MARIST MISSION.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 248, 19 October 1928, Page 11

MARIST MISSION.

SERVICE AT ST. BENEDICT'S.

A:' A fortnight of special religious services font; the Catholics, of St. Benedict's parishwas'inaugurated on Sunday last. Large congregations have responded to the appeal of the Marist missionaries to make im devotions, '''an echo of the Credo ,of the Congress." ''Man's responsibility to his Maker*' was the subject of the Opening sermon. In the course of his remarks, Father McGrath dwelt on the evidences of God in the material-universe. « The works — and man, mightiest among them—he said, required a worker, the forethought shown in all creation necessitated a fore-thinker. The Maker and Monarch of the universe,, governing everything according to the nature given it, had bestowed on man & special nature. Not as other beings was he blindly to pursue ft:destiny.. With the special gift of reason he was capable of receiving an "address from, the Throne," and God had addressed Himself to man by revelation. -By conforming his free will to a God-given law, man was to fulfil his destiny as % subject of the King of Kings. The Creator, to ensure allegiance, ruled by invitation and ultimatum. Everlasting life and everlasting loss were the Divine sanctions. "Remember thy Creator, before the dust return to its earth and the spirit to God, who gave it; fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is all man," was the message of the mission. Now was the acceptable time to attend to that one thing necessary.

The succeeding sermons, preached byFathers Spillane and Joyce, dealt cogehtiy with the seriousness of life's responsibility, in view of the uncertainty of the time of each one's return to dust, which meant the soul's inevitable return to God at the bar of His justice.