Very Rev. Charles Hyacinth McKenna, O.P., P.G., missionary and apostle of the Holy Name Society

Front matter

To rary ty),

VERY REV.

CHARLES HYACINTH McKENNA

Contents

Last YEARS IN IRELAND AND First In AMERICA 21 Cotutrece Days anp NovVITIATE ............ 33 CLERICAL STUDENT OrpInaTION, YounG Prizst anp MAsTER OF

IN OVICES He ai ec soc of ict an Ma me cd 61 Earzty Missions—Saint VINCENT FERRER’S,

New Yor«k In New York: On THE Missions .......... 93

Foreword

THE life of the Very Rev. Charles Hyacinth Mc- Kenna, O.P., which we now give to the public, has been not only a work of love, but one of obedience. It has been a work of love because written under the inspiration of esteem and veneration for the saintly religious—of obedience, for the task was undertaken at the request of the Very Rev. James Raymond Meagher, provincial of the eastern province of Dominicans in the United States, whose high regard for the great missionary and Apostle of the Holy Name caused him to desire to have the memory of so holy a priest preserved for the edification of future generations.

It was a fortunate circumstance that the request to prepare the biography of the distinguished Friar Preacher was received two years prior to his death. For, in this way, time was given in which to collect leisurely much valuable data for our narrative before its subject was called to his reward. Of even greater importance was the opportunity thus afforded of deriving a great part of the information contained in this volume from Father McKenna himself. A man totally devoid of guile, the aged apostle, in the course of numerous conversations and without the least suspicion that he was supplying material for his own life, laid bare his very soul to the writer. But this was no more than he would have done to anyone in whom he trusted. To make the holy man’s life-story the more complete and accurate, the assistance of several of his confidential friends, who were in sympathy with the unxi xii VERY REV. C. H. McKENNA, O.P.

dertaking, was secured in obtaining such first-hand knowledge. When these aids had conversed, by pre arrangement, with the unsuspecting missioner on the same topics and along the same lines, notes were taken and comparisons made. In every instance it was found that the account given was identical in substance.

Fortunately, also, the writer had not only known Father McKenna long and intimately, but had lived with him for two years. During this time we learned much of his life, as well as made notes on his fruitful labors previous to beginning his biography. Another valuable help in our work were innumerable accounts of Dominican missions collected from papers, both Catholic and secular, from almost every part of the country. ‘These missions were frequent topics of conversation with the zealous harvester of souls during the two years that preceded his death, and proved a fertile means of information regarding his apostolic labors.

Happily, too, the aged missionary, though weak and infirm of body, retained an unimpaired mentality and a ready and retentive memory, and continued to take a keen interest in all matters that concerned the Church and his Order, or that made for the good of souls. Never, perhaps, in all his life was he in better mood for conversation or in better condition for imparting the facts of which we were in search. For these reasons, much of this volume might with truth be termed autobiographical. ‘The remaining portion is either knowledge common to thousands, or which has been derived from Father McKenna’s friends and relations or from whatever source that was judged reliable.

To have written a sketch or an appreciation of

FOREWORD. xill

Father McKenna, giving merely the broad outlines and touching slightly on the principal events of his life, would have been comparatively an easy task. But to write his biography, which required us to follow him year by year, as he labored through all the country and grew in merit and favor before God and man, was quite another matter. His apostolic career covered nearly half a century, through all of which his activities, though far-reaching and richer in results than the lives of most of God’s chosen servants, ran along such unvarying lines that it was impossible to avoid some repetition and sameness of detail. Herein, indeed, lies the writer’s greatest apprehension, lest the narrative may at times be found somewhat tedious and tiresome. Yet, to make such a possibility the more remote we have endeavored not to adhere too closely to an account of the great friar’s efforts to promote the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Perhaps in places we have been even too meager in the portrayal of his work, that in this way we might avoid repetition. Again, Father McKenna’s labors were so entwined with the Dominican missions, the Holy Name Society, the Rosary Confraternity and other sodalities in the United States that it was hard to write his life without at the same time writing their histories. The difficulty of our task was increased by a lack of records and the impossibility of obtaining many letters from the missionary’s pen. Father Mc- Kenna left few writings to draw upon for his life. But his work was written upon the hearts of the thousands to whom he preached or brought the love of God and peace of soul. Yet extraordinary as were his apostolic activities, they were—after all—subordinate to his inner life.

