A Complete story

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 46, 2 December 1925, Page 9

A Complete story

HIS PR( With a contented grunt, Barney Callaghan settled himself snugly in the big armchair which fitted so well his big muscular body. There was frank, manly affection in the look he turned upon his pastor when he inquired:. "Well, Father Casey,- how are you this evening?" . "Discouraged," was the unexpected rejoinder, "discouraged and disheartened." Barney shot bolt upright from the cushions among which he had been at such pains to ensconce himself; his two companions, also Dave O'Keefe and Dick Tracy, started as though they had touched a live wire and turned towards the priest in surprise and inquiry. O'Keefe murmured something about "sincerely regretting," but that was too formal and too unsatisfying for the impetuous Barney. "Why, what's up, Father? What are you discouraged about?" he asked in tones full of honest solicitude. "-About you young men." "About us? What did we do?" "It isn't what you do, it is what vou don't do." "Then, what don't we do?" "You don'tin spite of all my urging—you don't become Catholics." "What do you mean, Father Tim?" queried Dave. "Catholic!" cried Barney, "why, I'm so Catholic that I—l firmly believe that, if a drop of Protestant blood were injected into my veins it would poison me." "Do you believe all the Catholic Church teaches?" Half in jest and half in earnest, the three shouted in chorus, the words of the last renewal of baptismal vows. "Then why, in the name of goodness, don't you practice what you believe?" "We always go to Mass on Sunday," said Tracy. "And say our morning and night prayers," said O'Keefe. "And abstain from meat on Friday," added Callaghan. "That is all very well," declared the priest, "but what about the great, all-im-portant act of practical Catholicism, Holy Communion?" - "I have reecived at least four times already this year," said Dick. "I make it a point to receive once a month," said the methodical Dave. "And you, Barney?" "Why, I go every once in a, while. You know, Father. You see me there." "That is enough to show you believe in Holy Communion makes my problem

OBLEM only the more difficult. ' Communion each month.' ' Communion every once in a while.' Why such Hebrew bargaining with God? Why don't you receive daily?" "Ah, Father Tim, you know you wouldn't expect us young fellows' to receive Holy Communion daily." • "My boy, I would expect it, and I did expect it, and I am disheartened and discouraged that you don't do it. You heard all those sermons I preached on the value and importance of daily Communion, didn't you?" "Sure, Father. But you didn't mean that for us." "For whom then did I mean it?" demanded the priest. There, was no reply. "Come," he urged, "if I didn't mean daily Communion for you, for whom did I mean it? Eh, Dick?" "For—Oh, I guess for some of those good young girls or for the old people that go to Mass every day." "Why for them, and not for you?" "They can get there every morning: we can't." "Old Widow Curran or one of those frail, delicate girls can come to Mass on a bitter! cold morning, and you can't! Shame on you." "But we have to work." "So do they." "But, Father," objected Barney, "we have to be at work on time. I just barely make it now. It would be absolutely out of the question for me to go to Mass and Communion and then come home and get my breakfast. Why, it would be noon before I got to the plant." "I marvel you can hold a book-keeper's position there, Barney, if that is all you know about figures. Keep you till noon! Nonsense! Listen: Get up at 6.15. Be in church and receive Communion during the 6.30 Mass. It will be finished about 6.55. That lets you get back, eat breakfast, and be ready to leave home by 7.40.. "That would mean, crawl out every morning at 6.15. Shades of the Seven Sleepers, that's too much for me." "That little stenographer, Maud Curtin, does it. You are big enough to make ten of her. Neither do you look like an invalid." "I guess «she goes to roost in time to get a night's sleep." "So could you." "Oh, gee! a fellow has. got to have some fun." : , v ~ ; "Surely, as long as it does not. interfere with something of supreme importance in his• career. If you,had a high salaried position in the management of the plant which would

