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f * PAGE 2—The Southern Cross, September 5, 1963 Who Wears It? The Badge Of A Christian On two occasions THE SOUTHERN CROSS published editorials advancing the opinion that the Civil Rights March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was unwise because of the attendant dangers of disorder or vio lence, and because it was unlikely that any legislator could be persuaded to change his mind about voting against the President’s civil rights proposals. We are very happy to "eat crow" and to offer our sincere congratulations to the planners, leaders, and participants of the march who proved * so decisively that our doubts and fears were completely ground less. The orderliness and good humor of the marchers and the lack of vindictiveness and demagoguery on the part of the speakers was all the more remarkable for the fact that almost a quarter million Americans had gone to the Capital to seek redress of grievances which they feel most keenly, and which have dried up the hearts and hopes of countless thousands of their mothers and fathers before them, and of all too many of their contemporaries. Their conduct and dignity were in marked contrast to the outraged cries of the guardians of a dead past, who somehow find the act of citizens journeying to the country’s seat of government an act of subversion and a threat to American democracy, and their restraint stands as a silent reproach to the United States Senator who shamed his office by allowing that he "would just as soon” that the march ended in disorder. It is extremely doubtful that the President’s civil rights proposals have either gained or lost support as a result of the march, for certainly the demonstrators did nothing to persuade backers to change their minds, and it seems that if Our Lord, Himself, were to appear to every legislator who still kicks against the goad of equality of human rights and opportunities, telling them they are wrong, they would not be persuaded. But, surely, the conscience of the Nation has been challenged as never before, for the more than two hundred thousand men and women who chanted "Freedom, Freedom" in the streets of Washington, D. C, last Wednes day were really crying out to all the people of America, "How can you say that you love God—that you follow Christ—when you hate and dishonor Him in theperson of your neigh bor?" The man or woman who shuts his ears to the question—who seeks to rationalize the plainly worded warning of Jesus Christ, "As long as you did it to one of these. . .you did it to Me’’—who seeks refuge from the de mands of the Christian Way of Life in some dimly remembered "Traditional" way of life of a bygone day—shuts his ears to Christ and defiantly hurls back at Him the badge of Christianity, for "By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” Love Fills The Day God’s World God made us to love Him— forever. The whole purpose of life is contained in this vocation to love. Compared to it, all lesser human goals fade into insignificance. At first glance it might seem that God is being miser ably short changed. Ev eryone i s Lurrying through the day, occupied with a thousand duties and in terests. Fathers work at a driv ing pace to provide for their families. Mothers, carried to distraction, minister to the needs of husband and children. Single men and women in' schools, offices and the market place have their own pressures and stresses. We are tempted to say, "It seems that very little time is being given to loving God. If that is what God made us for, His idea is not paying off very well." Then we reflect on the nature of charity, and we realize that it is not a matter of spending our whole day looking at the sky (or at the tabernacle) and saying, over and over, "My God, I love You!" Explicit acts of love must have their place, yes. But principally God ex pects us to show our love for Him by fulfilling our nature as human beings. This means, at a minimum, that we respect God’s will and (By Leo J. Trese) that we live our lives within the framework of His laws. Still better, it means that God is the target of our total life. Whatever intermediate aims we may have, God is the ultimate objective of all we do. In practice, this becomes a matter of trying our best to discharge well the obligations that life has placed upon us. Assuming that we are united with Christ by sanctifying grace, love for God then is ex pressed in our efforts to be a good father, mother, neighbor, citizen, parishoner. We love God by being a good teacher, nurse, secretary, mechanic, merchant, doctor, lawyer or politician. We love God even in our recreations and social ac tivities. In short, we love God by trying to use well the talents, great or small, with which He has endowed us. Somehow the circumstances of life have set tled us into a certain area of existence and action which is uniquely our own. This area, however unimportant it may seem to be, is the particular part of God’s total picture on which He wants us to work. Or, to vary the figure, this is our "beat," which we must cover to the best of our ability. As we progress through our busy day, we are forwarding God’s plan for the world. For God, this is the Seventh Day. God is "resting," as He leaves it to us to carry on (under His guidance) His work of creation. We are not consciously thinking of God all the time, no more than is a man