Purgatory, Mary Anne Madden Sadlier [books to get back into reading .txt] 📗

might overcome; and in bondage she left him not till she brought him the sceptre of the kingdom, and power against those that oppressed him, and gave him everlasting glory." - Wisdom x. [1] ]

[Footnote 1: From the funeral oration preached at Glassaevin Cemetery, in May, 1869, on the occasion of the removal of the remains of the Liberator to their final resting place.]

Nor was Ireland forgotten in the designs of God. Centuries of patient endurance brought at length the dawn of a better day. God's hour came, and it brought with it Ireland's greatest son, Daniel O'Connell. We surround his grave to-day to pay him a last tribute of love, to speak words of praise, of suffrage, and prayer. For two and twenty years has he silently slept in the midst of us. His generation is passing away, and the light of history already dawns upon his grave, and she speaks his name with cold, unimpassioned voice. In this age of ours a few years are as a century of times gone by. Great changes and startling events follow each other in such quick succession that the greatest names are forgotten almost as soon as those who bore them disappear, and the world itself is surprised to find how short-lived is the fame which promised to be immortal. The Church alone is the true shrine of immortality - the temple of fame which perisheth not; and that man only whose name and memory is preserved in her sanctuaries receives on this earth a reflection of that glory which is eternal in heaven. But before the Church will crown any one of her children, she carefully examines his claims to the immortality of her gratitude and praise. She asks, "What has he done for God and for man?" This great question am I come here to answer to-day for him whose tongue, once so eloquent, is now stilled in the silence of the grave, and over whose tomb a grateful country has raised a monument of its ancient faith and a record of its past glories; and I claim for him the need of our gratitude and love, in that he was a man of faith, whom wisdom guided in "the right ways," who loved and sought "the kingdom of God," who was "most honorable in his labors," and who accomplished his "great works;" the liberator of his race, the father of his people, the conqueror in "the undented conflict" of principle, truth and justice....

....Before him stretched, full and broad, the two ways of life, and he must choose between them: the way which led to all that the world prized - wealth, power, distinction, title, glory, and fame; the way of genius, the noble rivalry of intellect, the association with all that was most refined and refining - the way which led up to the council chambers of the nation, to all places of jurisdiction and of honor, to the temples wherein were enshrined historic names and glorious memories, to a share in all blessings of privilege and freedom.... Before him opened another way. No gleam of sunshine illumined this way; it was wet with tears - it was overshadowed by misfortune - it was pointed out to the young traveller of life by the sign of the cross , and he who entered it was bidden to leave all hope behind him, for it led through the valley of humiliation, into the heart of a fallen race, and an enslaved and afflicted people. I claim for O'Connell the glory of having chosen this latter path, and this claim no man can gainsay, for it is the argument of the Apostle in favor of the great lawgiver of old - "By faith Moses" denied himself to be the son of Pharoah's daughter.

....Into this way was he led by his love for his religion and his country. He firmly believed in that religion in which He was born. He had that faith which is common to all Catholics, and which is not merely a strong opinion nor even a conviction, but an absolute and most certain knowledge that the Catholic Church is the one and the only true messenger and witness of God upon earth; and that to belong to her communion and to possess her faith is the first and greatest of all endowments and privileges, before which everything else sinks into absolute nothing ... He was Irish of the Irish and Catholic of the Catholic. His love for religion and country was as the breath of his nostrils, the blood of his veins, and when he brought to the service of both the strength of his faith and the power of his genius, with the instinct of a true Irishman, his first thought was to lift up the nation by striking the chains off the National Church. And here again, two ways opened before him. One was a way of danger and of blood, and the history of his country told him that it ever ended in defeat and in great evil.... He saw that the effort to walk in it had swept away the last vestige of Ireland's national legislature and independence. But another path was still open to him, and wisdom pointed it out as "the right way." Another battle-field lay before him on which he could "fight the good fight" and vindicate all the rights of his religion and of his country. The armory was furnished by the inspired Apostle when he said: ... "Having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breast-plate of justice, and your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace, in all things taking the shield of faith.... And take unto you the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word." O'Connell knew well that such weapons in such a hand as his were irresistible - that girt around with the truth and justice of his cause, he was clad in the armor of the Eternal God, that with words of peace and order on his lips, with the strong shield of faith before him and the sword of eloquent speech in his hand, with the war-cry of obedience, principle, and law, no power on earth could resist him, for it is the battle of God, and nothing can resist the Most High.

