St. Catherine’s Dominican Convent, Invercargill

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 5, 1 February 1923, Page 23

St. Catherine’s Dominican Convent, Invercargill

LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION STONE.

After a dull morning the sun shone out brilliantly in time for the ceremony, and this happy omen was fully justified by the events of the afternoon.

His Lordship the Right Rev. Dr. Whyte motored from Winton, and at 3 p.m. the procession left the chapel for the building site on the east of the present -convent.

A platform had been prepared for the Bishop and clergy bordering on the northern extremity of the foundations, and an imposing spectacle was presented when the members of the Hibernian Society in their handsome regalia formed a guard of honor on one side of the platform. The Children of Mary in their regalia took up a position on higher ground at the opposite side, and the Dominican Nuns grouped on the raised mound on the north.

An immense concourse of people gathered round the scene of the ceremony, .a reverent and deeply impressed crowd, who followed the ritual with the utmost attention.

The stone itself was an object of admiration. It is a slab of Bluff granite without flaw and of such perfect polish that it looks almost black. The lettering is simply cut in and looks almost white in contrast with the polished stone.

After the blessing of the stone the Bishop addressed the gathering, and had the audence been seated comfortably in a fine church they could not have listened with more rapt attention. They stood motionless and noiseless in the heat of the afternoon and drank in every word that fell from his Lordship’s lips. The discourse made a profound impression, and those, who heard it will refer to it with pride and pleasure for a long time to come.

The Very Rev. Dean Burke gave a very short address, but one that brought a gleam of real pleasure to the faces of his parishioners, for he told them of his plans for the coming year and incidentally how he himself intended reaching four figures in his help towards the schools of the parish. The Dean, in conclusion, called upon Very Rev, Father O’Neill, of Waikiwi, to speak. Father O’Neill commenced by reading a financial statement, which showed that a sum off £3500 was available for building, but as the estimated cost was £II,OOO a good deal remained to be done. Father O’Neill then proposed that a collection should be made on the spot. This was seconded in a charming little speech by Mr. F. G. O’Beirne. No one will ever forget Father O’Neill’s humorous, tactful, and delicate appeal. His own parishioners had been warned to be present, and their pastor’s eye singled them out at all points. His Lordship headed the list with the handsome sum of £IOO, Father O’Neill followed suit, Dean Burke gave the same amount. A friend of the Dominican Nuns in the North Island sent £SO. The general collection then ran round and the warm-hearted, generous response was good to witness. In spite of many calls, and the extra expense incurred by most families during the summer holidays, the sum of £627 8s was handed in.

. A vote of thanks to his Lordship Dr. Whyte was proposed by Mr. Loughnan in a speech breathing Catholic loyalty and devotion to Holy Church. .Mr. warmly and tastefully seconded the motion, which was carried with acclamation. -

In the course of the ceremony the Bishop was presented with a silver trowel, suitably inscribed, by Mr. E. R. Wilson, architect. Both this gentleman and Mr. Andrews (Andrews Bros.), builder, were referred to in kind and eulogistic terms by Dr. Whyte in the course of the afternoon.

The Hibernian Band, always a delight and a joy, performed at intervals, and as usual were fully appreciated. In the opinion of all the 28th January, 1923, will remain a marked date in Invercargill Church history. SPEECH BY RIGHT REV. DR. WHYTE. Addressing the gathering, his Lordship Dr. Whyte said : The simple ceremony which has been the occasion of your coming here in such large numbers this afternoon marks a big development in the Catholic life of this important centre. Everything seems to forecast an all-round, ever-growing activity in Invercargill and the country surrounding it. Important though your city is to-day, the near future will witness, I feel sure, a great increase in its population and its wealth and influence. It is quite reasonable, then, that the priests and religious and Catholic people should have determined to keep pace with the general progress j)f the district, and to erect buildings that future, if not present, requirements demand. When fhe parochial school is completed, your venerable pastor, Dean Burke, must be pardoned if there be discovered in him some traces of pride, for it promises to be a commodious, handsome, and eminently suitable school of which priests f rid people can be pardonably proud. The wing of the new convent will, I fear, offer to the nuns the same amiable weakness. I congratulate you all, priests, nuns, and people, on your highly practical interest in the course of Catholic education.

