Religion: Golden Hours

When Jesus Christ went into the wilderness to spend 40 days in solitude, he set an example for all Christians who wish to make their peace with God, put their lives in order. That example, however, has been systematically and generally followed only among Roman Catholics. In the 16th Century St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, laid down detailed rules for “retreats” in his Spiritual Exercises,and St. Charles (Cardinal) Borromeo established retreat houses in his archdiocese of Milan. Since the 17th Century annual retreats have been customary and obligatory for all Catholic priests. Since 1882, when a French Jesuit named Pere Henry pioneered amongworkingmen to revive the custom of attending them, retreats have steadily gained favor among pious laymen.

In the U. S. every Catholic diocese has a retreat house consisting of a dormitory and refectory for visiting retreatants. There from one to three days the lay communicant usually meditates, prays, confesses, is sermonized. The retreatant contributes what he likes (average: $10). In the West, 1,200 laymen throughout the year retreat at the monastery of the Passionist Fathers at Sierra Madre near Los Angeles, while others attend El Retiro, San Inigo, a retreat conducted by Jesuits near San Francisco. A place favored by Manhattan businessmen and politicians is Mount Manresa on Staten Island. In Chicago such good Catholics as Judge John Patrick McGoorty, President Dennis Francis Kelly of The Fair (department store), President Frederick H. Massman of National Tea Company and Mayor James Joseph Kelly’s brother Stephen spend “Sixty Golden Hours” in the Franciscan retreat nearby at Mayslake. Last week Catholics flocked to the nation’s two most famed retreats, at South Bend, Ind. and Malvern, Pa.

The South Bend retreats are conducted on the University of Notre Dame campus by the Holy Cross Fathers who run that institution. Masses and other religious observances take place before Notre Dame’s copy of the grotto at France’s Lourdes. With big, 41-year-old Rev. Patrick Henry Dolan, C. S. C., as director, last week’s retreat attracted 1,300 Catholics. As distinguished from retreatants elsewhere, they observed strict silence even at mealtimes, heard for the first time anonreligious talk, by the University’s Economics Professor Rev. William Augustine Bolger, C. S. C.

St. Joseph’s-in-the-Hills at Malvern, Pa. is the largest U. S. retreat, the only one in the world owned and operated by laymen.

In 1922 the “Men of Malvern” (Laymen’s Weekend Retreat League) purchased a 106-acre estate for $60,000 from Philadelphia’s rich Coxe family, now have a fulltime retreat master, Rev. Dr. James W. Gibbons, who conducts 45 sessions a year. President of the League is John J. Sullivan, austere heir to a traction fortune, vice president of Philadelphia’s Market Street National Bank and professor of business law at the University of Pennsylvania. Malvern has a mailing list of 6,000 men who have made at least one retreat there. Total attendance last year was 4,132. The secular spadework of organizing the gatherings is divided up among retreat captains, chairman of whom is wiry young William (“Bill”) Lennox, business manager of athletics at Penn. Worked up to a great state of pious enthusiasm by Chairman Lennox, Retreat Captain Tom O’Connor, master boilermaker at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, mustered this summer’s largest group of retreatants, 135 boilermakers, riveters, mechanics who spent last Independence Day weekend at Malvern. Scheduled for this week is Malvern’s first retreat for young boys, to be followed by a midweek retreat for physicians & surgeons. Old retreatants and new keep abreast of Malvern doings by reading the Malvern Mustard Seed, founded by Logan Bullitt, dress-shop owner and cousin of William Christian Bullitt, U. S. Ambassador to the U. S. S. R., and of EpiscopalianArchdeacon James Fry Bullitt of the Pennsylvania diocese.

Last week’s Malvern retreatants were policemen, firemen and others unable to get off weekends. They, too, spent most of their time in silence, save during religious observances, meals, conversations with those in charge of the retreat. Their day began with a rising bell at 7 a. m. A prefect awakened each with “Let us bless the Lord,” to which the correct reply was: “And give thanks to God.” Followed Angelus, meditation, Mass, prayers and breakfast. At this and other meals, excellently cooked and served by nine buxom German nuns, a meditation reader read briefly. When he exclaimed “Prosit!” general conversation was in order.

After the hour or so of free time which follows every Malvern meal, the day continued with more meditation, individual conferences, the Stations of the Cross, spiritual reading, prayers, beads, confession, finally Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Spiritual climax of the retreat came the second night, when each retreatant was permitted 15 minutes of private Adoration of the Sacrament. To a Catholic, the ineffable privilege of kneeling alone near the Consecrated Host— usually impossible in a crowded city church—is equivalent to kneeling alone close to God. Men of Malvern, prizing the still hours of early morning, last week drew lots for their turns to enter the chapel, emerge exalted and spiritually cleansed.