Two French Lay Leaders: Catholic Action, Nocturnal Adoration and the First Eucharistic Congress

Irish Jesuit Province

Two French Lay Leaders: Catholic Action, Nocturnal Adoration and the First EucharisticCongressAuthor(s): Charlotte KellySource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 60, No. 706 (Apr., 1932), pp. 192-197Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20513235 .

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192

TWO FRENCH LAY LEADERS

CATHOLIC ACTION, NOCTUR,NAL ADORATION AND THE FIRST EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS.

By CHARLOTTE KELLY.

T HE North of France has been especially prominent in Catholic Action in the last fifty or sixty years. Lille in particular, the greatest industrizl town

in the North, has seen the birth of many religious move ments that were destined to spread throughout France and even beyond its frontiers. It has always been a city of staunch faith and a centre of great religious activity. The Lillois is steady, hard-working, domestic, more Flemish than French perhaps, and utterly different from the volatile Parisian or the fiery Southerner. Among those associated with Catholic Action in Lille two names stand out prominently, Philibert Yrau and Camille Feron-Vrau. Born in 1829 and 1831, respectively, intimate friends from their earliest youth and later closely related by marriage, these two men spent their long lives instituting and organising innumerable projects for both the spiritual and material- welfare of their compatriots. Laymen both, and owners of one of the largest factories in the region, their energy was untiring. A mere list of the good works for which they were wholly or in part re sponsible would more than fill this pa-ge; they included the institution of hospitals, dispensaries, working men's clubs, social guilds, retreats for employers and em ployees, schemes for the improvement of factory con ditions and the housing of the labourer, the building of several churches in the suburbs of Lille, and the founda tion of a great Catholic University. Each had his own particular sphere, Camille devoting himself to the wel fare of the ouvrier, the erection of working-men's houses and the formation of clubs, hostels, dispensaries, while Philibert's aim was the sanctification of Lille, by the institution of associations of prayer, sodalities, con



TWVO FRENCfi LAY LEADERS 193

ferences, etc. Oine project was especially dear to him, the institution of Nocturnal Adoration, and it is of that, and of the beginning of Eucharistic Congresses, that we are about to speak.

Nocturnal Adoration lhas always been the refuge of the Church in France in troubled times. It was during the wars of religion at the end of the 16th centuiry that Pope Clement VIII instituted the Forty Hours' Adora tion, and more recently, in 1810, at the time of the con flict between the Empire and the Holy See, the, faithful in Rome were exhorted to pray day and night. In

modern times, the actual establishment of the devotion took place in Paris in 1848, when a number of pious

Catholics formed an Association to promote the Exposition and Nocturnal Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in reparation for the insults offered to it, to invoke the blessing of God upon France and to save it from the dangers that threatened it. Later this devotion spread to Lyons and Tours. In the year 1855, therefore, Philibert Vrau, inflamed by what he had just seen at Tours, made his first effort. Nocturnal Adoration was not unknown in France, but the idea was new to the good folk of Lille and at first rather alarming. His first appeal to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul for volun teers met with a decided rebuff; not a single one offered.

Prudent people urged him to be content with the good works and devotions already established. But Philibert was not to be deterred; a few weeks later he addressed himself to the pious youth of Lille. Three volunteers offered, and the first night's adoration took place on 3rd

April. But after this the devotion lapsed, before an apathy and indifference that were almost universal, and two years were to pass before this practice, which wasi to have such widespread results, was established on a firm basis. In 1857 the President of the Association at

Paris paid a visit to Lille, but, in spite of an enthusiastic reception, again only three volunteers were to be found.

However, a branch of the Association was formed, with Philibert Vrau as its President, and carried on its work of sanctification and reparation in a little house that



194 TRE IRISH MONTHJLY

had been at one time the headquarters of the Free masons of Lille. Slowly the devotion grew; the Pope's approbation was obtained in 1862, and a report of the following year shows that Noctural Adoration had been made in four parishes. It was spreading in other parts of France at this time. M. de Benque re ports five nights' adoration made every month in Toulouse, eight nights in Lyons, and in Toulon almost every night was a night of adoration. 'The Associates

were almost entirely taken from the working classes, but soldiers were included also, for he notes that at Nancy members of the National Guard came in their uniforms to take their turn, and, further vn, laments the absence, owing to the war in Italy, of a dozen asso ciates, members of the Imperial Guard.

During these first ten years progress was slow and difficult, but the general meeting of the Associates which took place in 1867 was the beginning of a new era,

which was to see a rapid extension of the devotion, not only in the parishes and chapels of Lille, but in the neighbouring districts, Roubaix, Tourcoing, Armen titres. The twentieth anniversary was crowned by the privilege of Exposition durihg the Nocturnal Adoration from Saturday to Sunday; the Associates numbered almost four hundred. The devotion was now firmly established and had become an essential part of the Catholic life of Lille. At a moment of danger, when the infamous Ferry Law in 1879 menaced the existence of the teaching Orders, the threatened tabernacles were guarded day and night by bands of Associates. When the Jesuits were expelled by that same law, the last night in the Rue Negrier was passed in adoration by a group of sixty-seven Associates, many of them old pupils of -the great College of St. Joseph. They filled the saristy, where the Blessed Sacrament had been placed, the chapel having already been sealed up, and over flowed into the garden. At 3 a.n. Masses began, and a large crowd assisted with the utmost devotion. With the dawn came the gensdarmes and the departure of the Jesuits from Lille.



