THE PRIEST ON THE BATTLEFIELD

New Zealand Tablet, 3 June 1915, Page 11

THE PRIEST ON THE BATTLEFIELD

THE APOSTOLATE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. (Continued.) ; The Call of the Priest. " They were filled with an ideal that is the highest point of heroism that man may reachnamely, the close following and imitation of the Hero of Heroes, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. With the manly and fearless St. Paul, they called to the world, We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumb-ling-block, and to the Gentiles foolishness, but unto all that are called, Christ, the power of God and the r wisdom of God.' Fundamentally, each priest has in him the making of a hero. His is no light call. It is a soldier call, that means in tender years a severance from the/strong ties of blood. ' Follow Me ' means renunciation of much that is naturally dear to the human heart, and he who responds must be made of fine metal. As he steps into the ranks, the command of the Leader-sounds in his ear, 'Deny thyself, take up thy cross.' Year after year passes in the school of self-denial, purifying and strengthening the strong foundation of natural force of character that is his. His call is for God, and he realises this. His. character, strong enough primarily to resist the call of the world, has, by long and steady training, all its faculties and powers fully-and scientifically developed. He must first conquer himself, the most difficult of all conquests, for ' he who conquers himself is greater than he who takes a city.' The Office of the Priest. At the end of his training he is raised to an office that places him between God and man as an Alter Christ us. The priest spends his life, heedless of himself, in directing souls to the waiting Saviour of the world. He is the guardian of the life of the world. As the dispenser of the Sacraments, he is the centre of God's work on earth. By the priest is continued the distribution of the Bread of Life, the Body and Blood that was first placed on the table of the Last Supper. As one of a regal' priesthood, he receives the soul at birth, guards and directs it through life, and at, death sends it with certainty and in safety on its journey back to the Master Who created it. What heroism the fulfilment of this office entails is shown by that glory of the Churchher unending, undying line of martyrs. Priest-Heroes Everywhere. The priests in the trenches are only doing what their brothers have been doing through the. centuries, and have shown that, like them, they are possessed of a

valor and steadiness of purpose that not even Death itself can daunt. Their only thought is for souls their V orders from their Commander-in-Chief are, . « Teach all .nations'; and wherever men need them, there they are 7 found. J •:-.-,;. ' Says the correspondent of an English newspaper: ■ ' In some towns, at the German advance, only the parish priest remained. I heard bells ringing, and walked to the church. "To my surprise, there were only three persons to form the congregation. The clergy were all alone around the altar, and chanted the .- * Te Deum' by themselves. Nothing ever impressed me. so much. ... Here were the priests, all alone, who had remained faithful to their posts to the last, and had clung to their duty. Now they gathered round the altar to thank heaven for their country's deliverance." ' The same writer tells that—■ 'On the battle edge ... a dying man . . . kneeling by a dying man, was a priest, holding one of his hands and administering Extreme Unction. On the edge of every battlefield I have seen these ministers of God. They move about throughout the fighting, calm and fearless, ready to help the doctors or comfort the last moment of dying soldiers.'' The Priest and the Materialist. Again, we have this testimony: ' A young priest who says his prayers before lying down on his straw mattress or in "the mud of the trench puts a check upon blasphemy, and his fellowsanticlericals, perhaps, in the old days, or frank Materialists ■ —watch him curiously, and are thoughtful after their watchfulness. His courage has something supernatural in it, and he is careless of death. Then, again, he is the best comrade in the company. He does a thousand little acts of service to his follow-soldiers, and especially to.those who are most sullen, most brutal, or most miserable. He speaks sometimes of the next life with a cheerful certainty which makes death seem less of an end of things, and he us upborne with a strange fervor which gives a kind of glory to the most wretched toil.' At one battle two priest stretcher-bearers, who advanced with hands uplifted to show that they were unarmed, in order to save the rest of the ambulance from attack, were shot dead. The act in which death surprised them—doing good to others—was but the habit of their lives. Hear these words of a dying priest to his. Bishop. ' I offer to God my sufferings and my life for the redemption of France, and for the recruitment and sanctification of the clergy of the diocese. I have the firm hope that your Lordship's blessings and prayers will get me the grace to remain always true to my priesthood, as I swore to do on the day of my ordination.' One observer writes : ' I could not help reflecting on the discipline which has has made the French priests what they are. In this dies irae they have not flinched from the field nor from their flocks. Often where the civil authority has been overwhelmed, the rites of Holy Church persevere. The priests of the villages through which we pass are full of charity for our men. Sticking to their posts, "they improvise ambulances for the wounded.' The Morning Post tells how the destruction of the town of Senlis was prevented by the parish priest. These are the words of its correspondent: ' The parish priest of Senlis—a man of 70, and a splendid type of priest— stood by his people through everything with the tranquillity of faith. Despite his age, he had come through the terrible ordeal unshaken. He was the only man I met who had been through the German occupation with eyes perfectly steady and unflinching, with hands that had not that nervous twitch which tells of an intolerable strain.' . Five Bullets. ""."*:. Ambulance or firing line, it matters not. See Father Lamy, wounded with five bullets, as he crawls about the trenches to help his wounded comrades-in-arms, till the ambulance men seize him and carry him

