"O Dear Sisters and scholars! Love your Jesus, dying with love for you on the Cross! Love Mary, your loving Mother, sorrowing at the foot of the cross! Love the Institute, love the Rules, love Jesus' darling humility!" was placed on the Epistle side of the altar, the celebrating priest would read aloud the "Manna", and the Superior, representing the Sisters, and the eldest pupil, the school, would come up to the altar-railing and kiss the image of the Sacred Heart. The "Loretto picture" was also designed by Father Nerinckx and likewise done in Europe in 1816. The first building on the left is Father Nerinckx' own dwelling and is still preserved on the grounds at the Mother House. The worthy historian, John Gilmary Shea, writing April 25, 1891, to a Sister of Loretto, says: Many thanks for the delightful old view of the Convent of Loretto. It is so quaint and odd that it deserves a place among queer pictures. They tell a story of an officer of the English army in India who, having been sent with a detachment into a new part of the country near the mountains, thought that a sketch of the new fort and its surroundings would interest friends in England. So he prepared a careful sketch and sent it to the London Illustrated News. He received by return mail a letter of thanks, but when the paper arrived, to his horror and the intense enjoyment of all his fellow officers the whole picture had been filled up with palmtrees, when in fact there was not a tree of any kind in sight from the fort. It was in vain for him to protest that his sketch had not been followed, he was the butt of all regimental jokes. When he wrote to London complaining indignantly of the liberty taken with his drawing, they replied that the English public required palm trees in pictures from India! The Belgian engraver seems to have had the same idea. "And if there be a grave-yard, they plant the cross and dig three spades." It was formerly a Lorettine custom for the community to go to the grave-yard on every first Monday of the month after the recitation of the Dies Irae and for each member to dig a spadeful of earth from the grave destined for the Sister who might be next to die. This custom, faithfully kept at the Mother House until 1896, was thereafter discontinued, as it could not be generally practised in the Society. The term "Dear Mother", appearing in the quotation, was the title given to the "Generalissima ". A certain "sending to a new establishment " proved one of the most pathetic that pen has ever recorded, resulting in the death from fright of one of the Sisters. We shall not here repeat the story which, at every re-reading, gives forth a new aroma of spiritual beauty. We refer our readers to the Life of Father Nerinckx by Bishop Maes, or to the Annals of Loretto by Anna C. Minogue. The Annals states in part: In 1867 three Sisters started for Santa Fe, traveling from St. Louis with Bishop Lamy, Father D. M. Gasparri, S.J., two other Jesuit Fathers and two Sisters of Charity. On Friday, June 14th, the caravan left Leavenworth, Kansas, reaching St. Mary's, at that time a reservation of the Pottawattomie Indians, on the 21st. From that point on the party was more or less beset by savages, who, however, showed no indication of fighting until the evening of the 17th of July, when fifty of them suddenly appeared and began their attack on the caravan. We learn from the History of the Sisters of Charity, of Leavenworth, published in 1898, that there were twentysix in the party and that the Indian fight lasted three hours -"bullets flying around the canvass of the Sister's wagon and arrows piercing it until it was covered with them." Six days later the party was again set upon by the Indians, the terrorizing situation lasting throughout the entire night. The five Sisters remained in a tent, tortured by fears more agonizing than their defenders could dream of, and fervently they prayed for death before falling into the hands of the maddened savages. "Drenched with rain and holding down the poles of their tent, the poor Sisters sang a hymn." (This from the Leavenworth History.) What hymn the historian does not tell us, but those Western winds surely caught these words, as they ascended from sorely tried hearts: "We from this wretched vale of tears Many of these temporary directions of Father Nerinckx, which he gave as suited to that particular period, were discontinued long years ago, but that point of Rule which required the singing, night and morning, of Hail to the Queen, the Sisters have faithfully kept throughout the century. So earnest are they in their desire for the fulfillment of this ardent wish of their holy Founder, that some not blessed with voice have prayed for that gift if only they might sing this hymn with the community. It is considered very unworthy of a Lorettine to be dilatory in this pious exercise, while the sick desire not to be dispensed from it. At the present time there is in the Lorettine house of Santa Fé, New Mexico-Academy of Our Lady of Light—an aged Religious who has been sixty-seven years in the Order, and who, now no longer able to go to the Chapel, sings alone, in her own little room, at her early rising hour of about three o'clock in the morning, the loved "Salve". At Loretto Heights Academy, Loretto, Colorado, where are taken for burial the remains of those members who die in the cities of Denver and Colorado Springs, the Sisters, in file on either side of the front entrance await the arrival of the hearse, and greet the remains of their sacred dead with the age-used hymn to their Heavenly Mother. With special fervor is the hymn sung on occasions of Reception and Profession, and on the splendid occasion of the Order's Centenary, in 1912, it was made a special feature in the celebration of each House, while the Religious of the Mother House and local houses of Kentucky made a pilgrimage to the site of "Little Loretto", and sang with heartfelt gratitude on the very spot where their cradle was first rocked, the hymn their Father taught them, that has ever been their consolation in the long ascent to Calvary", that, though old, to them ever younger and sweeter grows: 66 "Hail to the Queen who reigns above!" NOTE.-Through Dr. H. Grattan Flood it is learned that this translation of the Salve Regina is in the Primer (London) of 1685. (See RECORDS OF THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Vol. XXVI, No. 4.)-S. M. A. REVEREND CHARLES NERINCKX.1 BY THE REV. JOSEPH J. MURPHY, J. C. D. No apology is needed for a new biography of Reverend Charles Nerinckx, the famous pioneer missionary of Kentucky and founder of the Congregation of the Sister of Loretto in that State. Bishop Maes had already written an extensive biography and several minor sketches had appeared, but there is ample room for the present volume which conveys much new information, based on recently discovered documents. The life story of Father Nerinckx is most interesting, almost fascinating, and the present lengthy review is given in the hope of leading our readers to secure this volume and learn the difficult conditions that confronted the pioneer missionaries of a century ago in our own land. Charles Nerinckx was born in Herffelingen, in Brabant, 2 October, 1761, the eldest of a family of fourteen children. He studied philosophy at Louvain and theology at Mechlin, where he was ordained, I November, 1785. After spending eight years as assistant at the Mechlin Cathedral he was appointed pastor of Meerbeek, a country town midway between Brussels and Louvain. The times were far from peaceful and then, as now, Belgium was the battlefield of Europe. He writes: "At Mechlin, the previous year (1793), I suffered from the first invasion of the French, and the day after my installation at Meerbeek the 1 Life of Rev. Charles Nerinckx, Pioneer Missionary of Kentucky and Founder of the Sisters of Loretto at the Foot of the Cross, by Rev. W. J. Howlett. 1915. Mission Press, Techny, Ill. |