6J DANIEL A. LORD S.J. THE QUEEN'S WORK 3742 West Pine Boulevard St. ouis, ~o. 000 The Sacrament · of Catholic Action BY DANIEL A. LORD, S. J. THE QUEEN 'S WORK 3742 West Pine Blvd. St. Louis, Mo. The Sacrament of Catholic Action Respectfully d edicated to Th e H ierarchy of the United Sta t es through whom The Holy Spirit comes to 1lS to strength en us for our part in th e Bishops' Program of Oatholic Action Imprimi potest: Samuel Horine, S. J . Praep. Provo Missourianae Nihil obstat: F. J . Holwetk Censor Librorum Imprimatur: + P. P. Crane, V. G. Sti . Ludovici, die 14 Septembris, 1936 Second Edition, January, 1937 ANY FINANCIAL PROFIT made by the Central Office of th e Sodality will be used f or the advancement of the Sodality movemellt and the cause of Catholic Action. Copyright, 1936 THE QUEEN'S WORK, INC. The Sacrament of Catholic Action O VER the heads of the kneeling young man and woman, the little boy and girl, the bishop extends his hands tenderly. He lifts his eyes a trifle. He pronounces commanding words. And the wonderful 1 thing has taken place. The Holy Spirit has come. Soldiers have been consecr~ted to warfare under Christ, the Captain. The Sacrament of Catholic Action has been conferred. • • • The storm that broke over the ugly world of Good Friday died out and burned away in the angry red of the sunset sky. The people hurried back to their homes, glad that the whole mess was over. A few faith· ful soul s carried to a borrowed grave the broken body of the Man who had claimed to be leader and Iring of all the world. The earthquake subsided; the wind fell to a whisper, the whole pitiful thing was ended. But the storm raged on in the souls of the eleven men who had been closest to the dead leader and who knew that, at the moment when they could have been of some slight help, they had proved to be astound- ing cowards and poltroons. They hurried away down back streets to seek safety, pray- ing that no one would recognize them _ for -5- who they were, or rather had been. When they finally reassembled in the upper cham- ber where He had, on the preceding night, given them the Bread that was His body, they had nothing to say, nothing to do, nothing to look forward to. Puzzled And in that broken, bedraggled 'state they waited in the scarcely credited hope that perhaps those mysterious promises about a Resurrection might be more than another of His vain hopes. But He did rise. He came to them. lie had triumphed over death and His enemies, and the Apostles were agitatedly once more on their feet, wondering what next would happen. Certainly now was the time when they could count on His doing something spectacular and final. "Lord, is it now time to restore the Kingdom of Israel?" Instead they grew more puzzled. He came and went. He appeared in the dim light of the dawn on the shore of the lalre. He walked into their presence through locked doors at sundown. He accompanied two of their less neal' associates on a mysterious walk to a small town called Emmaus . But they found His attitude more perplexing than ever, and their own status more Ull' determined. They even returned to their fishing, for, after all, one must have some sort of job to fall back on when or if the whole matter of His mission should end in an anticlimax to Calvary. -6- No Results Though He came among them like glad flashes of light, warming as the coals over which He cooked the fish for them, they were ill at ease, especially so because the world was continuing in its own complacent way despite the fact of the Resurrection. The priests have locked the mouths of the soldiers who guarded the tomb and locked those mouths with keys of gold. Pilate had clearly put the whole unpleas· ant business out of his mind once and for all. After all, like a Roman, he could argue that prophets came thirteen a dozen in all these oriental countries. Why, then, should a governor worry if the processes of law crushed one of those prophets in its slow- grinding gears? The Jews went back to the hard and re- assuring realities of gold and trade and to the complacency of being the one chosen race that could in consequence of God's predestined favor do no harm, nor lose permanently God's election whatever its crimes. The garrison of Jerusalem was strengthened against the possibility of an- other demonstration like that of Palm Sun- day. Business was normal again-except to the Apostles, who found the whole thing distressing, foggy, paralyzing. The more so as Christ began to confer on them more and more almost embarrassing powers. The powers were sweet and gracious-the power to teach, to baptize, to forgive sins-but -7- power s which the Apostles realized implied considerable activity and burdensome reo sponsibility on their part. Heavy Trusts " Go into the whole world and teach every creature." Fiue indeed, except that the creatures clearly did not want to be taught, as shown by their recent attempt to kill truth. They had actually doue to death the eternal Word of God made flesh. Would these creatures listen to His mere apostles if they came teaching the very doctrines which they had nailed, with their Tellcher, to a cross? "Baptizing them." Well, John the Baptist had baptized, and see what happened to him. He ended In the terrible baptism of his blood as it flowed down from the silver plat· ter carried to an incestuous woman by the dancing harlot who was her daughter. Bap· tism was surely no easy path these days. And Commissions Forgiving sins! Swee t and consoling admonition and command! But did the people want their sins forgiven? Truth to tell, they seemed pretty fond of them. They clung to their sins with a kind of feverish clutch in the fear that someone might take them away. They actually seemed to love their sins. And if the Apostles came to take 'away the sins from those who cherished them and hoarded them and counted them over with miserly joy and piled them up in -8- gaudy collections, what would happen? Those who fought sin had a way of going down before it in defeat. "Feed my lambs ; feed my sheep." There, against the calm lake shore, the gracious c ommand seemed charming, reassuring. In the darkness that followed when He .was gone, they could almost hear the howling of the wolves which encircled the sheepfold. He had given them a shepherd's crook with which to beat back these wolves who came with bloody jaws and crafty stealth. The command was sweet, but how terrifying it seemed once the Good Shepherd had faded in a silvery mist. Left Alone Still, during those days, the Apostles con· tin ued to feel that some great manifestation would end all this uncertainty. Christ would, by a single, overwhelming miracle, sweep on to the throne of His Father. ~srael would rise in one grand hozanna of accept· ance. The legions of Rome would cower at His feet. Then they, the Apostles, could take their places in that kingdom, calm and unafraid. He would work out all the