Francis McCullagh (1874-1956) - War Correspondent 'extraordinaire'.

  

Over the past few years I have read several articles and books written by Francis McCullagh, an Irishman, who in his day became an internationally  famous newspaper reporter, specialising as a war correspondent, who additionally  wrote several books on his experiences. His writings reveal a man of deep integrity, outstanding moral and physical courage, strong religious faith, and a passion for the truth. If one day a film were to be made of his life and experiences, I suspect it would be hardly believable, except to confirm the old saying that ‘life is stranger than fiction’.  
I believe that the story of his life deserves to be plucked from the obscurity into which it has fallen, and relayed anew to today’s world, so in need  of heroes of the calibre of Francis McCullagh, good men in every way.This post only touches the surface of McCullagh’s life, but it is, as it were, a taster. It deserves much, much more, and perhaps one day the full story will be told.

                                                            ******************

Much of the following report is taken from the obituary of Francis McCullagh, published in 1956 in the Fermanagh Herald -  with acknowledgement and thanks.  Also acknowledgement to ‘Studies, an Irish quarterly review’ for a report on the life of Francis McCullagh, by John Horgan. Also ‘El Gran Corresponsal de Guerra’,  Francis McCullagh, 1874 – 1956  by John Horgan.

                                            Francis McCullagh, 1874-1956

                   'Tyrone-born war correspondent dies in New York, USA.'
                           (headline in Fermanagh Herald- December, 1956)

Francis McCullagh was born on 30 April 1874 in Omagh, Co. Tyrone, to James and Bridget McCullagh. His father was a publican, with  premises and dwelling at Bridge Street, Omagh. He had one brother, who emigrated to New Zealand and who pre-deceased him, and three sisters, two of whom also emigrated, one to New York and the other to England. Two of his sisters, the one in Ireland and the one in England,  survived him.

From the Christian Brother’s  schools, Francis McCullagh passed to St. Columb’s College at Derry, then under the Presidency of Dr Charles McHugh, afterwards Bishop of Derry, and just emerging as a force in Catholic education in the north. At the College, Francis McCullagh read the prescribed course with distinction, and deciding to take up journalism, secured an appointment on a Catholic paper in Glasgow.

Career  -  His career in journalism was outstanding, broken only by a short stay in his early years at St Columb’s College to decide whether or not he had a vocation to the priesthood.   He left after some months, persuaded that the priesthood was not for him, and moved to Glasgow where he gained journalistic experience with a Scottish newspaper. Having an innate desire to travel the world, he decided after a relatively short time, to take the plunge, purchasing a one-way boat ticket to Colombo where he soon became editor of  ‘The Catholic Messenger’.  Two years later he moved to Bangkok where he had charge of the ‘Siam Free Press’. His next post was in Tokyo where he was English editor of ‘The Japan Times’, and then of the Port  Arthur ‘Novi Krai’, together with an appointment as Eastern representative of the ‘New York Herald Tribune’, then at the height of its influence. Many countries provided fields for his activity.  China, Russia, Spain, Portugal, the Balkans, Morocco, the United States, and England, all saw him at various times establishing his growing reputation as an outstanding reporter and journalist.  Over the years he became multi-lingual, teaching himself Russian and Japanese, in which he became highly proficient, and to a lesser degree, German, Italian, Latin, and a little Greek.

Amid the Guns of Port Arthur ……

His international fame was assured when in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5) he secured the only news story of the destruction of the Russian fleet while at anchor in the great base of Port Arthur.

At the time Francis  McCullagh was aboard a British cargo vessel in the harbour, and had a grand-stand view of the piece-meal sinking of some of Russia’s finest naval units.  The vessel he was on flew the British flag, and was the only ship not fired on by the Japanese. McCullagh’s report of the engagement was read throughout the world and accurately divined the course of the struggle, predicting that the Japanese would emerge the victors.  After the Port Arthur disaster he followed the Russian fortunes, and during the Russian retreat from Mukden was captured along with 3000 soldiers, and sent as a prisoner- of- war to Japan.

His value as an astute and informed observer was appreciated by the Tsarist Government, and he was selected in 1905 to accompany the Russian leader Count Witte to the United States, who was to discuss with President Teddy Roosevelt, terms for a peace settlement. Together, they laid the foundations for the Portsmouth Peace Conference, which ended the Russo-Japanese War.

                                                                         Francis McCullagh


The Portuguese Revolution of 1910, involved  the overthrow of the  Portuguese Monarchy and the dethronement of King Manoel, and signalled the advent of the Portuguese First Republic, with McCullagh fully engaged by the world's newspapers as the reporter on- the-spot,  these included the ‘Westminster Gazette’ and the ‘Daily News’. The Italian venture into Tripoli in 1911, aspects of which he was subsequently highly critical, found him similarly engaged.              
McCullagh developed a special affection for Portugal, and in later years often re-visited the country.  

He was next in Agadir where he was expelled by the Moors, after which he  went to the Balkans to report on the First Balkan War.

