Greater love no man has than to lay down his life for his friend—unless it be the love of a husband or wife, giving the be loved back to the beloved’s Creator. ONLY THE MARRIED know how often, in mind and in will, and in silent thoughtful mo ments, they sacrifice each other and their little ones to Him who sent them. Only fathers and mothers know the feel of the hand of apprehension gripping their hearts when their children are ill or hurt. Living thus in the presence of God, trusting and loving Him so humbly and sacrificially, how can they do other than grow in goodness? How do other than become, from day to day, more like God who gave His only-begot ten Son, and more like the Son’s Mother, who gave Him in union with God? To see this, we do not really need the tradition about the sanctity to which Adam and Eve rose. We can look about us and see countless husbands and wifes whose goodness is inspir ing to anyone who will open eyes to it. Even in pagan lands this great goodness is found—and why not? God’s blessing upon husbands and wives, given to ° hnd through the first pair ha's never been withdrawn, and nev er will be. MARRIAGE simply as such, lived under God, makes for goodness, but it is noble in its love of God and fellowmen. That is why "home" is the most touching of all words: that is why a happy home is a kind of Heaven on earth and why, when we think of Heaven, we can do no better than to see it as a going home never to leave. That is why "Father" is a word' fit even for God: the word He taught us to call Him by, because it would convey to us an under standing of His goodness. And now we come to some thing even greater than mar riage—to Christian marriage, a sacrament. As truly a sacra ment as Baptism or Communion or Holy Orders. A sacra ment conferred not by a priest but by husband upon wife and wife upon husband—the dual sacrament, the mutual sacra ment, the sacrament of two in one . . . and more. It is the sacrament of the loving together of God and husband and wife to bring forth new im mortal beings. It is the sacrament of that loving together, and also of a loving together that makes saints. Cuban Refugees MIAMI, Fla., (NC)—Catholic Relief Services—National Ca tholic Welfare Conference has resettled well over half of all Cuban refugees resettled in the U. S. since January, 1961. Since that date, 58, 540 Cu bans have been resettled, with CRS — NCWC accounting for 33,636—almost 57 per cent of the total. These figures were made public here by the Cuban Ref ugee Center conducted by the U. S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. 236th Serra Club Chartered FLINT, Mich., (NC)—Serra Club of Flint has become the 236th chartered member of the international organization dedi cated to fostering vocations to the pristhood. The charter was presented at a dinner here by Fred J. Wagner, Tiffin, Ohio, president of Serra Interna tional. Parish Schools ROME, (Radio, NC)—The president and vice president of the 1964 New York World’s Fair assured a press confer ence here that Michelangelo’s Pieta will go to New York, contrary to reports carried in the Italian press. Robert Moses and Charles Poletti, fair president and vice president, held a press con ference after an audience with His Holiness Pope John XXIII. The Pontiff turned down the officials’ invitation to visit the fair because it would be too long a trip. Pope’s Niece Marries SOTTO IL MONTE, Italy, (Radio, NC)—His Holiness Pope John XXIII sent a special bless ing for his niece’s wedding here in his home town. Maria Roncalli, 23, daughter Important WASHINGTON—A congress- man said here that the trans fer of a sizable number of pu pils from parochial to public schools in Missouri points up the tremendous contributions the parochial school makes to education in America. Rep. Cornelius Gallagher of Bayonne, N. J., said the enroll ment protest movement demon strates the problems and the immense burdens other citizens would have to carry if the pri vate school system did not exist. of the Pope’s brother, Giuseppe Roncalli, married Luigi Gotti, 27, a tile factory worker, in a ceremony at which a nephew of the Pope, Msgr. Battista Ron calli, officiated. Reds Fail VIENNA, (NC)—A Slovak communist newspaper has com plained about the "frightfully high" number of churchgoers in Slovakia. Pravda of Bratislava, Czech oslovakia, reported that inten sified efforts to "enlighten" the overwhelmingly Catholic popu lation of Slovakia have had no success. Churchgoers include Communist party members the paper said, and in many places they go to party meetings after Mass on Sunday with hymnbooks in their hands. The percentage of Baptisms and church wed dings