(from the Cork Examiner)
After the First Gospel, the Very Rev. Canon Higgins PP, preached a powerful
and eloquent sermon appropriate to the occasion. Taking for his text: "I
rejoiced in the things that were said to me; we shall go into the House of the
Lord" (Psalm CXX1,VI) He said - My Lord Bishop, beloved brethren, - We
are assembled to participate in an impressive ceremony suggestive of many thoughts
and to see a building specially devoted to the service of Almighty God. Before
we part the Son of the Eternal Father will come amongst us to sanctify more
by His Sacramental Presence the house solemnly blessed by His Minister when,
if I may so express myself, He takes possession of the mansion prepared for
his abode. Henceforth, it will be a place of worship, the House of the Lord.
To Him who has supreme dominion over them, all things belong, and He is bound
by no limitations of space, but He has signified His Divine will that particular
localities be assigned wherein special worship should be paid to Him. Nobody
reading that chapter of the inspired story in which Jacob's journey to Mesopotamia
is recorded can fail to observe how the place where he slept in the open air,
where God designed to speak to him in prophetic words of great import, and to
show him that strange communication between Heaven and earth was deemed sacred
by the servant of the Lord, for awaking from his favoured sleep, he said "Indeed
the Lord is in this place, and I know it not"; and trembling he said, "How
terrible is this place! This is no other but the House of God and the Gate of
Heaven". Then to distinguish by a visible token the singular holiness of
the ground "he took the stones which he had laid under his and set it up
for a title, pouring oil on top of it and he called the place Bethel which before
was called Luza". By all these ceremonies the patriarch did in primitive
times we are doing today. He dedicated to God a special place in creation which
he would be most unwilling to see used for any profane purpose and would be
indignant if he found it had been desecrated.
You, my dear brethren, have selected a site and on it you have set up stones
for a title, and you come to offer them to the Lord, from your hand the Bishop
receives them, blesses and consecrates them, and prays that what you have built
to be the House of God may prove, in a certain sense, to be the Gate of Heaven
for you and your posterity. The Lord has no need of Temples made by hands to
add to His own intrinsic glory. He needs no definite abode in this universe
to serve as the seat of His grandeur and power, as earthly monarchs have their
places; for when we are under the broad canopy of the sky we can commune with
His Divine Majesty ever present and can regard the wide world around us as one
vast temple where everything in nature should dispose us to raise our minds
to the mighty Maker of all and to the Giver of all good. But for us, poor finite
creatures something more is required than the solitary worship inspired by the
contemplation of God's works to keep us mindful of our obligations to the Creator.
We have to guard against our propensity to love created things for their own
sake, to become inordinately attached to them and forget of Him by Whom they
were made. Hence the necessity for a place of meeting where, social beings as
we are, we may unite in acts of adoration, praise and prayer, gain warmth of
feeling by combined worship, and form one family in the sight of Our Father
who is in Heaven.
Thus do we find in every form of religion men have shown a natural desire of
congregating for formal prayer and sacrifice, and, though the heathen may offer
his supplication to his idol and venerate in secrecy, as the Jew or the Christian
can speak in solitude to God, we know that the most uncultivated barbarians
meet in a body to maintain a community of sentiment and to add solemnity to
the rites of their religion. Some of the rude monuments the Pagan inhabitants
of this country raised up in the places where they collected to worship the
sun or other object of idolatry are still in existence, and if we travel afar
we shall be struck with astonishment on seeing the remains of the huge and massive
temples erected in honour of false deities in other climes. This desire of meeting
for religious worship may be the result of some manifestation of the Divine
Will made in the beginning of the world, or it may be an innate tendency of
the human mind. Whatever be its origin, it is pleasing to God, and therefore
when we read of His dealings with the Israelites in the desert, we have Him
directing Moses to construct the Tabernacle in a most elaborate manner, and
set it in their midst, to denote their place of sacrifice, and be their centre
of reunion.
