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Rcligiotes Communities of irlen in Tezas
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bell would ring, everybody ... hurried for Mass. Sometimes the crowds were so large that an altar had to be improvised in the open under a tree." The Padre heard confessions, taught catechism, and visited the sick before returning to Brownsville. During the Bishop's visit in August, 1850, he celebrated a Solemn High Mass in the little chapel at Santa Rita and had "the Blessed Statue of Mary carried in procession that Our Blessed Mary may bless ... all her children of the Rio Grande Valley." Even as Odin was visiting the area, the Superior General of the Oblates in France decided, at a meeting held in Marseilles on September 2, 1850 to have Fathers Soulerin and Gaudet, as well as Brother Menthe, return to Canada and leave only Father Telmon in the Rio Grande mission. The extreme exertions and hardships demanded of the Oblates in Texas and the great need for their services in Canada prompted the General's decision. Finally, Father Telmon himself broke under the strain. The lonely missionary, growing weaker because of frequent hemorrages, during the past months, wrote Bishop Odin in November requesting permission to leave on account of his health. Although he had not intended to leave until some one else took his place, he was compelled by his illness to depart for France on January 22, 1851, before he was replaced. 1 : Retum of tlze Oblates, I85I. The temporary withdrawal of the Oblates proved a severe blow to the indefatigable Bishop of Texas. Unaware of it, Odin had, a few months before, enthusiastically made a proposal to Bishop Mazenod, the founder of the Oblates, to widen the scope of their work in Texas. "It is impossible for me to procure sufficient workers to satisfy the demands," he wrote. "I wish to lay the foundation of a diocesan seminary. I would like to add a day school for the boys of the city. The Fathers will direct it, and the seminarians will assist in the teaching." When .he learned shortly afterwards of the decision taken by the Superior General to abandon the Texas missions, he resolved to make a personal appeal during his visit in Europe in 1851. Odin called on Bishop Mazenod in Marseilles to plead his case. "Your fathers have won the esteem and the affection of the inhabitants," he argued. "They have drawn a good number of persons to the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. There is need not only of zealous and exemplary workers, but also of men of solid and proven virtue." Prophetically, the worried Bishop of Galveston added this incentive: "The Texas Mission
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