explicitly thinking of his family while his mind is on the work which provides their bread and butter. Yet, every new day, with God as our ultimate objective, speaks of our love for Him. It may seem to us that we are making a ridiculously weak impact upon the world. We may see very little "creativity" or long-range importance in what we are doing. However, this is not a matter which need con cern us. A man in a rowing shell bends his back to the car without knowing or worrying about what lies ahead. He leaves the guidance to the cox-swain. For us, God is the helmsman— and our contribution to God’s own final objective may be far more important than we think. No, God is not being short changed on love quite as shame fully as the world's busyness might lead us to believe. True enough, it is sad that there are so many persons whose lives are not oriented to God. They do but sharpen the challenge to ourselves. It is for us to make up to God, by our own more perfect service, for all the love He seeks and does not get. (Father Trese welcomes let ters from his readers. The in creasing volume of letters pro hibits 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.) Congress Shows It Can Act Swiftly In Emergency (By J. J. Gilbert) WASHINGTON, (NC)—Con gress, often accused of being laggard, can act swiftly in an emergency. In fact, the whole legislative process, including the signing of Congressional acts by the President, can move at top speed. This was proved when legis lation was turned into law to head off a nationwide rail strike that was only hours away. The railroads had expressed a determination to make chan- es in work rules at midnight of August 28. The unions said just as emphatically that rail work ers would go out on strike one minute after the rules were changed. When it appeared that the unions and management would not settle differences be fore time for the train stop page, Congress went into high gear. Despite that it was threa tened with obstruction by one of its members, the Senate en acted the legislation by a vote of 90 to 2 one day, and the House acted the next. Mean while, special arrangements were made to put the legisla tion on the President’s desk within almost minutes, and the whole business became law be fore the strike materialized. The railroads had said ear lier that they would withdraw their work rules changes if Congress acted. The changes were the reason given by the unions for their threat to strike. It was a real cliff hanger, what with the last minute res cue, and all. Enactment of the legislation came on the day that the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was held. This enor mous outpouring of demonstra tors tended to overshadow this story, but it was big front page news nonetheless. The two things were united in a way, because there was apprehension lest some thousands of the mar chers, who had come by train, would not be able to get home. The law which Congress en acted would not ordinarily be popular. That, undoubtedly, is why the lawmakers awaited as long as they dared before they acted. The measure compels the contestants in a labor dispute to abide by the findings of com pulsory arbitration. This strikes at collective bargain ing, freedom to strike, and other rights labor has won by hard effort over the years. It puts restrictions on management, too. Whether the tremendous March on Washington served to influence one Congressional vote with regard to the Presi dent’s civil rights bill remains to be seen. There are many who think it did not. But leaders of the march in Washington that day spoke in terms of elevat ing and prodding and stimulat ing the national conscience. There is reason to think that the march achieved this end. If the national conscience is brought to feel that the civil rights plight of the Negro is a national emergency, Congress can act swiftly, and will, de spite some obstruction. SOMETHING FOR YOUR COUNTRY The Others In Christ It Seems to Me One of our troubles as human beings is that we’ve got to communicate piecemeal, one word after the other. This leads to vexing problems of empha sis, and to inadequacies in un- d e r s t anding one another. Every newspaper is p a infully aware of the d ifficulty. How shall the story be written t o’ achieve as much balance as possible, with out sacrificing interest and dra ma? I have sometimes written a first paragraph 20 or 30 times, and still been dissatisfied. The Boston Pilot not long ago had a headline which read, not very ecumenically, "Catholics at Lutheran Meeting Stress Uni ty in One True Church.” I mean to say, those words "one true" can be like sandpaper if taken as implying that all else is false. NOW OBSERVE the evolu tion in meaning as we move from the headline through the story. The first sentence quotes a Jesuit theologian that "Catho licism recognizes the Lutheran Church as a ‘genuine Christian Church’—although not on the JOSEPH BREIG same level as the Catholic Church." The theologian was Father Johannes Witte of Rome’s Gre gorian University, an official Catholic observer at the assem bly of the Lutheran World Fed eration in Helsinki, Finland. Answering a press confer ence question, Father Witte said that "Roman Catholics can not acknowledge the Lutheran Church as the true Church be cause Jesus Christ founded one Church, and this ope Church is guaranteed by Jesus Christ Himself until the end of time." BUT, FATHER