Sales himself and those whom he so Beer and Paul, Augustine and Thomas and Ignatius Loyola, Teresa of Avila Louis and Charles Borromeo, and the e and by "the new order of the ages" the coming saints will tell us again that for ren and for the whole world it is only in the

the truth can be learned. The final lesson His life and by His death upon the cross is ere us. During this dying life and in this we choose to love God above all things, and out ghbor as ourself, or we choose eternal death. oice," says St. Francis de Sales, 10 and to t decision he gives us his book.

sity of America

JOHN K. RYAN

Yous ordo seclorum" on the reverse of the great seal of

erives from Vergil, Eclogue IV, 5.

of God, Book 12, chapter 13.

THOMAS AUGUSTINE JUDGE

A PIONEER OF THE LAY APOSTOLATE

John Henry Newman wrote in the preface of his Lives of the English Saints a very definitive statement about saints in general and possibly about those who may well be one day awarded the title of saint, if it be the judgment of the Church: "The exhibition of a person-his thoughts, his words, his acts, his trials, his failure, his beginnings, his growth, his end—have a charm to everyone and when he is a saint, they have a divine influence and persuasion, a power of exercising and eliciting latent elements of Divine Grace in individuals. . .”

This certainly might be appropriated to the life of Thomas Augustine Judge, C.M., saintly founder of two modern American missionary congregations of men and women, The Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity (Priests and Brothers), and The Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity (Sisters), both of whom have contributed so vastly to the vigor of the American Church in so many dynamic ways.

Father Judge also instituted the Missionary Cenacle Apostolate, a lay apostolate movement which has efficiently and successfully fulfilled its apostolic and sanctifying role since 1909, when it began with five members in St. John the Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York, and which today is firmly established in twenty-five dioceses in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Cuba with a membership of thousands of active lay apostles who have fulfilled the Cenacle's motto in thought, in word, and in deed: "Be good! Do good! Be a power for good!" The Missionary Cenacle Apostolate has formed Christians with a real sense of dedication to the Church and has filled the ranks of the clergy, religious as well as the laity, with sanctified souls blending their talents to the total service of God according to their proper state in life. It has fulfilled its task without any need for question or rebuke on the part of any proper ecclesiastical authority. It is honored and respected by the hierarchy. Its efficient and proper adaptation to the needs of the Church is its glory and a lively evidence of the wholesome vision of a great priestly wisdom on the part of its saintly and providential founder. It was the late Pius XII who claimed in a private audience

in Rome in a discussion about Father Judge and his work and his important contribution to the vitality of the Church in America, that Father Judge was fifty years ahead of his time.

While Father Judge was preparing to study for the holy Priesthood, the American Church was affected by a momentous event that must have impressed him deeply and formed in him the ideal for his future missionary foundations and accomplishments. Ten years before his ordination, the First Lay Congress was held in Baltimore, Maryland, on November 11, 12, 1889. This Congress had a particularly important place in the history of the Church in the United States. Patrick John Ryan, the Chrysostom of the American Hierarchy, and the successor of bishops who had witnessed the sad results of lay interference in ecclesiastical affairs, said at the opening of the Congress:

It is now time that an active, educated laity should take and express interest in the great questions of the day affecting the Church and society. I believe that there is not in the world a more devoted laity than we have in the Church of these States. I find, too, that the least educated among them, and not only the converts, are sound on the great questions of the day and loyal to the Church. . . . A magnificent future is before the Church in this country, if we are only true to her, to the country, and to ourselves.

There is no doubt that these sentiments struck a sympathetic chord in the hearts of the lay delegates who gathered for the Congress. They had come away from the venerable Cathedral, now a Basilica, of Baltimore, the evening before thrilled by the prophetic message of another great ecclesiastic, Archbishop John Ireland. They were duly alerted; now they merely needed a leader to mold them into an effective and organized arm of the hierarchy.

"The strength of the Church . . . is the people. This is essentially the age of democracy," said Archbishop Ireland. In vibrant words he called the laity to Catholic Action. He was reiterating the sentiments expressed frequently by Pius IX and Leo XII on this vital subject.

