So, to counteract the slander against Bishop Guerard des Lauriers. What follows below is all from the article, since the "quote" box would cause much scrolling.
https://www.wmreview.org/p/in-memoriam-guerard-des-lauriersThe first of the virtues I must celebrate in Mgr Guérard des Lauriers, because it was without doubt the most striking, is piety.
It was not possible to attend with indifference the Masses he celebrated, nor the offices or prayers he led. This impression was so strong that those who had experienced it once were most often willing to overlook many inconveniences to profit from this richness of graces. And God knows that Mgr Guérard was often late on account of his great age; that the road was long to reach his home; very long for families burdened with many small children; and that his Masses lasted no less than two hours! Having set out fasting around 9am, it was toward 2pm (and very often later) before the mother could light her stove! No matter; even if other options presented themselves, we went there all the same, for the Mass and the sermon of Mgr Guérard were “something else”…
Since it is very difficult to express in words what belongs first of all to the supernatural order, I shall try to illuminate the extraordinary piety of Mgr Guérard des Lauriers by one of its most visible projections into the natural order: his faculty of kneeling.
This bordered on the prodigious, and struck all who came near him. If it is true that “man is never so great as when he is on his knees,” in the words of a celebrated author, then without doubt Mgr Guérard was a very great man; for very few could have matched him in the astonishing endurance he had for remaining on his knees for hours on end, praying, leading the faithful around him in meditation, guiding adorations or public prayers… which supposes a sufficient “intellectual availability”, one that generally becomes impossible when prolonged kneeling brings on the crushing of the kneecaps, muscle cramps, back pain, and when it is no longer possible to do anything but suffer in silence.
Yet despite the discomfort of the position, Mgr Guérard possessed this intellectual availability to a prodigious degree, constantly drawing tears of devotion from his hearers, exciting their prayers and holding their attention to the point that they did not notice the passing of the hours, though they were little practiced in prolonged meditation.
I can still see that father of a family, whom the piety of Fr Guérard had done more to bring back to the true Mass than many a discourse, saying to me:
“I only realised it at the end, but the Stations of the Cross that Fr Guérard led us through lasted nearly three hours! During all that time, apart from the few steps to go from one station to the next, he was constantly on his knees, on the tile floor, and without any support! How does he do it? I who was in the pews and had something to lean on, I was forced to sit down!”
Now this gentleman was a robust peasant, in the prime of life, hardened since childhood to the rough labor of the fields. While Fr Guérard, that day, was eighty-five years old!
As though it were yesterday, I can still see the first Mass he celebrated for us here. After the ritual prayers, remaining on his knees at the foot of the altar, he had us make a meditated thanksgiving. This practice was customary for him. Halfway between prayer and sermon, these elevations were as enriching in doctrine as they were apt to form and develop the piety of the hearers. Seized at first by the beauty of these “affections,” to use a consecrated term, I was gradually forced to notice that my tile floor was very hard; then that my back was very fragile; that cramps were taking hold of my legs… I nearly stood up… But considering Fr Guérard, who did not flinch, and who did not even have a support, while the back of the chair in front of me offered me a helpful one, I said to myself:
“You are forty, and he is eighty! You cannot stand up – you would be too ashamed! Hold on.”
And I held on, out of regard also for the youngsters of twenty who were there. I no longer know how long it lasted. (Nearly an hour, I think…) But I humbly confess that at the end, I was no longer capable of anything but “holding on,” and that when Fr Guérard rose with a single youthful thrust of the back and without leaning on anything, I do not know how I would have managed without the help of the two chairs around me to unfold my aching limbs. And I can still hear the astonished and edified comments of the young people massaging their knees in the courtyard, wondering what state they would have been in had they been eighty!
A group of girls between 14 and 18 were attending the Holy Week offices celebrated by Fr Guérard five or six years ago, in a community of religious sisters. As is the custom, they took turns for the nocturnal adoration from Maundy Thursday to Good Friday. At the crack of dawn, those who were on the last watch noticed, over there in the choir, a white form that grew more distinct with the growing light of day. It was Fr Guérard, on his knees, without support, on the last step of the altar. Questioning one another, they became certain that since 10pm or 11pm the previous evening, no one had seen him enter. Now the only possible points of passage were lit, at the back of the church, where the vigil-keepers took turns. Fr Guérard had therefore spent the entire night in adoration, on his knees, without support, perfectly still, since only daylight had just revealed his presence. And this between two days laden with offices of every kind! And he was eighty-four years old, if I count correctly.
I maintain, I affirm that this is humanly impossible. It cannot be explained without a dimension that is above nature.
Topic: Autobiography of Archbishop Thuc (Read 60017 times)