X1V VERY REV. C. H. McKENNA, O.P.

We would that the telling of the story had fallen into more competent hands. Yet we venture to hope that our biography will not lack in interest, for it reveals the working of grace in the soul of a man over whom the Divine Master seems to have exercised a special providence, although He subjected him to trials not usually found even in the lives of the saints. To young men aspiring to the service of the altar, but deprived of the means of attaining their holy am- _ bition, Father McKenna’s life cannot fail to be an inspiration. To Christ’s anointed it will ever be a model of every priestly virtue and an exemplar after which to pattern their own lives. To Catholic readers in general it must be a source of edification and of good to their souls.

The saintly Dominican was, above all things, a man of God. In an age when the world is fast drifting towards irreligion, commercialism and the pursuit of pleasure, Father McKenna was raised up by God to be a gleaner of souls, an apostle of piety and an exemplar of the highest Christian ideals. How faithful he proved to the grace that was given to him, as well as how zealously and fruitfully he fulfilled the divine vocation that was bestowed upon him, will, we hope, be revealed in the pages of this volume.

Tue Dominican CoLLEcE,

CatHouic UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, WasuinetTon, D. C., July 4, 1917.

Chapter I. Birthplace And Lineage. (1835)

Macuera, situated in southeastern Derry, or Londonderry, Ireland, and about eight miles west of Lough (or Lake) Beg, is the oldest and one of the quaintest towns in the county. In Ireland’s early Christian history it was a place of considerable note. Apart from the historical proofs of the fact, the town bears to this day silent but unmistakable testimony of its great antiquity, its early importance and its prominence as a center of intellectual activity.

Like many of the ancient towns of Ireland, Maghera has in the long course of its existence borne different names at different periods. In early Christian times it was known as Macaire Ratha Luraigh. Doubtless the latter part of the appellation was added in honor of Saint Lurach, the patron saint of the parish." But for many centuries the interesting old place has been called by the simpler name of Maghera.

Maghera’s most noted ruins are those of the church ‘of Saint Lurach, which are still in a splendid state of preservation and offer an interesting field of research for the antiquary and archaeologist. They contain features that are quite distinctive and differ much from those of any other early ecclesiastical remains in Ire-

1The name is also written Lurac or Lurec, and is often Anglicized Lowry.

2 li land. Portions of them bear evidence of great antiquity. Another interesting historic relic of the old town is the famous well of Saint Lurach, which perpetuates the name of the saint to this day. Legends abound concerning the efficacy of its waters. It is in the heart of the town and was for centuries the principal source of the water supply for its inhabitants.

Although there are no documents to show the date of its foundation, it is generally conceded that Maghera could boast of an abbey of Canons Regular at a very early period. Nor was this all. Late in the sixth or early in the seventh century the see of Ardstrath, or Ardstraw, was transferred from that place to Maghera, and the town was honored with an episcopal seat until 1158, when the bishopric was removed to Derry All this shows the importance of Maghera at the time when Ireland first won its name as the “Island of Saints and Scholars.” But with the removal of its bishopric the old town lost its prestige and rapidly declined in population and importance.

More than once during the long period of Ireland’s oppression by England the inhabitants of Maghera and the surrounding country showed a commendable spirit of bravery and suffered greatly because of their courage. During late years, through the mtroduction of modern methods, the town has both improved materially and grown in size. Today it enjoys the reputation of being one of the best market towns in southern Derry.’

About two Irish miles west of Maghera is the quaint

2 This brief history of Maghera is taken largely from conversations with Father McKenna himself. See also “In Ulster Towns and Villages,” The Belfast Weekly Telegraph, November 8, 1913.