de- tails. He would show them a clear way. Instead, He rose into heaven in the glory of the Ascension, and they stood on the cold hill, chilled to the heart. Oh, truly the As- cension had proved once more that He was the Messiah! He was the Son of God, entering into that glory of which Ile had often spoken. From His place on high He -9- would help them with His prayers and His intercession. They had only to lift their hands to Him seated at the right hand of His Father . . . Ah, that was precisely it. At the 'right hand of His Father. Christ had gone, and He had left the conquest of the world, the completion of His mission, to them. They were pitifully alone. He had assigned them hard commissions to fulfill. How could they fulfill them? They stood dazed, bewildered, quite paralyzed, looking up toward heaven, until an angel shook them from their be- wilderment and sent them back reluctantly into Jerusalem. Behind Locked Doors There, in that upper room which they called the Cenacle, in the very room which He had filled with the sweet memory of the Eucharist and in which Mary lived on, cherishing all these , things in her heart, they bolted the door, pulled the blinds tight over the windows, and flung themselves down in a perfect panic of loneliness and uncertainty. He had left them. This time the parting was definite. They had seen Him rise into heaven. He had given them clear commands, and then, as if in mockery, He had turned away to leave the execution of those commands to them. In moments when the sorrow and befud- dlement were less petrifying, they must have regarded themselves with something of bitter irony. They had been told to be- -10- come world conquerors, and they were skulking behind locked doors. They had been given a commisllion that embraced the whole world, and they were afraid to leave the protection of a single room. They were to teach all men, and they hardly dared speak above a whisper. They were to face the kings and priests and armies of all the earth, and they quivered as some unex· plained shadow swept from a corner and grew larger upon the ceiling. What Can These Do? Had any of the priests seen them at that moment or during the days that followed the return from Mount Olivet, the priests' own slightly uncertain courage would have been completely restored. The Nazarene was gone; where, did not matter. His fol· lowers were in a hide·out, afraid to leave it even for food. The priests, had they known, would have breathed more freely. Pilate, who sometimes looked back to the day of the trial with a sense of Roman jus· tice miscarried and who could not shake off the memory of the soldiers' wild tale of a resurrection or his own wife's assurance that this tale was more than likely true, would have put aside all misgivings could he have seen the huddled Apostles locked in that second story. That whole sorry af· fair, he could have concluded, was a closed book. The world would hear from none of its actors from this point on. Could the historian of the future have -11- glimpsed these eleven men leaning on the strength of one calm, sad-faced woman, and been told that these were the very men who would remake the world, he would have asked forgiveness for playing the skeptic. For clearly these were no world conquerors or world reformers. The Apostles were still at sea about what Christ meant by this kingdom of His Father. Even at the moment of the Ascension they misunderstood that. Their tongues still faltered; their Greek was still bad; they were far from ready to step out and preach with the eloquence to which their world was accustomed. III the bent shoulders, the fear-struck eyes, the slightly trembling hands of these men who, from the moment of their Leader's first capture, had played humiliating parts there was to be seen none of that vaulting courage that sends men out to carry lost causes to triumph. There was none of that fiery glow about them that marks the zealot, the pioneer in any suc- cessful cause. If anything, they were nota- bly cold to the task that lay ahead, and quite content to linger on in comparative safety, letting their mission wait until some vague day which He had indicated. Comforter Mary was the force that, for the time, held them together. For she did not let them forget that her Son had made a mys- terious promise. other Paraclete." He would send them "an- Paraclete? l'hat was a -12- reassuring word at least. "Paraclete" meant a "comforter," and surely, they told them- selves, after the disappointment of Geth- semane and the collapse of Calvary, after the frustration of their reborn hopes in the Ascension, they needed a comforter. Yet, if they had moments when they looked into the future and faced that mis- sion for which He had instructed them, they must have wondered if a comforter was really what they most needed. Rather, they needed someone with force and vigor and driving power. They needed someone to pour wisdom into their minds, for they knew that their minds were untutored, ex- cept for Christ's three years of battling with their stubborn ignorance; and they felt their minds now duiIed by disappointment and fear. More Needed They needed someone to change their cowardice to courage, and to pour into them a fighting spirit, a militant desire to raise the standard of their L eader once more and to charge into the camp of His enemies. But worst of a ll, there was a chill upon them that explained their chattering teeth, their inert dullness. Their very souls had been chilled by death and rechilled by this re- cent, final parting. Warmth and fire were gone; and they were cold to the core of their being. Yes, they had been promised a new spirit. That was whaLthey needed-a new spirit to make up for their lack. of spirit. A new -13- Spirit that would give them wisdom and courage, vision and warmth of heart. What or who could that Spirit be? When and how . would it or He come? Dogging Fears Slowly the days dragged on. A knock at the street door made them tremble. In a footstep halting outside they sensed the stealthy watchfulness of a spy . . Judas had betrayed them and he had been one of their innermost twelve·. What assurance had they that among the seventy-two there were not other Judases, weak in faith and eager to salvage something from the wreckage of that temporal kingdom which clearly was not to be? If a company of soldiers clat- tered down the narrow, cobbled streets, the watchers paused in their breathing. Were these guards come to arrest them? A sud- den shout from somewhere in the street was not the casual cry of a huckster, but the first warning of a mob drawing near to complete the extermination of all that He had stood for. Day and night for a week or more they prayed and waited. What lay ahead? Death? Martyrdom? Exile? A mission hardly begun? A commission partly under- stood and hence at best incompletely exe- cuted? How were they to know? To whom were they