TTWO FRENCH LAY LEADERS 19X

In 1873, at the first Congres of the Catholics of the North, it was proposed to make periodical pilgrimages to places noted for some Eucharistic miracle or revela tion. Douai was the first place chosen, and Catholic

Lille, led by M. Vrau, visited that city. The following year the pilgrimage, this time to Faverney in Franche

Comt6, was followed by some hours' conference on the Blessed Sacrament. But this, though a foreshadowing, was not in itself the beginning of Eucharistic Con gresses.

The immediate cause is somewhat mysterious. In 1879 a holy person disclosed to Mgr. de S6gur, Arch bishop of Paris, a project which she had received from Heaven. This was to promote international Eucharistic Congresses, which would meet seucessively in all the great European cities, and hold conferences on all mat ters pertaining to the Blessed Eucharist. Mgr. de S6gur, to whom devotion to the Blessed Sacrament was the great means of restoring religion to society, called on M. de Benque, the President of the 'Association of Nocturnal Adoration in Paris, to help him to form a committee to institute proceedings. Owing to the dis turbed state of France, the proposal was laid before the

Bishops of Belgium. While warmly in support of the Idea, the Bishops were afraid to risk the failure of the project. Belgium was divided on the education question at the time, and was, moreover, on the eve of general elections. In March, 1881, the project was about to be abandoned, for the time being at least, when one of the committee remembered Lille and its resources. " That is the door to knock at," he said confidently; " it wil be opened." M. Vrau, approached on the subject by M. de Benque, gave an unqualified consent, and went him self to Rome to obtain the approbation of the Pope.

With less than two months to make preparations, Philibert threw himself heart and soul into the work of making the Congress a success. His long years of devotion and effort were to bear fruit, and Lille was ready for the honour conferred on it.

The firt Eucharistic Congress opened on the 28th



196 THE IIIS&H MONTHLY

June, 1881, in one of the houses of the Catholic Uni versity at Lille. It was attended by over three hundred persons, including a large number of Episcopal Dele gates from France and Belgium. In addition there were visitors from Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Chile, and from every part of France. Some fifteen days previously, the law forbidding the teaching of religion in schools had passed its first reading. In view of the -gravity of the times and the strong anti religious campaign, the enthusiasm and devotion,of the parti"cipants were all the more 'striking.

Conferences, presided over by Mgr. de Lydda anad lasting three days, were given by men from all parts of

Europe, and the Bureau General du Congres was formed almost exclusively of strangers to the North-evidence not only of the cosmopolitanism of the aissembly, but also of the universality of devotion to the Blessed Sacra

ment. Accounts of the progress of Eucharistic works in every part of Europe, and even in South America, the

Canaries, Cuba and the Philippine Islands, formed the most interesting part of the conferences and were re ceived with enthusiasm. On the Saturday night Nocturnal Adoration was made in the Church of the Sacred Heart. On Sunday came the cloture, when every inch of the five aisles of the great Gothic Cathedral, St. Maurice, was filled with a vast army of between three and four thousand men. It was a, veri

table triumph for the promoters-of the Congress. Once inaugurated, this great movement was never to

die out. The committee, under M. Vrau, decided on the periodical holding of Congresses in all the big cities and States of Europe. The permanent committee was estab

1ished at Lille, and had all the arranging and organisa tion of the Congresses which were subsequently held all over Europe. M. Vrau played an active-in fact, a

prominent-part in this work. In conjunction with Paris, and with the locale of the Congress, he prepared programmes, reports, invitations, conferences, and in

variably attended the Congress himself. But he reso lutely declined to have his name brought into



TWO FRENCH LAY LEADERS 197

prominence. On one occasion, however, he permitted himself to speak at the Congress held at Toulouse in 1886, on what he considered his most important achieve

ment, Nocturnal Adoration. This devotion was all the time increasing under his

ardent guidance, and had spread rapidly to the sur rounding towns. Each conference had its own associa tion, and at the 30th anniversary, in 1887, fifteen nights' adoration were being made in Lille every month.

Among the works directly associated with Nocturnal Adoration were the Association des Oblats, Congre's et Pelerinayes Cantonaux et Paroissiatux, Pelerinages Eucharistiques Regiotaux, while the official organ of the devotion, the Revue des UiEuvres Eucharistiques, was founded and maintained by M. Vrau.

He always regarded Nocturnal Adoration as the source from which all his other works would derive heat, light, strength, impetus and efficacy. It is said that his position as founder and President of the Asso ciation is the only one which his humility never urged him to disclaim.

We have mentioned some of M. Vrau's achievements; there are many more, but unquestionably Nocturnal Adoration, though perhaps the least known, is the greatest of his works, and the one for which not only Lille, but the whole world, is indebted.

SPIEGELMENSCH.

You, what have you of your own? For all your thoughts are mine, or his, or hers, And all your aims are prompted by our aims

Then what of you is yours?

And we, what is ours of us? Who borrow of passing minds truth and desire, Of minds made up of borrowings from minds

As fire from alien fire?

Shadows traditional, Minds that reflect minds from the primal age, Refractions of one ray from one first lamp,

Each other's heritage! A. LrrmTL, S.J



Two French Lay Leaders: Catholic Action, Nocturnal Adoration and the First Eucharistic Congress

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