BIRTHPLACE AND LINEAGE. 3 hamlet of Fallalea, famed in local legend or history for the memorable exploit of one Shane Crossagh (cross-eyed John), a noted Irish outlaw. As the story goes, Shane, who was known as the greatest Jumper in all Ireland, was surrounded and captured by his English pursuers in the mountains near Fallalea. As a ruse to escape from his captors, he asked to be permitted to show them how much ground he could cover in three leaps. ‘The request was granted. The athlete took a running start, and the third leap carried him beyond the cordon of soldiers. Then, before they could recover from their surprise, thanks to his swiftness of limb and the unevenness of the ground, Shane Crossagh regained his freedom. To this day three piles of stone, one and twenty feet apart, mark the distance of the leaps that gave the outlaw his liberty.

It was at Fallalea that the subject of our narrative, the Very Rev. Charles Hyacinth McKenna, O.P., first saw the light of day, May 8, 1835. He was the eighth of a family of ten children, three of whom (one son and twin daughters) died in their infancy.? His parents were Francis McKenna and Anna Gillespie, or rather McDonald; for, as a future page will show, his mother’s paternal grandfather, for reasons of prudence, had assumed the name of Gillespie and it was borne by his descendants.

At that period the Catholics of Ireland, although the old faith was overwhelmingly the religion of the people, had not long been permitted to serve God in peace. When religious liberty first began to dawn upon the land, little thatched chapels—for Catholics were not allowed to honor their houses of prayer with the title of church

3 Their names were Charles, Margaret and Bridget.

—succeeding the dripping cave, the hidden nook or the mountain fastness, rose here and there in country places or small villages rather than in the larger towns and cities. ‘This was particularly the case in the north, where bigotry was most rampant. In this way, while the surrounding neighborhood was known as the parish of Maghera, there was no Catholic church in the town itself—nor is there one today. When the future Dominican was born, Father John McKenna, a relative of the family, was pastor of the chapels of Granahan and Glen, the two churches in the parish of Maghera. That of Glen, which stood about a mile from Fallalea, was attended by the family of Francis McKenna. At his birth the subject of our biography was too sickly to be carried to the chapel to receive the sacrament of baptism. For this reason, Rev. Paul Bradley, the pious curate of the parish, baptized the child on the eighth day, at the McKenna home, giving him the name of Charles, partly in memory of a brother of the same name who had been born a little more than a year before and had lived but a few days—partly in honor of the great cardinal archbishop of Milan, Saint Charles Borromeo.

The MckKennas, when we first find trace of them in history, belonged. principally to three counties of Ireland—Monaghan, Tyrone and Louth. Those of Monaghan and ‘Tyrone lived along the border between the two counties and were chiefs of Truagh, in Monaghan. So, too, were the McKennas of Louth one of the principal clans in that part of the country. In all three counties they possessed wide areas of land and were © among the first families. ‘That they were a peaceloving race, worthy of the motto on the family es-

BIRTHPLACE AND LINEAGE. 5 cutcheon: ‘Prudence and Honor” (Prudentia et Honor), seems certain. For, although they were numerous and strong, seldom does the name of McKenna appear in the annals of the almost perpetual wars to which Ireland was long a prey. That they were staunchly Catholic is shown by the fact that rarely, if ever, does one meet with or hear of a McKenna who is not of the faith of Saint Patrick.

Tradition tells us that early in the eighteenth century a McKenna went with his five sons from Tyrone into Derry, settling near Maghera. In the course of time they came into possession of tenant rights to broad areas of land. ‘Two of the sons lived at Tirkane, two at Fallagloon, and one at Fallalea. Of a prolific race, these five brothers left a numerous progeny in southeastern Derry. They remained firm in their faith, although surrounded by non-Catholics. In order to keep their religion untarnished, the descendants of the five brothers intermarried to such an extent that a marriage with another than a McKenna, or one of their own blood, was looked upon almost as one contracted out of the Church.

