Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 11 April 1912, Page 21

Current Topics

When Homer Nods V /,-:,/// // /; We are accustomedand with- good reason—to make merry • over, the glowing <-blunders of “ the - callow newspaper reporter; or the less; excusable No-Popery writer when describing matters of Catholic-doctrine and practice—over the i genius, ■ for example, who described how ‘ the Cardinal ' wore on his head a capva muyna ’ ; . or that other who told how a priest 'carried the Vatican to a dying parishioner,’ and ‘wore a baldacchino ’; or yet a third who saw ‘ a thurifer suspended from the roof’ while Mass was being said. It comes upon us, however, with something of a shock to find so great a writer and : so warm an admirer of mediaevalism < as Sir Walter Scott perpetrating blunders scarcely, less; absurd. The gifted priest-novelist, ‘John Ayscough/ in a delightful article on * Sir Walter ’; in the February number of the Catholic World, remarks: ‘However clever a writer may be, if he can regard mediaeval Christianity only from outside, and only from a Georgian standpoint, he is bound to blunder. The outside view of the Catholic Church Scott had, and he had a keen eye for the picturesque,, so he could describe vividly ;■ but even in description he came appalling “ croppers.” ’ ■- f * :, . And, as a case in point, John Ayscough,’ in his Catholic World article, supplies the following: : ‘ln the second volume of the Antiquary there is a flagrantly picturesque' account of the midnight - obsequies ■ of the Catholic Countess of Glenallan. ° The priest, dressed in cope and stole held open , the service ’-—(the breviary, as we are informed on the . next page)— “ another churchman in his vestments bore a holy water sprinkler two boys in white surplices held censers with incense/' and the dirge goes on until a loud Alleluia, pealing through the deserted arches of St. Ruth, closed the singular ceremony.” -Singular, indeed. Sir Walter Scott was undoubtedly the only human being who ever heard an A lleluia, however loud, in the funeral offices of the Catholic Church.’ A Minister on Long Sermons Mark Twain is quoted as having on one occasion thus described his experience regarding long sermons: ‘ I went to church one time, and was so impressed by what the preacher told me about the. poor heathen that I was ready to give up a hundred dollars of my ownmoney, and even to go out and borrow more to send to the heathen. But the minister preached too long, and my own enthusiasm began to drop; about twenty-five dollars a drop, till there was nothing left for the poor heathen, and, by the time he was through and the collection was taken up I stole ten- cents off the plate';’ / * ‘ : -' r - ' r "~~ The joke has a moral; and an American minister, the Rev. E. W. Caswell, in an article in the A.IF. Christian Advocate, has been trying to impress it upon his Protestant brethren. The moral is that, broadly speaking, the day of long discourses : has gone by. Argue about it as we will, or dislike it as we may,’ writes • Mr. Caswell, ‘half an hour or twenty-five minutes from the best of us, and fifteen or twenty minutes from-the most of us, is as much as the modern congregation wants or will stand for long.’ ‘lt is well known,’ he continues breezily, ' that many . ministerial orators have nearly ruined their career owing to the lack of “terminal facilities.” If many sermons could be eliminated at both ends and reduced- in the middle, they could produce greater results. , Audiences are willing to excuse bishops whom they expect to hear only : once in a lifetime, and elderly clergymen who' find it difficult to abbreviate old sermons preached at times when people brought their lunches to church in order. to remain for the afternoon services. . . Would it not be better if sixty-minute sermons, fifteen-minute public prayers, fen-minute notices, long readings and musical numbers could he divided - and “ come in on the