* * * * *

... He who was the Church's liberator and most true son, was also the first of Ireland's statesmen and patriots. Our people remember well, as their future historian will faithfully record, the many trials borne for them, the many victories gained in their cause, the great life devoted to them by O'Connell. Lying, however, at the foot of the altar, as he is to-day, whilst the Church hallows his grave with prayer and sacrifice, it is more especially as the Catholic Emancipator of his people that we place a garland on his tomb. It is as the child of the Church that we honor him, and recall with tears of sorrow our recollections of the aged man, revered, beloved, whom all the glory of the world's admiration and the nation's love had never lifted up in soul out of the holy atmosphere of Christian humility and simplicity. Obedience to the Church's laws, quick zeal for her honor and the dignity of her worship, a spirit of penance refining whilst it expiated, chastening while it ennobled all that was natural in the man; constant and frequent use of the Church's holy sacraments which shed the halo of grace around his venerated head, - these were the last grand lessons which he left to his people, and thus did the sun of his life set in the glory of Christian holiness.

.... In the triumph of Catholic Emancipation, he pointed out to the Irish people the true secret of their strength, the true way of progress, and the sure road to victory.... Time, which buries in utter oblivion so many names and so many memories, will exalt him in his work. The day has already dawned and is ripening into its perfect noon, when Irishmen of every creed will remember O'Connell, and celebrate him as the common friend, and the greatest benefactor of their country. What man is there, even of those whom our age has called great, whose name, so many years after his death, could summon so many loving hearts around his tomb? We, to-day, are the representatives not only of a nation but of a race.... Where is the land that has not seen the face of our people and heard their voice? And wherever, even to the ends of the earth, an Irishman is found to-day, his spirit and his sympathy are here. The millions of America are with us - the Irish Catholic soldier on India's plains is present amongst us by the magic of love - the Irish sailor standing by the wheel this moment in far-off silent seas, where it is night, and the Southern stars are shining, joins his prayer with ours, and recalls the glorious image and the venerated name of O'Connell. ... He is gone, but his fame shall live forever on the earth, as a lover of God and of His people. Adversities, political and religious, he had many, and like a

"Tower of strength
Which stood full square to all the winds that blew,"

the Hercules of justice and of liberty stood up against them. Time, which touches all things with mellowing hand, has softened the recollections of past contests, and they who once looked upon him as a foe, now only remember the glory of the fight, and the mighty genius of him who stood forth the representative man of his race, and the champion of his people. They acknowledge his greatness, and they join hands with us to weave the garland of his fame.

But far other, higher and holier are the feelings of Irish Catholics all the world over to-day. They recognize in the dust which we are assembled to honor, the powerful arm which promoted them, the eloquent tongue which proclaimed their rights and asserted their freedom, the strong hand which, like that of the Maccabees of old, first struck off their chains and then built up their holy altars. They, mingling the supplication of prayer and the gratitude of suffrage with their tears, recall - oh! with how much love - the memory of him who was a Joseph to Israel - their tower of strength, their buckler, and their shield - who shed around their homes, their altars, and their graves the sacred light of religious liberty, and the glory of unfettered worship. "His praise is in the Church," and this is the pledge of the immortality of his glory. "A people's voice" may be "the proof and echo of all Human fame," but the voice of the undying Church, is the echo of "everlasting glory," and, when those who surround his grave to-day shall have passed away, all future generations of Irishmen to the end of time will be reminded of his name and glory.


THE INDULGENCE OF PORTIUNCULA.

Towards the middle of the fourth century, four pilgrims from Palestine came to settle in the neighborhood of Assisi, and built a chapel there. Nearly two centuries after, this little chapel passed into the hands of the monks of St. Benedict, who owned some lots, or portions of land, in the vicinity, whence came the name of Portiuncula , given first to those little plots of ground, and afterwards to the chapel itself. St. Bonaventure says that, later still, it was called "Our