UNITED STATES
Holy Souls Hermitage
♬ “Kill the priest! ♬ Kill the priest!” ♬ … That’s the raucus, thunderous chant that an accused priest entering his prison cell-block for the first time might hear. That was the foot-stomping, cage-rattling greeting which Father Gordon MacRae heard. He said that it continued on into the night, that it was maddening (here and about). I bet it was maddening, and also character building. Our Lord said something about being slandered in the beatitudes, and there is, by the way, beatitude in the beatitudes (here: Yikes!). I am reminded of Saint Bernadette. She was also mocked, even while many in her family were dying in their poverty:
Excuse my French! I’ll rarely tolerate bad language. Sometimes it’s necessary to prove a point. For instance, the present Rector of the Sanctuaries of Our Lady of Lourdes over in France (where I was a chaplain for two years) gathered the hundreds of workers of the shrines to tell them about Saint Bernadette, emphasizing her name around town back in the day. He related — fully five times during his speech — that she was called, as only the French can manage, La Petite Merdeuse (“The Little Shit”). She and her family lived in an abandoned jail cell whose only window opened on to a mountain of manure, which was also enclosed. It was dark and dank and stank to high heaven. They were “the shit family” and the little saint was called “The Little Shit” by everyone in town. That’s what she suffered. I don’t mind saying it. Her being mocked, as well as Father MacRae being mocked, will come up at the last judgment.
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