off, protesting. He was decorated with the medal for conspicuous bravery under fire. '.' And his case is illustrative of many. M. Eugene Tavernier writes: - . : : ■,.U A. long list of priests, for their military" exploits, have received the honor of being praised before the whole army. In the midst of soldiers, a soldier himself the priest, whom the Freethinker pretends to treat as an inferior citizen, has suddenly proved a ■ living manifestation of the spirit of discipline and sacrifice.' Truly, there is no armor like the armor of a good conscience; no vision like the vision ..that sees clear through the blinding mists of earth to the welcoming Hand of Christ. The priest has both these possessions, and they enable him to measure existing evils in the balance of eternity. Therefore- is it that a priest can write : —• • War is forging a new and living France and England, which, forgetting sloth and ease, will press towards a higher ideal. of national greatness.' Oh, the marvellous certitude of the Catholic. It is divine.- In the trenches in the twentieth century, as in the days of St. Peter, he knows exactly where-he stands. His Church and her minister make all plain and absolutely certain. The Church is a divine institution with divine decrees. Its teaching is a sacred force—Mass, the Sacrifice of God; Holy Communion,' the Bread of the strong. The Sacraments are channels conveying grace from God to man; living or dead, it matters not, for all Catholics are close joined in the Communion of Saints. That is the reason of the turning to the priest. He is the mediator, the sole dispenser of the gifts of God, the sole representative of the Son of God, Who has plainly announced, ' He that heareth you, heareth Me,' and tells all that ' Whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, it shall be loosed in Heaven.' " At the whisper of the priest all sin, the only obstacle between the soul and God, -fades and is forgotten. God's Messenger. 'Ah, thank God the priest is here!' arid at his coming death loses its terror. The trembling soul, steadied, leaps with confidence to the Sacred Heart of Christ, sine of a welcome. In the Colosseum yesterday, in the trenches to-day, the priest stands by his people, a splendid figure, holding the Key of Eternity. How these words of Holy Writ spring to the lips as we see those heroes among heroes moving amid the smoke and death of battle :— ■ ' And he got his people great honor, and put on a breastplate as a giant, and girt his warlike armor about him in battles, and protected the camp with his sword. In his acts he was like a lion, and all the workers of iniquity were troubled, and salvation prospered in his hand. , And he was renowned even to the uttermost parts of the earth, and he gathered them that were perishing.' (I Mach. 3-3, 4-9.) CHAPTER IV.—OUR NUNS. Our Nuns ! Those handmaids of the Lord who walk the path of perfection in their quiet cloisters, their lives lit by the soft glow of the Tabernacle Lamp! They spend themselves in the Vineyard of Him Who has called them. Taught in the school of sanctity, they strive daily so to train as to be worthy followers of Him Who proclaimed, ' The whole of the Law is fulfilled in one word, '"Thou alt ""love thy neighbor as thyself." ' Moved by this mandate, they have circled the earth, bound to the service of mankind by the golden cord of charity, that golden cord of the triple strands— Chastity, Obedience. Close followers of Him Who is mighty in His meekness and powerful in His poverty, they show to-day the marvellous power of Christian charity, enabling them, weak women though they be, to triumph over all fear of danger and death. Home Again. Says the correspondent of an English paper:- ;•'• : - re-estab-lishing an entente cordial between the French Church and the French State- Hundreds of nuns have been