The First Balkan War, October 1912 to May 1913, comprised military actions by the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire. The combined armies of the Balkan states overcame the numerically inferior and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies, and achieved rapid success.

Outside the Tchataldja lines, McCullagh was taken prisoner by the Bulgars, but as a recognised War Correspondent with the Turkish army, he avoided execution. He was put across the frontier and travelled to Serbia where old King Peter, the pride of the Montenegrins, decorated him with the ‘Order of Sava’.

The Great War - The outbreak of the Great War in 1914 found him in Russia, where he was attached to the Russian Army south of Warsaw. It was here that Von Hindenberg and Ludendorff launched their massive movements that were to culminate in the frightful Russian losses at the Mausurian Lakes, the flower of the Russian armies being either captured or destroyed. Francis McCullagh was recalled and received a commission in the 12^th Worcester’s, transferring to the Royal Irish Fusiliers.  Throughout the war he acted as Intelligence officer at the Dardanelles, in Serbia and in Macedonia.   
The end of the war saw him appointed to the staff of General Knox’s Military Mission, formed to assist the White Russians in their struggle with the Bolsheviks.

A Narrow Escape  -  It was while with General Knox’s mission, when Bolshevik forces smashed those of Admiral Kolchak and his British supporters, that  Captain McCullagh, a fluent linguist, saved the lives of the entire personnel of the mission through his knowledge of Russian.

This incident led to one of Captain McCullagh’s most remarkable exploits, when he disguised himself as a Russian peasant, went on alone to Ekaterinburg, and was the first non-Russian to reach the scene of the death of the Tsar and his family, and to interview their executioner.
               He had many adventures in Siberia, and was captured by the Bolsheviks at Krasnoyarsk while retreating with Kolchak’s army after the fall of Omsk.
            Captured in early 1919, he persuaded his captors that he was a journalist rather than a British army officer, and was allowed to spend many months wandering around Russia before the increasingly suspicious Russian security services arrested him in Moscow, where he was imprisoned for more than a year.  He was released in 1920 as a result of the O’Grady – Litvinov Agreement, and was returned to England.

                          Gens. Sakharov and Kolchak; Francis McCullagh(ext.rt)

Bolshevik  Revolution  -  He returned to Russia in 1922 on behalf of Mr Frank Munsey, the  owner and editor of the ‘New York Herald’, who wanted a reliable and  up-to-date  report on the relationship  between the Bolshevik Government and the Christian Churches. McCullagh’s report highlighted the virtual collapse of the Russian Orthodox Church and its take-over by Bolshevik agents, with the Catholic Church the one remaining Christian organisation continuing to oppose the government.  McCullagh was able to attend the ‘State’ trial of several Catholic Bishops and priests accused of treason on various trumped-up charges, which resulted in findings of guilt for those charged, and the death sentence on two Bishops, Mgr Konstantin Budkiewicz and Archbishop John Cieplak.

                   
                         ‘On March 21, 1923, the trial opened in Moscow  of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Achrida, John Cieplak; Monsignors Maletzky and Budkiewicz; Exarch Fedorov, head of the Uniat Church; eleven  priests and one Catholic layman, all charged with offences against the State; viz. refusal to hand-over church valuables, which included the Eucharistic vessels,  from churches and religious houses, to agents of the State;  also teaching  the Catholic faith to children and young people, both in church and in their homes.’

 The result of this travesty of a trial, held in the former ‘Club of the Nobility’ now the ‘House of the Red Labour Unions’ near Opera Square, Moscow, which lasted a mere five days from March 21 to March 25, 1923, was a finding of guilt for all the accused, with Archbishop Cieplak and Monsignor Budkiewicz sentenced to death, and varying terms of imprisonment for the remaining defendants, ranging from 10 years in solitary confinement, to 3 years; with the one lay defendant sentenced to 6 months imprisonment.

Monsignor Budkiewicz was executed (murdered - shot in the head) in a cellar, during the night of 30/31 March, the night of Good Friday/Holy Saturday.  As a result of international outrage and condemnation of the trial, the death sentence on Archbishop Cieplak was commuted to one of 10 years imprisonment in solitary confinement.
McCullagh  completes his work with an analysis of the Christian Churches in Russia at that time, concluding with the destruction and virtual dissolution of the Russian Orthodox Church, which included the murder of 28 Bishops and 1200 priests.

         McCullagh was expelled by the Soviet Government in 1923. The full and comprehensive report of his visit is contained in his book ‘the Bolshevik Persecution of Christianity’ published in 1924 by John Murray, London. 

                                       The Bolshevik (1920) by Kustodiev

Mexican Terror  -  McCullagh  went to Mexico during the anti-Catholic persecution in that country from 1926 until 1929, and managed to evade the State police and informants by his use of disguise, particularly when visiting known Catholics. To get into Mexico he first travelled up the Amazon by canoe, crossed nomad - fashion over Central America, and on to the officially closed Mexican border which he contrived to cross. In his book 'Red Mexico', McCullagh reported first hand on his experiences in Mexico, which included a full account of the arrest and execution without trial of Father Pro S.J. and three young Catholic men, for the alleged attempted murder of President Obregon by throwing two bombs at the car in which he was travelling. The bombs were thrown by the occupants of a passing car travelling in the opposite direction, which after exploding caused only minor injuries and damage. There was absolutely no evidence against the accused men, but one was a Catholic priest and the others were known Catholics, and as such they were seen as legitimate targets by the State, and were executed without trial.