to turn? The Tenth Day It was the tenth day. They still waited. They prayed on in the tight clutch of un- -14- certainty. A breath of air stirred in the upper room. It grew in volume. It became, with sharply ri!!iI~g crescendo, the rush of a gale. As if blown toward their hideaway by the force of the wind, they could hear the gathering of people outside. The wind had collected these people and deposited them like a drift of leaves before the Cen- acle. The Apostles waited, looking at one another perplexed. Only Mary, to whom the coming of that Holy Spirit was an expe- rience not new but renewed, knelt in calm expectancy. The wind was now a hurricane. Above them the very ceiling seemed to explode in flames which did not quiver in the rush of the tempest. The Apostles bowed their heads. This was clearly what H e had meant; the Spirit for which they had waited had at last come. Wind and Fire For even while those parted tongues of fire came upon them borne on the breast of a gale of wind, the mentally quicker among them must have seen the significance. "The Spirit" He had called this Comforter that was to come, and spirit was the very word which meant, in its first significance, the wind. So this promised Spirit, this wind, had really come, not as a spring breeze, gentle and tentative, not as the debilitating zephyr of summer, lulling to sleep under a shady tree, not as the cold and biting blast of -15- I winter, cutting and corroding and reducing to inert stillness. This Spirit had come with a mighty roar, with the tearing power of a gale that excited the city somewhat as the storm around Calvary had done. This was no gentle, quiet Spirit. It was a Spirit of force and vigor, moving to action, arous- ing, stimulating, awakening. The Spirit which He had sent had actually shaken to its foundations the houses and the hearts of all Jerusalem. Thus clearly the Spirit was speaking in force and exhilaration to those outside the Cenacle. Inside, that Blessed Spirit which He had promised was speaking with parted tongues of fire. Tongues? Yes, that was as it should be. Christ had commanded them to speak His truth; their own tongues were quivering and tied with fear and ig- norance. The Spirit was giving them new tongues, the flaming tongues which have always been attributed to the great com- pelling orator. More . The tongues were parted, like two-edged swords that bit and cut, but healed as they fell. There was no mistaking the flame-like quality of the tongues . Into th e souls of the Apostles these flames sank. Suddenly all that was cold grew warm ; the chill of fear a nd apprehension and the remembrance of death and departure melted in the warmth that filled them. The flame was bright with a searing light that did not blind , warm with a burning love that did not destroy. It came as brightness and -l1i- light and warmth and strength, the undying fire that the Apostles must, at Christ's com- mand, cast upon the cold and darksome earth. What Now? The Apostle s knelt silently and the Holy Spirit filled the soul of the Woman who was His lovely spouse, the souls of the m en who were to be His soldiers a nd ambassa- dors before all the world. Outside the . Cenacle the crowd was in- creasing. Why, they demanded one of the other, had this wind blown them togeth e r almost against their will? What did it mean? Moblike, they grew clamorous. They demanded to know what th ey might expect DOW that the wind had die d down. Th ey waited, feeling a little foolish that th ey had permitted a chance gale to fling the m in a sort of human heap before this unimportant building. Their cries grew loud e r. A Roman soldier, whose duty it was to watch all gatherings like this, tightened his belt a nd stroll ed about the outskirts of the mob, hi s hand gripping the hilt of the sword which was both paddle for unruly mobs and death for the violent disturber of the peace. The nois e of the mob filtered into the upp e r room. A sound like that, just ten minutes ago, would have thrown th e Apostles into panic. Th e y would have clung together dreading the de ath or at leas t the certain capture which it threate n ed. But now? - 17 - } The Miracle Occurs Not now. The miracle had taken place . The new Spirit had caught and held them. The Comforter Christ had promised had come, but as so muc h more than just a Comforter. They held tight to Him and would never let Him go, this Spirit of Love, of Wisdom, of Strength, of unconquerable Courage, that would not let 'them rest. Added to all this, there was a glowing a nd revivifying realization in their hearts that they were no longer alone. They need not face the world on their own ,strength . or with their own small power. God's spirit was in their souls. God's wisdom had united itself to their minds. God's own uncon- querable strength had buttressed their weakness. They had God with them, God aiding the m, God on their side, God supplying for their imperfections and limitations. No wonder they lifted their heads in a sudden great and sustaining confidence. Since God was with them, what power on earth could possibly stop them? They Appear The crowd waited, but not for long. Of a sudden the door of that little house opened. With calm certainty and a dignity strange enough in these men who were only yesterday fishermen and publicans, Peter -18- and the others, even the newly chosen Matthias, stepped. out into the open. Into the full light of d.ay, out into the public street they came. The Apostles faced that enormous crowd that milled about in the open spaces, that climbed up to neighboring windows and leaned from the easy vantage of near-by roofs, faced it, as from that>'mo- ment on they would face all men, friendB or enemies, fellows in the love of Christ or persecutors come with drawn swords. Astounded, the crowd first stirred with fresh curiosity and then lapsed into ex- pectant silence. They knew these twelve. The story of Peter's denial had made sweet gossip in the taverns and in the shadows of shops and private houses. The flight of the others had' excited storms of laughter_ Could anything be funnier than these men who had insinuated to friends that they were chosen to lead the reestablished king- dom of Israel, and then, at the first sign of swords and clubs, had taken to their heels with their loose robes flying behind them? They knew these fishermen and were pre- .. pared now for some incongruity, perhaps a fresh joke. A New Peter Peter lifted his hand for silence. Silence fell upon them all as if it was his right to command and their duty to obey. Surely, thought some of those who knew him best, this was a new , Peter;, calm, dig- nified, sure of himself, neither ' brusk and -19- headstrong in untrained strength nor wav- ering in a sudden quiveJ: of fear. A new Peter .. A new Peter indeed. For there in the shadow of the Cenacle, with the serene, as- sured, confident backing of his fellow Apostles, he