CATHOLIC MISSION

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 142, 20 May 1925, Page 6

CATHOLIC MISSION

. “OUR LADY’S NIGHT.” To the devotions last evening in St. Patrick’s Church was attached a special glamour. The splendour of Sunday’s ceremonies Was in part reproduced when all the children of the parish, with the members of the Sodality of the Children of Mary, took part in a most picturesque procession around the aisles of the church. The ludy altar was also a special feature, the status of the 'Blessed Virgin being sur ounded by hundreds of ■ candles and the choicest of blooms in lavish abundance.

Father McGrath’s sermon was intended to supply the raison d’etre of the demonstrative character of the devotions. lie began by declaring the difference of viewpoint with respect to the masl erpieces of art. The non-Catholic, viewing a glorious Madonna, admired it from tie artistic side; the Catholic instinctively turned to the subject. He contemplated iho picture, not its a picture, the work of a master artißt, but lie fegarded the person depicted, thii masterpiedp of God Quits naturally he turiled to prayer. The misuioner sympathised with the non-C'atholic s position. The English people were a law ' loving people. The Church of England by law established sounded the death knell of official Protestant devotion to lie Blessed Virgin. In the thirtv-nine articles it was defined .as “a fond thing vainly invented, grounded on no warranty of Sc-ipture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.” That was the law of the Reformation period. As Cardinal Newman hud said, the truth of Protestantism as the majority regarded it was its “establishment by law.” That law had vetoed the Cathol c devotion, which was not exotic but indrgenous to England.- All over England, in its placenames and its flora, the Blessed Virgin figured. As early as the eighth century an English king had endowed a “lady shrine.” The speaker said he approve! of the flagand, the sentiment, “Be British,” and urged a return to the early British view of God’s mother. ““Was there :io room in God’s own country for God’s owi mother?” he asked. The missioner define d the doctrine of St. Paul, “Honour to whom honour is due.” God bad honoired Mary, the had earned honour by her dignity and her virtue. Conceived immaculate, enriched by whttt an angel declared was the “fulness of grace,” and “blessjd among Women,” was it wrong for men to honour her ? She herself had declared : “All generations shall call me blessed.” In eloquent terms her blessedness was proclaimed by the speaker, and in peroration, in part vigorous and in part pleading, lie urged devotion 1 o tier. From her position as the mother of the world’s Redeemei, she was, he said, in’a position of influence in securing. grace which was always of God’s direct giving through Christ’s redeeming blood. Explaining .the procession in which an image of the Blessed Virgin was carried, Father McGrath showed how statuory of the world's heroes and heroines were reared ftnd on occasions wreathed. It was not idolatory to erect and decorate a Nelson column or an Anzac cenotaph, r either was it idolatory to honour the image of God’s own heroes and heroines.- Adoration was never the object. To-night, Father McGrath is announced to deliver the most important sermon of all, for those who have deve oped the "Pin easy” attitude with regard to religion, and indeed a stimulating sermon for all.