George Matulaitis Journal

232 life at the seminary so that, with God’s help, I might be able to reorganize and restore everything as it should be. I am especially anxious to make the seminary truly Catholic so it would produce priests who are apostles determined to serve everyone equally, without despising or discriminating against any nation, but rather supporting the good efforts of each and guiding the people toward the Kingdom of God and not somewhere else—into all kinds of political intrigues. I had written to His Excellency the Apostolic Visitator 1 in Warsaw to send me the necessary authorization to act, while the present situation continues and military action goes on making it impossible to contact the Holy See. On March 19, I received wide powers for myself and the neighboring bishops. March 23 Making use of the authorization I was given, today I placed the Lord Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in my little chapel. Now it will be more peaceful, pleasant, and homelike to live under the same roof with our beloved Savior; now we shall be able to visit him frequently in the Blessed Sacrament. We introduced a schedule in keeping with religious life quite a while ago. 2 We usually rise at 5 o’clock; meditation is at 5:30, then I say Mass, and after me, Father Joseph. The servants and the cook listen to the points given for meditation and usually receive Communion during my Mass. We have evening prayer together in the chapel whenever we can, right after supper. I give the points for meditation, and we make our examination of conscience. Whenever I can, I visit the seminary and read Canon Law to acquaint myself with how seminaries should be conducted according 1 Achille Ratti and Bishop Matulaitis had probably not met yet, but they corresponded regularly. A num- ber of these letters have been preserved. They were not sent through the mail but delivered personally by trust- worthy persons. 2 At this time Matulaitis’s household consisted of himself and Father Vaitkevi ius, Jonas Varzaitis, and Andrius Meciunas, both of whom were serving the Bishop. The cook, Marijona Minkstaite, was probably a member of a secret religious community. Since they were all religious, they were willing to conform to a schedule characteristic of religious life.