The laying of a foundation stone is, probably, in its origin, a religious ceremony, even though ave often see it stripped of its religious features. When the foundation stones of halls, libraries, museums are laid by persons of high standing in civil life, it might not occur to anybody to remind them that they were borrowing an idea from the Church. The Church, by which I mean the Catholic Church, and by this I mean the Church having St. Peter’s successor, Pius XI. The Church is such an ancient institution and has had such extended and varied influence that many practices and many things in the way of enlightened legislation of modern times are borrowed from her, either completely tr in part. To illustrate what I mean, I would remind you of the Committee in Rome which consists of high ecclesiastics, Cardinals and others, who frequently forbid Catholics to read dangerous books, such books being placed by them upon what is called the Index. The Church has often l:« ( n unjustly condemned for thus hampering the liberty of her subjects. Her critics have exclaimed “She is afraid to let the people get knowledge.” No critic of the Catholic Church, however, is likely henceforth to get a hearing on that subject since the blue pencil got so busy during the war. Books are denied admission into a country, if they are considered likely to injure the morals of the inhabit tuts or sap the loyalty of the people or promote dissension between one section and another. And nobody can refuse a tribute of praise to those who try to revent the standard of morality from being lowered. The civil authorities took that, leaf - from the Church’s book, and all credit to them for their wisdom in following her wise example. That is a good illustration of how ideas are borrowed from the Char ch. I should not be surprised to learn that the laying of found xtion stones of civil buildings was borrowed from the agelong practice of the Church in blessing and laying the

foundation stones of buildings associated with religion.

Has the State borrowed any ideas from the Church m

the sphere of Education ? The man-iu-the-street who proudly fixes his gaze upon the palaces of brick or stone erected by the State for the secondary or even primary education of the children will probably look upon our less pretentious convent schools as intruders. He may exclaim ; “When the Government has shown how children re to be educated, those Church people come and set up their

own buildings and borrow or steal our school methods, cur programme of study, etc., instead of sending their children to our schools.” Now, I venture to say that the shoe is cn

the other foot. The Church schools first took'charge of toe education of children, and then the State came and elbo v 1 the Church out of her way. It is only within the p wit

century that the State school system has \ come into full swing, and supplanted, to the injury of religion and morality, such a vast number of schools which were conduced in an atmosphere of religion and reverence. So you see that the man-in-the-street whose notions of elementary right or wrong are so often illuminated by knowledge and good sense, is in this instance the prey of error and the victim of the dazzling effect of palatial school buildings.

Prior to the religious uheaval of the sixteenth century, schools and universities flourished under the auspices of the Church. Oxford and Cambridge Universities were established by the Church many centuries earlier, and a number of others existed on the Continent long before Henry VIII. got a scruple about his marriage with Catherine and got rid of the scruple by getting rid of Catherine and putting Ann in Catherine’s place. The man-in-the-street will be glad to be set right by me in regard to this matter, for I feel sure that he has hitherto considered university education as the outcome and fruit of the Reformation in England, while, in reality, the system of higher education had been working in Catholic England and other countries of Europe for centuries before Henry VIII. discovered that he and his wife were temperamentally unsuited for each other. You will feel that the aroma of the modern divorce court clings around the phrase “temperamentally unsuited.”

But my übiquitous friend, the man-in-the-street, may say that university education does not concern him as primary education does. “I have no time for the classes,” he will say, “but when there is anything doing for the masses, I am all there. What did your Church do for the education of the working man’s children?” To answer him I should tell him, for instance, of the crying need for education in Ireland about a hundred years ago when four great philanthropists arose and established, first, religious Orders for teaching purposes, and secondly schools in which the waifs and strays of Irish cities were to be taught. The names of those great benefactors of humanity should never be forgotten. They are the founders of the Irish Christian Brothers, the Sisters of Mercy, the Presentation Order, and the Irish Sisters of Charity. They are respectively, Brother Ignatius Rice, Mother Macauley, Nano Nagle, and Mary Aitkenhead. Their work has not been confined to Ireland. The English-speaking world has shared in the benefits of their heaven-sent institutions. I could refer my friend, too, to the founders of other teaching Orders of men and women, particularly St. John Baptist de la Salle, a French priest of more than two hundred years ago. At first he collected a number of boys and taught them. Then he conceived the idea of developing his plan, and finally established-- an Order of Brothers who may be found in nearly all countries to-day. He went further: he wrote a book for the guidance of teachers, a book full of holy suggestions to them how to train up in virtue as well as in ,knowledge ' the boys committed to their care. The education he would

impart was education in the fullest sense, an education which aimed at cultivating in his pupils the heart as well as the mind, so that they would be good, useful, virtuous citizens, never forgetting that they had a soul to save as well as a living to make. That is the keynote of the whole

Catholic system of education.

The patrons of purely secular education would be con-

tent-if the intellect were trained. Catholics want to have

the will equally trained. This is achieved only where religious motives are set before the children. What is spoken of as moral instruction as distinct from religious instruction rests on a shifting foundation and supplies children with no solid reasons why they should live moral lives.

