Our first Sunday at sea, the third of Advent. We have passed from
the region of snow and sleet, and the change is welcome. The morning
breaks bright and clear, and as the day wears on it grows distinctly
warmer. The sun shines out of a cloudless sky and the air is balmy
as in a June day. While I write the thermometer out on the promenade
deck shows 56 degrees in the shade. Frost and snow are things of the
past--things of the land we have left behind.
Not having a portable altar, we are unable to say Mass. There are
more than seven hundred persons in the steerage, mostly Italians
seeking "la bella patria"--their own lovely homeland. I arrange with
the captain to have a service for them at 3 p.m. The second-class
saloon being too small, we hold the service under an awning on the
deck. Dressed in cassock and with my rochet on--for the very first
time--I kneel upon the main hatch and say aloud in Latin the Rosary
and Litany of the Blessed Virgin, which they all answer in the same
tongue. These people, I may remark by the way, are all taught from
childhood to say those prayers in the language of the Church.
Prayers over, I address them a few words in Italian, the season and
the occasion furnishing a theme. Exiles are we from home, seeking a
fatherland afar, and One has come down from that fatherland to raise
us up and to lead us on. As we cross the sea of life, not always
calm and untroubled as the one we sail to-day, we must pause from
time to time to lift up our eyes and fix them on the eternal truths
that shine like stars upon our pathway. We must prepare for the
advent of the Sun of Justice, and from the lesser lights turn our
gaze longingly to the bright morning Star that heralds His rising.
Such is the sum of what I said, but I must own that it sounds much
better in this English summary than it did in such poor Italian as I
could muster.
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