EXTRACTS FROM "THE CATHOLIC REVIEW." [1]
[Footnote 1: November, 1885.]
"The Month of the Holy Souls" is at hand. In Catholic lands November is specially devoted by the faithful to increased suffrages for the repose of the holy and patient dead. Many reports reach us from experienced priests showing that the practice of requesting Requiem Masses for the dead is not increasing. Priests have what is, in some respects, a natural objection to urge upon their people perseverance in this old Catholic practice of piety and gratitude. It is one which can be easily understood. Yet, largely owing to this nice delicacy, they are, after their own deaths, forgotten by many bound to them through spiritual gratitude. One of the most experienced priests in New York tells us that for five priests that have died in his house he has not known ten Masses to be said at the request of the laity. How does friendship serve others less public and less popular? It gives a big funeral, a long procession of useless carriages, but no alms to the poor, and no Masses for the dead.
What a pity it is that in drawing so much that is Catholic and beautiful from Ireland, we did not adopt its truly Christian devotion for the forgotten and neglected dead, which makes every priest recite the De Profundis and prayers for the faithful departed, before he leaves the altar. We noticed some time ago that the Holy See sanctioned a Spanish practice of permitting to each priest three Masses on All Souls' Day as on Christmas Day. No doubt, were it properly petitioned, it would likewise extend to all the churches drawing their faith from St. Patrick's preaching, that privilege, as well as the beautiful custom that now has the force of law in Ireland, and that recalls so much of her devotion to the dead and of her suffering for the Catholic faith. That _De Profundis is one of the chapters of "fossil history," which in all future periods will recall the generous endowments that Ireland once provided for her dead, and the ruthless confiscations by which they were robbed.
Not a Catholic American paper that we have received this November has failed to argue ably, generously, and most Christianly, for suffrages for those who have gone before and are anticipating the advent of final peace.
The letters which come to a Catholic newspaper office are a very sure barometer of the waves of thought in the Catholic atmosphere of the country. From those that we have received we can affirm that no devotion would be much more popular with the people than that which was pronounced in the days of the Maccabees "a holy and wholesome thought."
Every day now there is an agreeable record in the daily papers of New York of Requiem services held in the various churches for the repose of the soul of the late Cardinal. Church after church seems to surpass its predecessors in the grateful devotion of the people, who show that they remember their prelate. In St. Gabriel's the Cardinal's private secretary, Mgr. Farley, had the satisfaction of witnessing an exceptionally large gathering to honor his illustrious chief. The Paulist Fathers had a Requiem service that was worthy of their Church and their affection for the dead, to whom they were bound by so many ties.
Rome, if the city of the soul, is also pre-eminently the city of the dead. So many great and illustrious deaths are reported to it daily from the ends of the earth that to it death and greatness are familiar and almost unnoticeable facts. It is, therefore, not undeserving of remark to find the newspapers of the Eternal City marking their notices of the passing of our Cardinal with unusual signs of mourning. Their comments on the great loss of the American Church are toned by the gravis mror with which the Holy Father received by Atlantic Cable the sad news.
In the American College, Rev. Dr. O'Connell, the President, took immediate steps to pay to its illustrious patron the last homage that Catholic affection and loyalty can render to the great dead. From a letter to The Catholic Review we learn that the celebrant of the Solemn Mass of Requiem was the rector, Rev. Dr. O'Connell; Rev. John Curley, deacon; Rev. Bernard Duffy, sub-deacon; Rev. Thomas McManus and William Guinon, acolytes; Mr. William Murphy, thurifer; and Rev. Messrs. Cunnion and Raymond, masters of ceremonies. All these gentlemen are students from the diocese of New York.