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The Story of Notre Dame
Brother Aidan's Extracts


AMBROSE, BROTHER (JOHN McCARTHY)

"Brother Ambrose died on All Souls Day just a few months after being appointed manager of the Association of St. Joseph. Thirty-one years of age, he had pronounced final vows on August 16, after having given every evidence of a most successful religious life. He possessed a keen, well disciplined mind, able to brush away every interference with the business at hand. And he inspired confidence and respect."

"His body lay in the Postulate Chapel over night before removal to Notre Dame for burial in the Community Cemetery. Postulants watched, a group being relieved each hour; and all, perhaps, learned more during their vigil than they will from any other experience of their Postulate days. Death had struck swiftly; they had seen Brother at night prayer and in the morning were told of his death. 'Let us be convinced," said Fr. Devers, beginning a Mass for the repose of Brother's soul, 'of the absolute certainty of death.'"

"But the impact of even sudden death is softened in the religious life. Brother Ambrose had attended Mass and had received Holy Communion every day of the short five years he had been a Brother. Every day, too, he had prayed for at least three hours in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament; every week he had made the Way of the Cross and a Holy Hour; every summer he had made an eight-day retreat. And shortly before his death he had attended the 40 hours at the College. God gave him five years of preparation; thousands each year do not receive five minutes. Death to the good religious is the crowning experience of life." ASSOCIATION OF ST. JOSEPH, January 1936


‹— Brother Aidan's Extracts —›