The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1921. JUBILEE DAYS

New Zealand Tablet, 10 February 1921, Page 25

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1921. JUBILEE DAYS

V&SL *—— mWW ™ the old Scandinavian mythology we read nSmiJ P of a wonderful tree that, had its roots deep M J =s? down among the graves of- the dead and its topmost branches flowering in the heavens. \s§o( ■' Somehow that thought came back to our mind when walking. on last Sunday in the PT§P long Procession winding from St. Joseph's &~s>- Cathedral, through Rattray Street; to the Priory gardens. The children in their white dresses, the boys, with their "colored, badges, the Hibernians with their green sashes, the, Children of Mary with their white veils and blue costumes—were all the flowers of the tree that was planted in Dunedin fifty years ago now. 1 Here they were to-day, gathered round the Blessed Sacrament as it''passed- in

honor through a Dunedin street', living flowers of which the roses strewn before the Monstrance were but symbols. And, down there, over the -calm back-water .of the Harbor, m that silent little God’s Acre in the heart of the city, lies the great heart of Patrick*Moran, ringed round in his. last resting place by the churches and institutions that have grown up in his cathedral city, as if, even in death, he were still the centre of them all. Close to his tomb, side by side with him there, awaiting the Resurrection, are the mortal remains of the Dominican Sisters who came to New Zealand with him fifty years ago. Ah, yes ! The flowers, the living flowers, that we' saw on the hill on Sunday afternoon are waving on the branches of that tree which has its roots among the sacred graves of Bishop and nuns in the Southern 'Cemetery. It was the greatness, the courage, the Faith, of those blessed dead that made this procession possible. Well, indeed, might we say to the Catholic men and women, boys and girls, who made such a glorious profession of Faith on Sunday Salvete, fiores martyrum\ *

A day long ago on-which we walked up the Esquilme amid kneeling crowds, another day when we were with. Cardinal Logue as he bore the Monstrance round the Campo Santo of San Lorenzo, another day when we were one of the thousands walking with Christ on the blessed soil of Vinegar Hill—days such as these came in memory on Sunday afternoon. One felt that this was the most profoundly Catholic day that Dunedin ever saw. The ceremonies of the morning, the impressive open-air function of the afternoon, the sermon by the white-robed Dominican Father, the Benediction over the kneeling crowd, and the Te Deum surging in its grandeur through the Gothic Cathedral, like a great wave of. the sea swelling and rushing through a dim cave: it was all drenched with Catholic beauty and feeling. It was, to us, like turning over the pages of an old illuminated manuscript in an old library; it was a pageant of Faith like a dream-day out of the Middle Ages. Those who were there will never get it. It will remain as a beacon moment in the future of the Church in New Zealand. And, now that the day has come and gone, let us see what thoughts of it we are to gather up and carry with us as its souvenirs, as flowers that we may place among - the pages of memory for future inspiration and remembrance. First, let us ponder on a word of Dr. Liston’s. The five decades of years that the Dominicans have been in New Zealand are like a great Rosary: every year, and every day of every year, a perfect prayer of adoration, of impetration, of thanksgivingsprayers laden with blessings for those who prayed and for us for whom they prayed. Let us remember, too, his Lordship’s reminder of the holiness and the happiness of vocations to a life in the shelter of the cloister, and let us pray that St. Dominic’s may always find in the years to come numbers of young postulants who will be worthy of those who have gone before them. Prior o’Kelly’s eloquent panegyric brought home to the minds of Dunedin - Catholics in a vivid manner the great St. Dominic whose spirit lives after all those centuries in the hearts of his daughters in New Zealand to-day. He impressed on us that the love of Truth is the particular characteristic of the ancient and holy Order which has its branches among us here. And when we consider the fame of the Order all over Europe, the glories of its schools, the triumphs of its teachers, the apostolic successes of - its preachers, we are looking down a long avenue into the past and we are conscious that the radiance of Truth shines over it all, from Dominic himself, down to his schools on the hill over Dunedin Harbor. Truth, Truth for which brave men and women , gladly die, Truth that begets hatred in the wicked, Truth that means freedom , and victory in the end, what nobler motto for a teaching Order than that! And, so, here is a thought to remember: St. Dominic s schools ' are the schools in which Truth is taught in an age of lies and errors; One more thought:, i Prior O’Kelly dwelt on the connection of the nuns with Ireland. In the days *of persecutiijnr: they'"suffered -

there, and they came through tribulation' like gold tried by fire. So they bring us not only Dominic’s spirit but also the spirit of Ireland’s Saints and Scholars, and—forget it notthe spirit of the grand Christian Irish homes in which the pioneer nuns learned the secret - , of holiness from 0 that best' of teachers, an Irish ■ mother. And let us Vend this paragraph on this important , note: in an age / when the ; ,trouble and the sorrow of the world have their roots in the destruction of the home, in a time when every•= effort of Satan and his agents on earth is directed towards destroying the sanctity of marriage, a girl can learn no ' lesson of such eternal value as the lesson , that will teach her what a Christian home ought to be and what a Christian wife and mother ought to be. , /// /' . . -V; *

On Tuesday morning a large congregation saw another magnificent ceremony in St. Joseph’s when the Bishop pontificated in commemoration and thanksgiving for the Jubilee of the diocese. . The venerable Archbishop of Wellington, who had knelt by Dr. Moran’s death-bed, was kneeling in the sanctuary, praying for his old friend and honoring his dear memory. The Bishop of Christchurch, the CoadjutorBishop of Auckland, priests from other dioceses, and almost all the Dunedin clergy were gathered round the altar, mindful of him who was at rest in the cemetery half-a-mile away, and whose memory is for, ever enshrined in faithful hearts of priests and people. That glorious Catholic function, with its color, its beauty, its solemnity those devoted bishops and priests in the sanctuary ; the dense rows of the Catholic faithful who filled the pews; the stately church that raised its Gothic roof to Heaven above their heads ; the whiterobed Sisters who assisted in the Convent chapel near the High Altar; all these were the flowers of the tree that had its roots with Patrick Moran’s heart in his hallowed grave. These were the sheaves that crowned the tilth of his toil; these were the triumphs of his trials. On that word we pause to recall how Dean Burke in his eloquent discourse showed us how trial and triumph are written all over the history of the Church, in Dunedin and everywhere; how Christ Himself taught us to look for trials and guaranteed triumphs. With the Dean’s words in memory we pause and look back now from the fiftieth milestone, and find in the years that are gone a pledge and a presage to strengthen our vision and enable it to see beyond the clouds and storms that may seem near a day of glory and sunshine for the Catholic Church in Dunedin. Through the living and abiding spirit of Dr. Moran, through the zeal and the fidelity of his old priests and of those who came after them, through the prayers and virtues and the shining example of the Sisters of St. Dominic, and of the Sisters of Mercy and the Sisters of St. Joseph, the tree planted so wisely will, with God’s grace, flourish and bear fruit abundantly in the future as it has done in the past, and continue throughout the years to come to be a, credit and an honor to the memory of those who set it here and nurtured it with pious hands for the benefit of us and of all who will come after us.