ST. MARY’S MISSION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5137, 10 June 1927, Page 2

ST. MARY’S MISSION.

INSPIRING CEREMONIES.

CROWDED ATTENDANCES.

The mission services last evening were devoted to the promotion of the knwledge, love, and adoration of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. In a sermon of admirable conception and illuminative thought, Father McCarthy expounded the Catholic teaching of the Real Presence, its purpose and its effects. Traversing the history of God’s dealings with His chosen people of old—-the Jewish nation—the eloquent preacher demontrated how, favoured though that nation had been in its close contact witli God, we of the Christian dispensation are more highly favoured by far, through the closer, more intimate, and personal contact witli God that follows on the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence.

“Go back over the centuries,” said Father McCarthy, “and you will find that in every age the same doctrine has been preached and practised everywhere, just as it is preached and practised by the 350 millions of Catholics to-day. Or, conversely, the doctrine of the Blessed Eucharist as taught by St. Paul in his epistle to the Corinthians, is the self-same as. taught by the Catholic Church to-day and in every age.” The outstanding features of this magnificent discourse were the treatment of the Types and Figures of the Blessed Eucharist in the Old-Tes-tament ; the promise of it by Jesus Christ, as recorded in the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, and the fulfilment of that promise by our Saviour the night before He suffered. After the sermon the Blessed Sacrament was carried in procession by tlie parish priest, the Rev. Father Dunphy, assisted by. the R«v. Father Dignan of Thames, and proceeded by the cross-hearer acolytes, the Children of Mary, and school children in regal in, to the accompaniment of hymns and Rosary. The huge congregation that filled the entire church was electric with emotion. Their faith and devotion found expression in enthusiastic rendition of the Eucharistic hymns, that culminated on a note of triumphal joy in an inspiring Tantum Errgo. It was a solemnity that will long endure in the Halls of Memory, yielding anew its inspirations in many and varied ways in the years that are to be. The mission is nearing its close, for it will terminate definitely on Sunday evening. The few who have not yet made the mission are advised to bestir themselves and to come forward anil partake of their rightful share in its graces and blessings. Sunday night’s sermon will treat of the Credentials of the Catholic Church, and her claims to the obedience of men. and will be followed by the imposing ceremony of Renewal of Baptismal Vows, which in turn will be followed by the Papal Blessing.