In later times, when the people of Israel had, in fulfilment of the promise
made to Abraham, become a great nation, we learn how magnificent was the Temple
of Solomon in Jerusalem, and how, so long as the Jews refrained from sin and
idolatry, it was not only an object of profound veneration to them, but was
dear unto God as the place where His glory dwelt. It was a wondrous spectacle
to Jew and Gentile, for wealth had been lavished on it and great was its splendour.
Not many miles from that temple, while it was yet in all its beauty, a Child
was born amid the humblest surroundings, on a bleak night in winter, who grew
to manhood and was heard to say once upon a time that, though the birds and
the foxes had their habitations, He had not a place whereon to lay His head.
Little would have thought who should have looked on Him in the manger at Bethlehem,
or should have heard Him utter those words as He walked along the way, that
a day was to arrive when the noblest and the richest temples in the world would
be His dwelling places, and be dearer to God, and more tenderly revered by men
than the courts and the altars of the temple of Solomon. That Child of a Hebrew
maid was the Son of God become man for our salvation, who praise and glory to
His name is coming here today. He is coming not as God came of old to the Temple
of Jerusalem, when he indicated his presence by a cloud. Holy Scripture, describing
the dedication of that great House of God, to which the Ark of the Covenant
had been brought, says: "And it came to pass, when the priests were out
of the sanctuary, that a cloud filled the house of the Lord. Then Solomon said:
The Lord said that He would dwell in a cloud. Behold I have built a house for
thy dwelling, to be thy most firm throne for ever." Exultant beyond expression
must have been the joy of Solomon, as he gazed on that wonderful cloud, and
in it discerned a sign of the presence of the Almighty, and of the Divine approved
bestowed on the work he had accomplished.
How far more intense should not be your sentiments of gladness and of gratitude,
for you are to have not merely a figurative representation of the presence of
God in this Church but to have God Himself under this its roof, reposing in
the Tabernacle that your hands have made. In this doctrine of our faith lies
the explanation of our strong attachments to our places of worship, be they
grand or be they little; and from it the heretic and the unbeliever may learn
why Catholics contribute so freely and so bountifully the means to build and
to endow them, and why the toil of the workman and the skill of the artist are
never so willingly applied as they are in making and decorating a home for Jesus
in the Sacrament of His love. It is our belief that the Incarnate Son of God
has not left us orphans, but stays with us, day and night, all the year around,
in the Tabernacle on our altar, concealing indeed, His Divinity and His humanity
under a Sacramental veil, but yet, as we are assured by His own unerring word,
really present, true God and true man, the only Begotten of the Father, full
of grace and truth. We believe that He is there to welcome and graciously grant
us audience whenever we come reverently before Him; that He offers Himself daily
in sacrifice to his heavenly Father, through the ministration of his priests,
like He offered Himself on Calvary, and that He gives us His Flesh to eat and
his Blood to drink in the Holy Communion even as He gave them on the eve of
His Passion to his beloved apostles in the guest chamber at Jerusalem. It is
no matter of surprise then that each of us should say, in the words of the text:
"I rejoiced in the things that were said to me. We shall go into the House
of the Lord."
Every sanctuary opened for the reception of the Blessed Sacrament and for the
celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a comfort and joy to us in
our journey through life and so has it been wherever the Gospel of Christ has
been authoritatively preached from the day of Pentecost to the present hour,
for true Christians loved the House of God, not only as their place of assembly
for public prayer and for instruction, but they venerated it more affectionately
and held every stone of it sacred, because within its enclosure was the Divine
Substance that had been prefigured by the mantra kept in the holiest part of
the Jewish temple, and because on its altar was renewed every morning the sacrifice
offered for the redemption of the world. In the first ages of Christianity it
was not possible to celebrate the Divine Mysteries with any becoming display
of pomp or ceremony.
