Is Feeneyism Catholic? - Society of St. Pius X

84 IS F EENEYISM C ATHOLIC?
ment in re, but that it is impossible to be saved without receiving
the visible sacrament at least in voto et proxima dispositione. 117
Further references can be found in the bibliography in Appendix
I.
TWO TYPICAL EXAMPLES OF BAPTISM OF DESIRE
There was in the 19th century in France a very famous converted
Jew, Fr. Augustine Marie of the Blessed Sacrament, born
Hermann Cohen. After his conversion, he became a Carmelite
monk and a renowned preacher. He restored the Carmelite Order
in England.
He worked hard for the conversion of his family. By the grace
of God, he succeeded in the conversion of his sister and her son;
but he did not succeed with the conversion of his mother. He
prayed, made sacrifices, talked with her, to no avail. She died with
no apparent sign of repentance. The poor monk was so sad, yet
never despaired in the mercy of the Sacred Heart.
For several years, God left him in this trial; but one day he
met the holy Curé of Ars, who told him: “Hope, hope, you shall
receive one day, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a
letter that shall bring you great consolation.”
Indeed, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception 1861, he
received a letter from a pious soul, Léonie Guillemant, saying:
My Jesus gave me a beam of His Divine Light…At the moment
when Fr. Hermann’s mother was almost giving her last
breath, when she looked unconscious, almost without life,
Mary, our good Mother, came in front of her Divine Son and,
falling on her knees at His feet, she said to Him: “Grace, Mercy,
O my Son, for this perishing soul. In a few moments, she shall
be lost, lost for ever. I beseech Thee, do for the mother of my
servant Hermann what Thou wouldst him to do for Thine, if
she would be in her place and Thee at his place. The soul of his
mother is his dearest good, a thousand times he dedicated it to
me; he entrusted it to the tenderness and solicitude of my Heart.
Could I bear to see it perish? No, no, this soul is mine, I want it,
I claim it as my inheritance, bought at the price of Thy Blood,
of my Sorrows at the foot of Thy Cross!”
117 They Have Fought the Good Fight, “The Great Question,” pp.131, 132.