Things went much the same at Bramshott. Spring came, and for the first time I saw the primroses, which are among the first flowers to bloom in England. They do not belong to the aristocracy for one sees them everywhere; along railway embankments, along the roadsides, near the hedge-rows, everywhere patches of the pretty little yellow flowers smiled the approach of spring.
Then one day when the spring birds, nesting in the great old English trees, were cheering up the poor war-broken lads that lay on their little cots in so many military hospitals throughout the country—Vimy Ridge had been fought, and many of the lads who had sailed with me had fallen that victory might come—word came that I was to join the Fifth Canadian Division, which was then preparing to go overseas.
It was a beautiful day when I left for Witley Camp where the Fifth Division was quartered. The birds were chorusing their glorious melodies from hedge and tree and field; but along lanes that should have worn a peaceful country setting went clumsily great motor lorries in different ways connected with the war.
Witley Camp was only six miles from Bramshott, so it did not take us long to speed over the Portsmouth road through the beautiful Surrey country.
I took up temporary quarters with my old friend Father Crochetiere, and slept on a table in his office. I was not very long there when another old friend dropped in to see me in the height of Father Hingston, S. J. Both priests welcomed me very kindly and told me I was just in time to help in the remote preparation for a stirring event. They spoke with great enthusiasm, and it was not long before I was made aware of the cause. A Solemn High Mass was to be celebrated in the open air the following Sunday, and the Catholic soldiers from all parts of the camp were to attend in order to be consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. There were more than three thousand Catholic soldiers in the camp. The following Sunday morning I was up very early to help in the preparations.
It was a beautiful morning. The sun was up, clear, bright, and warm. The air was very still. Though preparations, both military and religious, had been most carefully made, there was discernible in the manner of the priests who had worked so hard for the bringing about of this great religious ceremony some signs of anxiety. They feared lest there be a hitch in the deliverance of orders, so that all the men might not be present. There was no need to fear, for at 9:30 o’clock three thousand Catholic soldiers drew up in the grove of pines on the border of the lake at the northwest corner of the camp and all anxiety disappeared. There were French Canadian lads from the Province of Quebec; Irish Canadian Rangers from Montreal; Scotch laddies, with feathers in their caps, from Ontario and Nova Scotia; Indian lads from Eastern and Western Canada.
An altar had been built against one of the very few oak trees that stood in the grove of pines, and above the cross that stood upon it, a large picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was nailed to the tree; surmounting all was a canopy of larch and ivy leaves. Daffodils, tulips and larch stood out brightly among the candles on the white altar. All about the carpeted elevation on which the altar had been built stood many potted plants.
As the parade was drawn up beneath the trees, on the carpet of dry pine needles and the last year’s oak leaves, bands of different battalions played and the kilted laddies made music with their pipes.
Father Crochetiere sang the Mass, with old Father McDonald, who had come over as chaplain to a Scottish battalion, as deacon and the writer as sub-deacon. The choir of thirty voices which sang the Royal Mass so beautifully was under the direction of Lt. Prevost of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Battalion.
And so under the British oak where “Druids of old” once offered their pagan sacrifices, the Holy Sacrifice of the New Law was offered, and Canadian lads knelt to adore. And there by the quiet lakeside the miracle of God’s wonderful love was wrought, and the promise made by the Divine Master on the border of another lake, the day following the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, was fulfilled. For many of the soldiers had waited till this late Mass to go to Communion, and under the beautiful sunlight that filtered through the trees they knelt to receive the “Bread of Life.”
After Mass a short sermon was preached in English and French by Father Hingston, S. J., chaplain to the Irish Canadian Rangers, in the course of which he explained clearly and beautifully what the ceremony of consecration meant.
Then Colonel Barré, commanding the One Hundred and Fiftieth Battalion, read the Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in French, and Major McRory, officer commanding the One Hundred and Ninety-ninth Irish Canadian Rangers, read it in English. Each soldier was then presented with a badge of the Sacred Heart.
And just as of old the multitude who followed the Divine Master were blessed before they departed, so, after the Consecration to the Sacred Heart had been made, the lads knelt while Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament was given, and then all was over. “He blessed them and sent them away.”
As I stood that day by the little altar near the lakeside, while bands played and the lads fell in preparatory to departing, I could not help thinking of the many different places where they had worshipped since they had left Canada; and though I could not foresee the strange scenes they would inevitably meet on the red road of war, which they would shortly travel, still I felt sure that one day would stand out in their memories in bold relief—the day they made the Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus,—the day when they knelt before God’s altar built in the open air under the trees by the lakeside—and Jesus passed!