A Jesuit Vow

Fr. William O'Brien Pardow, S.J.

There was no music, no singing, no panegyric, no spoken word of sorrow or esteem in the whole ceremony. The body was placed in the poorest of coffins, interred in the lowliest ground with the most meager of inscriptions marking the grave, and there was no sign of deference or distinction in the mass or the absolution or the final blessing of the body at the grave.

Poverty was the keynote of the ceremony through it all, and that is in the vows of the Jesuits when they consecrate their services. They have to take the three vows, poverty, chastity, and obedience. From the time they enter the novitiate until they die humility is the ideal they seek.

In death and in life they hold to the ideal so that although the priests of the Jesuit community and the parishioners would do greater homage to the beloved rector, the customs of the order would not permit. So Father William O’Brien Pardow, S.J., whose entire life had been lived in the most simple fashion, was buried according to the precedents of his order.

Link (here) to read the entire post at Church historian Pat Macnamera's blog Irish Catholic Humanist