DIOCESE OF AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 33, 14 August 1902, Page 6

DIOCESE OF AUCKLAND.

(From^our own correspondent.)

August 8.

It is with regret I have to announce that Mr John O'Reilly, brother of the Right Rev. Mgr. O'Reilly, is dangerously ill with typhoid in the local hospital. His Lordship the Bishop delivered a panegyric at St. Patrick's last Sunday evening on his illustrious predecessor, the late Archbishop of Caahel.

At the Thames last Sunday evening the Right Rev. Mgr. O'Reilly alluded to the death of Dr. Croke in most feeling terms, and eulogised his work as a prelate and a sterling patriot. Active preparations are going oa for the forthcoming bazaar in the Cathedral parish, and some really fine artistic work will be shown.

The Cemetery Board has let a contract for the removal of the gorse which has accumulated in the Symond street cemetery. With the advent of spring the Board contemplates carrying out several improvements.

His Lordship the Bishop and Rev. Father Corcoran visited the French warship Zelee the other day and were oourteously welcomed by the captain and officers. The crew lined up and saluted as the Bishop stepped on the deck. The captain afterwards visited the Bishop at the Palace, Ponsonby. The annual social organised by the ladies of St. Patrick's parish inlaid of the presbytery debt oame off in the Hibernian Hall last Tuesday evening, and was a decided success. The hall was prettily decorated, and the committee worked with a will and made their guests thoroughly welcome. The tables were nicely laid out and loaded with good things. Quite a large number of spectators were seated on the stage. Rev. Father Patterson, Adm., and Rev. Father Buckley were present.

The Rev. Father Gillan preaohed last Sunday evening at St. Benedict's on the various ceremonies observed in the coronation of Kingß. Placing as most probable the rite found still in the Roman Pontifical as the foundation of all Christian ' hallowings,' he stated that since the Coronation of the Emperor Justin by the Pope at Rome in 525, the sanction of religion became an essential element in the recognition of a sovereign by Christian people. The oldest English form of the Coronation service dated from the Pontifical of Egbert, Archbishop of York, A.D. 737, although it was certain the Celtic nations ' hallowed ' their Kings some 200 years before that date. Egbert's rite received embellishment and considerable amplifications as time went on, and the fourteenth century service books represented to us the highest form of Coronation ceremonial. The lecturer drew a picture of the various ceremonies there pre■cribed, and showed how many of them are retained to the present The anthema sung in the present Anglican service, he said, had been chanted for centuries in the old language. Thechange of religion in the sixteenth century brought necessarily some modifications and omissions, but the mediaeval form was followed in the Coronation of the Stuart Kings. The Coronation order, arranged by Dr. Compton for William and Mary, in which the novelty of handing a Bi*>le to the monarch was introduced, had been followed in all subsequent crownings. With the great preparations for the crowning of our present King some few weeks ago, and with the advanced appreciation of ritual by persons holding high positions, it was not improbable that the ceremony of crowning King Edward VII. would have been unequalled in splendor tince pre-Reformation days, but now, most likely, owing to the regrettable illness of the King, much may have to be omitted. Yet with all the curtailment the ceremony will be one of great natioual interest, and has a special significance for a Catholic, who, although regretting those far-off days when an English sovereign, in union with St. Peter's See, nceivtd from a Catholic Prelate that efficacious anointing and that salutary blessing which, the speaker said, the Catholic Church had alone the power to bestow, would not be behindhand in acclaiming, as of old, • May the King live for ever. Amen. Amen.' Or, as we cay to day, 'God save the King ; God save the King,'