Word: faithfully
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Times obituary called her "a London stray," but a memorial plaque on the wall of the little Church of St. Augustine-with-St. Faith-under-St. Pau's-Cathedral, flanked by citations from two continents, testified that she was more than that. The plaque told of a night when Faith, a gentle grey and white cat, had "endured horrors and perils beyond the power of words to tell" and through them all "stayed calm and steadfast." Even the Times paid tribute to this heroine who "stuck, while the bombs fell, to her kitten...
There was a time some twelve years ago when Faith's only friend in all the world was Henry Ross, rector of St. Augustine's. Three times his own verger had turned away the cat that wandered unannounced from the turmoil of Watling Street to make her home in his church. At the fourth try the rector interceded. "The cat must stay," he said. "She has chosen our church, and she must remain." Faith took up residence in his rectory. Years of halcyon days followed when Faith would recline in proprietary ease in St. Augustine's carpeted...
...September 1940 Faith, who was rearing a kitten, grew restless and decided to leave her niche upstairs in the rectory and move to a downstairs recess used for storing music. Three days later German bombers roared over Whitechapel. "Roofs and masonry exploded," runs the legend on Faith's plaque, "the whole house blazed, four floors fell through in front of her. Fire and water all around . . ." Attracted by a glow in the sky, Rector Ross came hurrying back from a trip to Westminster. "The cat and kitten are both dead," said the firemen...
When the firemen turned their backs, Ross climbed to a parapet from which he could see Faith's recess. There, surrounded by smoldering ruins, sat Faith-serenely nursing her kitten* and "singing," said the rector, "such a song of praise and thanksgiving as I had never heard...
...bell rang. The boys rose, recited a prayer to Our Lady of Fatima, and quietly filed out. Every day, for nearly four years, they would be drilled in the fundamentals of the Roman Catholic faith...