John Hugh O'Donnell

“ It is like a ship without a rudder on a storm-tossed sea. It is in the throes of revolution as two forces, those of God and those of anti-God, struggle for supremacy in a battle in which there can be neither compromise nor armistice, because truth, whence all basic principles flow, cannot be compromised.
The impact of the struggle is being felt here in the United States. From the cradle to the grave millions of our people are trying to get along without God. They profess no religion, or actually belittle and even deny God's existence. ”

“ In our day countless numbers of women still take Mary as their model, and pattern their lives after hers. They have true womanly charm and sweetness—from the wife and mother, queen in her home, rearing God-fearing children, to the devoted nuns hidden away from the world that they may be hid in Christ. But in our day, too, there is a kind of lunatic fringe that has reverted to a completely pagan concept of woman and her physical charms, a concept that does not take into account her holy vocation, but only her power as a seductress. ”

“ Yet, thanks be to God, we still have the strong woman, the valiant woman, the courageous woman, faithful and true, carrying on in imitation of Mary in the fulfillment of her duties as a real mother. She is the mother who sees herself as God's agent, who sees her children as immortal souls, made by God and intended for God, that have been entrusted to her care.
Such mothers are the hope of the world, the hope of this nation, to whom I pay tribute for their fidelity and devotion to the highest ideals of motherhood. They have been tried in the crucible of love and not found wanting. ”

“ How may the pagan practices of our times be counteracted? How may we offset the strong, lustful force that has swept over the world, and over this nation, degrading the nobility of woman—and degrading it, let us sadly admit, with her tacit consent? We must turn again to Mary, the Mother of God and the mother of all of us. Let us enshrine the image of her in our homes, as well as in our hearts. A spiritual writer has beautifully said that, except for the Crucifix, there is no mirror into which a Christian can look with greater profit than the image of the Virgin Mother of God. ”

“ No doubt the sun-worshipper would think you were simple if you were to suggest that the beach wagon that he drives to the scene of his rituals could spring into being by itself, fully assembled, just by chance. Yet, when he considers himself, a far more perfect machine, and the ordered universe in which he moves, he naively brushes aside the basic truths that every effect must have a cause; that there can be no such thing as an endless series of secondary causes; that everything must be contingent upon a first cause, and that the First Cause is God.
What is the body without the Soul? ”

“ Let us derive inspiration from their faith in her and turn to Mary, our hope, as we attack the problems confronting the postwar world. She is our hope, too.
True hope is based on faith in God, because the principal object of hope is happiness, not in this world, but in the next; that is, in seeing God in the Beatific Vision for all eternity. That is why in our earthly struggle for existence we should raise our sights heavenward. But too many of us isolate this faith and put religion in one tiny compartment of our lives, instead of letting it permeate our whole lives. ”

“ Truly does the author of the precious little book, The Following of Christ, declare: "If, indeed, there had been anything better and more beneficial to man's salvation than suffering, Christ certainly would have showed it by word and example." And what creature knows the meaning of suffering better than Mary, His Mother? "And because of Our Lady God fell in love with humanity."
Mary stood at the foot of the cross on Calvary and saw her Son breathe forth his human life as an oblation to God the Father for the sins of mankind. She is the tender, loving Mother of Mercy. ”

“ In the rosary of the years that lie ahead, Mary is your hope.
Mary is the hope of youth, and youth is the hope of the world. If I might offer just a word of advice to young men and women whose lives are before them, it would be this: Do not let anybody tell you that you are part of a lost generation. ”

“ No modern writer has expressed so well the true philosophy of life and death as the late and beloved Father John W. Cavanaugh, distinguished ninth president of Notre Dame: "Come with me then to God's own, to the last resting place where the great ones of the earth are sleeping their dreamless sleep. Stand in spirit beside these moss-grown graves and remember that the clods beneath your feet were once a human heart disquieted by the wild thirst for wealth or power or pleasure. ”

