THE LATE FATHER TREACY.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 December 1922, Page 3

THE LATE FATHER TREACY.

FUNERAL OBSEQUIES. The funeral of Father Treacy was carried out at New Plymouth on Tuesday with all the solemnities of the Catholic ritual. The Right Reverend Monsignor Power presided. The sacred ministers were: The Very Reverend Dean Holley, and Fathers Moran, Quealey and Devoy. In the choir were the Very Reverend Father Aubrey (president of the Seminary at Greenmeadows), Fathers Maples, * McManus, Phelan, Menard, Kelly, Long, Doolaghty, Forrestal, J. Moore, N. Moore, Hegarty, Ou tram, Spillane, J. Power and Dillon. The panegyric was preached by Monsignor Power, and the beautiful music of the Mass and burial was sung by the church choir and the priests. Monsignor Power's panegyric was as follows:—It is niy melancholy privilege to recommend to your prayers the soul of Patrick Treacy, whose mortal remains we are now committing to their last resting place. He was a priest who has deserved well of bishops, priests, nuns, and the faithful of this country. To them he ever gave of his best without stint and without murmur; and it is because of his giant labors in days when travelling was difficult and parishes few and far between, he had to spend the last ten years of his life an invalid confined to his house under the care of a skilful and devoted relative. Hers was a vocation of zeal and devotion which God will most assuredly bless.

Like most priests in the Englishspeaking world, he came from the island of saints and scholars, and from a county which for fifteen centuries has been prolific in vocations to the priesthood. Garry town has gone to wreck, but her olden religious glories have never ceased. and if the schools of Saint Senan, Saint Ailbe and Saint Munchin sent their illustrious sons to carry the faith and fame of Erin from the banks of the lordly Shannon through many distant lands, even to the utmost shores of Calabria, the successors of those schools are now sending their pupils with a like zeal into every quarter of the globe, even to these most distant islands. Patrick Treacy was born in the ancient barony of Kilteely, famous in remote ages for Saint Patrick’s visit, for the church he erected there, and for the two members of his household whose bodies consecrated the burial ground. As a boy he attended the local school, in which he received a sound primary education, leaning towards the commercial side, according to his father’s wish. Old Treacy, who was a strong character, thought he had done well by the church in. giving her two priests; and he made up his mind that Patrick should follow a commercial career. But the boy’s ambition, like that of Saint Brendan, was to be a traveller for Christ. It was not, however, until he was twenty-two years of age that he prevailed upon his father to let him go. At the age then of twenty-two, when most priests are nearing their ordination, he put himself under the care of the Holy Ghost Fathers at Rockwell. Later he went to Mount Melleray, famous since its foundation and now the greatest seminary in Ireland; after reading philosophy there he went to Saint John’s College at Waterford, where he was ordained in 1881. After a few months’ holiday with his people he came to New Zealand. • From then until his health broke down he labored in Wellington, Masterton, Kumara, Geraldine, New Plymouth and Stratford. I doubt if his name is on the foundation stone of any church or school; his was the more prosaic, and more meritorious task of paying for schools and churches that others got the credit of building. Stone is too cold for the name of such a one: it is written on the warm tablets of the hearts of bishops, priests, nuns and faithful.

His peculiar gift was that of arousing enthusiasm in the hearts of his people. Wherever he led they were sure to follow, and following him they found success. Huge debts went down before them like corn before a sickle. Tn the pulpit he had his own manner, perfect of its kind and striking in its effect. Few would attempt to imitate it, because few could master it. and so it stands unique in the annals of pulpit eloquence in New Zealand. Ho had a refined and telling wit, hurting no one, but forcibly bringing home to his hearers the ideas he wished td represent. His perception was wonderfully quick to catch a likeness between things apparently unlike, and his expression of that likeness was as apt as could be. He made no pretence of oratory, but swiftly seizing and clearly pointing out the resemblance between the lofty truths of religion and the homely things of life, he awakened surprise, pleasure, and amusement, and left the truths he would- enforce embedded in the minds of his hearers. His wit was never unkind: his sense of humor and his love for his people saved it f*om that ready pitfail. He was a master at pointing out the folly of fancy names in baptism, and at laughing social climbers out of their little weaknesses, and his contrasts with Heaven’s Wealth and that of earth opened many a purse where learned words would fail and made him the most successful collector of his day for churches and schools. Well, dear brethren, that day has seen its close for him, and death ha.? called him.

The preacher then went on to show what the Christians attitude towards death should be; he described the quality of Christian sorrow, and made a fervent appeal for prayers for the repose of the priest’s soul.