Our Little Quebec Cousin

by Mary S. Saxe

When Oisette Mary was eight years of age two very wonderful events occurred, which events stood out in her memory for all time.

One was when she took her first communion in the month of May, which all good Catholics know as the month of Mary; and the second was at the end of that same year, on Christmas Eve, when she was allowed to attend the midnight mass with her parents for the first time.

"BERNADETTE . . . LOOKED UP"

Little girls who take their first communion are such a pretty sight, for they are all dressed in white; white stockings, white slippers, dress and veil and around their heads each one has a wreath of white flowers.

The church service is always early in the day. Oisette's communion was given at a picturesque little church in the East End of Montreal. This church is known as Notre Dame de Lourdes. (Our Lady of Lourdes.) It is a copy of the larger church at Lourdes, France, and over the high altar is a representation of a little girl kneeling before an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Almost a century ago there was a little girl in Lourdes, France, named Bernadette, who being sent one morning very early to a grotto, by her parents, was told to bring home a pitcher of spring water from the clear spring that bubbled there, and the legend was that when Bernadette knelt to catch the water she looked up and saw, high on a rock in the grotto, the figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Virgin smiled at her and told her that the water had a healing power. Ever since that time many pilgrims have visited Lourdes in France and been healed by its waters.

Certainly the little church in Montreal has a decided charm. Directly a visitor enters he observes over the high altar the figure of little Bernadette kneeling in her blue dress and white cap and above her is the figure of the Virgin. Lights above the Virgin's head are so arranged that a most beautiful glow falls upon her face and figure. Children all love this little church, and it is a pretty sight to see them marching through its portals two and two. The small boys look well in black suits, white collars and white ribbons tied on the left arm. But they get little attention, admiration all being centered on the dainty little maidens about to make their first communion.

When the service is over, these little communicants wear their white garb all day long, and go about visiting all their relatives and friends until nightfall. At each household they visit they expect a gift, sometimes it is a rosary or a prayer book, or a locket, and sometimes it is money put in the shoe for luck.

Oisette's day ended with a drive out to Bord a Plouffe, near the end of the Island of Montreal, where the Sacred Heart Convent is to be found. Here she visited her two older sisters who were at school. She heard the children sing "Stella Maris," she watched a procession about the grounds, little girls making a "Novena," and she had a glass of milk and some cake. Best of all, one of the nuns gave her a lovely little silk banner with the figure of Joan of Arc woven on it. This she took home and hung on her bedroom wall. It became one of her very dearest possessions.

The midnight mass as celebrated at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Montreal is a sight no one can forget. About eleven P. M. on the night before Christmas, the wonderful chime of bells sends out its clamor on the frosty air. "Chim-Chime, Chim-Chime"—they sound from out the high twin towers, and when the Great Bourdon sounds the note in its deep throat the notes carry many miles. It is not sounded every day, but for weddings, funerals and on great church festivals, and its tones are heard above the noise of trolley cars, sleigh bells and other street traffic. On Christmas Eve these chimes are heard by the tired Christmas shoppers, and the still more weary shop girls, and the streams of people on their way home from the theaters. Little Oisette, in a warm velvet coat, a red toque on her head and a red knitted scarf wound around her waist, long red stockings pulled on over her boots, and rubbers put over these stockings, was lifted into the family sleigh and tucked well under the buffalo robes—she could still see the sky, full of wonderful stars, and she could hear, even through her toque, which was well over her ears, the booming of the Great Bourdon.