                                                    Father Pro at Chapultepec  (Red Mexico)


His Books  -  Throughout his life, splendid and excellently informed articles and reports poured from his pen, and he found time, too, to write several books. Of these, the best known are ‘With the Cossacks’; ‘The Fall of Abd-Ul-Hamid’ (last Sultan of Turkey and known as Abdul the Damned); ‘Italy’s War for a Desert’; ‘Tales from Turkey’; ‘Red Mexico’; ‘A Prisoner of the Reds’;  ‘The Bolshevil Persecution of Christianity’; ‘In Franco’s Spain’.

A man of strong Catholic faith and deep convictions, he was fearless in his denunciation of international, national, and religious authority, when he considered that they had acted wrongly or unjustly in matters of State. He was especially severe in his criticism of international (capitalist) arms dealers, whom he regarded as generally unprincipled and the lowest of the low, making huge fortunes out of war.

I have read several of McCullagh’s books’;  viz.  ‘A Prisoner of the Reds – the Story of a British Officer captured in Siberia’;   ‘The Bolshevik Persecution of Christianity’;  ‘Red Mexico’;   and ‘In Franco’s Spain’, and in every one McCullagh’s  religious faith shines through like a beacon in the darkness. I have not yet read his other books, but intend to do so soon.

I include short extracts from those books I have read, which reveal just a little of McCullagh's  deep  faith:-

“Nor can I ever forget the Masses I have heard on dark, frosty mornings in isolated Catholic churches far in the heart of Red Russia, and how astonishingly the calm and dignity of the noble service contrasted with the mad roar of revolution outside.  The church was dark, save where the altar candles made the silvery hair of the priest shine like a nimbus and lit up the altar, evoking a picture of the same Sacrifice being offered in a dimly lit Roman catacomb in commemoration of Sebastian the Soldier or of Agnes the Virgin Martyr, while a tyranny as bad as Lenin’s howled itself hoarse outside.” (‘A Prisoner of the Reds’)  

“The trial opened on Wednesday, March 21, 1923, under the Bolshevik Judge Galkin. The look  of extreme hatred conveyed by Galkin towards the accused – glances so charged with intense malignity that, if looks could kill, they would cause instant death.
The world wherein for the moment I found myself, was animated by that same passionate intolerance which had led the Roman mob, the Roman officials, and even the Roman intellectuals of Trajan’s time to loathe the Christians with a fury so immeasurable as to embarrass and alarm even Caesar himself.”  (‘The Bolshevik Persecution of Christianity’

              Mgr Budkiewicz - executed (murdered) by the Bolshevik Government 1923
                                                                
                                                                    ***

“He  (Fr Pro)  was fearless, for at a time when he was one of the most ‘wanted’ men in Mexico City, he visited the prisons daily, bringing gifts to the Catholic prisoners, but also hearing confessions and distributing Holy Communion whenever the opportunity arose; and on such occasions he disarmed suspicion by chatting amicably with the warders and gendarmes.” (‘Red Mexico’)

    
               Fr Miguel Pro S.J.- awaiting execution November, 1927.    

                                                            ***


“This war is only one more ill, and not the worst; the worst ills are hidden: there are more terrible things in peace than there are in battle, even in that peace which is marked by a brighter tone in the stock markets, and by quiet conditions in the foreign exchanges. Some people in England and America have started a crusade against war: why do they not start a crusade against sin, the cause of war?  But let's say no more about it. In this world which looks so pleasant, there are, beneath the surface, horrors too awful for words.” (‘In Franco’s Spain’ - a quote from the Padre of a convent, in which the resident nuns, spared by the Republican forces to continue their work, nursed some fifteen hundred female inmates of a lunatic asylum, many diseased and mentally ill, most of whom had been forced into a life of  prostitution from a young age.) 

                                             

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For many years the sole home Francis McCullagh knew was his flat in Paris, or the London club of which he was a member. With World War 2 imminent, he moved  from Paris to New York, where, while still keeping in touch with friends, his work- load diminished and his career slowly came to a  halt, for he was now of an age  for whom the battlefields of the Second World War had no place. In 1953 he was taken to a local hospital suffering from dementia, where he remained in deteriorating health for the next three years, eventually dying in 1956.

His death was recorded in the London Times and the New York Times, and in Ireland by the Irish Independent, Fermanagh Herald,  and some local newspapers.

