Our Catl,olic Heritagc in Texas
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Twenty or thirty ships loaded with immigrants were to leave for Port Lavaca during the coming winter. The prospect both gladdened and saddened the Bishop-Vicar. He was delighted with the expected in- crease of his flock, but greatly worried by the problem of securing more priests to care for them. 1 • Determined to secure aid at any cost, Odin left Paris on June I I to go to Lyons. Three weeks he spent in the city pleading his cause before the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, but to no avail. Although the members understood his needs, they explained that recent caUs had been so numerous that it was impossible to grant his request at this time. Mr. Maquis, a member of the Board, suggested that a separate allocation of funds for Texas should be requested through Etienne and that the Texas mission should be considered as separate from all others.n While in Lyons, Odin visited many of his friends and the seminary. In a talk to the seminarians he appealed to the young men to volunteer for service in Texas. One of those who answered his call wrote years afterwards, "The pious prelate did not conceal . . . the dangers and hardships, the sufferings and adventures ... which awaited the mis- sionary." He warned them they would labor in a country little known but boundless in extent; that they would pass nights on the cold, damp ground and whole days under the rays of the burning sun without a tree or bush to shelter them; and that they would encounter perils that would try their courage and endurance to the limit. 76 From Lyons Odin went to Turin, where he arrived on August I. His old friend, Father Marcantonio Durando, welcomed him. The Vicar spent over a week with the members of the Vincentian house and visiting the different convents of the Sisters of Charity. He was amazed at the progress made by the Sisters. In discussing with Durando the needs for the spread of the Faith in Texas, Odin turned to his favorite subject, a college in San Antonio, "the beautiful and healthy city, where a large number of young people could be gathered not only from Texas but from all parts of the West and Mexico." Durando was not only 74 0din to Blanc, May 30, 1845, C. A. T. UQdin to Blanc, August 6, 1845; Odin to Etienne, July 18, 1845, C. A. T. 76 Domenech, Journal d'un Mi.ssionaire au Tera.s et att Merique, 2. Domenech was twenty years old at the time and had not completed his studies at the seminary ~hen he volunteered. The inspiration of Bishop Odin launched this young man into a long and colorful career in the West. See also Odin to Blanc, August 8, 1845, and Odin to Etienne, July 18, 1845, C. A. T.
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