recalled from Belgium, to which country they were ex-~ ; pelled when the religious Orders were dissolved, and are working as hospital nurses with a devotion that is beautiful. It is quite impossible that the heroic work of iJipth. nuns and monks should be lost on a public which is fiver quick to recognise devotion to duty when there is no axe to grind.' Practical Piety The practical nature of their piety is viewed with admiration on all sides now. Dr. Martin, in the British Medical. Journal, bears witness to the devotion and ability of the nuns of his nursing staff in the following: —■ ' It is presided over by Sister Ferdinand, a trained nurse, with rigid antiseptic and aseptic principles. The nursing at this hospital was performed by Sisters of Mercy, all trained and skilful nurses, and the gentlest and most helpful people one could meet. The Rev. Mother was matron of the hospital, and was also a trained anaesthetist, being able to administer chloroform or open ether.' From Nancy comes this splendid appreciation from the pen of the correspondent of the Times newspaper: ' The hospital is another wonderfully well-equipped and well-officered institution, with the same spirit of devotion and self-sacrifice for the good of the nation running through it, and the same high level of surgical and scientific attainment among the members of the staff. The nurses here are largely Sisters of religious Orders, and the affectionate care with which they all tend and mother the poor, wounded men is unspeakably touching. I saw one day some of the nuns kneeling in a little chapel in the hospital grounds. The choir was singing a litany, the burden of which was ' Sauvez la France," repeated over and over again. The cannon were booming outside, and each time that those words of the prayer rang out through the open door they were followed without a moment's pause by the roar of the heavy shells. And of the two—of the. cannon that had shattered their limbs, or the kneeling women who soothed and tended them—there was not, I think, much doubt in the minds of the wounded men as to which was the finer force —and the stronger.' , Who dare speak to-day of the ' wasted lives ' of our nuns, whose every day is filled with ' uplift work? Yesterday in the quiet convent unheeded, to-day on the battlefield, before an astonished admiring world, ever and always they have but one thought—' souls, souls, souls, and more souls,' to save for Christ, their loved Leader. To gain these Death itself is laughed at. Nuns on Roof. Look at those nuns on the roof of their convent at Namur, while the town is being burnt, fighting the flames, to save the hundred wounded sheltered by their walls. It would be difficult to surpass the cool bravery of the following answer of a Sister of Charity. The commandant of a fort asked for a nun to tend his wounded, and she volunteered. On asking permission to go, the Superior said to her: 'What if the commandant blows the fort up sooner than surrender?' ' Why, then,' coolly answered the Sister, ' we shall all go up together, and the Bon Dieu will receive us, since it would have been for Him and for France.' No wonder an English officer exclaimed, ' The convents are grand, and the nuns are splendid Patriotic Scotch Nun. Listen to this letter from a nun in a Belgian convent. She was one who, at the call of the Master, had left her loved Scotland, even though it tore her heartstrings. She writes thus to her people : —• ' For two days we nuns have been rolling bandages. i.-*., . . Every day our nuns hear from their homes that their brothers are leaving as volunteers. Tell father I am cheery, and feel sometimes far too warlike for a nun. That's my Scotch blood. I hope to goodness the Highlanders, if they come, will march down

another street on their way to the barracks, or I shall forget that I must not look out of the window.' - The writer of a book called The Transformation of Aunt Sarah has noted with sympathetic insight the above letter. One of his characters writes as follows to her fiance, an English officer in the trenches:— ' Don't be cross, for mine, I think, are happy tears. This is what happened. Nina lent me her Tablet containing a letter from a Highland girl who is now a mm in Ghent. The Gordon Highlanders were hourly expected, she said, and then she hoped they would not come down the convent street, for if they did, how could she help breaking the rule not to look out of the window ? ' Don't wonder if a fellow-woman wept. All the self-denial of years of home-sickness, all the discipline of obedience- expressed in that little speech ! Emotion with self-sacrifice, the two together, that's what moves me. Most of us get our emotions so on the cheap. The big feeling reined by the little rule, that's what's so touching about the Highland nun, and so humiliating to me. Would you be angry if I said it makes me feel like trying to be a nun? Do they take Protestants in Roman Catholic convents? Anyhow, if you go to Ghent, as I hope you will, I want you to find out this unknown Sister of mine, and say to her that, if it doesn't smash all rules utterly, you want to kiss her hand. You have your own nun's leave, sir! And more. If the Gordons did go down that street, and tho Reverend Mother pushed the Highland nun's nose against the window pane, as 1 pray she did, just give that- reverend lady, rule or no rule, a salutation on the cheek.' (To bo concluded.)