The Eucharistic Victory
Schwertner, Thomas M.
July 7, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 237 THE EUCHARISTIC VICTORY ...
...Because of this they continue to show signs of life...
...King...
...ciated with another age-described according to the "You mean they actually think Christ came to Chibias of the individual as that of faith, or of supersti- cago...
...Most of the to an event which, though international in interest and men were whistling quietly to themselves, or humming intent, assumed, through the cooperation of the secular as if in answer to the music within their hearts...
...After that one saw a typically Amerishrine over Saint Paul's body in Rome-had been can, because a spontaneously democratic, thing-the erected and on the broad steps, numberless they seemed free mingling of Church dignitaries and simple priests to be, that led up to it the trains of the Cardinals' and poor friars before a cafeteria lunch counter where robes looked for all the world like splotches of fresh hot coffee and sandwiches were dispensed...
...There is nothing in our annals to com- snapped up by that crowd of men had in it the vibrancy pare with it...
...Religion is not merely many petty devotions had died the death in the heat of a matter of listening to sermons and inspiring music...
...One needed not be living mass of humanity...
...The many forms of The religion of Christ is not mere social service or individualistic piety in our land are doomed now that humanitarianism...
...that part of America that is, religiously and culturally, That Catholics accept the dogma of the Real Presoutside the fold of Rome...
...July 7, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 237 THE EUCHARISTIC VICTORY By THOMAS M. SCHWERTNER THE program of the twenty-eighth International in the chill damp air of the stadium, more than 200,000 Eucharistic Congress was conceived and carried men held candles that seemed to have been lighted by out on a scale of such magnitude and magnificence angels' hands just as the Sacred Host was exposed for that we shall have to wait many a day for an adequate adoration...
...The with a really laudable freedom, to catch the average park surrounding the seminary became a veritable eye, which is precisely the thing the daily press can camping field for one night where Mexicans and Innever leave out of count...
...One needed not be chicken-hearted to feel the Obviously, we cannot blame this secular press if it poignancy of the sacrifices that nearly a million people did not stress sufficiently the literary labors of the made on Thursday morning in their efforts to reach Congress...
...The one and one- much as anything that inspired non-Catholics to vie half million Communions in Chicago brought back to with their Catholic friends in extending to the pilgrims many a sin-sated, disenchanted heart a remembrance a cordiality that bore all the marks of springing of the sweetnesses of First Communion day...
...At the Congress good will, sympathy, and enthusiasm, it is safe to say of Rome in 19o5 the representative of the Bishop of that the Congress will go far in teaching the world Namur (in which city there had been an international that Catholics believe that they are at their best when Eucharistic gathering three years before) attested that upon their knees in adoration...
...Long before the rush hours licity at the cost of orthodoxy...
...the Live Coal on the Altar...
...As the trains sped by one a poet or a religious devotee to be touched by the could hear the old familiar hymns of one's childhood...
...The practice of takes on substantial form daily and thus is not remote mysticism, indeed belief in supernaturalism itself, has in time and space but always at hand-that was an not commonly enjoyed wide currency in so-called en- amazingly new concept to most of those who are lightened circles of recent years...
...Christ has not abdicated His rights the Blessed Eucharist has come into its own in the over the world nor over the hearts and minds of inaffections of the people and the ambitions of the clergy...
...The grounds were alive with lanes of people from Quigley Institute to the Cathedral people, and one could not but notice the large numbers of the Holy Name, wearing a vesture of cloth of gold of young men, men of an age with which we do not -fairly glittering in the light of myriad candles and ordinarily associate piety or devotion...
...No wonder that Monsignor Heylen, of a faith that saw Jesus in the light of the candles, Bishop of Namur, President of the Permanent Com- that adored Jesus in the tenderness of the moment...
...It was, probably, this as the great Action of the sanctuary...
...The pledge to be loyal to Him, reverent and true picture of the festivities which marked its in the use of His Name, true to fatherland, obedient progress and the effects which radiated from its de- to lawfully constituted authority, taken up, or better, liberations...
...of the morning the three roads that were to transport But the press did outdo itself in describing the ex- the pilgrims to Mundelein were cluttered up with a terior functions of the Congress...
...Moreover, they are being typed Palestinian miracles of Jesus, but who center their in the study of a tiny stone chapel, lent for the pur- religion in a daily miracle even more incredible to the pose by my father, the Presbyterian dominie...
...I was asked by someone, when I attempted to tion-with hermit saints, Saint Simeon on his pillar, explain that the Eucharistic Congresses represent a contemplative monks and cloistered nuns, and contem- worldwide and triumphal progress of the Eucharistic porarily with vague Swamis and credulous spiritualists...