began to speak his first great message. The crowd listened. They were amazed. No man dared interrupt. They followed the sweep and flow of his elo- quence. They were moved as they had scarcely been moved since a memorable day upon a mount when the Man in whom they had hoped spoke long, beautifully, compel- lingly. Eloquence carved Peter's speech into strong sentences, convincing arguments. A love for these people, whom lately h e feared and avoided, made him embrace them in a tender greeting, "Men, brethren." On and on his exhortation swept, and they fol- lowed. H ere was eloquence that stormed their inner souls and smashed down with gentle blows the ugly barriers of their pre- judices and preconceptions. Wise and Unafraid One cannot but wonder if perhaps Peter was not a little astonished at himself. Cer- tainly, if, as the flood of his speech poured on and on, he paused to compare him sell' with the Peter of yesterday or a month ago, amazement might almost have struck him dumb. He was speaking with compelling force, he who had been trained in the long s il ences of fishermen busied a bout their -20 tasks. He was proclaiming before these people the name of the hunted, crucified, outcast Messiah, Jesus Christ, though the priests had sworn, by all the oaths they knew, that neither He nor any of His fol· lowers should again trouble their secure priestly posts or disturb their financial reo lationships with Rome. He was speaking of the difficult doctrines of Jesus Christ, fiu- ently, convincingly, with a serene mastery of their deepest meaning and a power to explain which made the crowd before · him stand gaping in amazement, stirring in quick, responsive delight. Even as he talked, he must have seen spies of the priests among his audience. Those spies were everywhere. The rumors of Christ's resurrection gave the priests no peace. And Peter, glancing through the crowd, undoubtedly looked into the spies' furtive, angry eyes, and perhaps watched them as they scampered away to tell their masters in the temple that soon there would be need of more swords and clubs and an- oth er journey into Gethsemane. He may even have seen Roman soldiers lounging on the outskirts of tl).e crowd; for those sol- diers were everywhere, watching each little sign of incipient rebellion, ready to quench it in hot Jewish blood. But spies and soldiers meant nothing now to Peter. He could look across the heads of the crowd and foresee his own Calvary. Perhaps the foreshadowing of a cross fell full upon him as he spoke. What mattered -21- that? He had a mission. The new Spirit wit)::tin him had given him eloquence, cour- age, str.ength. Come trial and martyrdom, his way la y clear before him . The Spirit of God and he could conquer the world for his beloved Savior. Results Peter finished . Every man had heard Peter in his own tongue though the fisher- man spoke only his native patois. The crowd was ' less amazed at this miracle of tongues, than a t the fact that this man had emerged from the shadows to speak bravely and boldly of the Messiah they had crucified and to compel their minds by the sheer beauty and power of the truth he spoke. Three thous and of that crowd flung them- selves down in the dust and mud or the street. Their arms went out in glad sur- render. Their voices were lifted in a shout for guidance: "What shall we do?" Peter and the Apo stles moved among them, pour- ing out the waters of baptism, welcoming into the Kingdom of Christ these first-born converts of the Spirit that had come upon the wavering followers of the crucified God and transformed them. From that day forward, the onward march of the Apostles was one long glorious tri- umph. Peter had had all the qualities which his Master found so ditl'icult liter- ally burned out of him. He was no longer the hotheaded, willful, blundering man of alternate impetuosity and craven fear. He was now quiet, strong, resistless, sure of -22- himself and his mission. It was almost as if the fire of the Holy Spirit had, like some volcanic action, welded the shifting sands of his soul into that firm rock on which the Church was to be built. He spoke in the powerful phrases of the Epistles. St. Mark captured for all future time the glorious preaching of his Gospel. He moved into prisons and . out of them without a ruffling of his soul. He stood before the great and spoke with the compelling force of sim- plicity. He progressed steadily from Jeru- salem to Antioch, to Rome itself, and on the ground where now stands St. Peter's he died in happy imitation of his Master on the cross. The Rest John, unschooled, perhaps almost illiter- ate, the simple fisherman whose father had expected him to take over the leaky ships and broken nets that were their family tra- dition, began to write with the poetry and philosophy of the Fourth Gospel, sounded the heights of divine love and the depths of human love, and ascended to the very face of God to grasp the revelation of the Apocalypse. Thomas, ~he doubter, doubted no more. Matthew, whose writing had hitherto been merely the records of taxes paid and debts dodged, lifted his pen to give us the great First Gospel. Philip preached fearlessly to the ambassador from Ethiopia. And as for the rest of the Apostles the world was all too small. No more skulking in .shadows; -23- ( ! I they carried the name of Christ, the truth of His message, the glory of His cross to every section of the civilized world, though at the end of every journey lay the upraised hand of the executioner and the certainty of the martyr's grave. Pentecost All this came with Pentecost- Pentecost, i which the Church regards as the greatest of its own particular feasts; Pentecost, that bless ed day when the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, to insure forever the carrying forward of the work of God made man, began His special func- tion in the world; Pentecost, the birthday of the Holy Catholic Church. