THE ONE THAT WAS LOST
The winter passed quietly, each battalion of my brigade moving from
reserve to support, from support into the line, then back to reserve
again. And always in those little churches up near the line, whenever
there was a chaplain, confessions were heard from five o’clock every
evening. Here the work was most consoling, for my soldiers, moving
about the village in the evening time, used to find their way to the
church and there make a little visit or go to confession and Holy
Communion. Often some would stay a long time praying. They had left
mothers and fathers, wives and children, but the sanctuary lamp,
burning softly, sent to them the silent signal, as it did at home, that
“the Lord was in His holy temple.”
Often as I sat in the confessional in those little churches of France
I thought of God’s wonderful ways; of the ineffable graces that flowed
so continuously to the souls of those lads. And many times, when the
evening’s work was done and the last soul shriven, I have left my
confessional and walked up the aisle to the altar-steps, and, kneeling
down, have thanked God with a full heart for having made me a priest.
On one of those evenings, after I had finished hearing confessions in
the church at Bully-les-Mines, I noticed an old soldier sitting in one
of the middle pews. He must have been nearly seventy; his hair was
quite gray. I waited in my confessional for a short time, thinking
perhaps he might wish to come, but as he did not, I stepped out from
the box and began to walk up and down the aisle; and the old soldier
stayed on. At last I stopped at his pew and asked him if he wished to
go to confession.
He said “No,” and then went on to tell me that he had been to prayers
the night before, and that he had come back again thinking there
would be more prayers. But he repeated that he did not wish to go to
confession.
I told him there would be the Way of the Cross the following evening,
which was Friday. The curé was having Lenten devotions twice a week. I
was just about to leave the church then, as there was no one else to go
to confession, when the old soldier spoke again.
“Father,” he said, “would you like to talk to me?” It seemed rather an
unusual way to ask the question. Usually men said: “Father, I’d like to
speak to you a minute.” However, if this man had anything he wished to
say to me, I was there to hear it and also to help him by any advice I
could. So I said that I would like to talk to him, if he wished.
I then sat down beside the old man and slowly he began to speak.
“Father,” he said, “I don’t want to go to confession--I haven’t been to
confession for forty years. I’ve led an awful life, Father. All that
time I have been trying to do without God. Lately, though, Father, I
have begun to think that I can’t do it. Since I’ve come to France I’ve
seen a lot, and I’ve been thinking a lot. I’ve come to the conclusion
that there is some power directing all things. For even to run a peanut
stand there must be some one behind it to direct things. I believe in
God, Father--but I don’t want to go to confession.”
He stopped speaking for a second or two, and we sat in silence. Up
before the tabernacle the little flame in the sanctuary lamp leaped a
few times. Then he spoke again:
“But, Father, I have led an awful life!” He began then and there
to tell me the history of his life. I listened quietly, and as he
continued telling me of forty years’ estrangement from God, I prayed
with all my strength to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for grace to bring
this poor lost sheep back into the fold. Surely the Sacred Heart would
hear my prayer. “I will give to priests,” He had said, “the power to
touch the most hardened heart.”
For a long time I sat there and the old man continued to talk. Now and
again I would ask a question by way of encouraging him in his recital.
At last he finished, and his head moved a little from side to side,
very slowly, as he said: “Father, I’ve led an awful life!”
“Yes,” I said, “and now if you will come with me into the confessional
and ask God’s pardon from the bottom of your heart for all those sins,
I will give you holy absolution.”
It was late that evening when the old man stepped out from the
confessional, but before he did he said to me: “Father, if ever you
wish to make known all that has gone on this night, either by writing
or word, you have my permission to do so, for it might help some other
poor soul.”
All through his confession I had been praying for grace to know what to
do next. I wished to give him holy communion, for one never knew when a
missile of death might drop--just about that time a giant enemy shell
had crashed into the village so unexpectedly that I saw a red-faced
officer of the line turn a sickly white. And yet the old soldier had
been such a long time away from the sacraments. But before he left the
confessional I had decided what to do. “Now,” I said, “you will just
go up to the sanctuary rail and pray a little and then I will give you
Holy Communion.”
A few moments later I tip-toed softly out of the church and left the
old man happy with Jesus of Nazareth, the Saviour of the world.
Frequently, since I have come home, when I relate some of the wonderful
ways of the Master with these soldier lads people say to me: “Ah,
Father, they came back to the sacraments because they were afraid.”
To me, who have witnessed these miracles of God’s grace, such words
always sound harsh, and I then try to explain to the people what these
men really went through. I describe the long vigil in the muddy front
line trench during the cold, silent hours of the night, when there was
much time to think. Perhaps for the first time in years some men began
to do a little serious thinking. Under ordinary circumstances, when the
voice of conscience speaks, one has a thousand ways of deafening the
ears. In the trenches there was no means of silencing the still, small
voice. All things conspired to make one think seriously of death and
the fragility of human life. It was these thoughts mostly that brought
so many men back to God. He spoke to them and they heard.
I remember once having explained this state of things to an old woman
who had said to me that the men came through fear. I had done my best
to convince her that the reason the men came was that they had grown
serious under hardship. She looked at me calmly and knowingly, and
said: “That’s it, Father! They were afraid!”