Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

the chemical forces which enter into the phases of our hourly existence, are invisible, noiseless, intangible; and who among us thinks of questioning their reality? But, while acting constantly on the strength of such trust as this, men doubt the very existence of angel or spirit or of God himself. Into our turmoils and our doubts the story of St. Stanislaus Kostka comes like a lull in a tempest. And let us bear in mind that all we read and think of him must be read and thought in fair faith. We are not accustomed to go to a ploughman to learn about as tronomy, nor to a philosopher to be taught about farming. By that same token, we go, not to unbelievers, but to the saints of God, to learn of the things of God. Before we call their ecstasies mere dreams, and their miracles a delusion, let us ask if our hearts are so clean and our lives so pure, that we are fitted to judge what the sight of God is, or what it can effect.

Men dare to tell us that what we read of such saints belongs to an age long gone by; that simple or blinded races craved the marvellous, but to our free and enlightened people these stories are only stories, and we must adapt ourselves to the need of our day. It is the very need of our day which is met thus. The boy of to-day pores over the story book which tells of a runaway's doings by sea or land in search of adventure, or he seeks his heroes in the world's history upon the battle-field, or in the cabinet, or on the exchange; and he turns away from prayer and church and holy books,-they are tiresome and womanish. The secret lies simply here. God never gave more than one Church to men, and that Church alone can win and keep them for him. In that Church Christ the Lord is revealed to them, more real than anything on earth, hero, leader, conqueror, glorious King, with the wounded heart that wakes the loyal fire in all noble

hearts to suffer and bleed like it. In that Church the Communion of Saints is an actual verity, and the Mother of God cares for us, and the angels of God walk beside us by night and day. There the voice of Christ still calls to souls to leave all and follow him, and there still are the men and the women who take that "all" in its full meaning, and leave at once their homes and their riches, their nets and their father, to follow Christ alone. And there still are lives like this saintly one, which bid our turmoils cease, while they remind us that God is glorified by and delights in the life of praise and peace and prayer which men term useless.

Stanislaus

The Story of St. Kostka, which we have been noticing, is beautifully but very briefly told. The life of the saint in the library of religious biography, edited by Mr. Edward H. Thompson, while it records the same events in the earthly existence, surrounds them with a larger mass of detail, and devotes many more pages to the intercessory work of the saint after death. Then this boy who, as men would say, "did nothing useful," worked with God in Heaven by a marvellous and loving and steadfast power. Through his intercession the plague ceased its ravages and fire its work of swift destruction, sight was granted to the blind, health to the sick and dying, life to the dead, and so great and signal was the aid which he rendered to his native country, that the title of Patron of Poland was awarded to him by Pope Clement X. And after a long catalogue of these wonderful deeds, "few as they are in comparison with those detailed by his chief biographer, Bartoli, which again, as he says, are scanty as compared with those recorded in the processes,' come the following touching words:

"We have limited ourselves to citing those miracles which, from their external character, admit

juridical proof; but it would be a great injustice to the saint, and an unpardonable omission, were we to fail to observe that the miraculous assistance which Stanislaus has rendered in the order of grace, has far surpassed in abundance even his temporal interventions. P. Bartoli, who wrote ninety-seven years after the saint's death, asserts that instances were daily occurring, and doubtless many more existed, known only to the individuals themselves, of relief from every species of horrible and afflicting temptation; from scruples, aridity, desolation of spirit; from inability to excite contrition in the heart, and even to offer a single prayer; from danger of despair; in short, from every peril and internal suffering which can menace or oppress the soul, all through the effectual intercession of Stanislaus." And Father Coleridge gives a letter written by the venerable Father Nicolas Lanciski, telling in detail certain great spiritual graces granted him through St. Stanislaus.

"So small a boy and so great a saint;"thus he was spoken of in days that are past, and thus still his praise rings down to us for our profit in this country to-day. There will come a time when it will be known that America is owned by a mightier power than banner of England or France or Spain or the widespread stars and stripes denote; there will come a time when from north to south and from east and west the King of kings, immortal and invisible, shall claim his own. But for this, and for all his work, he has other weapons besides those plain and tangible ones which impress the world. Among his saints are princes and counsellors indeed, souls of flame like holy Xavier's, and souls of steel like holy Loyola's, and the soul of the seraph like the great saint of Assisi; but he has also flowers in his eternal garden, who serve him by their lowliness and loveliness, their praise and prayers

and penances, their very living. Against other holy ones the powers of the world can struggle hard, but before these they are impotent. No human weapon can fight prayer; no human strength can hurt a holy life; no human subtlety can cope with the simplicity of those who, secure from all evil, are hidden with Christ in God. What a check to our eager pursuit of wealth and our wild political excitements, is the thought of this boy's calm seventeen years of life on earth, and his prevailing power with God afterward for the benefit of his people!