has not made any signifi cant drop, the paper added. Students Fined JERUSALEM, Israel, (NC)— Ten young zealots who stoned a Finnish Protestant mission school here last January were fined a total of $550 in the Je rusalem Magistrate’s Court (May 9) . The 10, students at a Talmudic school here, all pleaded guilty. Arye Golovonchitz, 18, held to be the organizer of the (Jan. 3) disturbance, was fined $100. The other nine were fined $50 each. QUESTION BOX Go-Broke-Rage Thoughts Jottings "Spend all you have for love liness, Buy it and never count the cost; For one white singing hour of peace Count many a year of strife well lost, And for a breath of ecstasy Give all you have been or could be." -Sara Teasdale * # * IN THIS WORLD rounded out by getting and spending, it seems we spend too much, mon etarily and otherwise, and ^get too little in return. Perhaps it is not our wallets alone which By BARBARA C. JENCKS suffer bankruptcy, and corrup tion by the moth but our values as well. For me, the best things in life cannot be bought at any store, nor charg ed either. If that were literally the case, I should have no wor ries at all. The bills facing me would not worry me nor would the fact that I have just now at tempted to right a check for $30 against a bank balance of $15.10. It has always seemed to me that the wrong people were weal thy. I think I would have handled wealth not wisely perhaps but well. Do most people think that the best things are for sale? Do they look upon fur coats, sports cars, real estates, stocks and bonds, tailor-made clothes as the pearls of great price? Possessions, things have always strangled me and when I have ever been ahead of the bills, I have spent, or as some would say squan dered, my little funds on the in tangibles. I’ve never owned a car, or fur coat and never had much desires. Expensive clothes, furniture has never appealed. Walking barefooted along a beach in an old wind- breaker and bermuda shorts is a favorite widen expensive mode of pleasure and dress. Although it would be grand to be born a millionnaire, money cannot buy the best things in life. What small comfort alas! * * * AH, IF I BECAME heir to either $1,000 or $1,000,000. (both fortune in my eyes) to- (Continued on Page 5) (By David Q. Liptak) Q. I read the article recently about the French bishops al lowing priests to wear ordinary suits instead of cassocks for street clothes. How is clerical attire regulated, and why is it that customs seem to differ from country to country? In some places don’t priests even wear ties instead of Roman collars? A. Clerical attire is regulat ed in general by the universal Church Law. But the law makes no attempt to detail precisely what form clerical garb must take. Instead it leaves specifi cation to approved local cus toms and norms. THE BASIS for local custom and norms here in the United States is the Third Council of Baltimore (1884) which opened the door, as it were, for the black suit and Roman collar now worn by American priests. Chaplains in the armed forces of course wear the prescribed uniforms of officers of their rank. FOR THE FIRST few centu ries of the Christian era, no special clerical garb was gen erally insisted upon by Church authorities. The first signifi cant synodal rulings in the mat ter were issued from the sixth century on. Most of them order ed the use of the vestis talaris (the forerunner of the cassock), especially during church serv ices. SEVERAL ECUMENICAL councils took up the subject of clerical dress. For instance, Canon XVI of the Second Council of Nicaea (787) reads: "Clerics shall wear modest and unosten tatious clothing, and not array themselves in gay and showy apparel embroidered with silk.” And, for another exam ple, the Fourth Lateran Council reminded clerics of their obli gation to dress in accordance with the dignity of their office, and forbade them the use of red or green cloth, embroidery on gloves, and gilt spurs (all apparently in vogue then). The Countil of Trent reiterat ed earlier conciliar warnings regarding clerical garb, but left specific determination to local ly approved customs. yj The Southern Cross Vol. 43 P. O. BOX 180, SAVANNAH. GA. Saturday, May 25, 1963 No. 36 Published weekly except the last week in July and the last week in December by The Southern Cross, Inc. Subscription price $3.00 per year. Second class mail privileges authorized at Monroe, Ga. Send notice of change of address to P. O. Box 180, Savannah, Ga. Most Rev. Thomas J. McDonough, D.D.J.C.D., President Rev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor John Markwalter, Managing Editor Rev. Lawrence Lucree, Rev. John Fitzpatrick, Associate Editors