The McKennas of Derry are noted for the number of-exemplary and efficient priests they have given to the Church of Ireland. Not many years ago, we are told, one room in a house at Tirkane used to be pointed out as the birthplace of five clergymen. Other countries, it is said, have been scarcely less blessed by priestly scions of this truly Catholic stock. From the house of Fallalea was descended the saintly Dominican of the name, so well known and so deeply venerated in many parts of the United States. _

While before her marriage the great missionary’s mother was known as Anna Gillespie, her family name, as has been said, was really McDonald. Quite different from that of the McKennas is the record of the McDonalds in the annals and the history of Ireland. Of a decidedly martial spirit, and one of the strongest and most influential clans of Antrim, they form a conspicuous figure in the history of their home county and the province of Ulster for many centuries. At an early period many of the race passed over from Antrim into Scotland, where they became the most numerous and powerful of the clans in the Scottish Highlands, figuring even more conspicuously in its history than in that of Ireland. Both in Ireland and in Scotland, with some exceptions, they long remained staunch Catholics, and retained the faith under the most trying persecutions. |

When, in July, 1745, Prince Charles Stuart, known in history as “'The Pretender,” landed in Scotland to assert his claim to the thrones of that country and England, large numbers of the Highlanders warmly espoused his cause. Conspicuous among his supporters were the McDonalds or MacDonalds. In Ireland, also, Charles found sympathizers. Among these was one John McDonald of Antrim, the paternal grandfather of Rev. Charles McKenna’s mother. With other adherents of the young prince, McDonald went over to Scotland to aid him in sustaining his claims. After the disastrous defeat of the Scottish forces at Culloden, in the April of 1746, McDonald found his way back to Antrim. But to escape arrest he removed to Derry changing his name to Gillespie for prudence sake, and there married and settled near Maghera in the neighborhood of the McKennas. His descendants

BIRTHPLACE AND LINEAGE. a retained the assumed name. One of his sons, John Gillespie, or McDonald, was the father of Francis McKenna’s wife.*

Thus our great Dominican missionary, orator and lecturer belonged to two of Ireland’s most prolific and religious families. They were, furthermore, if we may so express it, among the country’s most priestly races. Few Celtic names, indeed, are more frequently met with than those of McKenna and McDonald. And although no country in the world, in proportion to its population, is more fruitful in vocations than Ireland, few if any Irish families have given more gen- _erously of their sons to the Catholic priesthood than the McKennas and McDonalds. The Catholic directories of 1915, for instance, showed some forty priests whose names were McKenna. ‘Twenty-seven of these belonged to the Church of the United States. The clergymen who bore the patronymic of McDonald, five and thirty of whom served on our missions, were still more numerous.

It is no matter for wonder, therefore, that a scion of two such priestly races should be chosen and educated even from his tenderest years for the service of the altar. Such, indeed, was the case with little Charles McKenna, as far as the limited means of his people permitted.

4 Father McKenna often told the writer this bit of family history, and said that he thought he was the only member of the family in America acquainted with it.

Chapter II. Early Childhood And Education. (1835-1848)

Francis McKeEnna, the father of little Charles, was a man of some note in his part of Ireland. <A prosperous farmer for that day and a devout Catholic, he belonged to that class from which the priesthood of the Emerald Isle was so largely recruited. Open-hearted and generous almost to a fault, his hospitable home was never closed to the weary traveller or the needy stranger. It was a place of rendezvous, where the good man’s many friends frequently met to discuss questions that were of interest to their common country and religion. Francis McKenna had been fortunate enough to acquire a fair education for the time. He was possessed of good parts, and read diligently what books he could obtain, while the few newspapers of the day kept him abreast of the period. In this way he acquired a fund of information which made his conversation interesting, and caused him to be regarded as an authority in the circle in which he moved.