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the change that came over the Apostles as they crossed that line marked clearly by the coming of the Holy Spirit. They were n ew men. They now knew clearly things which until that mome nt they had felt and hoped for and wished. They were courageous now; a moment before they had been despe'rately afraid . The whole difference lay in the fact that the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God, was with them. Ahead lay the glorious battle of themselves and God against the world. Doubt was gone; they had the gift of divine wisdom. Martyrdom might come; they had the gift of divine strength and courage. Temptations might rise with sweet perfume and seductive charm; they had the over- -24- whelming and all-persuasive love of the Spirit of God to keep them safe: Spirit Over All From the moment of Pentecost, the Acts of the Apostles might almost be called the Gospel of the Holy Spirit. Over the whole glamorous story of the Apostles' first con- versions, their first message of the truth to kings and people, their first sufferings for the name of Christ, we can constantly see the hands of Peter and Paul and the other Apostles stretched out to confer the Holy Spirit upon these newly won followers of Christ. The Holy Spirit pervades every episode, dominates every adventure and achievement. The minds of those who yes- terday were hardened in Jewish formalism or cold in pagan cynicism He fills with the almost blinding light of faith and knowl- edge. Eloquence overwhelms the most bril- liant of his opponents, Stephen's courage is almost Godlike. In the presence of unjust judges, the Apostles and their converts are unafraid and convinCing in their eloquence. In the darkness' of the subterranean dun- geons they sing out in joy. The Samaritans are converted ; quickly Peter . and John hasten to give them the Holy Spirit. Simon Magus is so struck with the effects that follow the coming of that Spirit of God that he offers his eternally infamous bribe for the power of Confirma- tion. The Holy Ghost comes down upon the head of the blinded Saul, and he rises to become the Apostle of the Gentiles. Upon -25- the bowed heads of the JewiBh converts the Holy Ghost descends, and they see clearly how Christ is the fulftllm.ent of all their prophecies and history. The Romans, sur- rounded by the subtle influence of pagan power a!1d philosophy, receive the Holy Spirit and live as saints and die as heroes. ·But What of Us? We of modern days pause abashed. All this response of the Apostles and of those first Christians seems terrifyingly re- mote. What has all this to . do with us? Can it be that the Holy Spirit has forsaken us? Or is it the shameful truth that we have forgotten the Holy Spirit? Was the wisdom and the courage, the blazing light and warming love of the Spirit of God re- served for those who lived close to Pente- cost? Or have we, by a strangely universal blindness, declined to see and use the God who is as truly present in our souls as He was in the souls of the Apostles when they flung open the door of the Cenacle and went out from the sheltering darkness to convert the world? No answer really need be given. We know the sad fact: We have, in the main, forgotten the Holy Spirit. We accepted, in sheer casualness and stupid thoughtlessness, the coming of God's Spirit in Confirmation. And we forgot the God of Confirmation almost before the bish"p laid aside his robes. -26- Confirmation is truly, as Father Martin- I dale has put it, the Cinderella of the Sacra- ments_ In an age when men need, as they never before needed, the strength and wisdom and love and divine guidance, we have forgotten that we carry about with us the very Per- son who transformed the Apostles and made of the first Christians the saints and mar' tyrs who saved a tottering world, met and brought down a rotten paganism, established the Kingdom of Christ in every part of the known earth. The Holy Ghost is the forgotten God. Confirmation is the neglected, disregarded sacrament. OUI" Pentecost Undoubtedly it is most important that I right at this moment we go back in memory to our own Pentecost. For there was a Pentecost in our life as truly as there was in the lives of Peter and John and Mary, and later of Stephen and Paul and Agnes and Cecilia. For most of us, that day came early in our lives. The Church, knowing the overwhelming dangers with which we are surrounded, determined that we should not be without the wisdom and the strength and the love of God's blessed Spirit. So we knelt at the altar rail. Our bishop lifted his consecrated hands above us. Had we been thinking at that moment, we could have seen in him a replica of an Apostle lifting his hands above the early Christians -27- ) I to summon from on high and to communi- cate to them the Spirit of God. He anointed our foreheads with oil, soothing as only oil can be, strengthening as the oil that is rubbed into the limbs of young athletes. That sacred oil was more than a mere sym- bol of soothing strength. Kings are anointed with oil' when they begin their responsible ~areers. Priests are consecrated with oil when they are dedicated to God. Sacra- mental oil is the sacred mark by which men .are set aside for some high dignity or important responsibility. So we were marked with a sign which, though a wisp of cotton could quickly wipe it from our brow, would remain forever on our souls. We were made God's consecrated soldiers and were, in a special way, assimi- lated to His royal priesthood. Then from the bishop's hand came a slight blow on our cheek. That was just a reminder of the blows the world strikes at those who follow Christ; but more than that, it was a joyous reminder that we were now strong enough to bear blows, whatever blows might come, in the battle for the ad- vancement of Christ's kingdom. God Comes To Us It is all very simple, that Confirmation ceremony, as simple as the rushing wind, as the burning of small flames in the dark· ness of a closed room. Yet who can even begin to estimate what happened to each of us as the bishop held out his hands, anointed, gently struck? -28- What happened? The Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, took up His permanent abode in our hearts. The last act by which the Trinity bound us to itself was completed. By Baptism the Di· vine Father caught us up in the close ·em· brace of adoption. In Holy Communion the Divine Son came to us in the intimate asso· ciation which rounded out the union in His Mystical Body. And in Confirmation the Holy Spirit came as our permanent guest, our dear friend, our associate in the strug· gle of life, our consolation in worry and tl>ial, our light in mental darkness, our strength in temptation, our courage in the warfare which lies ahead for each and all. If we did not have the clear word of God Himself, the certain promi se of Christ, a nd I the explicit fulfillment of history, th e whole \ Sacrament of Confirmation would seem too glorious to believe, too much to hope for . We think of the heavens as the proper abode of God the Father. We make our churches as beautiful as, possible, and cover our ciboria and tabernacles with gold and rare stones in the hope that they may not be up.worthy dwelling places for God the Son. Then comes C·onfirmation, and with abashed surprise we realize that God the Holy Ghost has chosen as His special dwell· ing place the soul and body that are ours. I can bend my head reverently before the realization of my own tremendous respon· sibility. I am, literally and in very fact, the temple of the Holy Spirit. -29- But We Forget Children that we were, we returned to the trivialities of childhood. We were busy with the imitation of that business which later was to become our most intense pre- occupation. Still faltering and ignorant, we made stupid mistakes. Doubts rose up to harass our faith, and often the