Oamaru

New Zealand Tablet, 11 February 1915, Page 23

Oamaru

(From our own correspondent.)

February 5.

As the result of the collection in this parish for the Belgian relief fund, Right Rev. Mgr. Mackay has been able to hand over to the fund, the substanaial sum of £SO 18s 3d.

Rev. Father Lynch left Oamaru on Tuesday to take up his duties on the professorial staff of Holy Cross College, Mosgiel. The Rev. Father will be much missed locally, being very popular in the parish, and most attentive to the sick. The Society of the Sacred Heart, of which sodality he was spiritual director, greatly regret the Rev. Father’s departure from Oamaru. Rev. Father O’Connell will, arrive in town to-day to take up Father Lynch’s duties.

Rev. Father O’Brien, from Australia, is expected to visit Oamaru shortly. Father O’Brien is a distinguished preacher, having studied with the Paulist Missioners at Washington, U.S.A. ?

St. Patrick’s night concert promises this year to eclipse all previous efforts. The entertainment will be held on March 16, and an unusually fine programme is being arranged, among the contributors being six artists of exceptional talent.

It is with great pleasure that I am able to announce that Mr. J. B. Reid, of Elderslie, has presented the Catholics of the district with sufficient land to build a church on a site between Elderslie and Windsor. The steadily increasing number of Catholics in this part of the district has made almost imperative the need for a permanent place of Divine worship, and now that, through the generosity of Mr. Reid, who is not a Catholic, the site is provided, the work of proceeding with the erection of the church will be pushed on with all haste. Mr. Reid, by his handsome gift, has earned the deep gratitude of the Catholics of the Elderslie and Windsor districts, and of the clergy and parishioners of Oamaru.