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‘Trotsky of Russia knows Francis McCullagh.  So does President Calles of Mexico. Peter, the King of Serbia, was McCullagh’s friend.  The head-hunters of the upper Amazon list Francis McCullagh as one of their principal deities. The warring tribes of Morocco call him blood brother.  A room is always ready for him in the Imperial Palace of Siam. The latchstrings of hundreds of Siberian peasant huts are out in anticipation of his coming.’  (ack. ‘El Gran Corresponsal de Guerra’,  Francis McCullagh, 1874 – 1956,  by John Horgan)

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'Our Lady of Czestochowa' - The Black Madonna

 'Ballade to Our Lady of Czestochowa’        by  Hilaire Belloc

                              1.

Lady and Queen and Mystery manifold

And very Regent of the untroubled sky.
Whom in a dream St.Hilda did behold
And heard a Woodland music passing by:
You shall receive me when the clouds are high
With evening and the sheep attain the fold.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
And this is that in which I mean to die.

                                2.

Steep are the seas and savaging and cold

In broken waters terrible to try;
And vast against the winter night the wold,
And harbourless for any sail to lie.
But you shall lead me to the lights, and I
Shall hymn  you in a harbour story told.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
And this is that in which I mean to die.

                                3.

Help of the half-defeated, House of gold,

Shrine of the Sword, and Tower of Ivory;
Splendour apart, supreme and aureoled.
The Battler’s vision and the World’s reply,
You shall restore me, O my last Ally,
To vengeance and the glories of the  bold.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
And this is that in which I mean to die.

                                             Envoi

Prince of the degradations, bought and sold,

These verses written in your crumbling sty,
Proclaim the faith that I have held and hold,
And publish that in which I mean to live and die.

                                          

                                                                         *****************

The Black Madonna of Czestochowa also known as Our Lady of Czestochowa, is a revered icon of the Virgin Mary, housed at the Jasna Gora Monastery, In  Czestochowa, Poland

The Icon

The four-foot-high painting displays a traditional composition well known in the icons of Eastern Christians. The Virgin Mary is shown as the Hodegetria ("One Who Shows the Way").  The Virgin directs attention away from herself, gesturing with her right hand toward Jesus as the source of salvation. In turn, the child extends his right hand toward the viewer in blessing while holding a book of gospels in his left hand. The icon shows the Madonna in fleur-de-lis robes.

The legend concerning the two scars on the Black Madonna’s right cheek, is that the Hussites stormed the Pauline monastery in 1430, plundering the sanctuary. Among the items stolen was the icon. After putting it in their wagon, the Hussites tried to get away but their horses refused to move. They threw the portrait down to the ground and one of the plunderers drew his sword upon the image and inflicted two deep strikes. When the robber tried to inflict a third strike, he fell to the ground and writhed in agony until his death. Despite past attempts to repair these scars, they had difficulty in covering up those slashes as the painting was done with tempera infused with diluted wax.

History         

The origins of the icon and the date of its composition are still contested among scholars. One difficulty in dating the icon is due in part to its original image being painted over after being badly damaged by Hussite raiders in 1430. The wooden boards that backed the painting were broken and the canvas slashed.  Medieval restorers unfamiliar with the encaustic method found that the paints they applied to the damaged areas "simply sloughed off the image" according to the medieval chronicler Risinius, and their solution was to erase the original image and to repaint it on the original panel. The original features of an Orthodox icon were softened; the nose was made more aquiline.

Coronation as Queen and Protectress of Poland[

In August 1382 the hilltop parish church was transferred to the Paulites, a hermitic order from Hungary.  The golden fleur-de-lis painted on the Virgin's blue veil parallel the heraldic azure, semée de lis, or of the French royal coat of arms, and the most likely explanation for their presence is that the icon had been present in Hungary during the reign of either Charles 1 of Hungary and/or Louis the Great, the Hungarian kings of the Anjou dynasty, who probably had the fleur-de-lis of their family's coat of arms painted on the icon. This would suggest that the icon was probably originally brought to Jasna Gora by the Pauline monks from their founding monastery in Hungary.

The Black Madonna is said to have miraculously saved the monastery of Jasna Góra (English: Bright Mount) from a Swedish invasion.  The Siege of Jasna Góra took place in the winter of 1655 during the Second Northern War, as the Swedish invasion of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth is known. The Swedes were attempting to capture the Jasna Góra monastery in Częstochowa. Seventy monks and 180 local volunteers, mostly from the szlachta (Polish nobility), held off 4,000 Swedes for 40 days, saved their sacred icon and, according to some accounts, turned the course of the war.  This event led King John ll Casimir Vasa to "crown" Our Lady of Częstochowa ("the Black Madonna) as Queen and Protector of Poland, in the cathedral of Lwow on 1 April 1656. Prior to this event, several royal nobilities had offered crowns to the image throughout the years, replacing its iron sheet crown by gold and several jewels. In later years, various jewels were interchanged and repositioned around the image to preserve the aesthetic of the icon with the replacement of stolen crowns.