The Church, like its Heavenly Founder was poor and persecuted. Though it had
its custody the marvellous legacy of the Blessed Sacrament, it had neither the
resources nor the opportunities of showing, in its external observances, anything
like befitting respect to the Divine Gift. Of the Church in its early life it
may well be said in the words of Saint Paul that it was "as I have nothing,
yet possessing all things." When Our Saviour ate the Pascal supper with
His apostles, and bequeathed to them the Sacrament of the Eucharist that His
presence might be perpetuated in His Church through their agency and that of
their successors in the priestly office, He selected a private house for the
occasion. Sending Saint Peter and Saint John to make the necessary preparations,
He said to them: "Behold, as you go into the city, there shall meet you
a man carrying a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he entereth
in and you shall say to the man of the house: The Master saith to thee, where
is the guest chamber where I may eat the Pasch with my disciples. And he will
show you a large dining room furnished, and there prepare."
In poverty He lived from His birth to His death, and the circumstances in which
he condescended to be placed as mortal man did not permit the Lord of all creation
to choose a more pretentious scene for this act of infinite love. He entrusted
to His Church what to use the words of Solomon, "the heaven and the heaven
of heavens cannot contain," but He left it no store of worldly wealth;
and, therefore, when His Apostles and Disciples came together to celebrate the
Eucharistic Sacrifice after He had gone to His Father and had sent His Holy
Spirit on them, they assembled in the homes of the faithful, as we are informed
by several passages of Holy Writ.
The same custom had to be observed for long years after the Apostolic age, for
the Christian name of odious to the Pagans and to the Jews. In Rome, the mighty
capital of the world, the faith had been preached by St. Peter and St. Paul
and in the midst of the worldliness, luxury and depravity abounding in that
city, the seed sown in the name of God had fructified, so that many were led
to believe in Christ., though to profess such belief meant for them a cruel
death. For 300 years they associated in secret, and to this day, my brethren,
visitors to Rome explore with interest the labyrinthine excavations beneath
its surface to view the sanctuaries where in time of trial, martyrs, confessors,
and virgins invoked God, received the Sacraments, and heard the Holy Mass. In
those obscure hiding places altars were set over the dead bodies of those who
had fallen victims to heathen fury for the cause of Christ, and amongst the
sepulchres of their brethren who had died a natural death, but the death of
saints.
Painting and sculpture, the work of their holy hands, are to be seen in the
darksome recesses to attest the natural inclination they had to make good impressions
on the soul by the senses, and to dress and decorate the House of God, so that
even when the altars were hidden in dens and caverns the same spirit that animates
you in loving the beauty of God's house was in the hearts of those whose faith
was like your own, but whose social condition was so dissimilar. After a protracted
term of frightful persecution peace came to the afflicted children of the Church
and a Christian emperor was seated on the throne of the Caesars. History tells
of the churches built and enriched by him and by his mother St. Helen, not alone
in the western part of his empire, but in the Far East, in the native country
of our Redeemer and on the very spot where that Blessed Redeemer commended His
soul to His father and died. His Christian subjects imitated the example of
their Imperial master, for no sooner had they obtained freedom than they turned
it to good account by providing more worthy receptacles for the Sacrament of
the Altar. Then did the Cross of Christ appear on the summits of the fabrics
that had risen as it were by miracle.
The Pagans saw it and wondered as in our day we have wondered to see the sign
of our salvation that was reviled by Protestants, and is still decried by numbers
of them as a superstitious emblem and a graven thing to be avoided, finding
its way to the roofs of Protestant churches and to the monuments they erect
above their dead. Catholics have ever loved the cross, in whose honour the Church
holds a feast on this very day, the 3rd of May, and they have never been ashamed
of it; and the Catholic tradition brings along the sign of the cross from the
frescoes on the walls of the Roman catacombs to the walls of the Church in Milford
where one will find the same rites and ceremonies, the same liturgy and practices,
the same Seven Sacraments and daily Sacrifice that one would have found under
the pavement of Rome in the time of the Caesars. We inherit them all in a direct
line of succession in the faith. We have never lost the inheritance like those
who are seeking now to regain it partially by a process of imitation that seems
to be dependent on the caprices of fashion.
