Ottr Catliol-ic Heritage in Texas
There are those who remember him walking up and down the aisles, himself singing to induce the more timid to join in the exercises. 85 Bishop Nussbaum had a wonderful devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and loved the Forty Hours exercises. In 1915 he had intended to expand this beautiful devotion to his entire diocese in such a way that the exercises were to start each Sunday in some parish. His own Cathedral initiated the Forty Hours Adoration in January of that year. The churches dedicated to the Sacred Heart were assigned the month of June. In a letter to Father E. B. Ledvina, then secretary of the Catholic Church Extension Society of Chicago, who was one day to succeed him as Bishop of Corpus Christi, Nussbaum confided: "I am trying to get the Forty Hours Adoration going in this diocese, but many missionaries have not the necessary equipment." 16 In addition to the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Society of St. Ann's for married women, later made the Altar Society, was organ- ized throughout the diocese. The year after his arrival, in August 1914, Court No. 246 of the Daughters of the Court of Isabella was established. Nor did he neglect the men and boys. For them he organized the senior and junior branches of the Holy Name Society in 1916. But this interest in Catholic Action and the intensification of the social and spiritual life of the parishes did not cause the zealous bishop to forget the less privileged members of his flock. He was indefatigable in his seemingly endless visitations. Within a few months after his arrival, on August 14, 1913, he set out on his first visitation. Going to Brownsville, he confirmed almost a thousand souls there in four and a half days before proceeding to San Benito, where he administered the Sacrament of Con- firmation to five hundred more. At Mercedes he stayed two days, giving instructions and preaching to the people. He then continued his tour to Mission, Rio Grande City, and Roma before returning to Corpus Christi. Early in March, 1914, he made another Confirmation tour which carried him to Rockport, Lamar, Aransas Pass, and Port Aransas. He then went to Tivoli, where he dedicated a new church to Our Lady of Guadalupe, preaching in both English and Spanish. Never a year passed that he did not visit the distant missions of his diocese. His travels acquainted him with actual conditions and filled him 15 Record Book I, 28-33, Corpus Ckristi Diocesan Arckiv4s. 16 Bishop Nussbaum to Father E. B. Ledvina, August s, I 9 Is, cited by Sister Mary Xavier Holworthy, op. cit., 55.
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