:> require your rising daily at 6.15, you would M rise at 6.15 and think no more about it. I p know you boys well enough for that. There- ■ ■ fore, it is not early rising that keeps you | ■ way from daily Communiom" f "We are not fit," said Dick. "That's the | real reason." - Jl\. worthless reason," returned Father Capey. "For that matter, nobody is fit. Our Divine Saviour knew that when He instituted the Blessed Eucharist and commanded us to receive it. He requires but two things when we receive this great Gift: that we be in the state of grace and have a good intention. There is one, and only one, all-suffi-cient reason that keeps you boys away. You need not try to mislead me. I know what it, is." "What?" "You simply don't want to." For a few moments the young men said nothing. Then O'Keefe, who had been leaning carelessly against the mantelpiece, drew a chair near the priest, sat down quietly, and said: "Father Tim, I see you are in earnest. But what you say gives me a decided shock. Is it possible you mean we fellows should go to Communion every day?" "There is not the slightest doubt about it, my boy." "Father, I accept your word as true. But it is as much at variance with the view I have always held that I find it hard to adjust my mind to it. Would you explain the whole matter to us?" "Gladly," returned the priest. "Receiving Holy Communion is receiving God into your own body. It seems almost irreverence to try to describe such a wonderful operation of divine love with such poor, halting words. Only in silent prayer and deep thought can we catch some faint idea of what this means. Jesus desires you to receive this sublime sacrament every day. Try to grasp what I say: Jesus Christ, the great God of heaven and earth, wants you to communicate daily. He not only wants' you to do somethingHe wants you to permit Him to do something He wants you to permit Him to get near you—to unite Himself with you'in that most intimate union which, in His love for you, He seeks and craves. Would it be possible to find, in heaven or on earth, a reason stronger than this?" "But does He Avant this of everybody—even of us?" "He wants it of everybody, even of you." "You took me up a minute ago for saying we are not fit. But, Father, it surely looks to me that we are not fit to communicate daily." "Listen," said the priest, "there was formerly a great deal of misunderstanding on that point. The Pope, the visible representative of Jesus Christ on earth, has spoken, and the question is settled forever. He has solemnly declared that everybody without exception should, receive daily if possible and that only two conditions are required to make one fit, first to be free from mortal sin, and secondly, to have a good intention." "V "Father," said Barney, "it is a hard 'Wang to do. However, if God desires- it of me, I don't, want to be a coward and refuse. because it is hard. But isn't it almost impossible for young fellows like us?" •

"You mean getting up so early every morning?"- , . ' "Oh, no; I think I'm man enough to do that. It's the constant restraint.'' "Restraint in what?" "Father, I'll, be plain. Here, for example, I fall in with a crowd of fellows and they get telling shady stories. If I were a daily communicant, I should have to be continually on my guard not to encourage them or to fall into the same thing myself. Or Igo Out with a girl. I'd have'to be always looking out not to be too free with her in any way. Why, even I'd have to watch my step at a dance or a show or simply in regard to what I look at in walking clown the street." "You mean, if you were a daily communicant, you would have to exercise continual restraint in order not to commit mortal sin or to put yourself in the proximate danger of committing mortal, sin?" "Exactly." "My boy, you have to exercise that much restraint over yourself, even though you are only a yearly communicant. You can never make a good confession unless you are resolved, with a genuine man's resolution, always to exercise that much restraint over yourself. Isn't that true?" "Well, yes, Father, when we come down to brass tacks, what you say is true. We are in this world for only one thing serve God. Mortal sin is a deadly outrage against God. The least we can do is to be always on our guard not to outrage Him by mortal sin." "I know," said Father Casey gently, "that you boys are trying to do this now. But you. find it hard. That is because you have the wrong adjustment. You are making the salvation of your soul your secondary instead of your principal business. It won't work. The world to-day is such that you can't live like a man of the world without being a traitor to God. You have attempted to make a compromise with sin. It can't be done. Begin daily Communion, and you will have the occasion and the strength to cast this ignoble compromise to the winds. You dread

confession now because you must examine back over a month or more and try to see how often you came out on top and how often you went under in this compromise business. The result is always difficult and always unsatisfactory. Can't you see that, instead of making the struggle harder, you would make it much easier by feeing a daily communicant? Communion gives strength-. To some it gives a feeling of piety; to some it doesn't. Feeling has absolutely nothing to do with the matter. Communion gives strength—this is certain—it is a dogma of faith. Strength is what you want. You want, it every day. Go to Communion every day, and you will get it. Confession will be easier because you will confess oftener and you will keep a closer check on yourself." "But suppose a fellow should make ' a slip?" ■ "If it is clearly a mortal sin, go to confession that night or the next morning, before Mass. But don't miss one Communion r account of it. The very fact that you slip shows how much you need the constant help of Communion. Go to confession. That is not too much to do if you are' facing the problem of your eternal destiny like a man and not like a baby. If the slip is a venial sin or a doubtful mortal sin, make a good act of contrition and go to Communion without any fear." "I suppose there would be all kinds of talk if three young fellows like us were to begin daily Communion," mused Dave. "For two or three mornings," replied the priest, "the neighbors would say, 'Look who's here.' After that they would take it as a matter of course." "I guess that is about right," assented Barney. "Other people bother their heads about us far less than we imagine." "Quite true, Barney, quite true—of all but one. There is one true friend who thinks of you always. He longs for your company and is lonely when you keep away from Him. It is His cause I am pleading," said Father Casey. ■—Rev. C. D. McEnxiry in The Liguorian.