POWER OF THE "LORD'S PRAYER" AND THE "HAIL MARY."
In 1836, while connected with the Church of St. Roque, I was for a long time engaged in giving catechetical instruction to the children; not only the ordinary catechism, but what we called, and what is still called, catechism of perseverance, at which young persons of both sexes attended until their marriage.
One day I was called upon to solemnize the marriage of one of these young persons, who was very pious; she had most assiduously followed our instructions until the hour of this great engagement; her betrothed was a practical Catholic, so that it was one of those marriages which we can bless with hope and consolation.
Ordinarily an exhortation is given on these occasions; I said a few words according to the custom, and I still remember that while speaking I had a distraction; it was caused by a tall man, at least six foot high, who stood erect while every one else was seated, looking at me with a fixed, intense gaze, and, as he was one of the first witnesses at the ceremony, he stood scarcely three steps from me. This proximity, his great height, his original manner, and his fixed look, had, as you may readily understand, attracted my attention, for a moment, and then I cast the impression aside. After the ceremony all retired, and I thought all was finished; far from it. At five o'clock the next morning my bell was rung by the bridegroom, who came in great haste to summon me to a dying man, his uncle, the same tall man who had so singularly distracted me the previous evening. He was quite aged, seventy-four years old; he had taken cold at the wedding ceremony, and the physician declared he could not live. I started immediately, and as we went along the street, I asked, "Was your uncle a good Christian?"—"He was a good man; but we fear that he neglected his religious duties."—"Has he any idea of his dangerous condition?"—"Yes, he is fully sensible of it."—"Does he wish to see me?"—"Yes, when we saw that he was struck by death, we asked him if he would not like to see a priest, and he did not refuse. After a moment he said 'bring me the one I heard yesterday; he pleased me, and he will arrange my affairs.'"
The bridegroom informed me that his uncle had come from the country to attend his wedding, and he was then at a hotel in a cross street. (I have never since passed that hotel without emotion.) We entered, and I was left alone with him. Before me lay this poor old man dying. I approached, and he immediately held out his hand. There was something very frank and noble in his manner. "I am going to die," he said, "and I wish to do whatever is done at such a time. I am seventy-four years old, and for sixty years I have not been to confession. At fourteen I enlisted; I have been in all the wars of the Revolution and the empire; I have never thought of God during all the time, and I know not why. I now feel that I ought not to leave the world before being reconciled to Him, just as if I had always known Him." Touched by his frankness and his extraordinary sincere expression, I replied, "I will aid you to know Him, and God will aid us; such things are easy for those of an upright, candid heart." But it was not so very easy, after all, and you will readily perceive. When, by the assistance of many questions, I had finished his confession for him, "Now," I said, "I'll give you a penance."—"What is that? I have not the least idea of it." And, in truth, he had not the first idea of religion, of the Sacrament of Penance, or any other Sacrament.... A poor, dying man, whose hairs were bleached by the snows of fourscore winters, was passing from earth without having a single idea of Christianity; merely an instinct prompted him to wish for a reconciliation with God before his death.
I explained the meaning of penance and said: "You suffer very much; offer your sufferings to our Blessed Lord, and that will enable me to give you an easy penance; you need only say the 'Our Father' and the 'Hail Mary.'" He looked at me for a moment with the most intent and piercing gaze, for, although so exhausted by age and sickness, he had a most extraordinary energy in his eye, and said "'Our Father,' 'Hail Mary!' What do they mean? I have never heard anything about them." Yes, this was the state which the poor miserable man had reached; seventy-four years old and he had forgotten even the prayers that infants in their mothers' arms lisp in childish accents. Religion was utterly obliterated from his soul! There remained nothing, nothing! I cast a look toward heaven, and I felt that a miracle was needed to bring back the pastor to enlighten his darkened soul.
"You ought to know, that those prayers are the most beautiful in religion. I will assist you; I will say them myself; you will say them afterward with me, and then you will find all you have lost."
Kneeling down by his bedside, and holding his hand in both of mine, I commenced. He let me say the two or three first invocations of the "Our Father," but when I said, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them who trespass against us," he suddenly pressed my hand, and as one arousing from a long sleep he exclaimed, "Oh! I remember that. Yes! I think when I was a little boy my mother taught me something like that. Will you please commence it again?" I recommenced it and then instantaneously, from the depths of his soul, across his darkened mind, and from far away in his early childhood—across seventy-four years—across all those wars and all those battle-fields which had passed over his life and effaced from his soul all ideas of religion, came back to this old soldier the remembrance of his mother, and the prayers she had taught him when a little boy, and he commenced unaided to recall the words. One by one I saw them leave his soul, as if they had all been engulfed, and were now rising to the surface. At each sentence he interrupted himself: "Oh!" he exclaimed, "I remember—'Our Father who art in heaven'—yes, indeed, that is it—'Hallowed be Thy name'—that is it again!—I remember it all now!—'Thy Kingdom come.'—Yes, yes, I remember I used to say all that—oh! isn't that prayer beautiful!" And when he came to the words "Forgive us our trespasses,"—"Ah," he cried, "above all the rest, I remember that—those are the words that brought all the rest back to me; my mother used to make me say that whenever I did anything wrong." And in this manner he finished the "Our Father;" then he asked to say it with me, and seemed never weary in repeating it over and over.
"But," he exclaimed, "is there not another? Oh! yes, now I remember, my mother said there was a Blessed Virgin—stop—I must find that prayer also! But it won't come back. Say it to me so that I can remember, all about it." And when I repeated the first words, he interrupted me with a joyful cry, "Oh! yes, that is it, 'Hail Mary!'" And then, without waiting for me to take the lead, he continued, "full of grace, the Lord is with thee," and all the words seemed to flow miraculously from his soul, and with tears flowing down his cheeks, he repeated, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us poor sinners, now and the hour of our death."