DIOCESE OF CHRISTCHURCH

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 20, 21 May 1908, Page 14

DIOCESE OF CHRISTCHURCH

(From our own correspondent.)

May 18

For members of the ' Association of the Perpetual Lamps ' his Lordship the Bishop has obtained a supply of neatly printed little booklets containing prayers in (honor of the Most Blessod Sacrament, the Sacred Heart, the Holy Face, the Holy Relics, the Blessed Virgin., St. John the Baptist, St. Joseph, St. Patrick, and Blessed Peter Lo'iis Chanel.

The shipwrecked French mariners of the ill-fated four-masted "barque, 'President Felix Faure,' which was lost on the Antipodes Islands, who were rescued by -H.M.S, ' Pegasus ' and brought to, Lyttelton last week, to the number of twenty-two, were visited by Rev. Fatter Cooney shortly after their arrival. The greater number of them attended Mass at St. Joseph's Church on Sunday morning, and during the day the Brothers of St. Joseph's Conference Mission to Catholic Seamen^ Society of St. "Vincent de Paul, iinterested themselves on their behalf.

The increasing tendency to secularise the Sunday, and desecrate the sacredncss of Good Friday has been checked somewhat by at least two public bodies, as the following paragraphs from the ' Lytbelton Times ' show : Some time ago the Timaru Borough Council granted the use of its reserves as a practice ground to a football club on the condition that there should be no Sunday games. The club, however, ignored this restriction, and after a somewhat heated discussion on Monday evening the Council decided to inform tlfe club that if it continued playing on Sundays permission to use the reserve would be withdrawn. The absence of a manual fire engine from the Good Friday sports of the Christchurch Cycling Club caused the fire brigade event, which was on the programme, to fall through, it b/eing stated that the Christchurch Fire Board had refused to allow the club to use the engine that had been asked for. ,At last evening's meeting of the Board the chairman (Mr. J. D. Hall) said that the application had come before him personally that the Board should allow the use of its manual" engine and permit the permanent members of the staff to compete at Lancaster Park on G o od Friday, but he had not seen his way to grant it. He had recognised that the engine was the property of the pub|lic to a certain extent,, and somjebody was sure to -.complain, if the Boards staff anidi plant were in use on the occasion 1 , seeing Ithat there was such a difference of opinion as to sports on that day". It was a matter in which he did not like to take the responsibility, and he would like to have some expression of opinion from members. _ The Board decided to approve of the chairman's action.