My dear brethren, when St. Patrick came under the standard of the Cross, to
preach to our ancestors and bring them from the darkness of Paganism to the
light of truth, he told them of the Blessed Eucharist. Christian altars supplanted
those of the Druids in our island, and the converts, naturally turned their
attention to devising some fitting tabernacle in which the Divine Presence might
rest amongst them. As we may well conjecture, the first oratories they built
were poor and simple probably of wattles, and very unworthy of their destination,
yet having, like the widow's mite, a merit of their own before Heaven. Between
the death of our Apostle and the Danish invasions, a considerable development
in architecture took place in Ireland. Churches of stone were erected and scholars
who are competent to offer an opinion on the subject affirm that remains of
some of these specimens of early Irish art, small in their dimensions but solid
in their construction, are here and there throughout the provinces and in the
little islands on our coast.
When the Normans set foot on that coast to conquer Ireland, and bring it under
English rule, all Western Europe professed a common religious belief; and this
momentous event in our history occurred about a time when wonderful structures,
beautiful in their design, stately and symmetrical in their proportions, and
splendid in their adornment, were springing up to the glory of God in many lands
across the sea. Whatever evil the strangers brought in their train upon the
nation they subdued, they were not slow in displaying their religious zeal by
building churches and monasteries. Some of our native chieftains emulated them,
and in those ages called dark, but whose architectural monuments here and elsewhere
would alone prove their intellectual cultivation, the Blessed Sacrament was
enthroned in spacious, lofty and beauteous temples in which the praises of God
and of His Virgin Mother and of His saints were sung by priest and monk. It
is well to remember too, that if in those ages the bulk of the population was
wanting in secular learning, it was strong in faith; and whilst contemporary
records tell much about the munificence of the wealthy, they give ample account
of the manner in which the poor made sacrifices of their time and labour, and
laid themselves often under heavy tributes to have their share in the glorious
movement.
What a change, my dear brethren, passed over the face of the land when England
revolted from God to the command of a lustful and rapacious King, and strove,
but strove in vain, to seduce Ireland from her allegiance to the Pope, the Vicar
of Christ, and compel her to abjure the faith preached by Patrick. Churches
and monasteries were pillaged and plundered until there remained but their bare
walls. The faithful would be permitted to worship in them in this desecrated
state to which they had been reduced, provided they conformed to the pernicious
doctrines of their heretical governors. They were asked, amongst other outrages
on their religious belief, to call the Holy Mass and act of idolatry, and to
deny the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. You know the reply
they made. You know the story of their fidelity to God and to His Christ. I
need not speak of the ruthless persecution endured by our forefathers for hundreds
of years, nor tell how rather than become apostates and bend their knees to
Baal, they abandoned the churches and the shrines there were dear to them, as
a bird forsakes the violated nest. England apostatised. Ireland remained faithful.
If you cross over the channel you will see in England the old churches of the
middle ages still standing and still in use. They lift their spires amid the
smoke of the factories and the bustle of the streets and show their grey towers
amongst the trees in rural valleys. Never does a Catholic visit one of those
ancient structures, built in the days of faith and now employed for Protestant
worship, without experiencing a depressing sensation as if of loneliness or
of want; for, whilst recognising much to remind him of the ceremonial of the
true religion and to recall the past to his mind, he sees no tabernacle and
knows that Jesus is not there where once he has a home; and feels as did the
Magdalene on the morning of the Resurrection when, having looked with bitter
disappointment into the tomb, she exclaimed: "They have taken away my Lord,
and I know not where they have laid Him." Why do we not see those venerable
churches here? Because whey they were diverted from their original purpose and
were intended to serve as preaching-houses for heretics, no congregations were
found to occupy them, so they fell into disuse and most of them disappeared.
A few medieval cathedrals and churches, no longer in our possession, are seen
in our cities. One of them in Dublin is called by the name of the National Apostle,
St. Patrick, under whose invocation it was dedicated to God when it was ours.
Another is nearer to you, in Limerick and, strange to tell, retains the name
of God's holy Mother, Mary, in whose honour it was founded by an Irish King
named O'Brien. These survived the wreck, for they chanced to be in important
situations where English garrisons, were established or where English State
officials, merchants or adventurers had settled down, holding opinions that
St. Patrick would surely have disowned and denounced, and having no respect
for the Mother of God.
But throughout the country at large our parochial churches were either wilfully
demolished by the hands of the spoiler, or they crumbled into ruins when the
Irish people could no longer frequent them without becoming traitors to God
and His truth. Their scanty remains are in many of our graveyards where the
relics of those who praised God in them lie mingled with the clay awaiting the
resurrection of the body; and the ivy-clad lateral walls and the broken gables
are the sole remnants of the small but numerous churches in which our fathers
bent the knee to God. Within these walls that we should esteem even in their
decadence, Mass was said, the Sacraments were administered , the work of God
was preached, and sorrowful hearts were comforted in days of old, when all,
both Irish and English were one in faith as Christ and His Heavenly Father are
one. England kept the buildings and lost the faith, Ireland kept the faith and
lost the buildings.
When the Catholics were forced to quit their churches, that were now to become
haunts of the birds and the beasts, they met in privacy, as did the early Christians,
and practised their religion at the peril of their lives. They assisted at the
Mass as often as they had the opportunity. Sometimes it was said in one of their
humble homes. Sometimes, as at Bethlehem, a stable gave shelter to the King
of the Kings when prudence demanded such a subterfuge. The sacred requisites
for the proper, but lowly, celebrations were borne in fear to the deep covert,
of the woods or to the brow of the mountain, and in retreats like these, whilst
sentinels were stationed at outposts to give warning of the approach of soldiers,
the persecuted Catholics adored the God in whom they trusted, and prayed to
Him with a devotion and fervour that, by the help of His grace, may be imitated,
but can never be surpassed. In our glens, or on the hills, we have particular
places and large boulders, called in the Irish tongue by the name of the Mass
or by a similar appellation, to revive the memory of the use they served in
days gone by, when to honour our God according to His own law and the dictates
of conscience was a felony by the law of the land.
At intervals in the penal times the veritable dark ages of the Irish Church,
the faithful were permitted to assemble unostentatiously for their devotional
exercises. In the beginning of 1743 this partial toleration was extended to
them but in that year a frightful cry was raised against Papists, as their adversaries
chose to name the Catholics, who were true to the Pope and who believed that
in their loyalty to him, as their spiritual Sovereign, they were loyal to God.
Protestant bishops and ministers wrote inflammatory pamphlets and made their
pulpits ring with unchristian declamation against the suffering people. The
laity only too eagerly followed the guidance of their clerical advisors and
counselled the arrest of all the Catholic priests. Some of them even went so
far as to demand the extermination of every member of our church. In compliance
with this unholy clamour the Lord Lieutenant issued a proclamation proffering
a heavy reward for the capture of bishop, secular priest or friar and for information
given of anybody who dared to afford protection to one of our bishops.
Thereupon all the Catholic places of worship were of necessity closed, while
the worshippers were again obliged to seek refuge in obscurity. In the spring
of the next year a priest of the dioceses of Meath, Father John Fitzgerald said
Mass at a terrible risk in a house in Dublin. It was an old, frail, tottering
house. When the celebration was over, and the congregation had quietly stolen
away the priest and nine other persons were crushed to death beneath the floor
of an upper roof that fell on them. The sad calamity caused a great sensation
and it would seem to be our destiny that something of a sensational kind is
always required to secure for us even small instalments of justice; but, be
that as it may, in consequence of this fatal accident, there was a little mitigation
of the decrees against the Catholic form of worship and permission was again
granted for the opening of our oratories.
To the great relief of the sorely distressed people Mass was said publicly in
the capital city on St. Patrick's Day. Ever since that blessed day we have had
our churches or chapels as they were contemptuously called by the dominant party
and timorously by our own and by reason of their poverty and unsuitableness
they scarcely even merited that name. Through dread of profanation the Blessed
Sacrament was not reserved in them. It had to be kept in close exclusion by
the priests. It was Hidden Life of Nazareth repeated in the Irish Church for
all the long series of years we were subjected to persecution. With the relaxation
of the penal laws Catholics began to raise their heads in the land wherein God
had placed them and as link after link fell from the chain that bound them,
they made efforts to improve the condition of their modest sanctuaries, but
there were various difficulties to encounter. One of the greatest was to acquire
a patch of ground on which to build. Protestant landlords often gave the accommodation,
and I take the opportunity of gratefully acknowledging that in our own day,
we not infrequently experienced the same kind liberality from proprietors who
are not members of our Church.
Nowadays, when the old fireside tradition are fading away, and are so uncongenial
with the taste and thought of our young men, who take but small interest in
the history of our Church or of our country, it is not easy for many amongst
us to realise how mean and miserable and ill-adapted to the sanctity of their
purposes were almost all our chapels at the beginning of the last century. About
ninety years ago evidence concerning their condition was given before a committee
appointed by the British Legislature, when there was hope of obtaining some
assistance from the State for improving them, but the hope was not fulfilled.
The Government that has spent millions on an alien Church which oppressed Catholics
and forced them to pay tithes for the support of its own clergy and their families
would not give a penny for such an object. From the testimony of the men who
were examined by the committee, amongst whom were Protestants of rank and position
as well as Catholic bishops and priests, we learn that most of the chapels were
wretched, thatched fabrics, with earthen floors. One witness, a gentleman who
acted as a land agent for an English nobleman on estates in this and in an adjoining
county, stated that the chapels on the property with which he was officially
connected were - these are his words - "very wretched, thatched chapels,
so irregular in the line of their roof that they looked like several cabins
joined together".
We can have, no doubt, for other witnesses, Catholic and Protestant, gave similar
evidence that this was the general state of our chapels then, and indeed some
have been in a still more lamentable plight, for the property he managed was
not among sterile mountains or unproductive swamps, but in fertile plains, where
many a field of wheat was reaped and pasture was abundant. These poor substitutes
for the churches that had been levelled or ruined, were also said to be altogether
insufficient to contain the congregations, and several witnesses declared that
numbers of the devout worshippers had not even the broken thatch to protect
them, but were to be seen Sunday and holiday kneeling in the dust of the mud,
exposed to the glare of the sun in summer and to the wind and rain, the snow
and hail at other seasons of the year. A century has not elapsed since that
evidence was tendered and oh, my brethren, have not we great reason to be grateful
to God for what He in His mercy has done for us! Well may we say with the Psalmist:
He hath not done in like manner to every nation." If the witnesses who
appeared before that Committee could arise from their graves and survey the
country today they would see many wonderful changes in every department of society.
They would be surprised at the practical results of scientific study as exhibited
in the advance made in our social state.
