ST JAMES CONVENT DEDICATED: JANUARY 1940

From: ST. JAMES RELIGIOUS BULLETIN
Sunday, January 14, 1940

Written by Father P.J. O'Connor

Spring bonnets in Helsinki; and women avidly gazing at the display of new Spring hats, The terrors of war are apparently forgotten or put away in moth-balls for the time, In Spring the Russian army may come and scatter death, but in the meantime women will conceal from themselves these gruesome thoughts and take pleasure in the display of Spring hats,

Men are different, they see no patch of cerulean blue in a stormy sky. They are logical, consistent, realistic; women are inconsistent and sometimes are as difficult to understand as a crossword puzzle, .Men perhaps, are just dumb, If Hitler was a married man, there probably would be no World War at present.

I may walk in the garden and gather Lilies of Mother-of-pearl.

I had a plan would have saved the State
But mine are the thoughts of a girl.

Mrs, Anne Morrow Lindbergh in her Prayer for Peace says; "I am speaking as a woman, a weak woman, if you will - emotional, impulsive, illogical, dreaming, impractical, any of the feminine vices you care to pin on me. I write because I feel these things so passionately, I must cry out".

The eternal woman is always raising a passionate cry about something. Nature made her that way and men soon learn to listen and to yield,

If it is a sin to be a woman, Sister Lucille is very wicked, she thinks of that Convent as any woman might think of a new home. It won't be right as long as there is one little drape missing from a window or one fancy lamp missing from a, table. There is no good in telling her the building is fire-proof, the rooms are capacious, and the bills are already high. She probably marked all these assets in her mind long ago, and that is precisely the reason she feels the rest of the building should not be spoiled for the lack of a dime-store decoration or a fancy chair.

I am convinced it was all a mistake on my part even to think of using a bit of the old furniture, No one remembers when it was purchased; in all, probability in was a hand-down from some generous Parishioner at the time the School was first opened. It is now rheumatic, obsolete, senile and for all I know honey-combed by termites. The poorest tenant in bedbug row would feel humiliated to a new low if he were offered a single piece of it, A dump-keeper that is discriminating would not accept it.

Parishioners, one and all, women haters and women admirers, ladies with permanent waves and ladies with no waves at all, I see no way out of it. That Convent has to be furnished -- every room in it, and, just the way the Sisters want it. So, please make up your minds to-donate a piece of furniture; you are not asked to do the impossible, give according to your means. The Nuns have long memories, the collection made for furnishing the Sisters' House forty years ago is recorded in the History of St. James Parish, Page 26. How can you ever again look one of them in the face if you are deaf to this appeal?

A definite decision has been reached as to the completion of the Convent. The building shall be open for inspection to all on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, January 27th-28th-29th, On Tuesday, January 30th, the first Mass shall be offered in the Convent Chapel, when the building shall be dedicated and the Sisters will take possession. A list of donors also shall be on display. If you want to be on that list, see one of the Priests today or during the week.