Saint Mary's Cathedral c. 1888

Image : State Library of NSW.

This wonderful photograph taken during 1888, shews the Northern facade of Saint Mary's Cathedral as seen through the gates of The Domain.

The Northern facade of the Cathedral had been completed to its full height and its carved stone statues installed by 1886.  In January, 1888, work commenced on building the roof of the sanctuary southward from the Northern facade to the Crossing.  The structure of the sanctuary roof in the building process can just be seen through the trees.

Click on the image for an enlarged view.

AMDG.

In a year of natural disasters

The Pastoral Letter of John Bede,

by Divine Grace and favour of the Holy Apostolic See,

Archbishop of Sydney and Metropolitan,

on behalf of those who are suffering from the blighted harvest

and the floods of this present Year of Our Lord, 1864.

Dearly Beloved Children in Jesus Christ,

He that loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not?

1st Epistle of Saint John 4 : 20.

These simple sacred words of the beloved apostle, how they stir our hearts! Saint John, likened to the eagle, for the sublimity of his doctrine concerning the great mysteries known to man only through Divine revelation in the Church of Christ; Saint John, the seer of Apocalyptic visions concerning the future of the Church; Saint John, [who] leaned on our Lord’s breast when the treachery of Judas, and of Judas-like men was heavy on his spirit; Saint John, to whom the mother of Jesus was given by her Son at that supreme moment of His passion; Saint John, who was so much, and had seen so much - what is the sum of the doctrine he preaches with so much earnestness and frequency? Nothing difficult to understand, nothing hard to practise, for the princely spirit of simple truth and love, nothing that needs or provokes discussion – “that we love one another, as he has given commanded unto us.” And then, that there be no mistake, no self-deceit, no resting in mere impulse and warm feeling, he shows, in those simple, keen, luminous words that we have just recalled to your memory, how we may know the truth about ourselves, whether we are genuine Christian men, or wordy, self-deceived deceivers. “He that loves not his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he sees not?” What a changed world this would be, Dearly Beloved, if men would be guided by such a rule and motive as is here implied! 

In all the terrible prospect that seems to lie in this world’s future, in all the sin and misery that are darkening it at this moment, we should still rejoice in gleams of the Divine presence, if we could see, even here and there, men proving their love to God by consistent persevering love of their fellows. How light then, comparatively, would be fears of wars, and earthquakes, and tempests; how much less should we be troubled by the sordid intrigues and schemes of politicians; how much less should we be disheartened by the real misery of the sins, and infidelities, and sacrileges, that abound, if we walked more diligently with our eyes fixed on this plain bright path traced for us by the beloved disciple. And indeed there are, thank God, those who walk in this path. Who they are, and how many, or how few they may be, we do not know, nor is it necessary we should. One thing only is necessary, that each one of you should take care to be in this path himself. The judgements of God are upon the earth, but whether they shall be to us judgements of reprobation and destruction or the chastisements and warnings of God’s tender love, this rests upon your correspondence with God’s grace. And, in view of these judgements, our best and safe course is to look simply what might have been our own share in provoking them. It is not always where they seem to fall heaviest that they are most deserved, that there is the heaviest guilt. 

Suffering in this world is not the final reckoning. Whether then such calamities as the blighted harvest in one part of our colony, and the devastation of floods in another, are judgements of a national kind, directed against our guiltiness as a nation, and in what degree they are so, it is less profitable and necessary to enquire than to examine what our own individual sins of omission and commission might have been. It might well be, that as a colony we have been arrogant and boastful, neglectful of God and of God’s service, training our children well and carefully for the gain and service of Mammon, but leaving their education for God - so far as the colony is concerned - to individual neglect or incapacity; we might have the weight of old cruelties to bond-servants about necks, we might have the blood of aboriginal inhabitants on our hands. God knows (may He be merciful to us) how much as a colony we have sinned in this wise. 

I do not say that at this season of truly penitential thoughts you should entirely pass over such considerations as these. There are blessings that we enjoy as a community, as a nation, and doubtless there are sins also that we have committed as a community, and there is an inheritance of sins. But, Dearly Beloved, what I have to say to you on this point is mainly this is: look each one of you to himself. See, lest any worldliness, any pride, any selfishness, any hard-heartedness, any irreverence, any sensuality, any neglect of spiritual interests in yourself, might have contributed to the mass of guilt that at length brings down on man the visible anger of God. This is your care. 

