HEROIC CATHOLIC FIREMAN’S DEVOTION

New Zealand Tablet, 11 July 1918, Page 22

HEROIC CATHOLIC FIREMAN’S DEVOTION

He was a fireman and for hours he with his heroic comrades, unmindful of the snowstorm, had been fighting a quarter of a million-dollar blaze which destroyed a five-storey factory building on Laurel Street, Philadelphia, early one Sunday morning during the February cold spell. From helmet to boots he was covered with ice and mud. The smell of smoke followed him as he approached the Church of the Immaculate Conception nearby. Entering the sacristy, he asked one of the priests if he might not receive Holy Communion there. He politely declined the request to go into the church on account of the ice, now melting and running in rivulets on the floor. On Saturday night the fireman had gone to Confession and although called from his cot to the blaze at 4.30 a.m., he had mainatined his fast until about eight o’clock, when a superior granted permission for him to receive his Eucharistic Lord, lie then went back to the fire.