IN CONGRESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 145, 21 June 1926, Page 10

IN CONGRESS.

EUCHARIST CELEBRATION.

SERVICES IN AUCKLAND.

In accordance with the expressed wish of Pope Pius XL, the Roman Catholics of Auckland celebrated yesterday the commencement of the twenty-eighth. International Eucharistic Congress at present being held in Chicago. Similar services were held all the world over. Large numbers of people received Holy Communion at the masses in all the city churches, and thereby joined in the supreme act of worship with the Roman' Catholics in the world and in the mil- i lion communions which Cardinal Munde- j lein promised would signalise the commencement of the congTess in Chicago. Last evening St. Patrick's Cathedral' ■sras packed 'when the occasional sermon was preached by ihe Rev. Dr. Buxton, who spoke on '"The Eucharist and the Christian Family." The subject was selected by the Pope for discussion and exposition during the present Eucharis- j tic Congress. "At this very moment the j midnight bells of Chicago are ushering in the greatest gathering of Christian peoples the world has .ever, witnessed," said Dr. Buxton. The congregations i were gathered together in distant New! Zealand to join their prayers with those people gathered in the American city for whom meetings had been arranged in" the tongues of Bohemia, Belgium, Holland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland,. Slovenia, Spain and Mexico, as well as in the English, and for the Catholics of the Oriental Rite, the Chaldean Rite and the Syrian Rite, all in union with Rome. These diverse peoples were united in their love and, veneration for Christ present in the Eucharist. The family "was the basic j unit of the nation and if family love "Was i kept pure and uneorrupted, so too,! would be the countries which they united to iorm. Those who had the welfare of humanity at heart were everywhere de~. ploring the materialism that was eating like a cancer into the . heart of the

human race. Religion must be first and foremost or else there wa; no order, no fidelity, no dignity, no success. It was religion alone that lifted the eyes of • the fathers and mothers to Heaven. It J taught them that the only true educa-: * tion they could give their children was j to educate them for eternity. The j focus of the Roman Catholic religion | , was the presence of Jesus Christ in the. i Eucharist. The offering of Christ in the ■ Mass was the highest expression of | religious worship. The Roman Catholics' fidelity to the Mass meant fidelity to ' God. The truly Roman Catholic family centred its devotion to God round the sacrifice of the altar. Concluding, the preacher expressed the hope that the congress would rivet the attention on the necessity for sanctifying every Christian home, and thereby overcoming the evils that to-day were threatening to undermine the founda- • tione of society at large. j