And do not be content with looking at sins of commission only. Sins of omission are weighty and deadly. Have you not duties to the community in which you live as well as to the individuals who compose it? Ah! It is a fearful reckoning when honestly looked into; but still let us look, that we may repent, and see God’s grace and mercy behind and above all. You have influence more or less on the national acts, the government, and character of the colony; has that influence gone to Christianise or to degrade and make heathen those acts, and that government? Hearken in these points also to your Christian conscience.

Dearly beloved, I have suggested so far the uses that may be made of our calamities, or of those of our friends and neighbours, as a matter of examination and self-abasement for Lent; but I have now to ask for the fruits of your faith, the alms that will give wings to your prayers. And I ask with some confidence that you will be generous in aiding those who are now suffering so heavily. I cannot here give you details of the loss and wretchedness which so many, in the inscrutable providence of God, are enduring, but it is unnecessary, for the public prints have informed you, and they are a matter of common sympathy and conversation. And what you have done before fills me with thankfulness and hope : you have given your money freely to relieve distress throughout the world. England, Ireland, France, India, all have been helped and comforted by your Christian devotion, true devotion of Saint John’s kind, the love of God that is seen in the love of your brethren. You will not fail, nor shame me now, you will again honour your Catholic name and faith. The cry of distress comes now from distant Donegal, or Lancashire, or Hindustan, but from near homes, the familiar names of Camden and Maitland. When the arms of your charity have reached to the extremities of the world, they must not be paralysed here, at what is to you a centre. 

A rare photograph taken in June 1864 shewing a flooded street of Maitland NSW.
Image : National Library of Australia.

There is an order in charity and so it should never cease to glow whenever there are men who struggle and suffer, yet it should be more intense in proportion as the all-wise Providence of God has placed its objects near to us duty or place. They are the voices of friends and kinsfolk that are calling upon us. As we are now crying to God for mercy upon ourselves, let us give an attentive ear to their misery. It is very deep, very overwhelming in its nature. Here is no failure of a mercantile venture, no disappointment of a gambling speculation, but destruction to the righteous hopes of honest, hard, patient labour. The toils and anxieties of many homes, of parents and children together labouring, and utterly lost. God has withheld from them their harvest. What is it? Is it that he is deaf to their prayers unthoughtful of their labours? No, but it is this. I am speaking to Christians, and you will understand me. He would have you supply to your brethren by your gifts the harvest that has failed in the order of nature, and He would gain for Himself a spiritual harvest in the works of your Christian faith and love. So will there have been this year two harvests instead of one, and that in an especial manner had a greater glory of God. You will do your part well, and the calamity of your friends and fellow-countrymen will be transformed into a blessing. 

The labours of the husbandman requiring, as they do, patience, industry, foresight, and trust in the future, call more than other earthly employments upon our sympathy when they are disappointed of their results. It seems almost as if humble faith in the course of God’s providence had received shock. The common lot of humanity, that man should earn his bread for the sweat of his brow, is at all times hard enough to be borne, how much more this affliction that God has laid upon our brethren! Their toil, their patience, their early and late anxiety, all aborted. They have laboured, but so far in vain; the food and clothing for themselves and their children, all gone; in some places considerable debt has been incurred for the fruitless seed, and the future is darkened beyond the present distress. The elements themselves, ordinary sources of benediction upon human toil, have been hostile to those who have deserved ordinary reward of their obedient labour at least as well as we.

It is a mystery, until we remember that God has not left us to the elements of material nature alone. He has planted in us, in our hearts, other elements which, in His plan and intention, are to complete and correct the operation of those others. Compassion, kindliness, the instincts of brotherhood, are His gifts as well as those higher gifts of Christian grace, and all these are intended to heal and remedy the hurts that our brothers have received from the viewless blight, and the resistless [sic] flood. Do you then show that you interpret aright the designs of God, and accept the occasion He offers you? Dry up as you may the bitter tears, and give new hope and courage to failing hearts. Sanctify your fast of Lent by a work that God has eminently chosen for such purpose. It may be that your ready open-handed liberality in this emergency, will give a spiritual fruitfulness to your season and penitence, and an Easter Joy such as you have never gained before. And, if any of you should perchance yourselves be wearing your lives under the weight and gloom of some providential chastisement, come forward the more eagerly, and help the suffering, and so our God may look graciously and speedily on you also in your time of need. These are the words that He Himself says to you, and such as you, for all time: “When thou shalt pour out thy soul” - it is, you see, no cold unsympathising gift, no stinted measure that He calls for – “when thou shalt pour out thy soul to the hungry, and shalt satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise up in darkness, and thy darkness shall be as the noon-day." (Isaiah 58:10)  May He, the giver of every good gift, inspire and bless your alms.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the charity of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.

