CARDINAL MERCIER AND BELGIUM

New Zealand Tablet, 19 October 1916, Page 19

CARDINAL MERCIER AND BELGIUM

A full report of the sermon preached in the Cathedral of Sainte Gudule, Brussels, on July 21, the National Fete Day of Belgium, has just been made available by the XXe Siecle. It was a striking utterance, fearless in the expression of its hopes for the future as of the hardships and duties of the present.

Taking for his text the words from the First Book of Machabees, ‘ Jerusalem, strangers are masters within thy walls; and thy days of joy are become days of mourning,’ the Cardinal said:

We are here, dearly beloved brethren, gathered together to celebrate the 85th anniversary of our national independence. Fourteen years hence our restored cathedrals and our rebuilt churches will be wide open ; the crowds will enter, and our King Albert, on his throne, will, as a free man, bow down his head before the majesty of the King of Kings. Around him will be the Queen and the Royal Princes; once again we shall hear the joyous pealing of our bells and throughout the country under the vaulted roofs of their churches, the Belgians, hand in hand, will renew their oaths to their God, their sovereign, and their liberties. And meanwhile, the bishops and priests, as the interpreters and spokesmen of the soul of the nation, will in a common outburst of joyful gratitude, intone a triumphal ‘ Te Deurn.’

To-day the hymn of joy expires on our lips. The Jewish people, captives in Babylon, sat in tears by the Euphrates and watched the flow of the waters. Their harps hung silent on the willows on the bank, for who could sing the song of Jehovah in the land of the stranger? ‘lf I forget thee, O Jerusalem,’ cried the Psalmist, ‘ let my right hand be forgotten. Let ray tongue cleave to my jaws if I do not remember thee and if thou art no longer the beginning of my joy !’ The psalm ends with imprecations which we will not repeat, for we are no longer in the days of the Old Testament, which tolerated the law of retaliation : ‘ An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ Our lips, purified by the fire of Christian charity, shall not utter hate. Hatred is the choosing of another’s ill for our aim and taking pleasure in it. Whatever may be our sufferings, we will not have hatred for those who inflict them. With us national concord is allied with universal brotherhood.

But above this sentiment of universal brotherhood we place respect for absolute law, without which no commerce, either between individuals or nations, is possible. And so, with St. Thomas Aquinas, the weightiest Doctor of Christian theology, we proclaim that public prosecution and reprobation is a virtue. Every crime, as a violation of justice and an attack on the public peace, whether it be the work of an individual or a body of men, must be punished. Men's consciences are disturbed and tortured as long as the guilty are not 'put in their place.' To do this is to re-establish order, to restore equilibrium, to bring back peace on the foundation of justice. Public vindication thus understood may disturb the sensitiveness of a weak mind, but it is for all that (says St. Thomas) the expression, the law of the purest charity and of the zeal that is its flame. It does not make suffering its aim but uses it as the avenging arm of offended right. How can you will to love order without hating disorder, or intelligently desire peace without expelling that which breaks it ? Or love a brother by wishing him. well without meaning that his will, whether of itself or bv force, shall bow before the rigors of justice and truth ? It is from such heights as these that we must consider the war if we would understand its greatness. [His Eminence then went on to draw for his people the lessons of courage, patience, and confidence which the events of the day contain. He ended with the following moving appeal for national union :—] Just as at the front our heroes offer us the admirable and consoling sight of an indissoluble union, of soldierly brotherhood which nothing can break, so in our ranks, which are less close and in which discipline is less strong, we ought to set ourselves to preserve the same patriotic concord. We will respect the truce imposed on our controversies by the great cause which ought to employ and absorb all our means and strength for attack and conflict. And if there be men so impious or unfortunate as not to understand the urgency and the beauty of this national precept, and who persist in seeking, in spite of everything, to rouse and inflame the passions which separate us from other matters, let us turn away our heads and continue, without a word of reply, to stand faithful to the pact of union, friendship, and loyal confidence which under the great inspiration of the war we have concluded with them. The approaching clay of the first centenary of our independence ought to find us stronger, braver, and more united than ever. Let us prepare ourselves for it by work, patience, and brotherly love. When in 1930 we shall recall the dark days of 1914-16, they will seem the brightest and the grandest, and on condition of an effective will to-day the happiest and the most fruitful, in our history. Per crucem ad lucem. It is from sacrifice that springs the light.

His Eminence Cardinal O'Connell recently confirmed at Holy Cross Cathedral, Boston, U.S.A., 500 converts, most of whom were adults. While en route to his summer home in California, Paderewski, the great pianist, made a trip to Green Bay, Wis., to visit Bishop Rhode, with whom he has been on terms of intimate friendship for several years. The Bishop entertained the pianist to dinner in the episcopal residence in Allouez, Wis. Mr. J. C. Fitzpatrick, Assistant Chief of the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, contributes to the Catholic Historical Review an instructive article on the preservation of ecclesiastical documents. He emphasises the importance of preserving all such documents, and describes the best means of taking care of them, filing them, repairing, etc." On the repairing of manuscripts (says Mr. Fitzgerald) a volume could be written. The methods used by the Library of Congress were borrowed from those introduced and applied by Father Ehrle, of the Vatican Library. These methods have been modified and adapted to the particular heeds of the Congressional Library.