truths of Christ seemed foggy, obscure, and annoy- ing. Temptation grew stronger. We fought it with clenched teeth. We stretched out our hands to a God whom we pictured as remote and distant, and we tried to draw down strength from the skies. We fell into sin and wondered why we had failed in so shameful, so cowardly a fashion. Life grew heavy. Work became oppres- sive. It seemed at times as if the world of evil was too, too strong and the armies of good and decency too, too weak and out- numbered. We weren't sure either of our- selves or of God. Heaven seemed remote; earth was perilously near and fascinating. We tested the limits of our courage and found them narrow indeed. We read the story of martyrs and prayed silently that so searching a test might never come to us. It was too painfully evident that we should fail. What Is Confirmation? Yet ,all the while, like the rhythm of some half-forgotten verse, rang in the back of our heads an ancient definition: "Confirmation is the sacrament in which we receive the Holy Ghost to make us strong and perfect -30- Christians and Boldiers of Jesus Christ." To make us strong ... perfect .. . soldiers? Clearly it did not . In our case it must have fail.e~. Why? Well, beyond all els e, we may say that the Holy Spirit is a gentle God. He is the Consoler. Though H e came as a spirit of \ flam e and rushing wind, He waits upon those who entertain Him, waits for them to accept and to use His strength. There were, in the case of our Confirmation, no miraculous manifestations. Intense quiet fill e d the church when the bishop's hands were extended and the Holy Spirit came into our hearts. No tempest shook the building ; no flaming tongues cut through the roof. We did not rise to speak in divers tongues intelligible to a modern League of I \ Nations . Like the Apostles But eliminate those miraculous manifesta- tion s, and the fact remaiIfs that in our Con- firmation all the other essential factors of P ente cost were repeated. Only one impor- tant condition was present in our case; the Holy Spirit's effect upon us and upon our lives were made to depend largely upon our acknowledgment of His presence, our ac- ceptance of His gifts and strength, and our cooperation with this new Spirit that phy- Sically, but unobtrusively, filled our souls. After Confirmation, if we dared to recog- nize the fact, we were really strong. The oil had been the external symbol of our -31- l strength. The new Spirit that we had re- ceived was the strong and mighty God whose limitless power was placed at our disposal. "God and I together," said a great philoso- pher, "are always a majority." "God and I together," says the saint, "can do all that I God can do alone." The strength is there, divine strength, mighty powe r. It awaits my use. My Neglect Brutally I face the bitter truth : When have I; even by a quick prayer or a sudden sharp appeal, so much as turned to draw upon that divine power? I became, at the moment of Confirmation, a perfect Christian; my relationship to the Holy Trinity was complete. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost had now entered into per- sonal association with me. The mutual love of the Father and Son, which is a Person, was now actually mine in intimate com- panionshi,p. The God of heaven and earth could do nothing further or more complete to establish me in the fullness of dignity . I had been created, redeemed, and was now sanctified by the living presen ce of Divine Grace, actually with me, in the person of the Holy Spirit. Perfect? What more co uld I ask? The wisdom of God continues to dwell in my mind. Th e strength of God is in my will . The gifts of the Holy Ghost await my us e . They a r e like blank checks which I may draw without r estriction or limitation. The -32- Spirit of God awaits my decision as to how much and how far I shall use these gifts. I Forget God :Again must I face the truth: How often, in the course' of the years that have rolled by s in ce my Pentecost, have I turned, in moments of doubt, of mental perplexity, of uncertainty and indecision, to the Divine Wisdom which united itself with my mind? How often, when temptation rose up with sweet breath or strong inducement, did I reach, not toward a remote heaven or a perhaps distant tabernacle, but to the strong God present in my heart, and with His strength beat back my peril? Or it is quite possible that, whatever the Holy Ghost did for me, He did it, not because I asked Him to, but despite my systematic neglect and a lmost callous and contemptuous ignor- ing of His presence. One cannot but feel that even the divinely patient Holy Spirit must grow weary of forcing His gifts upon the bored and listless and utterly forgetful Christian. I ' am a soldier of Christ. With fresh hope and a surprising trust in me, Christ chose me for His army, the lovely army of peace that knows no weapon but the cross and no blows but such as heal and save. He con- secrated me to a royal service. I knelt in Confirmation for the - anointing and the solemn though invisible accolade. Soldiers must dare; they must fight; they 'must not mind wounds; suffering and privations must -33- come natural to them; they must live brave- ly and in the end must be ready, :when their hour comes, to die for their standard and their cause. I Fail 8ecause- It was a soldier of Christ that I became at Confirmation; but, with terrifying stu- pidity, after Confirmation I seemed to act as if the struggle were mine alone, which I must fight single-handed and unaided. I was like a half-witted soldier who wandered olr onto the battlefield to carryon his own particular guerilla warfare, sniping and then running, taking a quick blow at some un- suspecting or weak foe and then retreating like mad before the assault of an organized enemy. I fought with almost no reference to the Strong Spirit in my heart. It would be surprising indeed, in view of our dumbfounding neglect of 'the Spirit of God, if we did not often feel and often play the poltroon, the ignoramus, and the coward. With cocky self-assurance we draw upon our own wisdom and fall back upon our own strength. W e are annoyed and often frightfully discouraged; we feel put out with ourselves and at odds with God when we fail Him because we have failed our- selves. We have failed ourselves because blindly, stupidly, and with more than a brush of egoism, we have failed to call up- on the God within us. What is frightfully needed is a Society for the Proper Understanding of Confirma- tion. -34- What is pressingly wanted by the vast majority of the Catholic world Is an apostle i to cry out, "Turn to the God within your ~ . hearts." I ! Perhaps .the prayer we most need when we are beset by the doubters who hate our faith and the rebels who have declared war uphn the Kingdom of Christ is "Come, Holy Ghost." Personal Matter But without waiting for a society or an apostle or the relearning of a