“ If we frequently look at this holy image, we will discover that it produces a sanctifying and salutary effect upon our whole life. It influences our thoughts, desires, words, and deeds. It protects the imagination from filth. It matters not whether the picture of Mary represents her as a maiden at prayer, or as the Mother of the Divine Infant in the stable, or as the Sorrowful Mother beneath the Cross, or as Queen of Angels and Saints in heaven. In each we see in her the revelation of God's beauty, the image of His own goodness, and the goodness of the true mother. ”

“ And it has come to those brave wives who, through tears, have embraced with arms of tender mercy their husbands, whom war has broken in body, while murmuring inwardly, "for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health, till death do us part." ”

“ But we venerate and revere Mary because of her great dignity and position. We know and steadfastly maintain that she is after all but a creature of God, and that as a creature she is possessed of no grandeur, no holiness, no power save such as her Creator bestowed upon her. Our veneration for Mary, great though it may be, is always on a level far below the worship and adoration which we pay to God alone. ”

“ The world today needs such a concept of hope based on faith. The aftermath of a great war has brought with it uncertainty the unrest. Without the steadying influence of hope, nerves become frayed, phobias are multiplied, and messianic complexes develop that make one think with Hamlet that "the time is out of joint." The end is useless despair, the escape of the coward. What is needed is a touch of humor based on faith in the divine. ”

“ Such is the effect of the Madonna of the Chair that even those who know little and care less for line and color, and perspective and composition, cannot help seeing in the masterpiece an ethereal sweetness that arises out of the mother's love for a child. Sweetness—a sweetness of soul—is a virtue of life beautifully exemplified in Mary, Our Mother. ”

“ Standing in the silence and the loneliness of that place, reflect how trivial, how infinitely trivial and unimportant are the petty ambitions and jealousies and pains and pleasures of life, and as the sense of this universal emptiness grows upon you, reflect what a precious privilege it is to exchange the cares and heart burnings of life for that interior peace which was the sole possession of Jesus and Mary. Remember the beautiful promise of Our Lord that they who instruct others unto justice shall shine as stars in the Kingdom of Heaven. ”

“ May the Mother of Mercy intercede for them!
Sorrow has come to the war mothers of the United States: to those valiant women who are an inspiration to all who know them and see them, carrying their cross of separation bravely as they reflect on the loss of their dear ones who have made the supreme sacrifice and now sleep in glory everlasting in some foreign land. Sorrow has come to those mothers who have seen their own flesh and blood come back maimed and ill from the battlefields. ”

“ Materialism builds a bleak world of totalitarianism in which man exists for the state, and not the state for man as man's agent for the protection of God's gifts of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This is the world of state-ism—the world of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Communist Russia.
But there is hope for Russia, and the hope is Mary who at Fatima, in Portugal, in 1917, asked for the consecration to her Immaculate Heart and for Communion of reparation on the first Saturday of each month. ”

“ It is the only true portrayal of the dignity and charm of womanhood under the aegis of Mary, the Mother of God. If woman is uplifted, and also uplifts herself, we will have struck the first blow at a sensate culture that has engulfed the nation and the world. ”

“ Now, in order to bring the body into subjection so that the soul may enjoy the glorified life for all eternity, we must practice penance and mortification; which is just another way of saying that the cross is always with us. From the natural point of view, this is a hard saying. Being human, we instinctively shrink from pain, and even discomfort. It is not easy to accept the cross. Indeed, who can accept it without the help of Mary, who bore her cross so nobly? For a moment let us contrast the philosophy of the cross with the philosophy of the world. ”

“ All good men idealize women, and this is why all men worthy of the name are grieved when women are less ideal than they might be. It is because men want something to look up to, something to admire, to love and to serve with chivalry that they feel so poignantly the desecration of womanhood through thoughtlessness, boldness, coarseness, vulgarity, immodesty, or whatever cheapens and degrades woman. ”