Archbishop Polding's Pastoral Letter for 1864 as contained in the anthology The Eye of Faith.
AMDG

NOTES

1. The Eye of Faith was printed by the Lowden Publishing Co., Kilmore Victoria in 1977.  The editors were Gregory Haines, Sister Mary Gregory Foster and Frank Brophy.  Special contribution to the volume were made by Professor Timothy Suttor and James Cardinal Freeman.

2. Concerning the floods which devastated Eastern Australia from 1860 - 1864, this page be consulted.

Lenten Pastoral 1853 : 2

Christian parents! A sacred deposit is placed in your hands. Through you the great Creator hath given existence to beings destined to be immortal; to be elevated hereafter to a higher and a far happier state - for this they are to be prepared - they are under your authority for this end; and whilst you form your children for Heaven, you will make them good members of society, faithful and loving children of our Holy Mother the Church, your own comfort, the support and solace of your old age. How great is your responsibility before God and man! The Christian education of your children is your first and principal obligation, and in the discharge of it you have several duties towards them to fulfil:

Firstly : You yourselves, or by others, have to teach them the doctrines, precepts and councils of the Holy Religion.

Secondly : You have to form them to virtue by advice, admonition, and correction.

Thirdly : You have to give to your children good example, so that you yourselves shall be as a light and staff to them in the dark and difficult paths of life.

¶
And as your children grow up, you will not neglect to read to them or cause them to read works explanatory of our Holy Faith, illustrative of its doctrine.   Let them be so taught their religion, as to be enabled to give an account of the Faith and Hope which is in them.  Alas! The days of Christian simplicity are passed!  We live in times when by reason of the material, earth-absorbing character of the education which is sought after, and found, and prized, it is required from the Christian, not only to believe, but to hold fast the solidity of his belief in the face of the deluder and of the scorner. Portions of the Sacred Scriptures you will read or cause to be read with the greatest respect and reverence…
¶
Moreover there is practical instruction to be communicated to your children.  They are to be taught habitually and practically so to live that the accomplishment of the will of their Creator shall be to them the primary object for which they live, the pivot on which their thoughts, words, and actions turn.  They are to be taught at how great the price they have been redeemed, that their souls redeemed at so great a price have been sanctified by the graces of the Holy Spirit, that they are the Temples of the Living God.

They are to be warned against the maxims of the world; taught and made to practise the essential duty of self-control. O! how grievously afflicting to see children indulged in all that they crave; permitted uncorrected, unpunished, to fly off into a passion, or to become sulky and pettish [petulant] when refused the gratification of their wishes!

Let your children be taught to curb their tempers, to be obedient, to be grateful for all that you do for them.  Let them be taught to say their prayers with respect and devotion.  Let them be habituated to walk in the presence of God - to commune with Him by frequent prayer or expressions of love, of hope, of sorrow for sin, to consecrate their actions to Him; to live in humble dependence on Him.  Let your children be taught to be truthful, candid and upright; to esteem a life of industry - to love honest labour, to hold in utter contempt that miserable existence made up of idleness, vanity, and arrogance, of sensuality and foppishness, which frequently is met with in this present day.

And, dearly beloved, much of this most useful of all learning is to be imbibed by your children from the conversation you hold with them or in their presence.

On the other hand, if the world and its follies are made by you the subject of praise and of admiration,  if the possession of wealth and the means of sensual enjoyment to be continually spoken of, as above all other things to be coveted and sought after;  if Religion and its consolations are seldom even alluded to;  if - thoughtlessly - things, and places, and persons, and Sacred Institutions are mentioned with disrespect, treated with ridicule and turned off as matters of secondary consideration, it may be, with contempt;  if rude indiscriminate censure is pronounced even upon Authority you yourselves would wish them to hold in reverence, do not suppose, Dearly Beloved, that an occasional abstract moral maxim [from you] will counteract the deleterious effects of your habitual conversation.

