Invercargill's Great Achievement

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 10, 18 March 1925, Page 13

Invercargill's Great Achievement

OPENING OF BROTHERS' RESIDENCE

THE FINE NEW SCHOOLS

Invercargill has made great strides during the past two years in the advancement of the cause of Catholic education. Two years ago the little girls' school, the old Marist school and the residence in Clyde Street were in a somewhat dilapidated condition and had long since served their period of usefulness. The growth of the town demanded larger and more up-to-date buildings, and steps were immediately taken. To-day .we have three wants of the parish in this direction satisfied for years to come. r On Sunday afternoon, the Bth inst., the Brothers' residence was officially opened and blessed by his Lordship Dr. Whyte, Bishop of Dunedin. There was a large attendance of the laity. Associated with and assisting the Bishop were the Very Rev. Dean Burke, Rev. Fathers Lynch (Wreys Bush), Hunt (Winton), and Martin (Invercargill). The building is a handsome two-storey brick building, consisting of ten rooms very suitably furnished and artistically constructed by Mr. Myles Turnbull, of Invercargill, and is to be occupied by the Marist Brothers, who conduct the boys' school recently opened in Elles Road. After reading the Liturgy prescribed for the blessing of houses, his Lordship went through the several rooms and blessed them according to the Ritual of the Church. The choir, under the leadership of Mr. Searle, rendering several Psalms very devotionally. THE BISHOP'S ADDRESS. As a proof of the pleasure it gives me to take part in to-day's function, I will hand over to your funds my cheque for twenty pounds. In view of the inclement weather which you had ample reason to expect .today, the Dean asked me not to speak at great length, "Money speaks," however, according to a popular saying, and so my contribution to your collection will lengthen out and fill in the few remarks I intend to make. Once more I congratulate the Dean and his assistants and yourselves on the striking progress denoted by your new buildings. With great courage you have faced a huge debt in the interests of Catholic Education. The four new buildings that now adorn this progressive city entitle you to the praise of your non-Catholic fellow-citizens. Every pretty building is a boon to a town, and should give ! pleasure to every inhabitant. School buildings should afford a special pleasure, as they make for the higher and more useful education of future citizens. But Catholics have stronger reasons than other citizens for rejoicing in up-to-date schools, for not only do they set off the city and raise the standard of education, but in them their children are trained to be good citizens of this world and, more than that, are taught to find the way to heaven. You show your sincerity in the cause of religious education by undertaking to pay for school buildings erected within

the past two years at a cost of about £25,000.

We can well call the monastery a schoolbuilding as it is intended for the teachers, the Marist Brothers. For a considerable time you have wished to house them comfortably and judging by both the exterior and the interior of the house, I think you have succeeded admirably. You say and you feel —we all say and —that nothing is too good for our religious teachers. The least we can do for them is to give them a suitable home where they can rest and study and pray in accordance with the requirements of their vocation. The Church has blessings for all manner of thingseven such a recent invention as the seismograph. The blessing for a new house —a very ancient blessingreads as follows:

We humbly pray Thee, God the Father Almighty, for this house, and for those who dwell in it, and for the things that are therein, that Thou wouldst vouchsafe to bless and hallow it, and fill it with all good things: grant them, 0 Lord, the abundance of the dew of heaven, and food of the fatness of the earth, and let their desires and their prayers find fulfilment in Thy mercy. When we enter this house graciously vouchsafe to bless and hallow it, as Thou didst vouchsafe to bless the house of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: let Thy angels of light dwell within its walls, and guard it and those that dwell therein. Through Christ our Lord.

That is the blessing we have just now invoked upon the monastery; that is the prayer for the spiritual and temporal welfare of the Brothers who will live here and in that prayer we all cordially and gladly join.

Catholic readers of the dailies of New Zealand must have rocked with laughter when they read a few weeks ago about the Pope's projected tour of the world. We learn from the cables much,- too much, about murders and divorce scandals. So, we felt quite pleased to see the cable sender in the humorous vein. If the Pope did come now to Invercargill, he would have beautiful buildings to see, and the dome of the basilica would give him the impression of being at home.

"All roads lead to Rome," and especially this year, the Holy Year. Throughout the whole world, pilgrimages to Rome have just been organised. Several national pilgrimages have already arrived there. Our Australasian pilgrimage will leave next month for Rome and afterwards Lourdes and Ireland.