...One of the first and, I believe the of ordinary folk, our neighbors, who abase themselves most valuable, is that the Eucharistic Congress redis- in confident belief that "Christ is not dead, but liveth" covered mysticism for America...
...The open-air Mass on broad spaces of the stadium on Soldiers' Field, Grant the steps of the seminary church was the real Drama Park, where more than 250,000 people looked down Christ intended this Sacrifice to be, with the Legate upon them with eyes that were gathering more rain surrounded by a cohort of bishops and an army of of tears than the heavens poured out...
...There are and operate without revelations and revolutions...
...and that the splendor of the events in Chicago...
...mittee, as well as Cardinal Mundelein warmly thanked When they left-as men always break away from a and complimented the press for its uniform fairness, massed crowd-quickly, nervously, with plenty of its omnipresent sense of justice and reverence, its laud- good-natured jostling, one could see a light shining in able readiness to give becoming space and prominence their eyes as if they had seen the Lord...
...Not one recluse, who fasts and torAnd from the unhurried, pleasant labor I arrive at tures himself for spiritual refinement, but a multitude several conclusions...
...There was nothing very dians slept snugly wrapped in their variegated blankets, startling or sensational propounded at the sectional where men and women nestled close to the bonfires meetings since none of the orators desired to win pub- that kept off the cold...
...I know of three cases but they must ever remain secondary and subsidiary...
...where Protestant ministers gladly harbored Catholic Only on condition th4t they lead men to the altar will priests during the memorable week...
...newspapers, an irresistible appeal of actuality...
...On the crest priests and a multitude of people, offering up the Lamb of a little hill an altar of sacrifice-a replica of the without Spot...
...But that they hold, and are only in the visual world become aware that it still thereby sustained and consoled, that Christ veritably has potency for great populations...
...It has been asso- outside the Church...
...There was little about the papers presented, Mundelein, forty miles from Chicago, where the closeven when read with great conviction and discussed ing services of the Congress were to take place...
...Not only were many of the Eucharistic pageant convinced the Christian world that Protestant churches elaborately decorated, but from the Host is the great drawing magnet of the true re- many a pulpit high commendation of the Congress and ligion...
...Or to put it the other ence, that they venerate Christ on the altar have for way round, from the causal side, the dramatization long been loose commonplaces in the popular underof the mystical so emphatically that those who live standing of the Church...
...The directly from the heart...
...I refer, of course, to in the elements of bread and wine on their altars...
...not deprive of the ineffable joy of participating in One needed not be a musician to be thrilled by the liturgical services, akin to the worship in which they voices of 62,000 children who sang with precision, soon would be joining before the Great White Throne unction, and tonal clarity the Missa de Angelis in the in the land beyond the stars...
...warm color and imperturbable dignity of the proces- sung with full throats by men and women who had sion which marched on Sunday morning through deep actually turned palmers...
...By elopto be ravished by the sight on Tuesday night, when, ing with so many individual souls in the divine romance 238 THE COMMONWEAL July 7, 1926 of this Chicago Congress the Master has prepared the abundant signs at hand to show that the non-Catholic way for "a second spring" in this land of ours...
...dividuals...
...Upon the devotional life of the American Church One needed not be a blase habitue of musical revues the Chicago Congress will leave its impress...
...CHICAGO AND SCEPTICAL AMERICA By FORREST DAVIS THESE notes on the Eucharistic Congress from When lo l On newmade sand dunes of Chicago, a secular point of view are being set down in at the verge of that most astonishing commercial capian Indiana village-a village drowsy in the sun tal of the modern day, where the young awkward of a June afternoon and kept awake only by disdain- metropolis meets the inland sea at Chicago, hundreds ful expresses that flash past on a high embankment of thousands gathered who not only believe in the bisecting the village...
...what it stood for and would undoubtedly achieve was Devotionettes may be very good and wholesome heard at repeated intervals...
...The world is beginning to realize the need of a deeper and liturgy will come into its own and draw us closer to profounder faith in Christ...
...Only in warm blood, symbolical to most beholders that morn- America could such a thing have occurred 1 ing of the Blood of the Lamb soon to be shed...
...Following so closely upon the institution We shall be a Eucharistic people I of the feast of Christ the Universal King the Chicago But upon the unbelieving and disbelieving world, Congress will help the world to realize that only so also, this colossal gathering of believers in the Real long as Christ is the cornerstone of society can it exist Presence will exercise a beneficent influence...
...pagan reason...
...There were electric lights-that seemed to be a winged thing be- old men, too, and old women who, one thought, had cause of the flapping banners of all nations hung grace- better have remained at home, but whom one would fully from towers, windows, and pillars...
Vol. 4 • July 1926 • No. 9
