LENTEN PASTORAL BY HIS GRACE THE ARCHBISHOP OF WELLINGTON.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 6, 8 February 1900, Page 3

LENTEN PASTORAL BY HIS GRACE THE ARCHBISHOP OF WELLINGTON.

The following Lenten Pastoral has been issued by his Grace the Archbishop of Wellington .—. —

Dearly beloved brethren and dear children in Jesus Christ, — The holy season of Lent has come round again, beginning on the 28th of February and ending on the 15th of April, and it is our duty to exhort you to spend it worthily. We can fitly apply to it these words of the Apostle St. Paul: 'And we helping do exhort you, that you receive not the grace of God in vuin. For He eaith, " In an accepted time have I heard thee, and in the day of salvation have I helped thee. Behold, now is the acceptable time ; behold, now is the day of salvation " " (2 for, vi.. 2). Now is the time to enter into ourselves and amend our evil ways. 'Thus saith the Lord: Be converted to Me with all your heart, in fasting, in weeping, and in mourning. Blow the trumpet in Sion. and sanctify a fast' {Jot! ii. — 12. I.",). Lent is, indeed, a holy time, a time of prayer, penance, and mortification, a time of sorrow and weeping for our sins and those of our fellow-men, and also a time of especial mourning over the sufferings and bitter passion of our dear Loul and Saviour Jesus Christ. Transport yourselves in thought to that w ilderness in which Jesus spent forty days and nights in prayer and rigorous fasting. Contemplate Him prostrate before Ilia Heavenly Father with His sacred brow in the dust, now pouring out Ilia soul in intense acts of adoration, praise and thanksgiving ; now imploring mercy upon poor sinful man, and accompanying llit> tears and BUpplications with incomparable mortification ; since for forty day* and nights He neither ate nor drank, while Ilib couch was the hard ground and His shelter the vault of heaven. 0, how forcibly He teaches us by His example the holiness of Lent ! Though His life was eminently holy at all times, He imparted to it during those forty days an exterior character of special sanctity. He spent those days in retreat, thereby telling us to spend them in holy recollection, a necessary condition for hearing God's voice in the depths of our boul, and so coming to know, love, and enjoy Him ; and also in a spirit of earnest reflection, an indispensable condition for selfknowledge and reformation.

He spent that time in prayer, to teach us that we ought to pray more and better during the precious season of Lent, for then God is more disposed to hear us. 'In an accepted time Lave I heard thee, and in the day of salvation have I helped thee.' He spent that time in most rigorous mortification, to enjoin ua during Lent to be less indulgent to our sensuality, tastes, and pleasures, and to accept with resignation, nay, with sincere glad-

ness, the privations imposed on us by our kind and merciful Mother the Church. Thus our Lord teaches us the holiness of Lent, and His teaching has been continued and enforced by the whole Catholic Church. For why these frequent instructions and sermons, these additional religious exercises, why that prescribed fast and abstinence, unlens it is to oblige us to sanctify the period of Lent? O, blessed be the Church for this salutary lesson ' In the course of our life we are so apt to forget the duty of penance, to forget that there arc o»ily Hvn <:>-atf><> into heaven, the cate of innocence and the pate ot penance ; and, as we have lost our innocence, w_e have no hope but in pen •info Hence our Saviour Bays to pinners like üb, ' Except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish ' {Luke, xiii., ."■)) We stand in need of being- reminded of this duty every year ; for penance is indispensable, either to atone for our past sins, or to hinder us from relapsing into our evil ways.

To all these reasons for spending the season of Lent in a worthy manner there i« added another most cogent one derived from the great mysteries of the Passion and Resurrection of our Saviour, for which Lent is intended to be a preparation. The fruit of the celebration of these mysteries ought to be death to ourselves and a new life in God, and for God. But such will not be the happy result of Lent, unless it has been truly sanctified. We shall receive the fulness of the grace attached to their celebration, if we come to them with the perfect disposition of a well -spent Lenten fast ; but the contrary will happen, if we have the folly and misfortune to squander the precious days in dissipation, thoughtlessness, or tepidity.

But how shall be sanctify the time of Lent ? We must first endeavour to perform our ordinary actions and discharge our usual duties with greater perfection. In this lies the very essence of sanctity. Hence during Lent we must say our prayers better, employ our time better, watch over our thoughts and words, offer our actions to God in union with the penance of our Saviour in the wildernesa, and in expiation of our sins.