Oppression or religious antagonism, it has been said, either causes one to forsake one’s faith or makes it grow all the stronger. For this reason, perhaps, we often hear that the Catholics in the north of Ireland are the best in a land where the Catholics are among the staunchest in the world. Possibly the model Catholicity in the household of Francis McKenna may have been in part due to such an influence. Surrounded on all sides by Orangemen who were then, as they are today, bitterly antagonistic to the faith he professed, the good man was constrained to ground himself thoroughly in the teachings of the Catholic Church that he might successfully defend the religion that was dear to his heart against all attacks. In his preparation for this spiritual warfare he was greatly assisted by Rev. John McKenna, his parish priest, kmsman and friend. Francis McKenna’s prowess in the defense of his religion made him respected, if not loved, by those who differed from him in matters of faith.

As Anna Gillespie (or McDonald) was a lady of good mind, of deep religious convictions, and of a temperament akin to that of her husband, their true Christian characters and exemplary Catholic lives combined to make their home a happy one. Both keenly realized that, for those over whom God had placed them, precept without example could hardly be an effective incentive to walk in the path of virtue. For this reason, their first care, next to the fulfillment of their personal duties to God, was to bring up their large family both by word and example to be good practical Catholics.

Things went happily and prosperously with the McKenna household for a few years. The first real sorrow that came upon it was the death of the three little children of whom we have spoken. But in 1837 the model husband and father, Francis McKenna, died in the full vigor of strong manhood, and his remains were laid to rest in the graveyard near the little chapel of Glen.

The death of Francis McKenna, like his life, was that of a true Christian. After nursing his family through an attack of typhus fever, he himself was stricken with the malady. Although a man of giant frame and robust constitution, his vigils and labors had so sapped his strength that he fell a victim to the disease within a few days. We may well imagine the anguish of the widow’s heart when she saw herself bereft of her beloved companion and her children deprived of their father just when they most needed his guiding hand and provident care. As the prospects of the young family were bright, the blow was all the more severe because unexpected. Yet, like a second Esther, Mrs. McKenna found courage in the thought that God’s aid is ever with those who love and trust in Him.* Like another mother of the Maccabees, the good woman determined to bring up her seven children for God, to whom she was ready to give them all.2 The belief that God chastises those He loves tempered her grief with consolation.

The friends of the husband proved friends in need to the desolate widow, giving her every care and assistance. But in the work of bringing up and educating her young family, the eldest of whom was but ten or eleven years of age at the death of her husband, none proved so truly helpful as her zealous kinsman, Rev. John McKenna. He was her adviser in all things, particularly in those that regarded the welfare, spiritual and temporal, of her children. With Father McKenna, as with the family, little Charles, the youngest of the seven, appears to have been the favorite.

Charles McKenna was but two years of age at the

time of his father’s death. While by no means opulent, his mother had been left in easy circumstances, and, like the brave woman of Scripture (Proverbs, chapter 31), she set herself to the task of caring for her fatherless children. Her first aim, of course, was to bring them up good Catholics. Like most Irish mothers, she cherished the hope of seeing at least one of her sons give himself to the Church. Her choice in this matter was little Charles, whose disposition won him the friendship of all, and whose early piety foreshadowed his high vocation. One of the boy’s greatest delights was to go to church; another was to study his catechism. It was the custom of the family, as in many homes of Catholic Ireland, to recite the Rosary every evening. This was Charles’ favorite prayer. He called it the “joint prayer” because the whole household was always assembled for its recitation. Naturally, the Christian instinct of the good Irish mother caused her to take notice of these signs of piety in her youngest child. She felt that they were indications of a call to the priesthood which she should foster. Accordingly, little Charles McKenna was the object of his pious mother’s special care and solicitude.

Such was the Catholic atmosphere of the McKenna household; such the maternal care with which the future priest’s budding vocation was nurtured. Of both the great missionary and preacher retained fondest remembrances until the end of his long life. Very probably, indeed, had the forces that shaped his early life been less strongly spiritual, he would never have had the courage necessary to overcome the obstacles that later seemed hopelessly to close to him the door of the priesthood.

