TORCH OF FAITH.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 81, 4 March 1938, Page 8

TORCH OF FAITH.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. LESSONS FOR THE YOUNG. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, March 4. The staff and students of St. Patrick’s College participated this morning in solemn High Mass, sung in thanksgiving for the blessing of the first century of Catholic life in the Dominion, in which the college lias played an important part. The celebrant was Rev, T. Cleary, 8 .M.; deacon and subdcacon, Rev. M. Bourke, S.M., and Rev. C. Knight, S.M., and Rev. T. Bergin, S.M., was master of ceremonies. The music was supplied by the college choir. The sermon was preached by Father Cleary, vice-rector, in the absence of the rector, who is representing the college at- the centenary celebrations at Auckland. Father Cleary mentioned that during the college’s short history no fewer than 125 former pupils had gone out as Marist priests to assist in building Catholicity in this country, with the Metropolitan of New Zealand (Archbishop O’Shea) at their head. In addition, many of the diocesan clergy, members of the Franciscan Order, the Society of Jesus, tlie lledemptorist Order, the Society of Mary and missionaries of the Sacred Heart could be numbered. This was one of the college’s proudest traditions that it carried on the task of the pioneer missionaries in the work of the Church in its sacred ministry. It was for the present boys, to carry on the torch of fatli handed down by the teachers of the Society of Mary over the past hundred years. The future of tlie Church in New Zeaand was largely in the hands of those still at school.