THE NEW SACRIFICE
Things went much the same at Bramshott. Spring came, and for the first
time I saw the primroses, which are among the first flowers to bloom
in England. They do not belong to the aristocracy for one sees them
everywhere; along railway embankments, along the roadsides, near the
hedge-rows, everywhere patches of the pretty little yellow flowers
smiled the approach of spring.
Then one day when the spring birds, nesting in the great old English
trees, were cheering up the poor war-broken lads that lay on their
little cots in so many military hospitals throughout the country--Vimy
Ridge had been fought, and many of the lads who had sailed with me had
fallen that victory might come--word came that I was to join the Fifth
Canadian Division, which was then preparing to go overseas.
It was a beautiful day when I left for Witley Camp where the Fifth
Division was quartered. The birds were chorusing their glorious
melodies from hedge and tree and field; but along lanes that should
have worn a peaceful country setting went clumsily great motor lorries
in different ways connected with the war.
Witley Camp was only six miles from Bramshott, so it did not take us
long to speed over the Portsmouth road through the beautiful Surrey
country.
I took up temporary quarters with my old friend Father Crochetiere, and
slept on a table in his office. I was not very long there when another
old friend dropped in to see me in the height of Father Hingston, S.
J. Both priests welcomed me very kindly and told me I was just in time
to help in the remote preparation for a stirring event. They spoke
with great enthusiasm, and it was not long before I was made aware of
the cause. A Solemn High Mass was to be celebrated in the open air
the following Sunday, and the Catholic soldiers from all parts of the
camp were to attend in order to be consecrated to the Sacred Heart of
Jesus. There were more than three thousand Catholic soldiers in the
camp. The following Sunday morning I was up very early to help in the
preparations.
It was a beautiful morning. The sun was up, clear, bright, and warm.
The air was very still. Though preparations, both military and
religious, had been most carefully made, there was discernible in the
manner of the priests who had worked so hard for the bringing about of
this great religious ceremony some signs of anxiety. They feared lest
there be a hitch in the deliverance of orders, so that all the men
might not be present. There was no need to fear, for at 9:30 o’clock
three thousand Catholic soldiers drew up in the grove of pines on the
border of the lake at the northwest corner of the camp and all anxiety
disappeared. There were French Canadian lads from the Province of
Quebec; Irish Canadian Rangers from Montreal; Scotch laddies, with
feathers in their caps, from Ontario and Nova Scotia; Indian lads from
Eastern and Western Canada.
An altar had been built against one of the very few oak trees that
stood in the grove of pines, and above the cross that stood upon it,
a large picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was nailed to the tree;
surmounting all was a canopy of larch and ivy leaves. Daffodils, tulips
and larch stood out brightly among the candles on the white altar. All
about the carpeted elevation on which the altar had been built stood
many potted plants.
As the parade was drawn up beneath the trees, on the carpet of dry pine
needles and the last year’s oak leaves, bands of different battalions
played and the kilted laddies made music with their pipes.
Father Crochetiere sang the Mass, with old Father McDonald, who had
come over as chaplain to a Scottish battalion, as deacon and the writer
as sub-deacon. The choir of thirty voices which sang the Royal Mass so
beautifully was under the direction of Lt. Prevost of the One Hundred
and Fiftieth Battalion.
And so under the British oak where “Druids of old” once offered their
pagan sacrifices, the Holy Sacrifice of the New Law was offered, and
Canadian lads knelt to adore. And there by the quiet lakeside the
miracle of God’s wonderful love was wrought, and the promise made by
the Divine Master on the border of another lake, the day following the
multiplication of the loaves and fishes, was fulfilled. For many of the
soldiers had waited till this late Mass to go to Communion, and under
the beautiful sunlight that filtered through the trees they knelt to
receive the “Bread of Life.”
After Mass a short sermon was preached in English and French by Father
Hingston, S. J., chaplain to the Irish Canadian Rangers, in the course
of which he explained clearly and beautifully what the ceremony of
consecration meant.
Then Colonel Barré, commanding the One Hundred and Fiftieth Battalion,
read the Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in French,
and Major McRory, officer commanding the One Hundred and Ninety-ninth
Irish Canadian Rangers, read it in English. Each soldier was then
presented with a badge of the Sacred Heart.
And just as of old the multitude who followed the Divine Master were
blessed before they departed, so, after the Consecration to the Sacred
Heart had been made, the lads knelt while Benediction of the Blessed
Sacrament was given, and then all was over. “He blessed them and sent
them away.”
As I stood that day by the little altar near the lakeside, while bands
played and the lads fell in preparatory to departing, I could not help
thinking of the many different places where they had worshipped since
they had left Canada; and though I could not foresee the strange scenes
they would inevitably meet on the red road of war, which they would
shortly travel, still I felt sure that one day would stand out in their
memories in bold relief--the day they made the Act of Consecration to
the Sacred Heart of Jesus,--the day when they knelt before God’s altar
built in the open air under the trees by the lakeside--and Jesus passed!