Air-Conditioned

The Order of Servants of Mary (Servites) is a Roman Catholic mendicant order, founded in 1233 by seven noble Florentine youths in devotion to the Mother of God, with special reference to her sorrows. There are only 65 Servites in the U. S. In proportion to their numbers, those 65 fathers last week were by far the busiest of any religious order in the land.

Busiest of all was the handsome, dark-haired prior of a Servite community in Chicago, Rev. James R. Keane. Two winters ago, in Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Chicago, Father Keane inaugurated a perpetual novena in honor of Our Sorrowful Mother, with special Stations of the Cross and prayers of his own compilation. Last winter Father Keane's novena began getting publicity when 16,500 people attended it every Friday, each making nine devotions in succession to the Virgin, in hope of spiritual or material reward (TIME, Dec. 27). By last week, 50,000 Catholics were thronging the church on Fridays and novenas were being installed in churches throughout the U. S. as fast as the Servites--whose permission, willingly granted, had to be asked before a church could adopt the ritual--were able to get around to direct the opening services. The seven Servite Stations are devoted to the sorrows of Mary, whereas the usual 14 Stations are devoted to the Passion of Christ.

Last week the novena of Our Sorrowful Mother was available to Catholics in 87 churches in 50 cities, drawing an aggregate attendance of 260,000 people at its repeated Friday services, which totaled 315. Four cathedrals were holding novenas, and four more planned to. Novena Notes, Father Keane's clubby weekly, had a circulation of 145,000. Each church requesting it and paying the cost of printing could obtain an edition containing a page of local notes. Churches could also buy special prayer books for the novena, 10-c- each.

The Servite fathers had found that the average individual contribution by a "Novenite"--3-c---totaled enough to pay novena costs, sometimes build up a surplus. At Father Keane's church the surplus was large enough to furnish snappy uniforms for the male ushers at services, and to uniform 400 members of a new Novena Auxiliary Club for young women.

Since Father Keane's novena began, Novenites have addressed some 4,000,000 petitions, on slips of paper, to Our Lady of Sorrows. No statistics exist on the ratio between prayers and fulfillments, but in Father Keane's church alone, 80,000 letters are on file from Catholics whose prayers have been answered. An analysis of 800,000 petitions showed them to be predominantly personal, begging jobs, boy friends, good health, etc. Only 8,000 of the faithful asked nothing for themselves, petitioning good health for the Pope, etc., or, in one case, a cure for Dizzy Dean's arm.

Last summer Father Keane discovered that many of his parishioners took no vacations lest they miss a Friday of a novena. For such devout Catholics, Father Keane lately announced a 7,000-mile novena excursion, with the slogan: "Around America With Father Keane's Special Train. Entirely Air-Conditioned." Prices: $159 & up, for a fortnight's swing through the Northwest, the Pacific Coast, the Southwest. Two Sundays ago, 336 Novenites, uniformed ushers and clergy, including Father Keane, entrained on the largest special vacation train ever to leave Chicago. Busy Father Keane, photographed on the train with his flock, rode as far as Moline, Ill., planned to rejoin the party at Tucson, Ariz. Last week the novena train reached Portland, Ore. for Friday services at the National Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother. This Friday the Novenites were to worship with Father Keane when he opened a perpetual novena in St. Patrick's Cathedral, El Paso, Texas. For 50 people who could not get accommodations on the first train, and for others who wished a pious vacation, Father Keane planned a second trip late this month.

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