Once more, Christian parents, I repeat, the Home of your children is a church which contains most holy things, even Souls redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ - commended to your affectionate solicitude by nature, committed to your charge by Him who through you has given them an immortal existence.  Remember, that in regard to your children you are ministers of God, and in a certain sense, dispensers of the Mysteries of Christ.  How important the duties incumbent upon you!

Parents! On you or on those deputed by you, your children have a sacred claim for instruction. There is however, a duty to be discharged in their regard, which cannot be transferred to another - that duty is good example. Without the fulfilment of this duty, instruction, exhortation, expostulation, will be of little avail.
¶
Remember, Dearly Beloved, if you do not live up to your Religion, your advice to your children is valueless, your reproofs useless;  the testimony of their eyes will prevail over the testimony of their ears.  They will contrast your conduct with your admonitions, and feel how unworthy you are to reprove or admonish - by reason of your own neglect of Religious Duty.  You will give way to vexation and anger and then - saying much that had better not be said - their respect for your authority will be lessened, the substance of your reproof will be unheeded;  but the language, curses, the oaths, will be daily remembered to be by themselves used, alas! in due season.

Parents, if your lives be at variance with your Christian obligations, how can you expect to bring up your children in the fear and love of the Lord?  How will you inspire them with a reverential regard for Morning and Evening prayer, if they never see you then to your knees in humble supplication to God?  How can you suppose they will frequent the Sacraments, which they have known you for years to neglect?  How can you direct them to keep their passions under, whilst you exercise no restraint over your temper or tongue?  How can a mother teach daughters to hold the vanities of the world in contempt, whilst she practically shows how much she regards them?  Will a covetous father form his children to generosity of disposition;  or one who overreaches, inculcate honesty and uprightness?   Do not delude yourselves into a belief that conduct and counsel so glaringly opposed will escape their notice.  Be assured, that so soon as your children are free from your control or that their own self-esteem has gained the upper hand of respect for you, your admonitions will be disregarded and your [bad] example followed.
¶
Let your first solicitude be to give your children a good Christian education - to instruct them in their duties and obligations, and by a holy, exemplary life, to illustrate your teaching.  Thus you will discharge your consciences of your principal obligation;  you will give your children the most valuable inheritance;  for yourselves in the hour of need - on your death bed - you prepare unspeakable comfort.  Bring up your children in the way they should go, and when they are old they will not depart from it.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the charity of God and the communication of the Holy Ghost be with you all. Amen.

Excerpts from Bishop John Bede Polding's Pastoral Letter for 1853 as contained in the anthology The Eye of Faith.

AMDG

NOTES

The Eye of Faith was printed by the Lowden Publishing Co., Kilmore Victoria in 1977.  The editors were Gregory Haines, Sister Mary Gregory Foster and Frank Brophy.  Special contribution to the volume were made by Professor Timothy Suttor and James Cardinal Freeman.

From 1849 - 1854 the Pastoral Letters written by Archbishop Polding for the Season of Lent were published both under his name and that of the bishop-coadjutor, +Charles Henry Davis OSB.

The Polding Walk 2020

The chanting of Vespers at the grave of Archbishop Polding
in the crypt of Saint Mary's Cathedral, Sydney.
Image : Giovanni Portelli.

On a bright March day in 1877, a huge gathering of the people of Sydney and neighbouring towns of NSW took place in and around Hyde Park. It was, in fact, the largest number of people that had been gathered together in Australia since the colony had been founded almost a century before.

These tens of thousands of people had gathered to pay their respects to an old and much-loved man, an Australian pioneer. He was the first Catholic bishop in Australia, John Bede Polding. He had arrived in Sydney in 1835 from a Benedictine monastery in England and spent the next forty years preaching and teaching the Catholic Faith. He travelled widely by horseback, steamboat, railway – to every settled area of Australia - helping the poor, the convicts, settlers, Australia’s indigenous peoples, educating children, providing means of support for women and orphans whose lives had fallen to pieces in the unruly times of Australian colonial life. This was a Man of Faith who zealous ministry in Australia was not forgotten at the time of his death in March 1877.