When education, by which is>uneant secular education, is set down as the cure of all social evils and the remedy for the vices of individuals, it gets credit for what it cannot

„ accomplish. I have had some experience as a gaol chaplain arid I know that some of my acquaintances could easily secure a pass in the leaving certificate examinations or advanced theory of music and. similar tests of specialised ■ knowledge. Education in the wide sense opens the mind, but very often it opens a safe, not one’s own but the safe

of one’s employer. Some of my friends- were in gaol, not because they could not write their names, but because they wrote somebody else’s at the bottom of a cheque. So it seems quite fPolish to assert that education is going to root out vice or promote virtue. V .

But Catholic education aims at making good Christians of its pupils, and good Christians are model citizens. That is the type of education that- our religious teachers impart. They will give their pupils as good and sound an education as can be given in secular schools, and more, they will give .them a solid training in the knowledge of their duties to God and all obligations allied to those duties. My friend, the man-in-the-street, will, no doubt, ask me about the nuns. Who are they ? Where did they come from? What are they doing? My friend probably thinks that they lead useless; even selfish, lives. He may have got his information from cheap and nasty literature or from still more nasty lecturers. Books in abundance have been issued from convents written by the nuns, but they do not reach the man-in-the-street because they can be appreciated and relished only by those who strive to love God. The general run of people want their reading to be sensational. Hence an account of convent life as it really is offers no attraction to them, but an account of convents as they are not, is read with keenest appetite. The American philosopher, Mr. Dooley, said you could write the life of a nun on the back of a postage stamp. The reason is because people don’t want to hear of prayers and meditations, school work, private study, pious reading, and those other duties that make up the daily life of a nun and make the nuns what our Catholics know them to be and love them for beingpious women devoted to their pupils, and examples to them of obedience, humility, selfsacrifice, modesty, refinement, and every other grace that can adorn the female character; that is why you, my dear people, esteem and love the nuns. That is why you flock around them to open your purses to them, and that is why you so eagerly desire to see them settled in a suitable home.

When I opened a fete here more than a year ago I noticed with great joy how readily you poured your money into the building fund. You seemed impatient and disgruntled whenever the work was delayed in calling for your contributions. Your cheerful generosity on that occasion deeply impressed and greatly delighted me, I felt that your sympathy with the nuns was inspired by your recollection of their unstinted services to you and yours during the past 40 years. Many nuns have come and gone since then, but the spirit of all is the same. I might tell you that the nuns are proud of their Order which traces back its lineage to the 13th century, when the great apostle, St. Dominic established it. Amongst the Dominican saints stands out that ‘gigantic - genius, St. Thomas of Aquin, whose brilliant intellect seemed exempt from the greater or less obscurity that almost inevitably clouds the mind. They , are proud too, of their St. Catherine of Siena, that woman of virile courage, one of the most intellectual woman of her century, the counsellor of bishops and cardinals,' and withal a miracle of humility and Divine Grace. Of these and of a host of other saints and heroes your nuns are justly proud, with the spirit of these great servants of God they endeavor to animate themselves for the good of their own souls .aid of the souls of their pupils. I again congratulate the venerable and scholarly Dean and his assistants, I congratulate Mother Dominic and her Sisters', and I congratulate you, my dear people, on the great forward move indicated by the erection of those two imposing buildings. AVhen your commodious parish school is completed and when your handsome convent is ready for occupation, you will be rewarded for your generosity by the very sight of them, and every citizen who is proud of Invercargill will thank you for adding to the beauty of a city already undeniably beautiful.

In conclusion, I will translate for you from the sonorous language of the Church, one of the prayers appointed to be said at the blessing of a school:

“0. Lord Jesus Christ, Who didst say to Thy disciples, 1 Into whatsoever house you shall enter, salute it,’ saying, ‘ Peace be to this house, may that' peace, we beseech Thee, come upon this house which is destined for the education of. youth and for all who dwell herein whether teachers/or pupils and deign, ; 0 Lord, to rescue them from all weakness; the teachers do Thou fill with knowledge, wisdom, and Thy holy fear; fill the pupils with Thy Grace so that they may grasp Ss with their minds - and .retain , in., their hearts and practise in their lives all that is taught them as helps to salvation. In all things may Thy Holy Name

be glorified. Deign to bless and sanctify this school and within its walls may the angels of Thy light take up their abode and watch over -all who dwell therein, the teachers and their pupils.’ ”

That is the prayer of the Church; it is my. prayer too, and the prayer of all who know even slightly how much this diocese owes to the Dominican Nuns.