Irish Jesuit Province

Extracts of Social WisdomSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 67, No. 794 (Aug., 1939), pp. 519-523Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20514572 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 05:42

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Irish Jesuit Province is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Irish Monthly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.242 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 05:42:40 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Extracts of Social Wisdom

Hell is not to Love any More" r E great commandment which comprises all others is to

love one another. If we do this we fulfil the law. How

can we love God Whom we have not seen, if we do not

love our fellows whom we do see? . 'T'his is the foundation stone of the Catholic Worker move

inent. It is on this that we build. Because of love we embrace voluintary poverty and the Works of Mercy, those two means of

showing our love for our fellows. There is not much sense to

either of these techniques otherwise. It is the folly of the Cross.

It is the wisdom given to little ones, to confound the wvise. It is the little way St. Theresa of Lisieux spoke of.

F'ather P'aul Hanley Furfey gave a talk in New York a fev weeks ago about how we shouild live. We are told to follow

Christ, he said. And how did Hle live? First of all He lived with the poor. He was born in a stable, He was carried in exile into

Egypt. He lived with the poor all His life. Second, Hle was a

worker. He worked with His hands, He was a carpenter. So let us work hard. Father Coady of Nova Scotia says that we can

do ten times as much as we think we can. So let us set out eaclh day to work hard, at whatever comes to hand, whatever our occut pation nmay be. Third, Christ lived in obscurity. For thirty years He was a poor carpenter, and when He began His ptublic life He lived in even poorer fashion and worked the harder.

Count the number of times the Gospel mentioned 1Iis fatigue. He stopped to rest by the wall. He fell asleep in the small boat and even the tempest did not rouse Him. He had no place to

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.242 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 05:42:40 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

520 THE IRISH MOiNTTHLY

lay His head. And it must have been hard work for Him Who was used to those silent peaceful years with Mary and Joseph, to have to instruct, exhort, encourage His followers who did nlot know what He was talking about uintil after His death. They still looked for an earthly kingdom, for high places in which to sit. 'The glory of Palm Sunday seems to emphasise the need for the little way, the obscure way. There were the plaudits of the

multitude on one day, and within a week the mob was thirsting for His d-tth. The fickle crowd, blown by every wind.

Father Furfey emnplhasised those three points-poverty, hard work and obscurity. That is the life we must embrace. It does not sound very attractive, buit love lights up such a life, and its radiance reaches far. Love intensifies the natural joys of life, the comradeship we have for one another, the little joys of meals together, work together, the suinlight which warms us and the rain and mist wvhich nourish the ground which bears our daily bread.

-The Catholic Worker.

The Transformation of Russia Father La Farge (America, November 5th, 1938) in an article,

so remarkable as to be prophetic, on the occasion of the Munich Treaty, stated that the most necessary, important and urgent task is to restore religious liberty in U.S.S.R. This-article, one of the most important ever written bv the well-known American Sociologist, surprised superficial peoI)le wvho had ceased to think of Russia and had been hypnotised by the phantom arising in central Europe; but for those who reflect, the need is evident.

Sooner or later, apart from some uinforeseen climax, Europe will regain its balance. Violence cannot endure for ever. The millions of German Catholics, who keep their faith intact through

their spirit of sacrifice and discipline, will end by conquering those

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.242 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 05:42:40 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

EXTRACTS OF SOCIAL WISDOM 521

who wish to stifle it. Notwithstanding the trials to be expected, we can look to the future with great confidence. On the other hand, in the U.S.S.R. there is no more Catholic life outside the Embassies and foreign colonies, or small groups formed in villages without priests. If we believe that the Catholic Church is the only leaven able to give back to the world universal peace, we must admit that the only country in the world where She has nothing to depend on is the Soviet Union.

There is something even more alarming. All the age-old tradition of Great Russia (and this is what is most interesting) is

anti-Catholic. This country was not formed in our Western Universities during its long Middle Ages; it has always lived more or less on the outskirts of Europe and, no matter what its merits may have been, it was never part of the European family of nations-it has not felt the influence of Rome.

