NEW SAINT CARED FOR 500 JESUITS
J ESUITS will be having spiritual high jinks next Sunday, the climax of the triduum of thanksgiving for the canonisation of St. Joseph Pignatelli. Scarcely one Catholic in a thousand has heard the name of this extraordinary and much-persecuted man. He was 29 years old when the Jesuits were driven out of Spain in 1767. He organised the retreat, collecting together several hundred priests and brothers and tending the sick and dying on their march to the coast, They sailed for the Papal port of Civita Vecchia, bur the Pope would not let them land. For a time there was a kind of concentration camp for Jesuits in Corsica. and St. Joseph looked after more than 500 starving priests. Later. when the French took Corsica, the Jesuits were dr i v en to Genoa. Finalls, in 1773, the Pope suppressed the whole Society. St. Joseph retired to Bologna. He was forbidden to exercise his priestly ministry and spent many years in retirement, a victim of one of the most unhappy incidents in modern Church history.
'Dying and behold we live'
THE newly canonised saint had only one wish in life, to rejoin the Society, and he planned to go to White Russia, the only place where the Society was permitted to survive. Pope Pius VI gave him permission to go but Providence detained him in Italy, and he later had leave to collect a small community together fashioned on the Ignatian rule. In 1793 he was allowed to renew his vows as a Jesuit though the Society was still suppressed. He lived a holeand-corner existence, saw the Pope arresteta suffered under the French Revolution and Napoleon, and died peacefully in 1811 a few years before the Society of Jesus was finally restored. His canonisation is not only the recognition of his own heroic virtues but an indirect tribute to the 20,000 Jesuits, his companions, who suffered so many humiliations from the Church and for the Church.
The centenary engraving
Tweeks ago notice was given here of the fine engraving of Our Lady, first made for the Definition of the Immaculate Conception and now reproduced privately for the centenary year. This is a one-man venture and an act of devotion blessed with success. Mr. Coucke tells me that he has received many and bulky orders for the picture on a Christmas card. Only 5,000 were printed and more than half the cards have gone. Single copies cost Is.; 16 dozen go for 8s. 6d. a dozen. Envelopes arc provided. Write to G. L Coucke, 64a Madeley Road. Ealing. London, W.5.
Christmas tags
AYORKSHIRE reader sent me a mall glossy red packet marked "The Hillary Christmas Gift Tags." Inside were six delightful little labels, well suited for tying on Christmas presents, each tag bearing a coloured picture of the crib, I have at last discovered the firm which produces these charming things. and now know why the lahcls arc called "Hillary," for Laverty & Sons live at I Hillary Place, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds 2. The Hillary tags cost 9d. 4 packet. Laverty & Sons also offer a wide choice of excellent Christmas cards.
All Saints quiz A N enormous number of com/Apetitors entered for the All Saints quiz. Candidates sent in cards from every part of England, Ireland. Wales and Scotland, and one entry came from as far as Salzburg. The judges had no difficulty in knocking Out 60 cards, for so high was the standard set that one mistake was more than enough. Most candidates stumbled over the burial place of St. Madeleine Sophie Baran the birthplace of St. Margaret of Scotland, and the place where St. Maria Goretti died. We also had St. Leger as Lord Deputy of Ireland.
The winners
A BOUT 20 competitors made no ti.mistakes at all. and then marks were given for every precious detail squeezed on to a card. The standard was superlative. We were given six different tombs used at different times by St. Atoysius; and one candidate, afraid of a catch, not only gave us all about St. Aloysius, but threw in numerous other Louis variations as well, If you did not win, this does not mean that your card was imperfect but that you were up against competitors who should be canonised themselves. After hours of prayer, the first prize was awarded to Marie Therese, of Leeds; the second prize to D.T., of Hove; third prize to C.B., in the fourth form at Holloway. H.C.K. (Sirley), Sister Per petu a, M.R. (Llanelly), J.S. (Battersea) and Mrs. P.K, (S.W.7) did well enough to be beatified.
Tailpiece
THE fathers of two schoolboys had been elected to the town council.
One boy boasted to the other: "My father can speak on any subject for 20 minutes."
"That's nothing?' said the other, "my dad can speak for half an hour without a subject."