Rome is the centre of Christendom Rome stands for civilisation and culture and the love of God; Rome is the deadly enemy of unbelief and vice; her warning voice rings out in no uncertain way when dangerous theories are issued in the name of science. The Holy Father is the preacher of peace and charity amongst the nations, sends food to hungry peoples, even the people of Russia through the Government of ; that country is striving to make Russia a nation of atheists. Recently Pope • Pius ' severely., condemned

Communism while at the same time he prof claimed the rights of the workers. The En*r cyclical of Pope Leo XIII on the Condition %w of the Working Classes is one of the most ,p striking economic documents of modern times. The Pope insists upon the sanctity of family life and raises his voice against birth control and divorce and other evils that destroy the sanctity of the Christian family , and thereby lower the moral standard | throughout the countries of the world. Pome stands for all that is good.. The words of a

. great French preacher, Pere Lacordaire, are worth quoting:—"o Rome. . . Seated amid the storms of Europe, I saw no anxiety on thy brow, and no distrust of thyself; thy glance, turned to the four quarters of the world, followed with sublime discernment the development of human affairs in their connection with those that are divine; whilst ■the tempest that left thee calm, gave thee, in the eyes of thy child, less accustomed to the ' variation of ages, a something which rendered his admiration full of compassion. .0 Rome! God knows I did not mistake thee - because I found no kings prostrate at thy .gates. I kissed thy dust with joy and un;utterable reverence, for thou didst appear to 'rWie what thou truly art, the benefactress of >yhe human race during past ages, its hope -for the future, the only great thing still left in Europe, the captive of the universal jeal- -. ousy, the Queen of the world. A suppliant pilgrim, I brought back from thee, not gold, or 'perfumes: or precious stones, but something rarer and more unknown, the treasure ; J of Truth." ■'-: : ;

The impression made upon that great French orator a hundred years ago has been made upon numbers of others who, on ; visiting the Eternal City, fell under the benign spell of the successor of St. Peter. Our pilgrims will have the glorious opportunity of visiting Lourdes also, that sacred spot at which take place miraculous cures — cures of body and cures ", of sold, that holy shrine where the sick of soul and sick of body are restored to health. The miraculous nature of the bodily cures that take place

at Lourdes is beyond all doubt. • The pilgrims are to be envied who will have the rare privilege of visiting that spot where Our Blessed Lady revealed herself to the peasant girl whose beatification is shortly to be pronounced. . \ In regard to Ireland, we hear a great deal about her and against her. We answer in the words of a well-known poem — We've heard her faults a hundred times, The new ones and the old, In songs and sermons, rants and rhymes Enlarged some fifty-fold. But take them —the great and small And this we've got to say, Here's dear old Ireland, good, old Ireland, Ireland, boys, Hurrah. I shall read to you ~what a .Sydney priest just returned from Ireland says about the country: ■ ■ < .*- k ; ~,',,. "You would have to travel Ireland from south- to north, and east to west, to realise

the faith of the Irish people, their loyalty to the Church, the priests, and the Hierarchy," he said. "It was astounding to me, after 20 years, that a country that has been defamed by propaganda work was not only as good as it was 20 or 40 years ago, but better, as far as I know, than ever it was before. The faith and fervor of the people are stronger and purer than ever. This is not only my impression, but that of all the parish priests I met, who told me that never at any time in her history were Ireland's people

better, and their guarantees were in the frequentation of the Sacraments, the daily and wekly • Communions. Above all, the priests spoke of the young men. To read the papers you would think they were doing nothing else but shooting people down. But they are only mad on one thingand that is religion, and if that be madness, I wish we had more of it." Again I congratulate you, my dear Dean, and you, the parishioners of Invercargill, on the latest addition to your group of beautiful buildings. I pray that God will bless this house and the good Brothers who will live in it and will teach your boys how to become good Christian men, exemplary citizens and pious, devoted Catholics. _"■■■■■ I have now much pleasure in handing over my cheque. It will go to paying for the furnishing of the house or for the improvement of the grounds. By an act of striking generosity which you will never forget, Dean Burke has paid the entire expense of erecting this beautiful monastery. „«..,.„.,„,.J„ w ,..„,, .„,.,.J \

DEAN BURKE REPLIES. Very Rev. Dean Burke, in a characteristically humorous speech, said that as the

people had listened to him for 25 years they knew very well all he had to say. And it was this, that centuries ago in the Golden

Age of Ireland, monasteries such as the" one they saw before them were erected in large numbers in Ireland, especially in the west for the Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans, and ether illustrious Orders of the Church, and he was proud to say they had been erected by men whose tribal name was the same as his own. These tribal men were wise men and rogues, and so when they

thought of penance it took the form of raising monastic edifices, and so he felt the -best way he could emulate his tribal ancestors was to do penance likewise.