Tradition

The icon of Our Lady of  Częstochowa has been intimately associated with Poland for the past 600 years. Its history prior to its arrival in Poland is shrouded in numerous legends which trace the icon's origin to Saint Luke who painted it on a cedar table top from the house of the Holy Family. The same legend holds that the painting was discovered in Jerusalem in 326 by St. Helena, who brought it back to Constantinople and presented it to her son, Constantine the Great.

Arrival in Częstochowa

The oldest documents from Jasna Gora state that the picture travelled from 
Constantinople via Belz.  Eventually it came into the possession of Wladyslaw Opollzyk, Duke of Opole, and adviser to Louis of Anjou, King of Poland and Hungary. Ukrainian sources state that earlier in its history it was brought to Belz with much ceremony and honors by King Levi 1 of Anjou, and later taken by Władysław from the Castle of Belz, when the town was incorporated into the Polish kingdom. A popular story tells that in late August 1384, Wladyslaw was passing Częstochowa with the picture when his horses refused to go on. He was advised in a dream to leave the icon at Jasna Gora.

Art historians say that the original painting was a Byzantine icon created around the sixth or ninth century. They agree that Prince Władysław brought it to the monastery in the 14th century.  

Veneration

Częstochowa is regarded as the most popular shrine in Poland, with many Polish Catholics making a pilgrimage there every year. A pilgrimage has left Warsaw every August 6 since 1711 for the nine-day, 140-mile trek. Elderly pilgrims recall stealing through the dark countryside at great personal risk during the German Nazi occupation. Pope John Paul II secretly visited as a student pilgrim during World War II.  
The feast day of Our Lady of Częstochowa is celebrated on August 26.
Several Pontiffs have recognized the image, namely:-

 Pope Clement XI issued a Canonical Coronation for the image through the Vatican Chapter on 8 September 1717

Pope Pius X, after the crowns were stolen on 23 October 1909, the Pontiff replaced the crowns on 22 May 1910.

 Pope John Paul II gifted another set of crowns as a native of Poland, which was placed on 26 August 2005.

                                  (Ack. Wikipedia)

                                       *********************************

Hilaire Belloc, born France 1870,  died Guildford, England, 1953, was an Anglo-French writer and historian, and one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. Belloc was also an orator, poet, sailor, satirist, writer of letters, soldier, and political activist.

Hilaire Belloc portrait by Emil Otto Hoppé, 1915  (Wikipedia)

His Catholic faith had a strong impact on his works. He was President of the Oxford Union and later MP for Salford from 1906 to 1910. He was a noted disputant, with a number of long-running feuds, but also widely regarded as a humane and sympathetic man. Belloc became a naturalised British subject in 1902 while retaining his French citizenship.

His poetry encompassed comic verses for children and religious poetry. His widely sold Cautionary Tales for Children included "Jim, who ran away from his nurse, and was eaten by a lion" and "Matilda, who told lies and was burnt to death". He also collaborated with G.K.Chesterton on a number of works.

                                                                                                                  (Ack. Wikipedia)

(I Recommend Wikipedia’s entry on Belloc, which contains much additional information of great interest.)

'The Glories of Mary' by St. Alphonsus de Liguori C.Ss.R. (1696-1787)

                             'Virgin and Child in landscape' (c1500)  
                                  by Master of the Embroidered Foliage.

                                          **********

For my Lenten reading, I have turned  to  ‘The Glories of Mary’, written  by  St Alphonsus de Liguori, and  first published in 1750 at Naples.  St Alphonsus was then fifty-four years old.

In the introduction to his book St. Alphonsus writes, ‘ I have seen innumerable works of all sizes, which treat of the glories of Mary, but finding that they were either rare, voluminous, or did not answer the object I had in mind, I endeavoured to collect from as many authors as I could lay my hands on, the choicest passages, extracted from Fathers and theologians, and those which seem to me to be the most to the point, and have put them together in this book, in order that the devout may with little trouble and expense be able to inflame themselves with the love of Mary, and more particularly to furnish priests with matter for their sermons, wherewith to excite others to devotion towards this divine Mother.’

That everyone may be persuaded how important it is, both for his own good and that of others, to promote devotion towards  Mary, it is useful to know what theologians say on the subject.

St Bonaventure says that those who make a point of announcing to others the glories of Mary are certain of heaven;  and this opinion is confirmed by Richard of St.Laurence,  who declares, “that to honour this Queen of Angels is to gain eternal life”; and he adds, “that this most gracious Lady will honour in the next world those who honour her in this”.  And who is ignorant of the promise made by Mary herself, in the words of Ecclesiastes, to those who endeavour to make her known and loved here below, “they that explain me shall have life everlasting”, for this passage is applied to her by the Church, in the office of the Immaculate Conception.  “Rejoice then,” exclaims St Bonaventure   (who did so much to make the glories of Mary known), “rejoice my soul, and be glad in her; for many good things are prepared for those who praise her”; and he says that the whole of the sacred Scriptures speak in praise of Mary:  let us therefore always with our heart and tongue, honour this divine Mother, in order that we may be conducted by her into the kingdom of the blessed.”

