CATHOLIC TRIBUTE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20101, 7 May 1935, Page 5

CATHOLIC TRIBUTE

SPECIAL MASS CELEBRATED A large congregation assembled at the Church of the Sacred Heart yesterday morning when a special Mass was celebrated by the Rev. Father F. Bartley, S.M., M.A., to mark the King’s jubilee. A special sermon was preached by Father Bartley, who took his text from Ecclesiastes X, 17: “Blessed is the land, whose King is noble, and whose princes eat in due season, for refreshment and not for riotiousness.” Father Bartley said: We are met today before the altar of God to thank Him for the manifold blessings lavished on our land and on all the farflung peoples of the British Commonwealth of nations during the reign of their Gracious Majesties, King George V. and Queen Mary—for courage that met the perils safely past, or to meet those still to corr.e— for years of peace. We owe, under God, much to the personal influence of them, to whom today we pledge unfaltering allegiance. There are some people whose favourite pastime is the baiting of Catholics, as Catholics, for alleged disloyalty to the Crown. From the Catholic Lord Howard, who led the English fleet against the Armada to the humblest Catholic of the rank and file in the mud of Flanders the story of our loyalty is one of the sublimest epics in British history. His holiness Pius XI. now gloriously reigning, told a recent pilgrim that his Majesty once told him that he had no subjects more loyal than those who also served the Holy Father. Nor is there any sign that this loyalty is waning. These are two of the pledges that men of the Holy Name Society renew month by month: “I pledge my loyalty to the flag of my country and to the Godgiven principles of freedom justice and happiness for which we stand. I pledge my support to all lawful authority both civil and religious. “Nor let it be forgotten that this allegiance has been given despite much provocation. George V. is the first

King for 150 years who has not stepped to his throne over a specific contemptuous abjuration of two of our most cherished beliefs. His illustrious father showed his extreme distaste for them by a hurried mumbling and we know and gratefully acknowledge that our present relief comes in great measure from the personal influence of our present King and his father. “It is not only to the Crown that we pay homage to-day. we give testimony to the love and admiration we have for the personal gifts of our liege Lord and Lady. Those gifts have shed lustre on the name and house of Windsor. Their family life has been a beacon of family virtue and happitness to every home, high or lowly, throughout the Empire. Our King has ever sought to serve, counsel and lead, rather than to rule. In the stern ordeal of the Great War he set a magnificient example of courage, confidence, self-sacrifice, and efficiency. His life has ever been a pattern of Christian principle, if his throne has ennobled him, he has also enobled his throne. Such things as these have endeared him and his consort to the hearts of his people. His throne has stood in an era of tottering dynasties and amid the plaudits of this glad day of jubilee, let our Catholic voice be heard. “The King shall rejoice in God; all they shall be praised that swear by him.” At the conclusion of the Mass, special prayers of thanksgiving and for the British Commonwealth of Nations were offered by the Rev. Father M. A. Murphy, S.M.