In 1836, while connected with the Church of St. Roque, I was for a long
time engaged in giving catechetical instruction to the children; not
only the ordinary catechism, but what we called, and what is still
called, catechism of perseverance, at which young persons of both sexes
attended until their marriage.
One day I was called upon to solemnize the marriage of one of these
young persons, who was very pious; she had most assiduously followed our
instructions until the hour of this great engagement; her betrothed was
a practical Catholic, so that it was one of those marriages which we can
bless with hope and consolation.
Ordinarily an exhortation is given on these occasions; I said a few
words according to the custom, and I still remember that while speaking
I had a distraction; it was caused by a tall man, at least six foot
high, who stood erect while every one else was seated, looking at me
with a fixed, intense gaze, and, as he was one of the first witnesses at
the ceremony, he stood scarcely three steps from me. This proximity, his
great height, his original manner, and his fixed look, had, as you may
readily understand, attracted my attention, for a moment, and then I
cast the impression aside. After the ceremony all retired, and I thought
all was finished; far from it. At five o'clock the next morning my bell
was rung by the bridegroom, who came in great haste to summon me to a
dying man, his uncle, the same tall man who had so singularly distracted
me the previous evening. He was quite aged, seventy-four years old; he
had taken cold at the wedding ceremony, and the physician declared he
could not live. I started immediately, and as we went along the street,
I asked, "Was your uncle a good Christian?"--"He was a good man; but we
fear that he neglected his religious duties."--"Has he any idea of his
dangerous condition?"--"Yes, he is fully sensible of it."--"Does he wish
to see me?"--"Yes, when we saw that he was struck by death, we asked him
if he would not like to see a priest, and he did not refuse. After a
moment he said 'bring me the one I heard yesterday; he pleased me, and
he will arrange my affairs.'"
The bridegroom informed me that his uncle had come from the country to
attend his wedding, and he was then at a hotel in a cross street. (I
have never since passed that hotel without emotion.) We entered, and I
was left alone with him. Before me lay this poor old man dying. I
approached, and he immediately held out his hand. There was something
very frank and noble in his manner. "I am going to die," he said, "and I
wish to do whatever is done at such a time. I am seventy-four years old,
and for sixty years I have not been to confession. At fourteen I
enlisted; I have been in all the wars of the Revolution and the empire;
I have never thought of God during all the time, and I know not why. I
now feel that I ought not to leave the world before being reconciled to
Him, just as if I had always known Him." Touched by his frankness and
his extraordinary sincere expression, I replied, "I will aid you to know
Him, and God will aid us; such things are easy for those of an upright,
candid heart." But it was not so very easy, after all, and you will
readily perceive. When, by the assistance of many questions, I had
finished his confession for him, "Now," I said, "I'll give you a
penance."--"What is that? I have not the least idea of it." And, in
truth, he had not the first idea of religion, of the Sacrament of
Penance, or any other Sacrament.... A poor, dying man, whose hairs were
bleached by the snows of fourscore winters, was passing from earth
without having a single idea of Christianity; merely an instinct
prompted him to wish for a reconciliation with God before his death.
I explained the meaning of penance and said: "You suffer very much;
offer your sufferings to our Blessed Lord, and that will enable me to
give you an easy penance; you need only say the 'Our Father' and the
'Hail Mary.'" He looked at me for a moment with the most intent and
piercing gaze, for, although so exhausted by age and sickness, he had a
most extraordinary energy in his eye, and said "'Our Father,' 'Hail
Mary!' What do they mean? I have never heard anything about them." Yes,
this was the state which the poor miserable man had reached;
seventy-four years old and he had forgotten even the prayers that
infants in their mothers' arms lisp in childish accents. Religion was
utterly obliterated from his soul! There remained nothing, nothing! I
cast a look toward heaven, and I felt that a miracle was needed to bring
back the pastor to enlighten his darkened soul.
"You ought to know, that those prayers are the most beautiful in
religion. I will assist you; I will say them myself; you will say them
afterward with me, and then you will find all you have lost."
Kneeling down by his bedside, and holding his hand in both of mine, I
commenced. He let me say the two or three first invocations of the "Our
Father," but when I said, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them
who trespass against us," he suddenly pressed my hand, and as one
arousing from a long sleep he exclaimed, "Oh! I remember that. Yes! I
think when I was a little boy my mother taught me something like that.
Will you please commence it again?" I recommenced it and then
instantaneously, from the depths of his soul, across his darkened mind,
and from far away in his early childhood--across seventy-four
years--across all those wars and all those battle-fields which had
passed over his life and effaced from his soul all ideas of religion,
came back to this old soldier the remembrance of his mother, and the
prayers she had taught him when a little boy, and he commenced unaided
to recall the words. One by one I saw them leave his soul, as if they
had all been engulfed, and were now rising to the surface. At each
sentence he interrupted himself: "Oh!" he exclaimed, "I remember--'Our
Father who art in heaven'--yes, indeed, that is it--'Hallowed be Thy
name'--that is it again!--I remember it all now!--'Thy Kingdom
come.'--Yes, yes, I remember I used to say all that--oh! isn't that
prayer beautiful!" And when he came to the words "Forgive us our
trespasses,"--"Ah," he cried, "above all the rest, I remember
that--those are the words that brought all the rest back to me; my
mother used to make me say that whenever I did anything wrong." And in
this manner he finished the "Our Father;" then he asked to say it with
me, and seemed never weary in repeating it over and over.
"But," he exclaimed, "is there not another? Oh! yes, now I remember, my
mother said there was a Blessed Virgin--stop--I must find that prayer
also! But it won't come back. Say it to me so that I can remember, all
about it." And when I repeated the first words, he interrupted me with a
joyful cry, "Oh! yes, that is it, 'Hail Mary!'" And then, without
waiting for me to take the lead, he continued, "full of grace, the Lord
is with thee," and all the words seemed to flow miraculously from his
soul, and with tears flowing down his cheeks, he repeated, "Holy Mary,
Mother of God, pray for us poor sinners, now and the hour of our death."
Behold in this old man the power of the prayers which a pious mother had
taught him in his childhood! Precious germs deposited in his soul, and a
long time deposited there--but, thank God, they were there--and at the
supreme moment, under a favorable ray of Divine grace, they burst forth
to support him in his last hours, and to open for him the gates of a
happy eternity! He never wearied in saying them, but continued
constantly repeating them.
Finally, seeing that he was fatigued, I left him promising to return as
soon as he had taken some repose. And I did return very soon, for I was
most anxious to give him Holy Communion. He received the Viaticum with
the most lively faith: all had been revealed with those two prayers. I
had nothing more to teach him.