‘The devout Blosius declares that “she is the only refuge of those who have offended God, the asylum of all who are oppressed by temptation, calamity, or persecution.  This Mother is all mercy, benignity, and sweetness, not only to the just but also to despairing sinners;  so that no sooner does she perceive them coming to her, and seeking her health from their hearts, than she aids them, welcomes them, and obtains their pardon from her Son.  She knows not how to despise anyone,  however unworthy he may be of mercy, and therefore denies her protection to none;   she consoles all, and is no sooner called upon than she helps whoever it may be that invokes her.  She by her sweetness often awakens and draws sinners to her devotion who are the most at enmity with God and the most deeply plunged in the lethargy of sin;  and then, by the same means, she excites them effectually, and prepares them for grace, and thus renders them fit for the kingdom of heaven.  God has created this his beloved daughter of so compassionate and sweet a disposition, that no one can fear to have recourse to her.”  The pious author concludes in these words: “ It is impossible for any one to perish who attentively and with humility, cultivates devotion towards this  divine Mother.”

Basil of Seleucia encourages sinners, saying, “O sinner, be not discouraged, but have recourse to Mary in all thy necessities; call her to thine assistance, for thou wilt always find her ready to help thee;  for such is the divine will that she should help all in every kind of necessity.”

The Blessed Virgin herself revealed to St Bridget, 'that there is no sinner in the world, however much he may be at enmity with God, who does not return to Him and recover his grace, if he has recourse to her and asks her assistance.'  The same St Bridget one day heard Jesus Christ address His mother, and say that 'she would be ready to obtain the grace of God for Lucifer himself, if only he humbled himself so far as to seek her aid.'  That proud spirit will never humble himself so far as to implore the protection of Mary; but if such a thing were possible, Mary would be sufficiently compassionate, and her prayers would have sufficient power to obtain both forgiveness and salvation for him from God.  But that which cannot be verified with regard to the devil, is verified in the case of sinners who have recourse to this compassionate mother.

It was then, not without reason that St Bernard addressed the Blessed Virgin, saying, “Thou, O Lady, does not reject any sinner who approaches thee, however loathsome and repugnant he may be.  If he asks thy assistance, thou dost not disdain to extend thy compassionate hand to him, to extricate him from the gulf of despair.”   May our God be eternally blessed and thanked, O most amiable Mary, for having created thee so sweet and benign, even towards the most miserable sinners!  Truly unfortunate is he who loves thee not, and who, having it in his power to obtain thy assistance, has no confidence in thee.  He who has not recourse to Mary is lost; but who was ever lost that had recourse to the most Blessed Virgin?
                                                               ****************

The above extracts are but a taste of the spiritual riches to be found in the 'Glories of Mary'. 

The whole book is divided into five sections:-
Part the First, an explanation of the  'Salve Regina' (Hail Holy Queen), divided into ten chapters, each concentrated on separate aspects of Our Lady as recited in the prayer.

Part the Second, with Discourses on the Principal Feasts of Mary  1. Mary's Immaculate Conception.
2. The Birth of Mary.  3.The Presentation of Mary.  4.  The Annunciation of Mary.  5. The Visitation of Mary.  6.  The Purification of Mary.  7. The Assumption of Mary.  8. Second discourse on the Assumption of Mary. 

Part the Third, the Dolours of Mary - Reflections on each of the seven dolours of Mary.  1. St Simeons prophecy.  2.  The flight of Jesus into Egypt.  3.  The loss of Jesus in the Temple.  4. The meeting of Mary and Jesus when He was carrying His Cross to Calvary.  5.  The death of Jesus.     6.  The piercing of the side of Jesus and His taking down from the cross. 7.  The burial of Jesus.

Part the Fourth, the Virtues of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary - 1. Mary's humility.  2. Mary's love of God.  3.  Mary's love of her neighbour. 4. Mary's faith.  5.  Mary's hope.  6.  Mary's chastity.
7.  Mary's poverty.  8.  Mary's obedience. 9. Mary's patience. 10. The spirit of prayer and meditation in Mary. 

 Part the Fifth, practices of devotion in honour of the Divine Mother - 1. The Hail Mary.
2. Novenas.  3. The Rosary and the Office of our Blessed Lady. 4.  Fasting.  5.  The visiting of the images of Mary.  6.  The scapular.  7.  The confraternities of our Blessed Lady. 8. The alms given in Mary's honour.  9. Frequent recourse to Mary. 10. Several other practices in honour of Mary.

                                               St Alphonsus de Liguori (1696-1787)

  

'Orate Fratres'- Rev Bernard Basset S.J.

Nearly seventy years ago, I was a young teenager attending Wimbledon College in south-west London, a State aided Grammar School for boys run by the Jesuits. Whilst there I had the good fortune to attend a Retreat for our age group, given by Father Bernard Basset S.J., a much sought after Retreat Master. I found his talks on the Faith stimulating, clear and balanced, and sprinkled always with a generous dressing of humour.

                Recently I came across a second-hand, small paper-back book, entitled ‘The Seven Deadly Virtues and Other Stories’ by Bernard Basset S.J., published by Sands & Co., which I am reading and thoroughly enjoying.