limited ? We find it difficult to concentrate attention .longer than one hour, and younger persons find it contrary to their disposition’ to do so. It is often remarked that the last quarter of certain sermons'.ruins the formed three-quarters ;-'for/ when the attention is lost, the portion already received goes with it.’ After pointing out that the great preachers of New York City, who draw / and hold : large audiences, /do not average more than .thirty minutes 'for, a sermon, he concludes: * ‘ They know that brevity is the soul of wisdom as well as of wit. They are aware that, to be in accord with the spirit of this rapid-firing, movingpicture age, they/must lay aside the long, heavy, ponderous style of sermonising.’ / /VCdonel Bell, and Regimental Chaplains ,:. Colonel ; Allen Bell, ; officer commanding / the % Waikato Regiment, is evidently a man of great plainness of speech, and one who has never cultivated the :art of breaking things gently. In a printed official memorandum, just issued for the information of the chaplains attached to the regiment, he has given those unhappy officials - a most • unmerciful ragging ’ After mentioningby way of introduction to his subject that ‘in the past the chaplains, with a few notable exceptions, have' been a useless excrescence on the various regiments,’ he proceeds: ‘The utter uselessness of the present methods was never more clearly demonstrated than at the church parade held at the termination of . the training camp at Tauherenikau, the only striking feature of which was that the hymn “ Onward, Christian Soldiers,” was not sung.’ Only those who know with what wearisome, monotonous regularity that time-honored melody is ‘ worked off ’ on such occasions can appreciate the biting sarcasm of the last sentence. After pointing '; out some - of the ideals which might fittingly have been presented on the occasion, but which the tired parson had never thought of, he continues remorselessly: ‘lnstead of having pointed put to us those grand ideals, we were treated to the singing of a few hymns and the old stock sermon. - The formal service held in a military camp on Sundays is merely a parade productive of unuttered profanity on the part most of those who have to attend it, and doing no really good work for the betterment of the forces. . . I am quite certain that the majority of the chaplains to our forces are men - who wish to do good work. The" trouble seems to be that they do not know how their upbringing and training seems to totally unfit them for the work of appealing to their fellow-men.’ A- * How far these strictures are true we do not know, and as bur priests are not included in the criticism the matter does not really concern us. But one portion of Colonel Bell’s memorandum we are interested in, and Catholics generally will . read it with pleasure. these suggestions,’ he concludes, ‘ after an experience of over fifteen years of military life on . active service and in times of peace, as a trooper and in command of a regiment. I can safely say that during that long period I have, only been associated with one chaplain who did any really good and lasting work. That was a Jesuit priest named Father Barthelemy, chaplain to, our forces in the Matabele war. He was one of those who recog-: nised that the alpha and omega of an army chaplain’s life was not to hold church parades. His actions, example, and modern methods of work called up: the manly qualities of all with whom he was associated, and he did more to raise the moral tone of our column than anybody else, associated with it.’ Colonel Bell’s experience regarding Catholic military chaplains /is: evi- : dently on all fours with that of Rear-Admiral; Osbon, of the United States Navy, as described on one. occasion in an address to /a v; body ./of: naval cadets in the John : Street ./ Methodist Church, :New York. - - ‘The best thing,’ he said, ‘ that ever happened to the American sailor ,was when Catholic priests were introduced to the navy. They are the most faithful men in the service. They watch Jack. They talk with him. They walk with him. They_live with him. The upshot of their work is that the American sailor is a cleaner-hearted