Again, we must keep faithfully the fast and abstinence prescribed by the Church, and, if through weakness of health or excessive labour, we have obtained dispensation from them, according to the judgment of our respective pastors, we ought to supply the place of them with interior mortification, making our will fast and abstain by the spirit of obedience and condescension, our temper by unalterable equanimity, our tongue by silence or greater discretion, our mouth by the privation of certain luxuries, our eyes by increased watchfulness, and our interior by the retrenchment of those myriad useless thoughts, imaginations, and desires which often make the soul like a highway, where the seed of God's word cannot grow, but is plucked away by evil spirits ever on the watch to surprise and tempt us Such mortifications as these will never hurt our head or our health, and will do our souls no end of good.

Furthermore, we ought to accept with resignation and patience the crosses and trials which God sends us ; supporting each other's burdens with gentle forbearance : ' loving one another with the charity of brotherhood, with honour preventing one another; in carefulness, not slothful, in spirit fervent ; serving the Lord ; rejoicing iv hope ; patient in tribulation : instant in prayer ; to no man rendering evil for evil : if it be possible as much as in you having peace with all men ; not revenging yourselves, my dearly beloved, but give place unto wrath, for it is written — Revenge to Me; I will repay, &aith the Lord. But if thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat ; if he thirst, give him to drink. For, doing this, thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good' {Horn, xii., 10-21).

We ought, indeed, during Lent, to enliven our charity to all men and multiply our alms-deeds. One direction which our charity can take, the most profitable and meritorious results, is towards the relief of the many sufferers in the terrible war now raging in South Africa. Let us give generously the help of our constant and fervent prayers, that Almighty God, the Lord of Hosts, may speedily bring the war to a happy close, and turn its results to the good of Hia Church and the welfare of mankind, temporal and eternal ; and let us contribute nobly, according to our means, to the relief funds in connection with that dire and bitter struggle for supremacy.

Our contributions for Peter's Pence ought this year to be particularly generous, for the following reasons :—: —

Our Holy Father the Pope, in May last, by an encyclical addressed to the Christian world, proclaimed the celebration, in IHOo. of what is known as the Holy Year, such being the name given for many centuries to the year in which, from time to time, the riovereigh Pontiffs have proclaimed to the world extraordinary indulgences, on condition of a visit to the sanctuaries of Rome. Hia Holiness, on the same occasion expressed his gratification to know that preparations were being made to sanctify in a special manner the closing year of this century by a solemn homage to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Doubtless, in the course of this year, the Holy Father's hopes will be realised ; vast numbers of his children will journey to Rome, there to renew their faith and their piety, and thence to return \\ ith the Apostolic blessing of the venerated old man who holds the key?, and whom we hope God will spare to &cc that outburst of religious fervour which marks the Holy Year.

Accordingly, this year should be conspicuous for increased generosity in the offering of Peter's Pence. He who gives to St. Peter lenda to God. He who makes sacrifices for the Sovereign Pontiff arms him with fresh and powerful weapons for the great struggle in which he is the divinely-appointed leader.

In preparation for the close of the Holy Year, and in association with the whole Christian world in its Solemn Homage to Jesus Christ, we hereby direct that in the archdiocese, until the end of this year, on each Sunday, at all Benedictions of the Most Blessed Sacrament, there be sung, in Latin, after the ' 0 Salutaris,' either the canticle ' Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel,' or the ' Magnificat,' The clergy will be careful to point out to the flock how these sacred canticles are pervaded by the spirit of praise and thanksgiving for the great dispensation of the Incarnation, which is the origin and fount of man's eternal bliss, and the supreme glory of the whole

peries of the Christian centuries Compared with the event of the Incarnation, what are all other dates and days ? What the rise and fall of dynasties, what the march of mere human thought, what the rise and wane and fall of institutions and fashions, what the career of conquerors and of pngeg 1 Wlut the light* and shades which flit across the face cf our nineteen centuries .' What are they all when we reflect that nil cfcen hundred j ears ago God a^umed human nature, and from that dny to this has never CPT^ed to press us by His voice and His grace to live for Him. for Heaven, and for eternity / For tins great and awful condescension the daily thanks of every Christian heart arc too little ; it is fitting 1 that a vast and world-wide concert or praise and gratitude should close the nineteenth century and open the twentieth.

A Catholic Congress will be held next October in Sydney, and we ask the assistance of your prayers and good works, in order that its results may be more extensive and lasting.