                I reproduce one of the stories, ‘Orate Fratres’, which I hope that you enjoy as much as I do.

               

‘Orate Fratres’

‘The early morning Mass was over.  The minute server had extinguished the last of the very tall candles, and had retired to the sacristy carrying the missal, the cruets, the altar cards and the extinguisher.  He had not dropped anything but he had gone off rattling like a four wheeler, and the sound of voices in the sacristy led one to believe that the sacristan had told him not once but a hundred times not to do that again.

                Mrs Reid liked to hear the voices in the distance.  It made the church seem less empty and it filled up part of the thanksgiving time.  Mind you, she did not tell herself this in so many words, but it was a fact all the same.

                The church was now very dim and peaceful, and Mrs Reid felt that the moment had come to get down to her prayers, but much as she loved the Lord she could not get started.  What with the - ‘Jimmy Mason’ film she had seen yesterday, and the candles all askew on the high altar, she could neither open nor shut her eyes without distraction. She took up her missal and glanced hurriedly through it, but it was too much like a Bradshaw to give her any consolation except on the very biggest and most straight- forward feasts.  Besides it had a map of the Roman Basilicas at the beginning, and only yesterday she had found herself on the Appian Way when the Sanctus bell sounded.  Mrs Reid shut her missal with a bang.

                Her knees were hurting and so she decided to sit down, but this manoeuvre hurled her umbrella to the ground.  Heavens, how the rubber band at the top was worn!  She would buy another on the way to the oculist and would also have the button sewn on properly.  Mrs Reid picked it up and began to roll it up when she suddenly recalled that she was in church.

                “Gracious me, what am I up to?” she whispered, horrified, as she clapped down the umbrella and picked up her other prayer book.  “Dear Lord, forgive me, what can I say to You?”

                She always brought the other prayer book to church every day though she never knew why.  It was stuffed with holy pictures and mortuary cards, and one or two less pious objects.  There was a bus ticket and a list of successful candidates  for the London Matriculation.  Her boy had passed well and his name was underlined in red. Last Sunday by mistake she had taken out the cutting during Benediction, and without thinking had started to read through all the names.

                She had got down to the Ks when she saw that odious Miss Perkins looking at her across the aisle.  On that occasion she had audibly whispered  a ‘Glory be to the Father’ and made a Sign of the Cross before putting the cutting away, just to teach the other not to judge her neighbours, but now she felt it was playing with fire to get near the Matriculation results again.

                So Mrs Reid fell back on her rosary.  She fished it out from her coat pocket – no, it was in her bag after all, funny – and settled down to say her beads.  She started correctly but after a few minutes the beads were shooting by too quickly.  Hail Marys cannot be said at that speed.  Mrs Reid pulled herself up.  Where was she, not at the third mystery already?  Why she didn’t remember whether it was the Joyful or the Glorious.

                “Dear Lord, I’m hopeless,” she said for the hundredth time before going off on to another distraction.

                There was the Canon kneeling on the other side of the church making his thanksgiving after Mass.  He knelt so still, with bowed head and joined hands. Never a movement.  Mrs Reid stared at him quite openly.

                “Dear Lord,”” she said, “I’m hopeless at prayer; if only I could pray like the Canon.  He is a priest so I suppose it is easier for him, because they are taught how to pray in the seminaries.  I expect he is having a vision at this very moment.  Dear Lord, I am so useless, can’t I pray like that?”

                Mrs Reid put down her rosary, joined her hands, shut her eyes and tried to pray like the Canon.

                Yes, the Canon knelt very still, and he kept his eyes shut, but that was because he had been taught at the seminary that it was not hypocrisy but good example to look devout even when he did not feel it.  But as he knelt there his mind wandered from the leak in the roof of St Joseph’s chapel to the Archbishop’s cold, and from the archiepiscopal cold to the way his server sniffed during Mass.  Really he must summon up courage to tell the boy even if it led to an attack of sulks and no server for a week.  Perhaps he could ask Mrs Reid to say the responses , she was always regular in the mornings.  The Canon knew she was here now for he could hear her rosary rattling against the bench.

                “Dear Lord,” said the Canon, “I’m hopeless.  Here I am wandering about thinking of roofs and sniffs when I should be thanking You for the honour given me each morning of holding in my hands the living God.  Here am I, a useless shepherd, wasting my time thinking of money and temporal trivialities, while one of my own parishioners is praying as I ought to be.  O Lord, if only I could pray like Mrs Reid.  I’m hopeless.”

                The old Canon fumbled in his pocket and drew out his rosary beads.

                And from on high the Son of God looked down on them with love, for although He now enjoys eternity, He has not forgotten just how long a quarter of an hour can be.  And just as it is the time and trouble taken that makes a letter from a friend so welcome, so it is the time and trouble taken that makes prayer acceptable to God.  For prayer is not unlike a letter to a loved one, beginning with a big Beloved and then skipping from triviality to triviality till it reaches the triumphant conclusion “Yours very devotedly”.  This is what pleases God.’