perhaps for- gotten prayer, this campaign to reenlist in our own behalf the help and wisdom and strength and 10Ye of our forgotten Divine Spirit may start with each individual per· son. The relationship between the Holy Spirit and the soul is an intensely person~l one. It is the dear association of friend with friend. It is the gentle condescension of the strong to the weak, the wise to the ignorant, the pure to the tempted, a condescension without any tinge of humiliation on the part of the one who receives. Everyone who has received the gift of Confirmation should recall in the secrecy of his own soul that if a transformation like that which came to the Apostles on Pente- cost failed to follow the Pentecost that was his own, the fault lay in his neglect and disregard of the Holy Spirit through the long course of years. Doubt, under one of its thousand modern -35- aspects, rises to sneer at Christ's teaching or to mock at those who are simple enough to hold it. There is not, at that particular moment, time to rush to the book which learnedly answers the doubt and flings the sneer back into the twisted face of the doubter. But one can turn immediately to the Spirit of Wisdom present in one's heart. One can recall that it is under the leader- ship of precisely that Spirit that the Church has wall,ed its calm, triumphant way and seen the ghosts of a thousand doubters go down with their forgotten doubts to un- honored graves. One can cry, "Holy Spirit, teach me true wisdom." And with the an- swer will come peace. In Need Temptation is strong and persuasive in these days, when clever men and beautiful women have taken over, with remarkable success, Lucifer's own task of dragging souls from the arms of Christ and the com- pany of the pure Mary. There is no doubt about our weakness and surely no doubt that the temptation is hot and sweet and compelling. Can we win alone and un- aided? Why need that question ever be put to the test? We reach out a h~nd, not to the remote !;leaven, but to the strong, pure God in our soul. "Holy Spirit, give me s.trength." A perfect miracle of strength pours through fal~ering. limbs and trembling hands, and the immedi.a~€ fight is WOll • . No man or wdman has ever tried to lead -36- a really Christlike life without feeling re- currently the pangs of loneliness. The world seems so smilingly strong. Sinners are so aggressive and self-assertive. God often lets saints seem unpleasant and unat- tractive. The armies of evil march and coun termarch with a brash assertion of numbers. and power and captured banners. Yet "God and I are a majority." In my heart the Spirit of God dwells, smiling just a little at the fanfares and parades and vaunted strength of the Lilliputians, who hurr y so because they are just a little bit afraid, and who mass such numbers because they know their own weakness. I walk not alone. I walk in the blessed companionship of the God who transformed fishermen into world conquerors and sent the first Chris- tians , a pitiful handful if there ever was one, gaily and confidently to take the power from the Caesars, the basilicas from the lawyers and princes, the world from its pagan masters. In All My Problems This matter of restoring the Holy . Spirit to His proper place is most of all a matter between myself and the God in my heart_ I the needy call in every problem on God the near. I am puzzled in an examination; I call on the Holy Spirit for help. There is an important decision that I cannot make; I lay that decision before the Spirit of Wis- dom. Shall I undertake this course or that? I let the Spirit who directed the feet of the -37- Apostles guide my course as He guided theirs. This temptation seems overwhelm- ing; I draw on the might of the Holy Spirit to crush it. I am weary with the monotony of life's treadmill; the Holy Spirit walks the treadmill at my side. Passion is strong and persuasive; I have the Spirit of Love to teach me the meaning of pure and true love. Doubt sounds most convincing, but not when the brilliant light of God's flame burns in my mind. I am a failure, but so were the Apostles until the coming of Pente- cost. I am a weakling, but not weaker than Peter and Thomas as they cowered in the Cenacle. What good can I possibly do? Frankly, none. But I do not forget that it is not a matter of "I"; it is a glorious matter of "we": God and I. And who dares to set himself to thwart or undo or hamper the work which has been undertaken by God and mEl? There is in the secret soul of each one of us power enough and strength enough to make him a saint or a martyr, an apostle or a doctor. That power awaits our tapping. That Spirit merely asks for our cooperation. The power that changed the Apostles is also our power. The Spirit that struck three thousand converts to their knees in that first Pentecost is our Spirit too. Of Catholic Action One question only remains for us to an- swer: Shall we use this power or shall we let it lie untouched in our souls? But why call Confirmation the Sacrament -38- of Catholic Action? That question can be briefly answered. The bishops, under the direct command of the Holy Father as the Vicar of Christ, have invited the laity to join them in the great and splendid task of advancing the Kingdom of God throughout the world. Catholic lay m en and women are calle d upon to be apostles. They are to share in the work of the hierarchy under the direction of their bishops. They are, according to their abilities and opportunities, to teach the truths of Jesus Christ, to live lives that are flaming lights for all to see and use as guides, to carry into every form of human activity the principles by which Christ con- stantly remakes the world. A great summons has gone forth. Let the laity, men and women, whatever their age, their class, their profession, take up the standard of the cross and march with it bravely before the world of friend and foe. They are to be soldiers, not in name only, but in fact and heroism, under the command of their captains, the bishops. No More Apathy A transformation has come over the Cath· olic world. Apathy has now no place in Catholic lives. The spirit of "Leave the preaching of Christ's truth to the priests" has given way to the command "Help us, whoever you are, to proclaim that faith to every creature." The uninterested or mere· ly approving attitude with which once the -39- laity watched the missionaries go out to convert the pagans (whether the pagans of Africa or the pagans of Park Avenue) has ' been supplanted by an earnest searching for souls to reach, converts to be made, works of zeal to be taken up and carried through. Priests and people together, at the Pope's call to Catholic Action, take up the gallant warfare for Christ and His cause and cry out to their bishops, "Lead us, and we follow." We are at the beginning of an era of transition. , The faithful have, so to speak, moved from the pews into the