Thousands watched the Procession of his hearse from Saint Mary’s Pro-cathedral down Parramatta Road to Lewisham, where he was buried in a simple grave amidst the graves of hundreds of others to whom he was a father and a bishop.

More than two centuries after he was born, the name of Archbishop John Bede Polding is still known to Catholics. But perhaps his life’s work and its significance in the development of the Church in Australia is not as well-known as it might be.  In 1977 to mark the centenary of his death, a great deal of research was carried out and published to make known again the work of Archbishop Polding. Many Catholic scholars were involved and the Bishops of Australia issued a Pastoral Letter to commemorate that Centenary.  But that generation has now gone and again the life and work of the Archbishop is clouded by the mists of time.

A group of younger Catholics (and some young of heart) has decided to help promote the life of Archbishop Polding. They believe that the Church should declare the Archbishop a saint and are seeking to make known his inspiring life and work in this new generation.  This is the Guild of Archbishop Polding.

Each year, to commemorate the occasion of his death and burial, this Catholic group makes a pilgrimage from the site of Archbishop Polding’s burial at Lewisham to the place where - in the 1940s - he was reinterred with other Catholic bishops and pioneer priests in the crypt of Saint Mary’s Cathedral.

The Pilgrims gathered at the Church of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Lewisham.
Image : Giovanni Portelli.

The Polding Walk commenced on Saturday morning 14th March with the singing of an hour of the Divine Office at the church of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Lewisham. From there, the pilgrims walked to Saint John’s College at the University of Sydney, where another hour of the Divine Office was sung, lunch partaken and an occasional talk was given.

This year, during luncheon, the group received an entertaining address from Father Colin Fowler OP, who discussed his recently-published book At Sea with Archbishop John Bede Polding.

The Pilgrimage concluded at the tomb of Archbishop Polding in the Cathedral, where Vespers was sung, celebrated by Bishop Richard Umbers, auxiliary bishop of Sydney. The bishop was assisted by Father Pius Noonan OSB, and Father Terence May Naughtin OFM Conv.

AMDG

Pilgrims at Saint John's College in the University of Sydney
with the large portrait of Archbishop Polding on the wall in the background.
Image : Giovanni Portelli.

Lenten Pastoral 1853 : 1

And we helping, do exhort you that you receive not the Grace of God in vain.  For He saith : in an accepted time have I heard thee, and in the day of Salvation have I helped thee.  Behold, now is the acceptable time: behold now is the day of Salvation .... In all things let us exhibit ourselves as the ministers of God.

2nd Epistle to the Corinthians 6 : 1-4.

To the Christian, the fulfilment of his obligations as a Christian, constitutes real business of life. To this, every object, every pursuit, every employment ought to be rendered subservient. To aid us in the fulfilment of them are the Sacraments ordained, the Graces of Heaven given, prayer, fasting, alms-deeds are commanded - very powerful means to assist us in the accomplishment of all our duties as the disciples of Jesus Christ. Yet in our continued attention to the concerns of this world, in our eagerness to make our own the world’s wealth and the world’s enjoyments, we are too apt to forget them, or to omit them as though they were of slight account.

And furthermore we are instructed, that not only the priest who stands before the Altar is the Minister or servant of God, but that each Christian in his respective capacity is also the Minister of God, to whom duties of a more or less exalted character are assigned by his great Master; that for the due discharge of these duties, he is strictly responsible; that no pretext can excuse. Eternal happiness is the reward promised to him who shall be found faithful unto the end; endless misery the consequence of neglect.

Wherefore are we now exhorted to renovate the spirit of our mind, and to apply ourselves to the accomplishment of all our duties, according to our respective states of life. We are encouraged to do so by the assurance that this is an acceptable time, these are the days of Salvation, when the wounds of our divine and living Redeemer pour forth a greater abundance of Graces; when the omission or negligences of the past may more readily meet with forgiveness; when dispositions, in accordance with the importance of our obligations - under the influence of this holy time - are more readily formed.

To be continued ...

Excerpts from Bishop John Bede Polding's Pastoral Letter for 1853 as contained in the anthology The Eye of Faith.

AMDG

NOTES

The Eye of Faith was printed by the Lowden Publishing Co., Kilmore Victoria in 1977.  The editors were Gregory Haines, Sister Mary Gregory Foster and Frank Brophy.  Special contribution to the volume were made by Professor Timothy Suttor and James Cardinal Freeman.