That is why we share the belief of Father La Farge that, as long as it remains as it is, Russia will be a foreign body in the international community and, consequently, will be a menace to its neighbours and to the whole world. The spiritual transforma tion of Russia is of urgent necessity not only for motives of apos tolate, but also for the salvation of civilisation. Father La Farge

merely continues the message addressed by Pius XI to all nations at the Conference of Genoa in 1922. But what disasters have accumulated during these 17 years, through the desire of

European nations to profit by Russia instead of striving to purify it !-which means that the spiritual transformation of Russia is a great necessity, more urgent now than ever.

-The World Problem.

Nuns in the Third Reich 'The nuns in Germany have suffered cruelly, but the nuns in

Austria are crushed and broken. In Germany the persecution

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.242 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 05:42:40 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

522 THE IRISH MONTHLY

of the Church has to a large extent been so clandestine that few have realised its seriousness. In Austria, persecution of the Church has been glaring and defiant. Convent after convent has been affected. All seminaries are closed, thousands of the out standing Catholic citizens are in concentration camps or have been shot. In Austria Catholics have met with the same fate as the Jews in Germany. This means that every nun you meet has one or more if not all her relatives in prison. The suspense

is cruel. Talk to the nuns about the plebiscite, and learn from them what is signified. Many had never voted before; they were herded like cattle and forced to sign in the affirmative, and then for a reward of their gallant attitude in voting for the "Anschluss " they were given a bronze medal of Hitler which they had to pin on their habits, otherwise it would not have been safe to go about even within the precincts of the convent. The sadness that fills one's heart at conditions in Austria is a sadness nothing can efface, for one and all realise it means the loss of the youth to the Church. The very nuns who have tasted physical suffering and known well what it meant, find this blood less martyrdom more than human nature can endure. Not one but dozens have said to me with a pleading and a longing in their voice: " If they would but shoot us, if they would but take our lives." And nuns who during the World War maintained a holy indifference have to-day confessed with tears streaming down their cheeks that they now know what it means to hate this cruel pagan system which aims at eradicating Christianity, and which proudly claims it will not make nmartyrs out of Catholics but will corrupt them morally.

The first convent to be closed in Vienna was that belonging to the nuns of Notre Dame de Sion. Naturally an Order devoted to praying for the conversion of the Jews had to be banished immediately, and the convent which once housed some 400 stu

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.242 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 05:42:40 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

EXTRACTS OF SOCIAL WISDOM 528

dents was broken into and confiscated. In the Vorarlberg, that very Catholic section of Austria, one convent after another has been taken; the Dominicans and the Benedictines, and one of the most noted boys' schools in Bregenz has become a military S.A. school where Austrian youth is taught Nazi tactics. The Mererau no longer exists, the Benedictine priests having changed posts, and instead of being the professors are now doing the

housework and cooking for their Brown-Shirt masters. There was much excitement in Feldkirch when a year ago the German conquerors marched into Austria, for it was one of the first places surrounded. The Nazis claimed that the Jesuits and their pupils were armed, therefore they broke into the school and shamefully mistreated the priests, stripping and searching them. Fortu nately the Swiss students refused to see their professors insulted, they sent word to Switzerland and soon there was an influx of indignant parents. To-day the two huge buildings which once housed 800 of the elite of Europe has become a Nazi school of

accounting. Only a few months ago a group of priests making a retreat in the Jesuit retreat houise at Feldkirch were ordered out of bed 'in the dead of night and forced to evacuate the dwell

ing because Sudeten refugees, women and children, needed shelter. A Swiss gentleman present investigated and learned that these Sudeten refugees had been spending the night at various hostels and inns, and they in turn had been ordered out by the police as an excuse for disturbing the Jesuits.

-The Catholic World.

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.242 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 05:42:40 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions