Death of Very Rev. Dean Thomas McKenna

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 27, 12 July 1923, Page 27

Death of Very Rev. Dean Thomas McKenna

We are in receipt of the following telegram from an esteemed correspondent: The death of Very Rev. Dean* Thomas McKenna, parish priest of New Plymouth, which occurred on Sunday last, the Bth inst., has robbed the Archdiocese of Wellington of one of its most amiable and devoted priests. He was one of nature’s gentlemen whose qualities , were enobled by ‘grace. To the priests who loved to visit him during the last thirty years he was a perfect host, while as a guest his cheery manner brightened many a presbytery. By the priests, he will be long missed, and most by those who knew him best. His devotion to the people was selfsacrificing to a marked degree, and many acknowledgments of this has been forthcoming from the parishes in which he has- labored. Succeeding him in one of the parishes of Taranaki thirty years ago, the writer of these notes found a chain of eight Christian doctrine classes stretching through the parish. This was ,Dean McKenna’s first work in that parish, of which he was founder. These classes he visited once a week without a single break, as the parish records show, with the result that the children, even in the remotest places, were as well instructed in their religion as those in the favored towns and cities. His zeal for the religious education of the young was a characteristic of his whole priestly life. In this he lived up to the dictates of St. Paul. To the poor, also, he was devoted. He had little opportunity of coming into personal contact with them until his appointment' to the city of Wellington a few years ago; but during his time there he loved to visit the homes of the poor, and many stories are told of how, after giving the sacraments and the spiritual consolations of the Church, he would, with a simple grace that could not offend, leave something to procure those material comforts that mean so much to the sick-poor. His obsequies were begun at New Plymouth on Tuesday with Requiem Mass which was sung by his brother (Right Rev. Mgr. McKenna, V.G.), Fathers O’Dwyer, Phelan, and Lynch being the ministers. His Grace Archbishop O’Shea presided, and with him in the sanctuary was the Right Rev. Mgr. Power. In the choir wore Fathers Maples, Harnett, Meynard, J. Moore, N. Moore, Forrestal, Outtrim, Dillon, Carmine, and Father O’Shea, of the Chinese Mission. , The music of the Mass was beautifully sung by the priests under the leadership of Mr. Clarke. The Archbishop spoke very touchingly of the zeal and the labors of the deceased priest. He conveyed the sympathy of the Archbishops and priests to Monsignor McKenna (his brother), and ether relatives. His Grace reminded them that death was not the end of all things; that Christian sorrow for the dead is not like that of the pagan without hope, for Christ the head of the mystic body rose from the. grave as the first fruits of them that sleep. He recounted his first meeting with the Dean, whom he had met thirty-five years ago—a splendid type of manhood. Fie traced the late Dean’s labors in Masterton, Hawera, Patea, Pahiatua, and Wellington, and commented on his true spirit of ecclesiastical obedience which led him, at the call of the Archbishops to leave a parish which he had founded and in which he had spent more than a quarter of a century, to undertake more arduous duties in an important parish in a big city. After three years’ labors there he was appointed to New- Plymouth, but owing to a severe and lingering illness, which gradually but surely carried him to the grave, he was unable to take an active part in parish work. • His Grace was confident the deceased priest would be remembered in the prayers of all. By the law of the Archdiocese each priest would offer three Masses for the repose of his soul, and he knew many of them would not be content with this. The faithful, too, by their Masses, Holy Communions, and prayers, would obtain for him refreshment, light, and peace, and help him to pass f quickly from the cleansing prison of Purgatory to the ''eternal abode of the saints. The body was taken by mail train on Wednesday to Pahiatua, where the funeral took place.R.l.P.