Hastings

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 8, 4 March 1925, Page 30

Hastings

(From our own Correspondent.) February 25. Since the loth inst. the Catholics of Hastings have had one great topic of interest — mission preached by the Marist Fathers. The crowded Communion rails and the numbers that are unable to find ordinary accommodation at the evening devotions tell of the response of a congregation who have always exhibited a virile Catholicity. The rural districts of Clive and Maraekakaho first heard the missioners. Dairy farming makes strenuous calls upon those who live by it. Yet the country congregation made a splendid response to the preachers' earnestness. Father Vincent, who conducted both of the above missions, has a wonderful gift of lucid doctrinal exposition, and won the hearts of all by his gentle earnestness. On the 22nd commenced the mission in the Sacred Heart Church, Hastings. The opening nights of the mission saw a crowded church. The attendance is so markedly on the. increase that one wonders where the augmenting congregation is going to be accommodated. Father McCarthy and Father Vincent jointly conduct this mission. Father thy, who, by the way, preached his first mission sermon in this church, shows the result of 16 years of missionary experience in powerful and moving discourses. This mission bids fair to eclipse all previous its splendid show of faith and its resultant conversions. A very touching feature of the mission was witnessed on Thursday evening when the solemnity of Our Lady was effectively carried out. Following an eloquent sermon on Our Blessed Mother came a most imposing procession. The blue and white robed Children of Mary carried a beautiful image of the Mother of God— the parish confraternities and the Hibernian Society (in full regalia) joined in the procession through the church. The function was concluded by a solemn consecration of the whole parish to the Blessed Virgin.