CALL TO PRAYER

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 138, 7 March 1942, Page 10

CALL TO PRAYER

Pastoral By Catholic Archbishop CHRIST’S EXAMPLE FOR TIME OF DANGER Archbishop O'Shea, Catholic Metropolitan of New Zealand, last night issued the following Pastoral letter to the clergy and laity of the archdiocese of Wellington. It will be read in all churches of the archdiocese on the first Sunday following its receipt. His Grace states in the Pastoral: — “Perhaps there lias never been another Lent in our lives, more than this one, when we feel nearer to the Christ of the Garden of Gethsemane. For the Christ of the Garden knew anxiety; His very life was in danger as never had it been before. It is even confessed to us in the Gospel, surely to our everlasting comfort, That in the presence of danger the Saviour of the world knew fear. "We- do well in these days of national emergency, when there is a menace over all our lives, to enter the Garden of Gethsemane in spirit and make our way to the Christ of the Agony. For, beholding Him, we shall know what we must do in the days that are now upon us. We must watch what He did in the presence of danger, and we must act as He gave us the example. “Ever had He been a man of prayer. There had come crises in His life before, and His preparation for them was always the same. It was the selfsame Christ who would remind us today that if we are to be worthy to be spared suffering, we must first be men and women of prayer. For what were the words of His last warning? ‘Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that are to come.’ “In our lives, in the life of this nation, have come days of crisis. That is why I say we shall survive them and win through to victory only if we tread in sacred footsteps, and imitate the Christ of the Garden of Gethsemane. What he did when anxiety and even fear pressed upon Him, that we must do. As a nation, we too must go upon our knees. Prayer for a Lepanto. “In these days, one’s mind reverts not only to the Figure in the Garden, but to that epic of faith in prayer to the Mother of God when Christendom besought her to stem the onrush of Islam. A Christian people went upon its knees when the menace was at its height, and the sword was hovering, and history bears witness to the victory of the battle of Lepanto, the miracle of Lepanto, when the Crescent was flung back and the Cross reigned supreme over Europe. "We have but two petitions. that a merciful God will spare our lives.’our homes, our country from an invader, but if it be His blessed Will and we be put to the supreme test, may He give us the strength, the fortitude to endure, to drink the chalice even to its dregs and having done so. gain what Christ gained on the. hill that was Calvary, a great and noble victory. Public Recitation of Rosary.

“It is with these thoughts in mind, that I have determined to consecrate in a special way Hie remainder of this Lenten season and make it a period of renewed and urgent prayer. In the order of the spirit, there is only one place today for us all, beloved people, and that is upon our knees with Christ in Gethsemane. IVe too shall enter the Garden and act as He did. We too shall imitate Christendom before Lepanto. The Rosary shall be our prayer. I therefore order that each day till the end of Lent this great prayer shall be publicly recited in every parish church. In this connexion I have arranged for this week now beginning that the time for the public recitation of the Rosary at St Mary of the Angels, Wellington, be 5.15 p.m. —a time that will afford an opportunity to the great majority of our city workers to go upon their knees and remember the power of prayer. It may well lie that other parishes, in the cities at least, will find it convenient to adopt a like procedure.

‘•After the great earthquake of 1855, my predecessor of holy memory. Bishop Viard, dedicated this city of Wellington to the Mother of God. In a spirit of fatherly cate over you. my ibeloved people, I now counsel you to rededicate your lives to her who for 33 years wired for the Son of God. Into her beloved bands do I commend you all.”