Chicago and Sceptical America
Davis, Forrest
238 THE COMMONWEAL July 7, 1926 of this Chicago Congress the Master has prepared the abundant signs at hand...
...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...
...One can imagine a million persons gatherThis rediscovery that I mention has two forks, ing to adore a God actually present...
...Mundelein when 400,000 surged through the mud and What does the consecration that underlay the battered down stockades for a chance to herd into Chicago pilgrimage portend...
...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...
...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...
...prospect of another sleepless night on the return...
...It tianity but are separated from the See of Peter, I was estimated that 125,000 persons passed through should very well imagine they would prefer the affirma- the Cathedral every span of daylight hours...
...sceptical and scientific that at least 1,000,000 persons Now, there were other miracles in Chicago apart will travel to Chicago to practise mysticism...
...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...
...In fact, casualties of all sorts were cated princes and poets, artisans and bowmen to the fewer in Chicago during the week of the Congress...
...Mary of the Lake Seminary...
...and that the splendor of the events in Chicago July 7, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 239 were destined to provide a suitable frame for a divine- a book which records His divine ministry two milly royal Presence...
...the Live Coal on the Altar...
...tive to the second question...
...Mystery of the Mass denied but a large proportion What other term would you use to describe the of clergy and a lesser of the laity doubt as well the zeal that led 8oo,ooo persons, forewarned of traffic validity of the miracles ascribed to Jesus during the congestion and probable discomfort, from comfortable three years of His physical ministry...
...Gentle old ladies and not the phenomenon provided by 8oo,ooo pilgrims men past their prime dared the bruising contacts of traveling forty miles to a grove to pay honor to Christ overcrowded excursion trains...
...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...
...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 know of three cases but they must ever remain secondary and subsidiary...
...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...
...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...
...They exchanged wor- of miraculous loveliness that will remain forever in the ship of a present-day God, visible and immediate, for memory of every fortunate beholder...
...Nor through the indescribable crush anachronistic survival of the glorious period when the in Chicago when 5oo,ooo persons sought admittance world was ruled by faith, the age that raised match- to a stadium seating 150,000 did one pilgrim sustain less fanes to house the Tabernacled King, that dedi- a disabling mishap...
...i,ooo,ooo persons taking pummeled and kicked, several suffered broken bones Communion, in a great modern city in one morning...
...Or is it the daybreak of a Another instance, striking to the non-Catholic mind, like era in which pure science, technology, and the was the enormous procession that lined up four deep machine will bow to the will of God...
...moments mystical core of Christianity...
...Is it a magnificent but departing trains...
...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...
...The directly from the heart...
...Mothers brought babes in procession...
...I refer, of course, to in the elements of bread and wine on their altars...
...pagan reason...
...It would be strange if requirements to visit the Cathedral during the Conthe ministers did not exhort their flocks to emulate gress...
...for blocks every day for the privilege of genuflecting These are questions which must occur to every an instant before the Blessed Sacrament exposed on thoughtful observer of the Eucharistic Congress, all the high altar of Holy Name Cathedral...
...The many forms of The religion of Christ is not mere social service or individualistic piety in our land are doomed now that humanitarianism...
...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...
...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...
...There are and operate without revelations and revolutions...
...thousands coming in the aggregate many millions of And, miracle of miracles, although scores were miles to adore a miracle...
...on the from the miracle of the Cenacle, which virtually every other, it means the disclosure to the man of average paper read assured the Congressists "is the central learning outside the Church that mysticism exists at all fact of Catholic worship...
...But a book may so to speak...
...There was no compulsion here, no ever ways lie open to them...
...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...
...King...
...It was, probably, this as the great Action of the sanctuary...
...It has been asso- outside the Church...
...lenia past...
...65o,ooo persons crowding a vast out- in arms to catch a perhaps uncomprehending glimpse door "cathedral" for the sacrament of the Mass...
...And as for those who profess Chris- the faithful every moment throughout each night...
...It was a free will obligation, as, to be sure, Catholics in devotion and, likely enough, to shame was every other act of devotion during the Congress...
...Because of this they continue to show signs of life...
...dividuals...
...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...
...that part of America that is, religiously and culturally, That Catholics accept the dogma of the Real Presoutside the fold of Rome...
...On the one hand, it is a reminder to the be studied or expounded only in relatively small groups...
...Yet tation, prismatic and orderly as a rainbow, succeeded that would be a large order for the other faiths...
...The lake breezes reached them only tions in America use the example of the Congress and in part, shut off as they were and huddled on steamthe striking exploitation of religion it offered in what- ing pavements...
...many of the Host...
...All this while the brassy midwestern sun beat down Indeed, it should surprise no one if the denomina- without respite...
...HunAs for the first class, the sceptical and scientific, what dreds trudged long distances, dusty, tired pilgrims effect will the reminder have upon their inquiries...
...and many of the weaker spirits fainted, not one pildoes not such a phenomenon offer a vast stimulus to grim was seriously injured on that frightful night at psychologists and social philosophers...
...Many traveled all night, sleeping if they naturalism of the historic Church and those which re- could on the ground or in motor cars, and facing the ject the mystery of the Virgin Birth and much besides...
...devotion and miracles of beauty, if they may be so For in the Protestant world, mind, not only is the characterized by a secular observer...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...Religion is not merely many petty devotions had died the death in the heat of a matter of listening to sermons and inspiring music...
...This was the more to those who, neither belonging inside the the church of nocturnal adoration as well during the fold nor hostile toward it, are not committed already Congress and its pews were liberally sprinkled with to the answer...
...them into some sort of show of hands to match the Moments of sheer beauty, grandiose beyond expecstupendous display of Catholic power in Chicago...
...In one another through the great masses at Soldiers' the Reformation they discarded, as all know, the Field and St...
...Virtually all the homes and hotels in Chicago, forty miles to a seminary doctrinal dissension among American Protestants is be- reservation containing shelter only for clergy, students, tween those elements clinging in part to the super- and nuns...
...one theocratic service...
...Does after the mediaeval pattern...
...There were miracles of in every-day practice...
...where Protestant ministers gladly harbored Catholic Only on condition th4t they lead men to the altar will priests during the memorable week...
...what it stood for and would undoubtedly achieve was Devotionettes may be very good and wholesome heard at repeated intervals...
Vol. 4 • July 1926 • No. 9
