AN IMPRESSIVE CEREMONY

Hokitika Guardian, 28 October 1931, Page 3

AN IMPRESSIVE CEREMONY

FEAST CELEBRATED BY 6000 ROMAN CATHOLICS. (Christchurch Times.) As all the mystery and faith, all the belief of the Roman Catholic religion is symbolised in the .Mass, so all the colour, the grandeur, and panoply was represented on Sunday afternoon at ■ the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Barbadoes Street, when (;()110 Roman Catholics took part in the celebrations connected with the Feast of the Kingship of Christ. A procession through the grounds, which was part of the ceremony, extended for a distance ot ncary a mile. The impressiveness of the spectacle reached its zenith when the huge congregation assembled on the terrace at. the hack of the Cathedral to take part in the Benediction. The shafts of sun light fell on a mass of colour—the sombre clothing of the laity, broken by bright splashes whore stood the blue and white clad Children of Mary the white-shirted schoolboys, the altar boys in tlmir red and black cassocks, and the Hib-rnians in their regalia. r fhe altar, white against a background of gold and greenery, with the Bishop and priests in their shining vestments, and flower girls representing angels was a gorgeous sight. A WONDER!)US SIGHT. The F ast of the Kingship of Christ was introduced into the liturgy of tin, R -inn Catholic Church by Pope Pius II in 1925, and Sunday throughout the world Roman Catholics united in ! offering praise and glory to Christ. The local celebration coincided with

the' conclusion of the mission which lias I.kmi conducted by the Maiist missionaries. fathers ’l'. .1. .M’Cartliv, P. E. Kane and .M. O’Leary, and the result was a wonderful demonstration of in i tli.

•More tli,an 2000 attended Mass in the morning and the Cathedral was packed for all the inter services. Then laiin two o’clock onwards, crowds gathered in the Cathedral grounds until, when the hells tolled out a warning a quarter of an hour afterwards, over 4000 people wore present. An •altar had been erect; d at the hack of the grounds and in front of this the procession formed.

When the procession moved off shortly afterwards the several thousand spectators saw a wonderful sight. In front of the altar stood the Bishop holding aloft the Host, assisting him being the Revs Dr Kennedy and Father T. Hnnrahnn. Past them moved the procession, headed by the Rev Father Timoney, hearing the Cross, and as it passed, the first decade of the Rosary was recited. Then the voices of the boys—some hundreds in number —were heard in prayer. Higher swelled the sound as the hymn was taken up and'tho watchers felt a thrill as 'section hv section the jprocession moved onwards, the air being filled alternately by singing the prayer. PUR POSE EX EM PLJ FIE D. The boys, in their white and black, were followed by the girls—a ribbon of colour in their white frocks and veils held by garlands of flowers—and then the women and the men of the laity following the banners of the various sodalities. The Children of Mary, colourful in their blue mantles and white veils, came next, and then the Hibernians in their green a nil gold regalia ; further acolytes; the clergy of all parishes; and then the Host, carried, under a canopy, by the Bishop. In the rear were the choirs and the pupils of St. Bede’s College.

The procession!: wound from the Cathedral grounds of »St. Joseph’s Girl’s school, past the Marist Brothers’ School, through the Presbytery grounds, and hack to the starting place. As the head of the procession entered the terrace in front of the altar the tail left it.* It was an impressive ceremony; its great purpose being exemplified as group after group of the watchers dropped to their knees oil the grass as the Host was borne past. AN ANCIENT IUTE. When the vast congregation was assembled again in front of the- altar the Rev. Father P. F. Kane addressed it on tlie origin and meaning of the feast, taking as his text: “lie shall rule fr in sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. In His day justice shall rise up and abundance of peace.” The feast he stated dated not from the time of its institution by Pope Pius 11., hut right hack to the tinr* of Christ and beyond that. The voices of the prophets had echoed down the ages predicting the Kingdom and the Kingship of Christ, the Son of God. Devotion to it stood out not only in the pages of the psalms and the prophesis, hut also in the Gospels, which ever proclaimed it. It was a Kingship not to be measured'or limited by the mind of man.

“ ITis Kingship was not hounded by rolling seas or bordered by forbidding mountains,” said the preacher. “Neither was it horn with the birth of a nation; neither will it pass with the tottering of an empire. No whims of man gave it birth ; no passions of man will hring.it death.”

Jesus Christ was King because Jesus Christ was God, inheriting His Kingship from tlie Father, the source of all inheritance, with whom he was one in all perfection and power. He imi' King also because he had with all the power of a King attacked the bonds of sin by which they were chained. He had poured out His blood upon those shackles of slavery, and carried the weight, tin* shame, and the blame of sins on His bloodstained arms to the Hill of Calvary. He had come to I ring poace to the world. THE HEARTS OF MEN. “Ever since this world began,” said Father Kano “ the laws of God in the munc of peace have struggled for supremacy over h-sourc s of strife; truth against. falsehood; honesty against deceit; justice against avarice; love against hate; goodwill against illwill ; Christ against the follies of the world. And to-clay, when the war dead sleep in peace, whim over their silent graves the flowers of memory grow in peace, when the broken weapons of finished battle rust in peace, still there is no peace; for the minds and hearts of men are not yet changed.”

> “To g' in peace.” said the' missionor, “the minds and hearts of men must accept Christ as King; He must reign in tlie life of man by the observance) of His commandments; He must reign in the family by fidelity to the sacredness of marriage; He must reign in society by '.tlie public recognition of His inoral code and by the full acceptance of the true principles of authority, freely admitting that all authority is from God ; and His Church must bo given that place in the life of tlie world to which She has a just right, because She is the infallible teacfier of the Word of ,God, the guardian of His moral code 1 and the instrument of His Sacramental Graces. - At the conclusion Benediction was celebrated by the Bishop, features of the ceremony being the singing of the “0 Salutaris” and “Faith of our Fathers” by the, congregation and the playing of several hymns «b.v cornetists stationed in the dome of the Cathedral. In tlie evening another large congregation attended the conclusion of the mission and the Renewal of Baptismal Vows conducted by Father McCarthy. At the conclusion Bishop Brodie thanked the congregation for the wonderful support they had given and the missioners for “the glorious success” of their work.