In reference to the missionary and collecting tour through the archdiocese, which we began just before last winter and continued till the beginning of last December, we wish you to join with us in hearty thanksgiving to the Almighty and Bountiful Giver of all good gifts for the vast amount of spiritual good wrought by our missions, being the means through Divine grace of bringing back large numbers of negligent Catholics and obdurate sinners to the way of salvation and a fervent life, besides operating the conversion of a goodly number of non-Catholics. The financial success of these apostolic labours has been quite up to our expectations, and if the rest of our missions, which we shall resume at an early date. are crowned with equal success, we shall be able, please God. to proceed to the laying of the foundation-stone of St. Mary's new Cathedral on its fine central site in about twelve months. While we tender our warmest and heartiest thanks to the generous subscribers who have already contributed to the Cathedral Fund, we appeal most confidently to all those whom we shall visit in our next series of missions, so that their contributions may exceed even those which have so greatly gladdened and encouraged our previous efforts. We recommend these missions most urgently to the prayers of all the faithful, clergy and laity, in our archdiocese, in order that, through them, a rich harvest of conversions from error and sin may result from the mercy of God through the precious blood of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

In conclusion, we again exhort our whole flock, clergy and laity, to untiring zeal on the vital question of religious education. Religion ia the chief element in civilisation and true progress. The great need of society is not the diffusion of enlightenment, but the diffusion of character, of honest faith, and manly courage. We are not the advocates of ignorance, nor do we yield to any in our estimation of the value of mere mental training. W r arer is good, but without bread it will not sustain life. Wine warms and gladdens man's heart, but, if used without care and discretion, it maddens and drives to destruction. We indignantly protest against the folly of the age which would fain make the schoolroom its Church, instruction its Sacrament, and culture its Religion. This is — believe the Church — the straight way to ruin. Culture is for the few ; and what a miserable gloss and varnish it is even for most of these ! But for the millions it means the Pagan debauch, the brutalising orgy, and mere animalism. Religion alone can secure man's solid happiness in this world, and his eternal b!i?^ in the next. Come then what may, we will continue the caira^eons election and maintenance of our schools and we will, to the btsl of our power, rescue our children from the contamination of secul.iv schools, confident that such a manly course must command the sympathy and support of every honest man, and finally win tor us the redress of the crying injustice with which we are afflicted

During Lent prjy fervently for our Holy Father, and for the liberty and independence of the Church, and be particularly generous in your contribution to Peter's Pence.

' The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Charity of God and the communication of the Holy Ghost be with you all. Amen. Given at Wellington. Feast of the Purification, February 2, 1900. 4" FRANCIS, Archbishop of Wellington.

The following are the Regulations you Lent which we make in viiuue of special faculties kix'el yl2i) khom the Holy See. Ist. — We grant permission for the use of Flesh Meat, at dinner only, on all Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, aud also on all Saturdays except o:ie, that is the second Saturday during Lent and Monday in Holy Week. 2nd. — Lard and dripping may be used after the manner of Butter, at dinner, ou days of Fast and Abstinence during Lent, and hlso throughout the year, with the exception of the first and last Wednesdays of Lent and Good Friday. 3rd. — White meats — such as Butter, M:lk, Cheese, and Eggs — are allowed on all days at dinner, with the exception ol Ash Wednesday and Good Friday . A little milk is alw ays allowed in Tea. Coffee, or other beverage. 4th. — For those who, though not bound to fast, are bound to abstiin : the kinds of food whicn are allowed at their chief meal to thosi3 who are bound to fa»t are. allowed at all times to tho-e who are not so bound. .">th. — Fish and Fleeh are not allowed at the same meal during

There is neither Fast nor Abstinence on Sunday in Lent. His Holiness Pope Leo XIII. has causetl St. Patrick's Day to be no longer a fast day in Australasia, or a day of abstinence, unless it happens to fall on v Friday or during the Cjuatuor Tense. All who have completed their 21st year are bound to fa^t and abstaiu — unless excused by the state of itieir health or the nature of their employment — according to the iej> ulations stated above ; and all

who have arrived at the use of reason, though not bound to fast before the completion of their 21-^t year, are nevertheless bound to abstain from the use of flesh meats on the days appointed — unless exempted for a legitimate cause, of which the respective Pastors are the judges.

All who have arrived at the years of discretion are bound to go to Communion within Laster time, which, in this Diocese, commences on A«h Wednesday and ends on the Octave of Saints Peter and Paul

Tne collection for the Holy Father will take place on Good Friday.

The collection for the Seminary Fund will be held on Whit Sunday, or on the Sunday or Sundays following, when there are two or more churches in the district.

The collection for the Holy Places in Palestine will take place on the first Sunday in October, or on the Sunday or Sundays following, when there are two or more churches in the district. The Clergy are requested to read these Regulations from the several Altars as soon as possible, and to cause a copy of them to be placed in a conspicuous place in their respective churches and chapels. ►!« FRANCIS, Archbishop of Wellington. Wellington, Feb. 2, l<>oo