From 1849 - 1854 the Pastoral Letters written by Archbishop Polding for the Season of Lent were published both under his name and that of the bishop-coadjutor, +Charles Henry Davis OSB.

Lenten Pastoral Letter : 1850

The Pastoral Instruction for Lent 1850

Addressed to all the Faithful

by the Most Reverend John Bede Polding OSB DD 
Archbishop and Vicar Apostolic

Behold ! Now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation.
                                       2nd Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, 6:2

Dearly Beloved,

If we permit ourselves to be deluded, at other periods of the year, into habits of self-indulgence and of spiritual sloth, we cannot be so insensible to the proprieties of our Christian vocation as to continue during this holy time, in a state totally at variance with it; and thus to turn into our own individual condemnation, the means so many thousands employ, most efficaciously, for their sanctification. Enter then, Dearly Beloved, into the spirit of this holy time: under its influence cease not to pray for the grace of heartfelt compunction for your past sins. With the profit of all, review the years that have gone by; in the presence of God recall to your mind your past neglects, transgressions, the sad disorders of an undisciplined life. Let “your sins be always before you”. In this spirit you will apply to your daily labours and avocations, as the means happily supplied by the Divine goodness to enable you to make an atonement for them in union with the labours of your Saviour Jesus Christ. Crosses, contradictions, trials, afflictions, will be welcomed as bringing with them more ample means to satisfy for your past sins.

This spirit of Penance will produce its due effect, in bringing about a change in your tempers and dispositions - above all, it will subdue pride; for pride and the true spirit of Penance cannot exist in the same breast. Hence, during this holy time, you will endeavour to become more humble, more mild, more patient, more disposed to be compassionate towards the failings of the others and more severe in judging yourselves; for the spirit of Penance is absolutely incompatible with the habit or practice speaking of the faults of others, of rashly judging others, of condemning others. Wherever this disposition prevails, Christian charity is destroyed; Christian charity, which is the bond of perfection. And yet, Dearly Beloved, how common are sins of uncharitableness!
¶
In vain, Dearly Beloved, are our fasts and external austerities, if we permit pride, vanity, vindictiveness, unmortified curiosity, to assume the form - of all others the most displeasing to God - that of an uncharitable, criticising, censuring spirit. “Speak to all the people of the land” says the Lord “when you fasted and the mourned did you keep a fast unto me?” Thus says the Lord of Hosts, “judge ye true judgement and shew ye mercy and compassion every man to his brother.” And again, “let none of you imagine evil in his heart against his friend, and love not a false oath, for these are things that I hate” says the Lord, “only Love ye truth and peace; and the fasts shall be to the house of Judah, joy and gladness and great solemnities.” (Zechariah 7:5)
¶
Seek, Dearly Beloved, in retirement [from the world], as well as your circumstances will permit, to renew the spirit of your mind. Be not seen in places of public amusement. Retire with Jesus into the desert during these forty days: and if, during this period, or later, you have the opportunity of assisting at the exercises of spiritual retreat, fail not to use so precious an opportunity of effecting a sincere conversion from a life of sinful tepidity, to a life of fervour to the service of God. “I will conduct thee”, says the Lord, “into solitude, and I will speak to thy heart.” You will be enabled to prepare for your confession with the greater care; to examine your conscience with more exactitude; to confess your sins with stricter fidelity; to conceive a deeper and more heartfelt sorrow for your sins. Thus will you be renewed unto God, and be disposed to fulfil the most important duty of the year - your Paschal Communion - in a way which shall be most profitable to your soul.
¶
How pleasing to God, how productive of good to ourselves, will this season of grace be, if this good determination take root! Under its influence holy charity will grow up, producing all manner of blessed fruits. “Charity which is mild, and gentle, and patient. Charity which envies not, is not proud, is not ambitious, seeks not her own.” Charity which is ever eager to praise, and rejoices to do so; and is silent when she cannot; is never better pleased than when she can conceal the faults of others from public observation, whilst she hesitates not to give that fraternal correction, in all meekness and gentleness, which duty requires.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of the Father and the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

Excerpts from Bishop John Bede Polding's Pastoral Letter for 1850 as contained in the anthology The Eye of Faith.

AMDG.