Yet, perhaps what would be to them the most surprising phenomenon, little less
than a mystery, is the progress the Catholic Church has made in its struggle
for liberty of worship and the proofs of that progress that would meet their
eyes in every dioceses of Ireland, for instead of thatched chapels little better
than hovels, they could see elegant and commodious churches in our parishes,
and they would be lost in amazement when looking at Cathedrals like our own
in Queenstown, that bear no small resemblance in their strength and beauty and
majestic bearing to the noble edifices of medieval times. Nor would their wonder
be less on hearing that all these were build on what is known as the voluntary
principle - that is to say, by the money given freely and liberally by the Catholics
themselves, the children of those who begged like Lazarus at the rich man's
gate, and, like Lazarus, were refused even a crumb. It is quite credible that
one or other of these supposed resurgents would say, as Judas Iscariot said
when Mary Magdalene brought the ointment of great price to the supper table
at Bethany and poured it on our Saviour's feet that the money spent on the churches
was a wasteful expenditure and might have been more profitably employed in the
promotion of other benevolent or industrial or commercial enterprises. Yet our
Blessed Lord thought otherwise when he bade the murderers not to molest Mary,
and commended her living act of piety. And, indeed, we need not call back the
dead to protest against our endeavours to honour Jesus Christ, for we hear such
talk among living men. Occasionally, but very rarely it is heard from Catholics
whose faith is feeble and whose hands are close. Even from their own lower level
such economists, who would seem to think any house built of rubble and rough
case good enough as a dwelling place for their Redeemer, should admit what the
Catholic Church has effected within the past fifty years to give employment
to architects, tradesmen, labourers and others, and to promote, as certainly
no other institution has done, an artistic taste where it had been suppressed
by iniquitous laws and by woeful misgovernment.
You may dear brethren of Milford, were stirred by impulses higher and holier
than the motives of the world when you determined to erect this beautiful church
and desert the very humble house in which you had hither to worship God. You
come here today as Mary Magdalene came to the supper table to make an offering
"of great price" to your Lord and Master, and you do so with a willingness
and a cheerfulness that enhance the worth of the donation, for to your credit
let it be told you did not rest content till you paid the full amount you had
promised. You feel you are not poorer but richer as you look, with laudable
complacency on what you have done for the honour and glory of God, and feel
happy in thinking that you have not erected a building like a barn, that would
suit the taste of parsimonious economist, to be the permanent abiding place
of the Blessed Sacrament in the parish. You rejoiced in the things that were
said to you: We shall go into the house of the Lord. What you have achieved
will bring joy to your friends and kinsfolk in foreign parts who knelt beside
you in the little chapel now doomed to destruction for, as the Saviour said
to the Magdalene you will have this act of piety and generosity published as
a memorial of you throughout the world. You sought not in deed, the applause
of men but you loved the beauty of God's house and if even a cup of water bestowed
in His Name and with upright intention will deserve a reward, what reason have
not you to expect a great blessing for yourselves and your children! Whilst
everyone here rejoices in the completion of the work, let me be permitted, and
feel I am now spokesman on behalf of very many to congratulate your Parish Priest,
who has done his own part of it under personal difficulties. He has borne "the
burden of the day and the heat, " when another would not unreasonably have
sought rest and repose. You are aware in what an infirm state of health he has
been since the foundations were laid. The cares attendant on an understanding
of this kind are serious and absorbing, for any priest who has to superintend
all the operations and to estimate and meet the costs of the work. They often
lead to sleepless nights. Still more harassing must not these anxieties have
been for him suffering in body, when so pre-occupied in mind. He has a soothing
consolation in the ceremony of this day, a small foretaste, as it were of the
grander recompense that awaits him. May God, if it His Holy Will, restore his
health, and spare him long to minister free from trouble and disquietude at
this Altar which you and he now present to the Divine Majesty! And as the presentation
is made in the month of May it is but fitting I should conclude with a word
suggested by the season of the year. It is know to us as the month of Mary,
for a pious custom, sanctioned by the approval of the church, has consecrated
it to the special honour of her "of whom was born Jesus", as the Evangelist,
St. Matthew, says. Those who believe in Jesus, the Son of God, and profess to
be thankful to Him would be, I would not say unreasonable, but unnatural, if
they did not love the Mother that bore Him. You my dear brethren, devoted children
of the church have never dissociated one from the other in your thoughts and
affections since you learned to breathe a prayer; and coming now to present
your offering to the Divine Son, you find Him with Mary, His Mother, as the
wise men from the East found them together in Bethlehem, for the Sacramental
Presence of the Son will bring the Mother before your minds. Jesus is our great
Mediator with the Eternal Father, for it is through His merits alone we hope
for grace and for salvation; but we believe that at the throne of the Son, who
is of the same divine nature as the Father, we have a powerful intercessor in
the Mother, who was predestined to great glory from all eternity, and to whom,
when dying on the Cross, tenderly confided to the care of His beloved disciple,
St. John.