The Dean stated that for a long time he felt the laity were inexperienced in the work of building, but now he realised they were more and more mastering the intricacies of finance and, he could see the light at the

other end of his tunnel of difficulties. . i .. The generous support of his people had spurred dim on, and he hoped his spurt would in turn e reciprocated by the people. He wished

specially to thank the secretary (Mr. Loughv nan) and Mr. O'Beirne, for much assistance, *\ and as his committee did not wish him to j refer to them other than "in glob he '\ thanked them sincerely and congratulated them on their magnificent successful efforts. OTHER SPEAKERS. Rev. Brother Herbert (Superior of the Monastery) briefly expressed the appreciation of the Brothers to the Bishop, the Dean, and ■ to the committees of ladies and gentlemen who did so much in making their new home so tastefully comfortable. He stated that the Marist Brothers were founded a century ago by a priest— Ohampagnat—to provide a religious and secular training for youths in poor and scattered districts, but modern needs made rapid demands, and his little nursery soon spread into a world-wide organisation for the propagation of a sound Christian education, "and to-day we here in Invercargill boast fraternal relationships and obey the same rules as the Brothers in 406 monasteries all the world over, and distributed thus: British Isles 28, Italy 6, Canada 26, United States 12, Germany 22, Belgium 39, Spain 83, Palestine 10-, China 17, Arabia 1, Ceylon 1, Denmark 2, South Africa 7, Congo 1, Mexico 10, Argentine 13, Brazil 43, Chili 6, Colombia 21, New Caledonia 5, Fiji and Samoa 3, Australia 23, and New Zealand 12. And Invercargill itself has sent its quota of youths to train for the life of the Brotherhood, and it may be that the surrounding towns of Southland may in words of Dean Burke be furnished educationally with these very recruits." 4 Mr. Davies, on behalf of the Marist Old Boys, who undertook to find the furniture for the home of their old teachers, thanked the people for their generous response. Mr. Loughnan gave a very eulogistic speech in congratulating the Very Rev. Dean on his great enterprise in pushing on the works of the parish. He said it was phenomenal, the undertakings of the last few years, during which schools to the value of £II,OOO and a monastery at £2OOO, and a portion of a magnificent convent costing £13,000 had been completed, making a total of £25,000, and to-day the parish debt was down to about £4OOO. This was a tribute to the Dean, whom they all knew to be a •v man of great learning and piety, and he could say they could not fathom his generosity. He believed the Dean was about to take a well-earned holiday, and he put it to the people to show their generosity by making big efforts to relieve him of the worry of the remaining debts. Mr. Loughnan paid a tribute to the untiring zeal of the collectors, who never let up in their work for the progress of the parish. The people inspected the new monastery, and all were unanimous that the designer, p.:' | furnishers, ladies and gentlemen, left no- ; ) thing undone. . M In connection with the works of the BrollOf thers' School and equipment of the Bouse H -- j special praise ts due to the parish collectors, ,~ ably led by Messrs. Grace,Murfitt, and 'Mar-' ;.y j tin, likewise to the following ladies who made the gift evening a success and attended to i: ;' the domestic side of affairs—dispensing af- ; ternoon tea to the clergy in attendance, . -Mesdames Murfitt, Mahony, Shehan, Pas- -.'..|'--. coe, Ferry (2), Fraser, and Miss M. Henley.

Amongst the priests who have been given to the Church by the parish of Hawera are Father McLoughlin, of the Mosgiel Seminary; Father McHardy, of St. Patrick's College, Wellington; Father O'Donnell, of St. Joseph's Church, Wellington; but the first fruits were the late Father Dan Malone, and his Grace Arphbishop O'Shea who holds the succession to the headship of the Church in New Zealand. This is not a bad record for a small parish; and it shows that we owe a lot to the good Irish mothers, who, by keeping their homes sweet and fragrant with piety, led their children to the higher life. Archbishop O'Shea, of whom the parish is so proud, is a man of deep learning, of matured wisdom, of skilful leadership, of large,-:

unselfish heart. His merit and his proverbial kindness have won for him a large place in the hearts of the people and priests of the archdiocese. The late Father Dan Maione would have been a man of mark had he lived, but ho died at Hokitika on the 3rd of December, 1903, having thus completed to the very day a novena of years in the priesthood. What a charming man he was! always preserving the heart of a big boy. It was a rare delight to have him in the presbytery on the occasions of his frequent visits to his mother! Each of us was the proud possessor of a, costly • "wry-necked flute" which he played very well, and myself only, or hardly, passably. „ We, knew all the Irish melodies, and, though., priests are for-