DIOCESE OF CHIRSTCHURCH

New Zealand Tablet, 15 May 1913, Page 31

DIOCESE OF CHIRSTCHURCH

(From an occasional correspondent.)

The festival of Pentecost was kept with fitting solemnity at the Cathedral on Sunday last, when High . Mass was sung at' 11 o’clock by Very Rev. Father Price, D.C., Adm.,. assisted by the " Rev. Father Murphy, 8.A., as deacon, and the Rev. Father Long as subdeacon. The sermon was preached' by Very Rev. Father Price,' who took for his subject the ‘ Inspiration of the Church.’; In announcing the annual collection for the Seminary Fund, the Very Rev. Administrator said;—To have continually to replenish the ranks of his clergy and to keep up an adequate -supply in every emergency, is one of a Bishop’s greatest anxieties and responsibilities. A steady supply of young priests is needed year by year to . fill up the gaps ..created by death, or age, or the extension of parochial 'needs. There are many worthy young men, willing and eager to become priests and consecrate their - lives- to the sanctification of others but . whose, parents cannot afford to educate them. It is to assist such deserving youths that this collection for ecclesiastical education is made., I would, therefore, exhort and entreat you to contribute with all possible generosity, in view both of‘ the singular importance of this charity to the best interests of religion, as well as of the urgency of our present and future needs. Although our annual supplies derived from our own students are at present by no means equal to our wants, we sincerely hope that with the funds you will place at our disposal, the supply of our clergy will before many years be equal to diocesan requirements. For the fulfilment of this condition, without which religion can make no reliable progress in the diocese, we must pray that God may inspire all those who, in their latter, days, would wish to do a .signal work of charity for their own salvation and for the benefit of the Church, to bequeath a legacy to ecclesiastical education or that parents would pray that their sons may be blessed with a vocation to the holy priesthood. There would then be, year by year, an ever-increasing* number of fathers and mothers in this diocese privileged to enjoy that greatest consolation that God sends to Catholic parents— namely, of seeing one or more of their own sons consecrated to the order of priesthood and standing at God’s altar, to offer the awful Sacrifice of Holy - Mass, ■ there to intercede for the father and mother to whom they owe life and so many temporal blessings, and later on, when they have been called to their reward, to continue, to offer prayer and sacrifice for the repose of their souls.