A Pen Picture.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 2, 9 January 1902, Page 1

A Pen Picture.

That luminous pressman who once described a Catholic prelate as entering the sanctuary with a thurifer on his head and a tonsure on his sleeve, might well shake hands with the author of the following pen portrait ot Cardinal Parocchi, which has found its way into a Christchurch daily : ' During the performance of church ceremonies he sits beneath the baldachin stiff and motionless as a "dies irae," his feelings tightly held in by his firm and obstinate lips.' The ' Dies Irae 'is the title of the long and beautiful Catholic liturgical sequence which is sung (in Latin) at solemn Masses for the dead, The day of wrath, that dreadful day, Shall the whole world in ashes lay, • As David and the Sybils say. A man who could look like a ' dies irae ' should inspire respect, anyhow. One cannot help thinking he would prove as great a curiosity as the cable-demon who could write with some degree of accuracy or intelligence about matters Catholic.