The priest turned from the altar. Facing the congregation he said, "Orate, fratres." The brethren prayed.
More tangible than the nominal brotherhood of man was the relation between the priest and the congregation. All were lawyers. The Rev. Joseph B. Creedon, celebrant of the mass, is a onetime Manhattan attorney. The Rev. Joseph Stack, a onetime Washington attorney, and the Rev. William I. Lonergan, onetime Manhattan attorney, were present in the sanctuary.
The occasion was the celebration of the first Red Mass or Mass of the Holy Ghost ever read in the U. S. Each year in France & England this Mass (differing from the conventional form only in the insertion of added prayers to the Holy Ghost) takes place on the day the courts open. Similarly it was timed last week in Manhattan. Many a non-Catholic barrister sat with the kneeling Catholic Lawyers' Guild,* heard words of good counsel from Jesuit Paul L. Blakeley, listened to Patrick Cardinal Hayes. Said Cardinal Hayes: "In Catholic countries the great Crucifix is suspended high—it is impressive. It speaks—every wound in the body of Christ speaks, appeals to judge and to advocate, and also pours out mercy upon the guilty. And while we cannot have that symbol in our courts in our own beloved land, at the same time every Catholic lawyer ought to have it in his heart. Yea, in his mind, in his conduct; and if such a high ideal of your profession is before you—oh what a minister of justice you will be!"
Inspiration & Fellowship
Vicarious churchgoers, participating in divine service by fiddling with the dials of their super-heterodynes, are affected only by voices, miss the presence of preachers. The massiveness of a Stephen Samuel Wise, the momentum of a Charles Reynolds Brown, the gestures of a Robert Norwood, the urbane asceticism of a Henry Sloane Coffin, are lost to the radiowner unless he goes to see what he has heard. Sometimes a voice allures and the radiowner goes to meeting when next a favorite preacher (previously known only as a voice) comes to town. And if the town is Chicago, the radiowner a Chicagoan, almost inevitably the radiowner's favorite preacher will come to Orchestra Hall to talk to the Chicago Sunday Evening Club.
For 21 years the Sunday Evening Club has maintained "a service of Christian inspiration and fellowship in the business centre to promote the moral and religious welfare of the city." Principally this service has consisted of bringing noted divines of all faiths to speak to audiences made up of all faiths. It is as non-sectarian as a subway train. The club's season begins in October, ends in May. The infrequent churchgoer, the stranded salesman, the sedulously religious, the homebody, the student, the tycoon, the clerk, these people and their like attend.
A Presbyterian, than whom few U. S. Presbyterians are more famed, revealed himself last week at the opening of the Sunday Evening Club Season. Dr. Henry Van Dyke was a new presence to many who remembered his radio talk of a week be fore, wherein he flayed intolerance. His unequivocal pronouncements led many to think of him as an ox-boned fullback with a brain. Instead they saw a bristling little man, no taller than many a grammar schoolchild. Similar surprises, some dis appointments will occur every Sunday night during the season.