fellow than he ever was before the Catholic priest .came. Christian organisations: on shore don’t ; do Jack any good. Tracts are worthless, and Bibles and prayer books ; are about as useful .as tracts. ,i But one good whole-souled, manly, chaplain is a whole army in him- - self.’ _ / • ; ’ / ‘ • ' ‘ Wise Words bn Purgatory ‘ ’ ///•,.;•_* ■ Thanks to the work,of a small school of uncritical . and emotional writers there are prevalent, even , amongst . Catholics themselves, ; many .. wild and extravagant notions on the subject of Purgatory— that are , by no means warranted .or. authorised by the official teaching, of the Church. Purgatory is defined in the Catechism 1 as ‘.a. place or state, of punishment in the next life where some souls, suffer for, a time before they go to heaven ’; and the average Catholic'. might well be content with thatdo his duty, to the suffering dead and leave the matter there, without wasting his time on futile and profitless speculation; as to the probable duration of the pains of his deceased ’ relatives or friends. 1 On this point the Rev. Father Hull, of the Bombay Examiner, has some wise and thoughtful words, which we have ' pleasure in reproducing. A correspondent had written to the Examiner as follows : ‘ In Dr. Faber’s All for Jesus we are told how even canonised saints have remained ’ for forty or fifty years in purgatory in spite of the fact that their bodies have worked miracles upon earth. ' . . . Now/ considering that a very short time in ; purgatory, even a quarter of an hour, is equivalent to a long period of suffering upon earth, it terrifies me to think how long in the ordinary course of divine justice we would have to suffer before* we meet in heaven I am aware that this is all a mystery, but I should feel much obliged if you could do something in the way of comforting me and others who may have been’ troubled in the same way.’ * A Here is Father Hull’s reply— the truths to which it draws attention cannot be too widely known. * Catholic revelation tells us very little about .purgatory. It tells us that - there is such a place, or at least state, of detention from heaven, for all who die in grace, but with some of the relics of sin clinging to them. Secondly, that different degrees or amounts of suffering are undergone in purgatory in proportion to the amount of'the relics of sin which cling to each individual soul. •Thirdly, that these sufferings are alleviated, reduced, or shortened by the prayers of Christians on earth,' and of the saints in heaven, . and also by good works and the application Of indulgences. But beyond this revelation does not go. /' Revelation does not tell/ us anything of the nature of the sufferings—whether they are acute pains like those of hell, or consist chiefly in a mental sense of privation and suspense. Revelation does not tell us even what is the nature' of the purgative process. Some have thought that it is really purgative ; that is to say, it removes certain stains and crookednesses of the soul which have been induced by sin. Others have thought that the process is purely punitive that is to say, by sin we have incurred a certain debt of temporal punishment which we have to pay by undergoing a corresponding amount of suffering. Either of these views may be true, or both of them in combination. Revelation tells us nothing of ■ the duration of the process in terms of earthly time. Some have more, some ’have. less , according to their deserts; but whether the difference can be made -up by difference of - intensity for. the same time, or by the same intensity for different lengths of time, we cannot say. • The whole state of the after-world is . a mystery to us. It is a state of things superior to time and space, and we do not even know whether 5 anything there can be measured in terms of time or ; space at all. •■■Lastly we have no ; means'of measuring the ; relation between sin and 1 the temporal punishment due - to sin. I commit five ’small * venial sins to-day ,7: and ; - I .' have, five hours of excruciating toothache to-morrow.t . Would those five hours of toothache suffice as my purgatory for those five 1 venial sins ? It might suffice for more, of it might suffice for less we simply have no -data to go on: - Lastly, we have no idea what effects? produced even by indulgences. Sup-

pose I really gain one plenary indulgence • and offer it v for ; one particular soul •in purgatory Will it /be/ accepted by God - for that' soul - alone ?f t Will it ~ release that soul altogether or only in part ? : We have no idea. If God had thought'it good for us to know these things He would surely have told« us more. The con-clusion-which" I draw from the reticence of- God is that/ He does not wish us to give the matter a single thought. Three things we know f First, that even venial sin is not a thing to trifle with. Secondly/ that even the smallest of God’s punishments is • a thing; to be taken seriously. Thirdly, whatever the punishment may be, those who have to suffer it ; in ; purgatory! will feel; it to be altogether just, and even merciful. * Cultivating this frame of mind, let us not trouble ourselves with a moment’s further thought about the matter.’ / / ‘ ; ' 5 ‘ ' '*•*'• /* ”•• v .‘ But what about all those stories which we read in spiritual 1 books—stories which if true are enough to make one’s hair stand on end. Answer '.—So far as they impress you with /the idea that even venial sin is a -thing to be seriously/avoided/; so far are they ideally true; but so far ' as they ' make you miserable in feeling and worried about .your relations, so far are they ideally false. As to their 'literal truth, we know nothing. Not one of them - is guaranteed as true by the Church: and even where they seem !to be well authenticated by history, this does not prove that they are literal facts. They may be a sort of apocalyptic visions embodying a doctrinal idea And nothing more. I do not know the exact passage from Faber. But I certainly should not give credence to any story about a canonised saint being forty years in purgatory while his body is working miracles on earth. ; /Some devotional writers are often uncritical in their selection of materials, and Faber notoriously • so: No theologian would take such a story -Seriously, It seems almost offensive to pious ears. Therefore, instead of worrying your mind with such apocryphal matter, make an act of faith that your mother is in the [ hands of a good God. Then set about gaining a few indulgences for her and after that put the whole matter out of your mind.’ ~ r - - •/■'/ ;