Ack. ‘The Seven Deadly Virtues, and Other Stories’ by Rev Bernard Bassett S.J. (published by Sands & Co. – with permission to publish in book form  from  Stella Maris and Southwark Record in which they first appeared.)

'As the Little Child' - Rev D. Considine S.J.(1925)

The following extract is taken from ‘Delight in the Lord’, notes of Spiritual Direction and Exhortation by Rev Daniel Considine S.J. , published in 1925 by Burns, Oates, & Washbourne Ltd.

The article is taken from a Retreat given by Father Considine to I think cloistered nuns, but his deeply spiritual exhortations  surely apply to us all.

‘The world is utterly mistaken when it thinks of the service of God as dull and gloomy.  It is a service most full of joy. God tells us we are to “delight in the Lord,” and he never tells us to do what is impossible. When Our Lord was on Earth , he was not morose or hard to please; he was the most delightful of companions. We can see this from the Gospels. He could not get the crowds to leave him alone. They thronged him on every side so that he had not so much as time to eat. His disciples were perfectly happy in his society and wanted nothing else. …………’

                 

                  'Christ with children'  by Carl H Bloch 

‘When the Apostles wanted to know who were the great ones in God’s Kingdom, Our Lord set before them as the model of the highest sanctity, a little child.

                If you want to please Our Lord and to be very near to him, take him completely at his word, as he meant to be taken, and be really as a little child with him and with others.

               1. Little children are simple and direct. They say exactly what they think without pose or affectation. Do you say things exactly as they are to God? He loves straightforwardness and simplicity. So if you have done wrong tell him so – own up simply and courageously, like a trusting child, and he will love you all the more for it. Don’t be making excuses or finding reasons to palliate your fault.

                2. Little children are perfectly confiding and trustful. They believe whatever you tell them and expect you to keep your promises. So believe in Our Lord as a little child believes in its father and mother. Look upon him as absolutely and infinitely wise, powerful and loving, as indeed he is, and expect from him all sorts of wonderful surprises and you will get them. Believe firmly that he will keep his promises, and you will see their fulfilment.

                3. A little child does not attempt to provide for itself – has no anxious foresight. So lean on God and look to him for everything. Don’t trust in your own strength or wisdom or judgement any more than a tiny child does, but say, “The Lord rules me, and I shall want for nothing.”

                4. Little children obey unquestioningly and don’t expect to understand everything. So be pliable in the hands of God, following his appointments without attempting to understand them. Go trustfully wherever he leads you. Don’t arrange things for yourself, but let him fashion your life and make you holy in his own way.

                5. Little children recover quickly from their faults and their other troubles. When they do wrong and are reprimanded, they kiss their father and mother, and a minute later they have forgotten all about it and are quite at their ease with them. So never have any misgivings about God’s forgiveness, his tenderness, his love. Recover quickly from your faults. Tell Our Lord you are sorry, and then forget all about it and go on as if nothing had happened. Little children never worry themselves wondering if their parents will ever be the same towards them again, whether they will love and take care of them as much as before. Such doubts never enter their heads. They take their forgiveness as a matter of course, and it only serves to make their loving relations with their parents stronger and more intimate than ever.

                6. Little children run to their parents in all their troubles and fears – and confide in them and look to them to put everything right. Never be so foolish as to imagine that any difficulty of character or circumstances, or any mistake you have made, is beyond the goodness and wisdom and power of your heavenly Father. God is ten thousand times more willing to help you than you are to be helped. But you must make it possible by trusting him.

                7. Little children are open-hearted and affectionate, and if their baby caresses and words of love are a joy to their parents, so are our affectionate words and thoughts pleasing to our most loving and tender-hearted Lord.

                8. Little children are affectionate and friendly to all. They are without suspicion or guile. Everyone is a friend to them. They have no ulterior motives- but are frank and open-hearted – so ought we to be with others.

                9. Little children are joyous and easily pleased – full of wonderment, fresh and happy. So let us be happy and delighted with God’s wonderful love and the magnificent gifts he gives us, and rejoice in his service like loving children.

                                        If our love were but more simple

                                        We should take him at his word

                                        And our lives would be all sunshine

                                        In the sweetness of Our Lord.

               

             10. Little children are not critical. They accept circumstances and people unquestioningly, because they know no better. Everything seems all right to them. If only we could be content to look with their trustful, uncritical gaze on everything which it is not our direct duty to attend to, knowing that God is overall, that he is wiser and more powerful than we can understand, and that he can be trusted with the management of his own creation.’

                                            ***************

 ‘Come, ye monarchs and emperors, come, all ye princes of the world, come and adore your highest King, who for love of you is now born, and born in such poverty in a cave. But who appears?  No one.  The Son of God has indeed come into the world; but the world will not acknowledge him.’

     ‘Thoughts from St Alphonsus’  by  Rev C McNeiry C.SS.R.’

                          

                

       "Wishing one and all a very blessed and happy New Year"