Have we no need of saintly intercession in the seething chaos of our new world? Ever since the second holy Christopher bore Christ across the stormy waters to the much-desired land, holy men and women have lived here who loved and died for Christ alone, and many of them have died for him the martyr's death. Is there nothing for us to do, either by the active hand or powerful prayer, to rend the veil of falsehood from the past, and raise these soldiers of the great King to their true places nobly won in his Holy Church? Derided and neglected though they be on earth, they live this day and plead this day for us and for our country before the Eternal Throne. What added force would be given to their pleading, were we fervently striving that God should here be glorified in his saints! What truer, tenderer love would be ours for our country, if far and wide the truth was known and prized, that this land was sought for and found and claimed in the Name of names for the Cross of our Lord! Will the boys of America be the worse men of America, when they know that the discoverer of this western world was more than a discoverer; that he was truly Christopher, the Christ-bearer, a Bayard among God's soldiery, a great-hearted crusader yearning to win the world for his Divine Master? Will they be the

[blocks in formation]

Then said she to her Spouse: "Of all these dear
And chosen worshippers assembled here,

Which is Thy best beloved?" Thro' the gloom,
A shape upon the altar seemed to bloom,
(As luminous as amber, and as clear
As crystal ice upon a mountain mere),
Whose open side revealed the fiery dart
Piercing the holy, thorn-encircled Heart!

[blocks in formation]

Through many a dusky crypt and corridor,
Lit by the radiant feet as by the sun,
As up and up He sped; the wondering nun
Had passed the winding staircase to a cell,
(Hid like a chamber in a spiral shell),
Close to the tower of the convent bell.

V.

Here lay upon a pallet, small and hard,
The cloistered leper, Sister Lutigarde ;
The little dwarf whom no one loved or praised
Save for the sweet Christ's sake; a Savoiard,
Repulsive in her mien, as one half-dazed

With her strange thoughts; her hidden, helpless air,
Her halting speech, her vagaries in prayer,
Had tried the novice-mistress in her day,

More than a hundred souls that owned her sway,
So useless seemed the little maid, so dull
In all the works that nuns deem beautiful.

VI.

No broideries on jewelled silk her hand
Had ever shaped to vestments rich and grand;
Or wondrous banners where the needle paints
The miracles and legends of the saints.
The weaving of old laces, frail as those
Bright, shining webs the garden spider throws
Over the dewy roses; spinning threads
Of snowy linen for the august beds
Of noble houses; or with skill antique,
Illuminating books in honeyed Greek

And liquid Latin; moulding flowers and fruits
From painted wax; or touching silver lutes,
(With holy hymn and canticle divine),
Before Madonna Mary's lilied shrine,—
All these, and other crafts as high and hard,
Were occult arts to poor dull Lutigarde.

VII.

But, when the foul distemper on her fell,
(Requital of a love that healed the sores
Of leprous beggars at the convent doors),
She hid her, henceforth, in that lofty cell,
Up where the lichens and the building birds.
Brightened the bondage of the abbey bell,
But did not miss the sweets of life (kind words,
And loving sympathy bestowed by good
And gracious souls); the pitying sisterhood
Did what they dared to ease her heavy cross,
Yet reckoned not her absence as a loss.

VIII.

And thus the weary suffering years had trailed
Their wounded length; and suns arose and paled
A thousand times upon the tower of stone,
Beneath whose shade the leper lay alone;
Hearing from out the belfry, ivy-veiled,
(Or, in its season, leafless and forsaken),
The great bell ever solemnly intone,

"Oh! love to be unknown, unknown, unknown !" Albeit that her very bed was shaken

Whene'er the ponderous chimes began to waken, She only seemed more strange and silent grown.

IX.

For all those mighty throes and shudderings
That rocked the roof and down the rafters leapt,
She no more heeded than such airy things
As leaves, or snow-flakes, or the burnished wings
Of happy birds that past her window swept.
The leper's eyes ('twas doubtful when they slept),
Were ever fixed upon an object small,—

A crucifix upon the whitewashed wall.

X.

The stigmas on the Christ were rude and brown,
But all day long, from rise to set of sun,
The leper's languid eyes went up and down
From head to feet, front feet to thorny crown,
With one dull gaze; and when the nursing nun
Crept in the night-watch to the lonely one,
The moonlight or the taper's flickering flame,
Showed that the large dark eyes were on the same
Blest rood. A whispered " Veni, Jesu mi !"
(It mattered not how oft she went or came),
"O Veni, Jesu! Veni, Amor mi!"

The list'ner heard with awe; and often stood—
Her trembling hand upon the massive latch-
Resolved to rouse the sleeping sisterhood,
And summon them to share the wondrous watch.
But, straightway stealing from the dusky spot,
The vision and the words remembered not;
Alone with God, and all things else debarred,
In choir and crypt, in cell and cloistered yard,
Forgotten was the Sister Lutigarde.

XI.

Forgotten? Yea, by all save One alone;
And now the Abbess saw how that Blest One
Remembered His elect; for, as she passed
The lintel of the room, behold! a vast

« ElőzőTovább »