Page:For Remembrance (ed. Repplier) 069.jpg



Your Grace, Right Rev. Bishops,

Reverend Fathers, Ladies:

ELCOME to Eden, on this, its holiest festival! It is with reverence and gratitude that we welcome our prelates and our pastors in the name of the Society of the Sacred Heart! At the feet of our own Archbishop we place our first tribute of recognition, respectful, filial, joyful! He grew to the height of his lofty apostolate under the influence of that great Prince of the Church, Archbishop Kenrick, whose learning and holiness rose like a placid mountain in a wide land. Our Most Reverend Father brought, from the west to the east, a sacred heritage of paternal love for the Society of the Sacred Heart; for Archbishop Kenrick had been the friend and protector of its first two American convents, the houses of Missouri. The crosiers of two mighty brothers had already made St. Louis and Philadelphia episcopal sisters, and an interchange of treasures continued to make them mutual debtors! It is then a perfect clasp which links us to-day with the saints of the past and the benefactors of the present!

We may be permitted to offer another word of thanks in proclaiming another obligation.

The prelate who, this morning, lifted into resplendent light the modest figures of both European and American foundresses has every right to stand as interpreter between the Catholic hearts that value this order and the order that gives its life to Catholic Education. His very name pledges him to speak in its cause, as representing one whose voice is silent forever,—that great Archbishop of 49