WITTE went on, "Roman Catholics recog nize the several elements of the Church which are outside the Roman Catholic Church. . .All Christians having received Baptism in faith, are in this sense within the one communion of Christians. . .This is the ba sis for the ecumenical move ment which strives for reunion of all these Christians in one unique Church of Jesus Christ." At this point, I am sure, we are all feeling much more ecu menical than when we read the headline. Still, we have the feel ing that Father Witte’s remarks stopped just when they could have become most enlightening. Lutherans are baptized, and so are we. Now what has Bap tism done to us? It has done something altogether wonderful which we try, with words that badly limp, to describe by say ing that we have been made cells in Christ’sMystican Body; that His life flows in us in a way analogous to the life of a vine living in all the branches. AS CHRIST acted in His own body while on earth, now He acts in and through us—He speaks truth and loving-kind ness with our tongues; His com passion is seen in our eyes; He does mercy with our hands; and He in us, and we in Him, give worship and glory to God. We say, too—and truly—that by Baptism we are made God’s family, destined to share His divine life forever. This being so, we are, by Baptism, more closely related to one another than is a son to the mother from whose womb he came forth. We seek the perfection of uni ty because already, in a most marvelous manner, we are one in Christ; and Christ’s life in us draws us toward one another despite all our misundertsand- ings and human feelings. And this, rather than raising com parisons between Churches, is what is vital now. Where Do I Write ? I pray Thee, make my column read; And give me thus my daily bread." THERE’S A GREAT curiosity on the part of the public as to the surroundings in which an artist or writer creates. Cur rently, I am reading the sec ond of a series of books entitled "Writers at Work," a compila tion of interviews with writers here and abroad and inevitably will come the question "Where do you write and how do you get your ideas? It would seem that surroundings were more important to an artist than to a writer. You can tell much a persons’ tastes, likes, by the brick- brack of life which surround him, the colors used, the kind of books in his library, whether his home is geared to beauty, comfort, or rich ornamentation. A person’s home does bespeak much about him even as an artist’s studio will tell much about the artist. So it is no wonder that readers sometimes ask where I write? Do I write in longhand? How do I think of column topics ? * * * NEWSPAPER OFFICES are not conducive to creative writ ing, they are not supposed to By BARBARA C. JENCKS be. The news writer should be continually reminded of ur gency, time, briefness, and he should be able to write well despite the fact that phones are ringing around him, people are continually interrupting, ques tions asked, conversations nearby. It takes a particularly disciplined mentality to write in a newsroom environment. For those who wish to write in the creative vein or articles of a feature variety, a newspaper office is not the place. The ideas and the writer must re move themselves to a place of silence. I have also heard that some writers are able to put a symphony or concert record ing on and work with this in the background. I cannot write a column with interruption or with background sound, be it music, a vacuum cleaner or a carpen ter pounding. Unhappy is the poor victim who calls on the phone during this writing period. It is another thing when writing a news story in the of fice, news stories are so or ganized that they can be broken at any point and picked up later. * * * THE ROOM in which I write tells a lot about my interests.) One side of the room is lined with books: poetry, lives of the saints, drama, reference books, the kind of books referred to when writing. The novels, bio graphies are in another room. (If books were dollar bills, I could retire for a couple of weeks.) In this room, there is a four drawer file of quotations, clippings, articles, notes which I can refer to often. I have a file on subjects such as educa tion, science, women, saints, religious, art, authors, etc. I also have a file on various people: President Kennedy, Pope Paul, Dr. Dooley, favorite authors such as Thomas Wolfe, Eugene O’Neill, James Agee, Sigrid Undset. I am forever clipping magazines and news papers when a particularly good article is found. My file or quo tations is the largest. When I read, I use a pencil and copy a well phrased or particularly inspirational line. Associates will tell you that my handwrit ing would qualify for the medi cal profession, so hard is it to discern. Therefore all writ ing is done on a standards type writer, my typing is not much better than my handwriting. I write at a large heavy mahogany desk which was my grand father’s. On the desk amid clut ter of clippings, paper, books is a yellow legal-lined pad of paper on which I jot down my (Continued on Page 8) Peace Corps MINNEAPOLIS, (NC)—Peace Corps director R. Sargent Shriver called here for Catholic college students to ‘‘give a tithe" of their time to volunteer service organizations like the Peace Corps or Papal Volun teers for Latin America. Shriver gave the keynote ad dress (Aug. 27) at the National Federation of Catholic College Students (NFCCS) congress. More than 600 representatives of colleges and universities across the country attended. In a question period after his talk, Shriver said "Catholic colleges have not fulfilled their responsibility unless 10 per cent of their classes give two years of service," to volunteer organizations. If this were done, he said, it * ‘would change the face of the Western hemisphere." Labor Hits Sunday Sales CINCINNATI, (NC) — Or ganized labor mapped plans here to curb Sunday retail sales and to "prevent Sundays from becoming a commercial jun gle." The Central Labor Council approved organization of a Cit izens’ Sunday Closing Commi ttee to stage demonstrations at two subruban department stores that open on Sundays. Demonstrators will hand leaflets to customers of the sto res asking. "Is this purchase you made on Sunday neces sary?" and "Would you or members of your family want to be forced for livelihood to work every Sunday?" Book On School Aid ST. LOUIS, (NC)—Citizens for Educational Freedom said here a book is being prepared by scholars of different reli gious persuasions on gov-,, ernment aid to students of non public schools. Daniel D. McGarry of St. Louis (Mo.) University will be general editor of the book to be entitled "Educational Free dom: the Case for Government Aid to Students in Independent Schools," the national head quarters of CEF said in a statement. CEF said the book will be published by Bruce and Com pany of Milwaukee. DAVAO, Philippines, (NC)— At a basketball game between the Maryknoll Fathers here and a local Filipino team, the home- team was taking a decided beat ing from the taller American quintet. The American team was led by Father Dave J. Rezek, a six- foot, four-inch Maryknoller from Chicago, who commanded all the play off the backboards. At half time, with the score hopelessly lopsided, one of the spectators approached the Ma ryknoll team with an interesting proposal: "Since you priests are so big i and we are so small, couldn’t you raise the basket on your end and lower it on our side?" His suggestion was rejected by the referee as the Mary- knollers went onto rack up their sixth straight win against no losses. Priests Freed In Haiti LONDON, (NC)—Two Haitian priests who were arrested and put in prison by the Duvalier government have now been re leased, according to word reaching here. They are Fa thers Jean Claude Bajeux, C. S. Sp., and Paul Claude, C. S. Sp., both teachers at a seminary in Port-au-Prince and editors of a magazine published there. The priests are believed to be still under police surveillance. Swiss Guards Sworn In VATICAN CITY, (NC)—Five recruits have been sworn into the Swiss Guards, bringing the number of the personal body guard of His Holiness Pope Paul VI to 96. Full complement is 100. The recruits will take a special course of studies for a month. After a year they will become full members of the guard. Climb Ladder To Mass CRYMMYCH, England, (NC) —Parishioners who attend Mass here must climb a ladder into an attic over a farmer’s barn. Father Raymond Joyce has established a mission here, from his parish at Newcastle Emyln, and meets an average , of 30 people for Sunday Mass in the attic. QUESTION BOX (By David Q. Liptak) Q. Could you tell me or give me some information about a practice known as "True De votion to the Blessed Mother?” A. St . Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary can be epitomized as a way of spiritual perfection through (1) complete self-dedi cation to Our Lady and (2) a faithful, everyday living up to this dedication. IN THE SAINTS own words: "True Devotion consists in giv ing ourselves entirely to our Lady, in order to belong entire ly to Jesus through her, . .We must give her all we have in the order of grace, and all that may become ours in the future, in the orders of nature, grace and glory; and this we must do without the reserve of so much as one farthing, one hair, or one least good action; and we must do it also for all eter nity; and we must do it, further, without pretending to, or hoping for, any other recompense for our offering and service except the honor of belonging to Jesus Christ through Mary and in Mary. . ." BOTH THE IMMEDIATE aim and the ultimate purpose of this devotion are, of course, closer union with Christ. Were this not so, the devotion would be— in Louis Montfort’s own words again—"false and delusive." But the way to Christ, as he envisions it, must be cleared and paved by placing ourselves and all our good acts into the hands of Mary, that she may dispose of them as she wills. For when we offer Christ any thing through the immaculate , hands of his mother, "we take him by his weak side," as it were (allowing for the inaccu racy of the expression). ST. LOUIS DE MONTFORD outlined and detailed his True Devotion in a new classic treatise. The work first came into worldwide focus when it was discovered in an old trunk in 1842, 126 years after his death. Today it appears in many lan guages and over a hundred edi tions. Pope Leo XIII, who bea tified the author, explicitly re commended it; so too, St. Pius XI knew its contents by heart, having practiced the devotion (Continued on Page 7) V) The Southern Cross P. O. BOX 180. SAVANNAH. GA. Vol. 44 Thursday, September 5, 1963 No. 9 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 Mark waiter, Managing Editor Rev. Lawrence Lucree, Rev. John Fitzpatrick, Associate Editors