Priests are officers. You are soldiers. The heaviest fighting is often done by the soldiers, and in the warfare against error and sin, the soldiers are not always near the officer, and they must be ready to strike without waiting for the command. Laymen are not anointed in Confirmation to the end that they merely save their own souls and pay their

pew-rent. They must think, work, organize, read, speak, act as the circumstances demand, ever anxious to serve the Church and to do good to their fellowmen. There is on the part of Catholic laymen too much leaning upon priests. If priests work, laymen imagine they can rest . . . In America, in the present age, lay action is particularly needed for the Church. Laymen in this age have a special vocation.

The laity was moved and it now would need formation and practical direction in technique and sanctifying practices. After Father Judge had become a Vincentian Missionary priest, and in the midst of his first fervor for the salvation of the souls for whom he gave his priestly life with such exceptional zeal, The Supreme Pontiff, Pius X, before all else directed his papal efforts to the promotion of piety among the faithful and advised all to receive Holy Communion frequently (Decr. S. Congr. Concil, 20 Dec., 1905) and even daily if possible (Decr. S. Congr. Rit., 7 Dec., 1906). Father Judge seized upon this opportunity to create in those he loved and served the beginnings of a definite and creative preparation for the work of the lay apostolate. Realizing that the Eucharist was, as he put it, "the sun and center of the spiritual life," he urged countless souls to draw near the Blessed Sacrament and, thus, he invigorated a potential corps of lay apostles who would immediately respond to Pope Pius XI's call of the middle twenties to demonstrative Catholic Action. The early childhood and youth of many of Father Judge's protégés had been sanctified in the intimate union of discipleship with Jesus through the Holy Eucharist. They were ready for the lay apostolate when the call came and Father Judge made them responsive to the totality and significance of the demands of the apostolate.

In 1905, Saint Pius X wrote the encyclical, Il Fermo Proposito, addressed to the Bishops of Italy. This document became the very soul of Father Judge's plan. The Pope said:

Before everything else people must be thoroughly convinced that an instrument is useless if it is not suited to the work it has to do. Catholic Action . . . by proposing to restore all things to Christ, becomes a real apostolate for the honor and glory of Christ Himself. To carry it rightly we must have Divine Grace, and the apostle receives none of it if he is not united to Christ. Only when we have found Jesus Christ within us shall we more easily be able to give Him back to the family and society. All, therefore, who are called upon to direct, or who devote themselves to the promotion of the Catholic movement, ought to be

Catholics who are proof against everything, firm in the faith, solidly instructed in religious matters, truly submissive to the Church, and especially to the Supreme Apostolic Chair and to the vicar of Jesus Christ on earth; they ought to be men of real piety, of many virtues ... If one is not all these things he is useless. For unless the soul is thus regulated, not only will it be difficult to stir others to good but almost impossible to act with a right intention . . . and strength will fail for bearing perserveringly the weariness which every apostolate brings with it.

Father Judge did not go 'round the mulberry bush of vagueness or fascinating movements. He was a priest that preached basic doctrine and adhered to fundamentals which became the spiritual basis for all he did so impressively and practically for the Church in America. His zeal did not develop devotees for specific movements or vague Catholic Action groups; he was busy, and tirelessly so, forming total Catholics, who would be Christ-bearers, who would bring Christ first to their own minds and hearts so that they might give birth to Christ in all of their thoughts, words and actions. For Father Judge the lay apostolate was the gentle bringing of Christ into one's own environment by a prayerful, faithful, and conscientious practice of religion in all of its phases, religious, social and economic. This meant men and women had to be fervent and well-formed and intelligent members of the Church versed in its essential doctrines. That is why he spread meaningful devotion to the Triune God which one day would be the glorious badge of his devoted followers. He defined a clear-cut plan of action based on apostolic formation derived from traditional sources. He would make his followers live a life of contemplation as well as activity. This certainly is an answer to what is needed in the spirituality of the modern Church. His plan was first of all, that it is essential that the Catholic must acquire a deep understanding of the Church and what she is supposed to do in this world. Enthusiasm is no substitute for knowledge. Second, each one must be serious about growth in holiness. For Father Judge this meant frequent attendance at the Sacraments, a growing consciousness of the presence of God, increased through reading and prayer and a well rounded recognition of the relationship of the soul to God.

Father Judge was a pioneer, even though history does not correctly record the fact, in a priestly cognition that the lay apostolate was not something new, something threatening. For him the apos