DIOCESE OF CHRISTCHURCH

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10, 9 March 1905, Page 5

DIOCESE OF CHRISTCHURCH

(From our own correspondent.) s March G. His Lords.hi.p the Bishop is at Hawarden, ana visiting North Canterbury. Ttho Very Rev. Dean Bin*,ield, S.M., of Napier, is a guest at ttlie episcopal residence, and celebrated Mass at Sumner on Sunday. On each Wednesday evening during Lent a practical instruction will be given before Benediction in the Cathedral./ Three Redemptorist Fathers, who have for some months beefn engaged conducting missions in the diocese, left on Friday by the ' Moeraki ' on their return to Australia. These were the Rev. Fathers Stack, O'Brien, and Shearman. The Rev. Fathers Pidgeon and O'Donnell closed the fortnight's mission at St. Mary's, Manchester street, on Sunday.

The Cathedral Conference of the Society of St. Vincent de Paiul are now established in their new rooms in one of the towers of the Cathedral. The ladies associated with the Society are also allotted a separate apartment in the same tower, which all find most con\enient. There was Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in. the Cathedral on Sunday. The Rev. Father Mahony preached at Vespers, after which there was the first procession of the Blessed Sacrament in the Cathedral in which, besides Uic \arious confraternities, a large number of members of the Hibernian Society took pat t. Speaking at the two early Masses in the Cathedral on Sunday, the Rev. Father Kimbell said that the young men and women heie, as elsewhere, appeared to regard thomsehies as exempt from paying for a sitting and all other incidental expenses for church and school maintenance until they were miarricd and settled down. In flattering themselves thus aaid resting content, they were inflicting a rank injustice and enjoying the privi. leges of many less fortunate than themselves in this world's goods, who, with a keen and conscientious sense of duty, performed their part and more than should be expected of them. The Sunday school at W'oolston, established and maintained for some years by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, has leached s.uch a stage in its progress that it has been deemed expedient to ask for sorao teaching religious Sisters to take it over. The request of ll'ie Very Rev. Vicar-General lo the Sisters of the Mission was readily complied with, and on last Sunday afternoon the Rev. Mother St. Philomela (Mother Prioress) and two Sisters attended at the school, which was formally handed over to them by Mr. E. O'Connor (president). Although relinquishing the good work of teaching, the Cathedral Conference of the St. Vincent de Paul Society will continue the maintenance of tho school, including the incidental expenses of the Sisters. During last week Lady Plunkett and the Hon. Kathleen Plunket paid a visit to Mount Magdala. The distinguished visitors were received by the- Very Rev. Dean Gin'aty and the Rev. Mother Superior and were shown o\er the great institution. The visitors were deeply interested in the work done by the inmates. The Industrial School and Orphanage of the Sacred Heart impressed tjicm >also very mjuch, and Lady Plunket expressed herself delighted with all they had seen.