One of Charles’ earliest recollections shows him to have been endowed even then with an extraordinary memory—a faculty that stood him in good stead through all his long and useful life. The night of the “Little Christmas,” or the fifth of January, 1839, is historic wherever the Irish have found a footing since that date; and this is nearly everywhere. It was the “Night of the Big Wind” which caused such great loss of life and property through nearly all the Kmerald Isle, and made the people believe the end of the world had come. As every one at all acquainted with modern Irish history knows, the “Night of the Big Wind” long served as a sort of chronological index in domestic traditions. In the boyhood days of Charles McKenna, and for long years afterwards, the people of Ireland reckoned :the dates of births and events from the “ Big Wind,” as the ancient Greeks used to reckon history from the Olympic games, or the Romans from the foundation of their city. Although Charles McKenna was not quite four years of age when this extraordinary phenomenon occurred, he retained a vivid recollection of it until the day of his death. He used to say that he could never forget the awful roar of the wind, the great fear that it caused him, the alarm in the faces of his mother and the family, or the sight of the fallen trees that lay strewn about the yard the next morning.

No race of people is blessed with a readier or more retentive memory than the Irish. No nation is fonder of its folk-lore, its music and poetry, its heroes, the glories of its great past, and above all of its religion. All these are subjects which in the dark days of persecution were recounted and discussed with love and enthusiasm at every Irish fireside during the long winter evenings. The hospitable home of the McKennas was no exception to this custom. A subject on which Father Charles H. McKenna ever loved to dwell was how, in his childhood days, he was wont to sit at the side of his beloved mother before the blazing peat fire and listen while their visitors discoursed on Ireland’s glorious past, her saints, the missionaries whom she had sent to foreign lands, her great men and orators. ‘The older people of that generation had known Burke, Emmet, Flood, Grattan and Tone. The deeds or speeches of these and others were still fresh in the memory of Ireland, and were often the subject of keen discussion in the warm glow of the McKenna hearth. The name of O’Connell, Ireland’s living hero, was on every tongue. Of all the visitors to the family the most welcome to little Charles was Father John McKenna, whose every word he listened to with rapt attention. Besides being a priest, and as such deeply reverenced by his youthful kinsman, Father McKenna was the best informed and the wittiest of the many guests.’ But, while interested in all the topics rehearsed, those that especially appealed to the future Dominican were his country’s orators and missionaries. In this way was his receptive mind inflamed with the desire to become a great pulpit orator or a missionary in some foreign land.

It was in such an atmosphere of history, heroism and religion that the young soul of Charles McKenna received its earliest intellectual impressions. As a

3 In the death of Rev. John McKenna, which occurred when Charles was nine or ten years of age, the subject of our narrative lost a true friend from whom he might have expected much aid in the attainment of his heart’s keenest desire.

priest he used to say that the knowledge he then obtained at his mother’s fireside was a source of much strength and courage for him, when in later years misfortune crossed his path, long preventing the attainment of the object uppermost in his mind. Until the close of his life he loved to recite snatches of Celtic poetry and fragments from speeches of great Irish orators that he had thus learned in his early youth.

Though the blight of misrule still darkened Ireland with the pall of much illiteracy, the parents of Charles McKenna had been fortunate enough to receive a fair education. From his mother the docile boy received his first lessons in worldly wisdom, as in Christian doctrine. But we soon find the youth accompanying his brothers and sisters to the little national school near the Glen chapel, where his first preceptor was one Master O’Loan.

Our young schoolboy, while not robust, was large of build and tall beyond his years, an indication of the splendid type of physical manhood that he was to become in his mature years. His head was unusually large, his brow high and broad—signs of mental superiority.*. Fond of stories, quick at repartee, ready of wit, and fairly keen for the national sports—as those of his race usually are—he was withal of a quiet, retiring and meditative disposition. He seems to have been somewhat slow in his mental development, as often happens with those who have grown rapidly; for in those early student days there was nothing, as far as the author has been able to ascertain, to show that Charles McKenna was possessed of talents much above