forefront of the struggle for Christ against His enemies in every field of human activity: finance, business, the professions, the world of en· tertainment, literature, the arts, sport. They have left the safe and cloistered seclusion of their own little private Cenacles to lead lives of startlingly clear and emphatic Chris· tianity. Christ must be advanced into fac- tory and executive offices. The principles of Christ must be applied to politics and government. Christ cannot be excluded any longer from even the theater and the play- ing field . The Kingdom of Christ is to be as extensive as all forms of human activity. Priests alone cannot make this a reality. So the Holy Father has called upon lay men and women to help them. And the laity ... Before They Start Before they plunge into this magnificent . confiict for the conquest of the world, the -40- laity . must turn inward to their own hearts. For many a long and painful year the attitude of even the good Catholic has been one very much like that of the Apos- tles as they cowered behind the locked doors of the upper room. "We dare not face the world which so hates Christ. We dare not go out to do battle with the cleverness, wealth, and power that are enlisted on the side of Christ's enemies." The strangely familiar cry of Cain became almost a motto among even those who prided themselves on being devoted followers of Christ. "Am I my brother's keeper? Priests are set aside to bring him the faith and the grace of God. That work Is not mine." Apathy Ends This type of Catholic, while admitting that he was a follower of Christ, believed that one did not parade one's Catholicity in the stock market, the board room, the law court, the alderman's office, the ballroom, on the baseball diamond, in the hospital, the classroom, the shop, the factory. These things were over here; Christ was over there. The two could hardly be expected to meet. Let us confess it to our shame. Apathy toward the world at large was a character· istic of many a good Catholic. Let the world go to pot, so long as he saved his own soul. Let pagans perish in their dull stupidity; his job was to make sure of his own salva- tion. True, the world was slipping far from the things which made for its happiness and -41- its peace; still, the priests and religious were the professionals whose task it was to meet that situation and deal with it. Lay Catholics held their religion close to their heart and were almost affronted if anyone asked them what that precious thing was which they so carefully secreted in the shadows , of their private lives. Isn't it sadly and frighteningly true? While communists and atheists filled the world with their clamor, Catholics mur- mured their prayers behind closed doors. All the avenues of human enterprise seethed with the activities of those who hated Christ or knew Him simply as a hazy figure who had lived and died and, for some strangely inexplicable reason, had not altogether been swallowed up in the humiliating death that should have ended forever His effect on the world. But the followers of that same Christ, though loving Him, believing in Him, sure that His way was the way to the world's happiness and salvation even in this present time, asked chiefly that they be al· lowed to pass their days in obscurity, un- noticed by those who, if they observed the number of Christ's followers, might ue aroused to another persecution. In the midst of clamorous enemies of Christ we have lived as timid and retiring as the Apostles before Pente cost. Turn to the Spirit Yet the very Holy Spirit who ended for- of every Christian. The Spirit of God who ever the Apostles' apathy is in the heart -42- turned hesitant, uncertain, cowardly men into world conquerors was given to every Catholic in his own beautiful Pentecost ot Confirmation. All that he need do is to give that divine Spirit within him the slightest intimation that he wishes to preach Christ by his conduct and his word, and the Spirit of Wisdom will, in surprising measure, be at his command. Were the Catholic to show any real desire to carry Christ to the world that does not realize how much it needs Him, that burning Spirit of love and strength would llame up in his Boul and send him forth to Bet the world on fire. Yes, the Pope has called upon CatholicB to bring Christ and His kingdom to the world of mankind. Bishops have looked with eager eyes for volunteers. Priests have felt the reassurance that reenforcements to help them in the fight were near at hand. The laity have experienced the strong im- pulse to respond, if only If Only Yes, if only they knew a little more of Christ's truth; had just a little more cour- age . If only it were not safer to keep their , faith behind Bure walls; if only they need not face the laughter of the cynics and the raised eyebrows of even good friends. U on ly they would not arouse, by any slight show of activity, fresh assaults by the tire- less enemies of Christ. So precisely the Apostles felt before Pentecost. But with the coming of the Holy -43- Spirit all that was ended. They knew that God was with them, for they felt His Spirit in their souls. They tlung open the doors and faced the mob. Some three thousand of the people, who; after ali, had been wait- ing only for someone to speak to them of Christ and of His persuasive truth and sweet law, tlung themselves down before the Apostles begging for admission to citizen- ship in His kingdom. The parallel is obvious. Catholic Action now waits for the turning of lay apoiltles to the wisdom .and strength and love and power of the Holy Spirit who came to them in the almost forgotte~ sacrament of Con- firmation. From the Bishops It was, we must remember, the bishops who a dministered the sacrament of Con- firmation to those whom they later sum- mone d to work and fight with them. Now th e bishops ask that these Catholics use th e Spirit that is in them, that they "stir up the Spirit in their hearts." Once that Spirit has begun to act or has been per- mitte d- to manifest His effects upon the soul, the transformation which went on in the Apostles in the brief moments of Pente- cost morning will, in measure, be seen in the faces, the actions, the words, the deeds, the fine purity and resistless zeal, the Cath- olic citizenship and unselfish charity, the persuasive eloquence and convincing argu- ment, the honorable careers and honest businesses, the pure marriages and noble -44- homes of C"atholic men and women every· where. The Pope has called us to Catholic Ac· tion. The bishops have raised their hands in supplication and command. The priests have waited eagerly to weI· come their allie s. What shall the laity do? Let the laity decide as they kneel and permit the Holy Spirit, who came to them long ago in the half·forgotten sacrament of Confirmation, to work the great transforma· tion of Pentecost. 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