“ There is hope for all the people of the world. Already there are signs that a purely sensate culture has run its course, as larger and larger numbers of men and women, having found within man-made ideologies nothing but frustration and despair, turn from the worship of the things of the world to the all-important things of the spirit. Basically, the return to religion may be attributed in no small measure to the need of a nation and the people who constitute it, to have an anchor. ”

“ And although we know that we have not here a "lasting city," that we seek, "one that is above," still we beseech thee to ask your Divine Son to give us surcease from strife, bickering, and conflict among nations, so that a breath of peace may come again to this tired and heart-sick world. ”

“ Such was a woman's power of seduction and this power has often been compelling through all the ages. Yet another Eve, Mary, the spiritual mother of mankind, was to crush the tempter's head. Eve was the seducer. Mary is the inducer—to Christ. She leads women to an appreciation of their vocation, to the sanctification of their bodies as temples of the Holy Ghost. ”

“ Without the soul the body is a lifeless thing—"for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return" (Genesis 3:19) . But the philosophy of the world does not believe in the soul. The philosophy of materialism takes many forms, ranging from the hedonism of the sun-worshipper to the pragmatism of the utilitarian, and all forms have this fault in common: they see man as a soulless automaton, self-made, sufficient unto himself, coming out of nothingness, and to nothingness returning. ”

“ Noble women, valiant women all, women whose lot it has been to wait and hope and pray, we salute you as the real heroines of the war. Brave women, strong women, who gave those nearest and dearest to you, remember that in the person of the Mother of God, the Mother of Mercy, who gave her only Son for our redemption, you have a friend, a guide and a help, and a mediatrix in the long years ahead. She will never fail you, if you but have recourse to her. ”

“ We shall become more God-minded in a world that has grown atom-minded. By occasional meditation on other-worldliness we can bomb ourselves out of concentration on this-worldliness.
This, in brief, is what faith teaches us. And from this faith flows a radiant hope that gives us a true perspective of the "glory and blessedness of the things to come." As Monsignor Ronald Knox says in God and the Atom: "Where there is belief in God's existence, there must be belief in His assistance as well; hope is the natural food of faith." ”

“ To all who are maimed in body, or bruised in spirit because of the war; to the crippled and ill; to sinners who have put God out of their lives for some created thing; to boys and girls whose lives are before them with the temptations that may lead them from the path of happiness; to fathers and mothers oppressed with daily and heavy burdens as they struggle to maintain a home in which to rear children in righteousness; to all who are wearied and distressed, remember that we have a powerful intercessor and helpmate, if we but have recourse to her. ”

“ In those times of frail sailing ships and uncharted oceans, when so many voyages were ventures into the unknown, sailors were the most religious workers on land or sea. Their life in the immensity of sky and water kept them close to God, and they were unafraid because they had faith in divine protection. ”

“ If we evaluate the things of this life in the light of the life to come, as faith teaches, a radiant hope will follow, a hope that will enable us to accept with a Christlike spirit whatever this life may bring so that it will put to flight every thought of disappointment and despair. The measuring rod of this hope is eternity. And we turn to Mary, our hope glorified, for the necessary help and strength. ”

“ Yet divorce and birth control—or planned parenthood, as it is fashionably known—are destroying the dignity of womanhood, and as a natural consequence are destroying the sanctity of the home. In many homes there seem to be more dogs and cats than children—and what a breed they are! ”

“ Since the soul sets man above and apart from all of God's other creatures, it is the supernatural life, the life of the immortal soul, that should be our first concern. It is this life eternal that we are striving for as we sojourn here in this our exile. Such is our goal, and as we strive to reach it, Mary is our helpmate and our mediatrix. In this sense she is our life, because she will lead us to God, the Source of Life.
Now, in order to possess God, man must follow in the footsteps of His Son. He must accept the way of the Cross as the Master does. ”