The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1918-11-16
CHAPLAIN UNDER FIRE.

Father Brady, chaplain in one of
the veteran regiments that have fought
so hard in the wooded countryside be-
tween scissors and Chateau-Thierry,
reached the uttermost point of the
American position.
There was to be an attack in the
early hours of the next morning, and
he had run and stumbled and crawled
along the line to hear confessions
throughout his warrior flock. Seamy
old-timers who had not so much as
crossed the threshold of church in
years and years had barred their souls
to him that night and squared off to
the battle with brighter eyes and
lighter hearts.
Now the luSty young priest was come
to the final outpost, and, despite the
warning protests of lieutenant, who
spotted him, he half ran, half slipped
down the slope to a hiding place from
which, across a moonlit open space, he
could see new-made shallow, grave
like trench with a soldier peeping out
of it.
Father Brady called across to him
in hoarse whisper!
want to confess?''
Across the space that separated them
the. CHAPLAIN craWled. and a few min
utes later he lay beside the trench
looking up at the stars, his head and
the soldiers so close together that
they could talk in whispers.
well, lad, get it off your chest. I'm
listening"
The confession followed.
Ego tie absolvo."
And as he crawled back to cover
Father Brady thought that never in all
the days of his adventurous priest
hood had he uttered the syllables of
absolution in a stranger place under
stranger circumstances.
Strange, too, are his affairs, for on
recent Sunday you might have seen
him setting his altar cloth on shell
uprooted tree and saying Mass for
the faithful on the battles rim.
One day not long ago he dropped
down for breathing spell. He was
dusty and tired and his once natty
uniform was mussy from having been
slept in, and considerably the worse
for occasional contacts with barbed
wire. For nearly a month he had been
snatching his sleep where he could,
now in a shell hole with his overcoat
for pillow, now under a roadside
hedge, now in barn.
He had been day and night with his
regiment through the long period they
had been in the midst of things, now
hearing confession within range of
the German machine guns, now ad-
ministering the last rites at the aid
station or giving that sacrament to
the Catholics among the enemy
wounded in the recovered woodland,
now burying the dead in shell-torn
fields in the hours of the night.
His is work from which many a man
would shrink, but if the things his
eyes had witnessed in this bloody sum-
mer oppressed his spirit you would
never have guessed it from his buoy
ant words. Rather on this day his
mind seemed possessed only with
wonder at the glory and the miracle
which is humanity.
Tis all one great church, the front
line is, said Father Brady. In all
Christendom, in all the rest of the
world put together, you will not find
so much unselfshness, so much Chris
tian charity, SO much loving kindness
as you will find right here in the
front line. Here, if anywhere in the
world, we are brothers. We feel it.
The man in the battle line knows the
two lads on either side of him are
his brothers if ever he had any, 80
Denomination? Sect? Nonsense, y
he said. That's pretty much forgot
ten here. They say poverty makes.
strange bedfellows. Faith, war makes
strange bunkies, and it's me and my
pal, the Presbyterian minister, have
been shelled out of the same quarters
together; surely, the lion and the
lamb lie down together"
He chuckled reminiscently.
Il was just thinking" he explained,
what bother they'd have made back
home in the queer old days of peace
II they'd caught me at mistake /
made the other night, when, in the
confusion just before the attack, II
heard the confession of one old sinner
of a sergeant, and had got halfway
through before. I found out he was a
Presbyterian. $50 KS "a
" Why you're no Catholic, told
him. sal
~ know it, padre, the fellow said
to me, but confession is good for the