THE VIRGIN MARY AND ENGLAND

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 111, 12 May 1902, Page 2

THE VIRGIN MARY AND ENGLAND

The month of May is specially dedicated throughout the Catholic Church to the Virgin Mary, and last evening at St. Patrick's Cathedral the Key. Father Benedict, 0.P., dealt with the devotion of the old English Church. He stated that in A.D. 607 St. Augustine built a church at Ely to the"Ever Virgin Mary." A.D. 619 St. Lawrence, Archbishop of Canterbury, btult a church to the "Holy Mother of God" in St. Peter's Monastery. The Venerable Bede relates how St. Cedd, Bishop of London, was buried in the Monastery of Lestringham, dedicated to the "Blessed Virgin." The Order of the Garter was instituted A.D. 1350 by Edward 111. ■in of the "Blessed Virgin." Henry VI. founded Eton College, and dedicated it the "Name of Blessed Mary." In London in 1500 there were churches of the Assumption, Salutation, Our Lady of Bethlehem. Our Lady of Grace, and in the suburbs, now part of London, Mary on the Hill, Mary Woolchurch, Mary of the Bowe, Mary Overies. In London eighteen churches were dedicated to Our Lady, besides chapels, shrines in most of the 144 churches then existing in London. The rev. preacher said he was much struck by an incident which occurred recently in this city, when, under the foundation stone of St. Matthew's new church were placed a beam of Canterbury Cathedral, fixed in the year 1184, a piece of stone from St. Andrew's Monastery, Holy Island, Lindisfarne. Tf these relics have a significaney it is to claim continuity and identity of the present Church of England in New Zealand and the ancient pre-Reforma-tion Church of our Mother Country and the Catholic Church, established at Canterbury by St. Augustine, sent from Rome by Pope Gregory the Great. A romantic idea enough, but without any foundation in fact. There are "sermons in stones" and in beams of wood, no doubt, and if these mute creatures had been able to add their words .to the many speeches delivered on the occasion of the laying of one foundation stone by the Freemasons, of what purposes to be a Christian Church, the daughter of the great Canterbury Cathedral, they would have startled the vast assembly, and given matter for serious thought and humiliating reflections. That "piece of stone" would have told them of the saintly Cuthbert and his monks, who built the church and monastery on the rugged island of Lindisfarne, of their loyalty to the chair of Peter, of their faith and practices. received from Rome, of the Holy Mass, and would remind them how the new religion, as by law established, drove the monks away, robbed, plundered, and destroyed the monastery of. Lindisfarne, and left it the desolate ruin it is to-day. Strange continuity indeed. If that piece of a beam from Canterbury Cathedral could have spoken it would have told them of the martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury, and would tell them of Arundel's proclaiming of England's fealty to the works of God. and, in fact, "her dowry." It would have told them of Henry 11. in obediVnce to the Pope's mandate, Adrian TV., kneeling at the tomb of the martyred St. Thomas, scourged in penance for his share in the crime. If these relics could have spoken they would have said to the ministers and Masons present, what is the meaning of this gathering? Who are you? In this new church are you rrnvidins' a sanctuary, a chapel to the Holy Mother of God, whom, as Englishmen, you are bound to'hold in special honour if you are true to the traditions of your Fatherland,1 or will you treat her as your Protestant forefathers h<ive done with contempt, denying her dignity vnd her just claim upon your veneration and love. How shall I know you as the lineal descendants of the Church of Canterbury? The old religion ever called her "Blessed," fulfilled her •own prophetic words, "Behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed." The new religion contained one mark of the old Church in the possession of its churches and revenues.