Whenever, then, you visit our Blessed Lord in the Adorable Sacrament of the
Altar, let your act of homage be the more agreeable to Him by honouring Her
from who He was pleased to take human flesh and blood, to whom He lovingly submitted
Himself in his childhood and His youth with whom he spent the greater part of
His life when he walked the earth, May that Immaculate Mother obtain for you
the grace to love her Son, and serve Him faithfully, that each of you may be
found worthy to enter one of the many mansions in His Father's House to dwell
there in joy for ever and ever.
After Benediction,
His Lordship the Most Rev. Dr. Browne, before imparting the Episcopal blessing,
said that there were characteristics associated with the ceremony that had a
special glory of their own. Was it not a proud thing to find a church so absolutely
complete to the smallest particular as they found that church on the opening
day? It was a church beautiful in its proportions and its design. It was solidly
built and exquisitely finished. His Lordship was proud to think that building
had been raised by the parish and that it was so well done. He should praise
the architect who had planned a structure most suitable for worship, and also
the builder who had constructed it; but thanks were most of all due to the people
of Milford itself. It was they who paid for the church down to the last penny.
It was not alone that the structure was complete and he had never seen a church
so complete on the day of its opening - but there was not one pin's worth wanting.
It was beautifully furnished: it had a beautiful marble altar, its isle was
finished, the stations of the cross were in place, the sanctuary flame was suspended
to burn before the Blessed Sacrament, and the whole structure was a glorious
offering to God and religion in the parish. He thanked the people from his heart,
and it should be recorded not for mere worldly praise, but for the edification
of all and the glory of God, that their liberality was spoken of through the
whole extent of the diocese. There was not a householder in the parish who had
not offered more than one third of his cess to the building of their beautiful
church. The people had paid seven and sixpence out of every pound for which
they were assessed for taxes on their holdings.
t was a glorious record and he hoped that God for whose honour they had done
so much, would bestow on them His best reward. The church was now consecrated,
and to convey what that meant he might tell them that there were only three
churches in that large diocese of Cloyne that had been solemnly consecrated.
Theirs was the third. It could not be consecrated if even one pound of debt
remained on it; but his Lordship had the satisfaction - and it was the first
time he had exercised it - of performing the glorious ceremony of consecration.
He had blessed the walls, inside and outside, he had anointed the doors with
holy chrism, and, as the bishop of the diocese, he had invoked that to all those
who should enter it would be a place of peace and salvation. He trusted that
the prayer would be realised, and that their church would be a home of peace
and a heaven of refuge. The church had cost £3,400 in all and it thought
that the money was expended wisely by their parish priest, and that they were
satisfied with the results. Their parish priest himself had made an offering
of £125 to the work. He was sure that they would recognise the obligation
of keeping the sacred edifice properly, and that the now almost universal custom
of a penny collection on Sundays in the ordinary way for a parochial fund which
had worked splendidly elsewhere, would provide the means for the purpose. When
his Lordship called his mind back to the old church where, thirty years ago,
he used to worship as a boy, he thanked God that the spirit of faith was so
much alive in the parish, and that in God's providence the day would come when
he could stand on that altar before them - many of them his companions and some
the children of those amongst whom he then lived. He prayed God's blessing on
them all, and that Heaven might hearken to their supplications in spiritual
and temporal things. His Lordship then imparted the Episcopal Blessing, and
the ceremony ended.
The contract for the erection of the church was creditably carried out by Mr.
D. Linehan, Freemount.
Taken from the Cork Examiner, Monday Morning, May 4th 1903.