February.—The day on which Pius IX. added the crowning star of immaculate purity to the coronet of Mary was the cause of great rejoicing throughout France. All the principal cities have been illuminated. At Toulouse, the sides and roof of St. Saturnin's cathedral were covered with lights, and another church had fifteen thousand lamps upon it. Ours was not least among the cities in her joy, and it did the soul good to witness such a display of Catholic piety and enthusiasm, worthy of the ages of faith. As soon as the bull of promulgation arrived from Rome, Monseigneur ordered the Te Deum to be chanted with the utmost pomp in all the churches of the diocese. The same evening the whole city was illuminated. Nothing had been seen like it since the visit of Napoleon I. to this city. At the grand portal of the priory were several hundred lamps, forming a monogram of Mary, over a beautiful transparency of the Vierge Immaculée. The belfry, tower, and all the windows of this immense establishment were lighted up, and many windows were like chapels of the Virgin all aflame. The top of the convent walls was one long line of light, so closely were the lamps placed upon it. Pennons with the colors of the Virgin were placed at uniform distances among these lights, and one floated from the stone cross on the chapel. The whole scene was magical. From the tower we could see much of the city, which was so universally illuminated and adorned that it looked like that city of jewels
"In fairy land whose streets and towers
Are made of gems, and lights, and flowers."
All was so still that no one would have suspected the intense enthusiasm that reigned in every heart. Only from before a little statue of the Madonna, in the convent garden, rose a sweet song to the Virgin, Ave Sanctissima! which floated up through the damp night air from the lips of the spouses of Christ with a sound as plaintive as the voice of past times.
Even the poorest people in the city—and you know not how poor are the poorest in this old country—had their candles and a picture of the Virgin at the window. One poor woman begged enough to buy a wax candle, which she cut in three pieces to light up her wretched abode. The towers of the cathedral looked like the jewelled turrets of Irim. All the public buildings were also lighted up. I wonder when the civil authorities of the United States will order a general illumination in honor of the Virgin Mary! On the top of the hospital was a Vierge en feu. Even one window of the prison tower, which looms up behind the cathedral—a huge quadrangular monument, dark and forbidding as a donjon keep of ages past—was brilliant with lights, while far up in the very highest window gleamed one bright solitary lamp, like the last ray of hope in the heart of the captive. That light pierced me to the heart.
And all this in honor of a once obscure virgin of Judea. One can well sing "Exaltavit humiles." In the streets were arches of triumph, and at most of the windows were Madonnas, crosses, monograms, flags, etc., etc. The streets were crowded with people as on Holy Thursday, for every body went to visit the different churches and monasteries, and thousands came in from the country. But all were so quiet and thoughtful that one felt it was a religious festival. The Rue du Prieuré was crammed, but so subdued were the voices that we should hardly have been aware of it, had we not seen the people from the grated windows above. Such thoughtfulness was truly edifying.
Holy Week has just passed again with its touching ceremonies, which recall so many overwhelming mysteries of faith. What a feast for the soul on Maunday Thursday, when the Divine Host remained all day and night on the altar amid a blaze of lights, and the perfume of flowers and incense, exposed to the eyes of his adorers! Who could tear himself away from that altar? Who could hunger after earthly aliment when that Living Bread was replenishing the hungry soul? Ah! what are the pleasures of the world compared with those found in thy presence, O Incarnate Word! I read the fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel, those tender words of our Saviour before his crucifixion, and meditated on them for hours.
Many of the nuns remained all night before the Blessed Sacrament. We novices made the holy hour together—that midnight hour of union with the Saviour's agony in the garden. "Couldst thou not watch one hour with me," he seemed to say. Such an hour is an eternity for the heart that loves.
"O God!" I say constantly, "the Catholic Church alone knows how to honor thee with due worship." I wish I could define all the emotions of the past few days, when the sufferings of Christ were renewed in our hearts. I thought my very heart would break on Holy Thursday during the Stabat Mater. The words and the music are the very embodiment of sorrow, and I felt myself with Mary at the foot of the cross, sharing the pain from that sword of grief.