Judge, Father Charles

1909, January 28

Date of Birth:   1846, February 2

Paris
March 11, 1909

Fathers and Very Dear in Our Lord:

Canada, America, and France for a long time have cooperated in staffing the minor seminary of St. Charles. Fathers Viger, Judge, and Chapuis were there a few months ago, the oldest representatives of each of their countries. It was on November 11th, you may recall, that the first was called to God; and at the end of January the other two went to rejoin him, two days apart, and – so to speak – hand in hand. With them nearly an entire generation of the house’s forefathers vanished:  they were men very different in origin and character, but one in the simplicity of their faith and in their complete devotion to the work, for which, let us hope, their spirits will long look after.

Father Charles Joseph Judge, of whom it behooves me today to speak to you, was born in Baltimore on February 2, 1846, of a family so Christian that five of its children consecrated themselves to God: a Jesuit, a Sulpician, two Good Shepherd nuns, and a Sister of Charity. Our confrere once wrote a fine book on his brother, a holy missionary who will be counted among the pioneers of Alaska. But it is a very good and beautiful soul, too, that is depicted in his own life, a strong and generous soul, always faithful to its idea; moreover, a spirit aflame, in love with Christian perfection as well as American patriotism, in which a light touch of tension and fussiness finish off the basic features.

Charles Judge made his early studies in the Baltimore public schools with such success as to enable him to secure while still very young a job in the office of The Sun; he was only twenty years old, and it was at the end of the Civil War that he made up his mind to study for the priesthood. The time he had spent in the world had served only to sharpen his virtue and had not stained the delicacy of his soul. He put himself under the guidance of a fine priest (who was to die as Bishop of Chicago) and faithfully consulted him on all questions of conscience. When the question of theatre-going came up, his director told him that he could discretely indulge in it as a legitimate recreation, and the young man dreamed of finding in it a help to growth. But when he tried it, he quickly found it not to his taste; and, declaring that he got from the theatre only worldly thoughts, he there and then gave it up.

It was, then, with a very strong and solid virtue that he came to St. Charles when it opened in 1865 to begin the whole course of classical studies. The life of young Costello, who died in the odor of sanctity, had just been published, and soon it was heard that just as readily the life of Charles Judge might be written:  his success in studies was indeed rapid and was soon, like the perfection of his conduct, to bring him to the first rank.

It bothered him not to see this perfection pursued equally by everyone: a nice thought, perhaps rooted in a certain inexperience with life, but one which he never lost and which, since in him it was intertwined with a lot of humility and charity, was more a plus than a minus in his life.

In 1871 Father Judge went from St. Charles to St. Mary’s in Baltimore; but as soon as he finished Philosophy, Father Dubreuil sent him to Paris as an aspirant to St. Sulpice to begin his Theology. There as elsewhere he was a man of integral perfection and of the interior life. He was sometimes compared – with innocent malice – to the old Puritans whom he made others think of by reason of his bearing, a bit rigid and austere; he was noted for his mortification which his hands, covered with chilblains, bore witness to, and also for his chats with the invisible world, chats betrayed (unless he was careful) by the movement of his lips and by his stare.

In 1875 he entered the Solitude. There he received ordination to the priesthood at Christmas time and sunk himself deeper than ever in the doctrine of Father Olier; for the rest of his life he remained one of Father Olier’s most fervent disciples. There was nothing in Father Olier’s teachings to shake his democratic convictions; but the vehemence with which he expressed these convictions was nearly a scandal to the venerable Father Ardaine in certain discussions about them.

At the reopening of school in 1876, Father Judge, thirty years of age, returned to St. Charles as a director; he was to remain there for the rest of his Sulpician career. Following local practice and the needs of the time, he taught in turn and in different classes Latin, Greek, English, French, Mathematics, Plain Chant. Moreover, he was for long Priest-Sacristan and Master of Ceremonies. As teacher in the minor seminary, he had knowledge and educational talent rather than disciplinary skill; the application of discipline was for him an exercise of patience, and by it he must have gained great merit. His mathematical knowledge – going back to his early education – was far enough advanced to put him always on examining boards. But he did not lack the advantage of literary expertise. His biography of his Jesuit brother had a real success and was read with as much interest as edification in a great number of communities.

What for us always remains as the best memory of our pious confrere was the holiness of his life. In the isolation of St. Charles – which he hardly ever liked to leave – and in the humdrum round of his daily duties, he gave, by his zeal, unwavering in its perfection, a glimpse of virtue deeply edifying to his confreres. Little peculiarities over which one might smile must not allow us to forget his truly admirable heroism. All his life at St. Charles, by the testimony of a confrere who followed it from one end to the other, was truly “above average in piety, purity and charity.”