My association with converts has taught me that they are so much happier in the True Faith if they are familiar with the devotions and practices that are essentially Catholic. Experience has also demonstrated that not a few who were born and reared in the Faith betray a lack of thorough instruction, or have simply forgotten the meanings and purposes of many Catholic practices.
For such readers I have endeavored to gather in the following pages the most salient features of Catholic life. My aim has been to give interesting and profitable reading in plain words. And thus I hope that this book will find favor with all classes of Catholics.
In our busy American life we lose so easily our hold on the things that are eternal. There is, therefore, all the more need that from time to time we refresh our souls with the contemplation of the service, the wealth of consolation, and the brilliant hopes for the future which are afforded us by the beautiful devotions and practices of our religion.
- Father George Thomas Schmidt
- from The Principal Catholic Practices: A Popular Explanation of the Sacraments and Catholic Devotions by Father George Thomas Schmidt, 1920