NOTES

The Eye of Faith was printed by the Lowden Publishing Co., Kilmore Victoria in 1977.  The editors were Gregory Haines, Sister Mary Gregory Foster and Frank Brophy.  Special contribution to the volume were made by Professor Timothy Suttor and James Cardinal Freeman.

Archbishop Polding's knowledge of the Scripture was so extensive that he could freely quote from it in his writings, especially from the Old Testament prophets and the Epistles of Saint Paul.

1849

This is a sketch from the year 1849 drawn from a vantage point in Hyde Park.  The large building on the right is the old Saint Mary's Cathedral.  To its right - and seeming to look attached - is the smaller Gothic structure of the Cathedral Chapter House, then used as a school.

In the centre of the sketch is shewn the Hyde Park Barracks and between it and the Cathedral is the campanile or tower housing the bells of Saint Mary's.  Both the campanile and Chapter House were built to the designs of the renowned English architect AWN Pugin.

Running through the right-hand size of the sketch (and slightly enhanced digitally) is College Street.

NOTES 

This sketch is in Collection of the National Library of Australia.

AMDG

Lenten Pastoral 1849 : 2

To prayer, we must add fasting and alms-deeds. Fasting, indeed, is the good work to which the Church especially directs our attention at this holy time. And, what are we to understand by fasting? Not merely the abstaining from a certain quantity or quality of food for the body, but moreover, the denying to the soul that which serves only to nourish its evil propensities. Hence, the tongue and senses must be placed under restraint; that love of pleasure, of novelty, that indulgence of curiosity which so ordinarily prevail, must give way to Christian mortification. The fast of the body will avail little if the soul does not also fast. Hence, the season of Lent is to be to you a time of retirement, so far as the circumstances of your state of life will permit….
¶
The fast of Lent prescribes that we take only one full meal each day, and this after mid-day. Custom, sanctioned by the Church, permits a small collation to be taken in the morning and in the evening. Moreover abstinence from meat is enjoined. Our forefathers, nay, even some dioceses within our own memory, observed this injunction in great strictness. We have, alas! fallen away greatly from their fervour…

To prayer and fasting, let a liberal distribution of the means you have of benefitting your fellow-creatures be united ... Our fast must be accompanied by an ample distribution of our means.

Blessed be God, we willingly bear our testimony to the generous aid you have imparted when we have called upon you for assistance in the direction of churches and schools. We exhort to you to continue, and to enlarge the expanse of your charity.

The wretched unfortunate aborigines of the country – the first occupants of the lands over which your flocks and herds now run – have a very strong claim upon you. Nor will the Lord hold you innocent if you have not used your best endeavours to promote their temporal and eternal well-being.

The servant who has given you the flower of his days is not to be turned on to the wide world, nor consigned to the Benevolent Asylum when old age and its infirmities have come upon him. Are there not poor within the range of your influence to be relieved?  Ignorant to be instructed?  Children to be catechised?  Sick to be visited?  Afflicted to be consoled?  Ah, when the heart is well-disposed, objects for the exercise of its generous impulses will never be wanting.  Would to God we could witness in this our Metropolitan City the spirit of Christian alms-giving holding full sway over the minds and affections of our people! ... At all times but particularly during this holy season, we exhort our beloved clergy to encourage to the utmost this holy and fructifying spirit.

Excerpts from Archbishop John Bede Polding's Pastoral Letter for 1849 as contained in the anthology The Eye of Faith. It is thought that the 1849 letter was written for Lent 1848 and re-issued in 1849.

NOTES

The Eye of Faith was printed by the Lowden Publishing Co., Kilmore Victoria in 1977.  The editors were Gregory Haines, Sister Mary Gregory Foster and Frank Brophy.  Special contribution to the volume were made by Professor Timothy Suttor and James Cardinal Freeman.

AMDG

Lenten Pastoral Letter 1849 : 1

John Bede of the Holy Order of S' Benedict, Archbishop-Assistant to the Pontifical Throne, Prelate to the Household of His Holiness &c &c. By the Grace of God and the Apostolic See, Archbishop of Sydney and Vicar Apostolic of New Holland, to the Faithful of the Archdiocese and Vicariate, Clergy and Laity : Grace and Blessing.

In the course of the year, the wise and tender cares of the Church for the spiritual welfare of her children is made manifest by the institution of various seasons; of some devoted to penitential exercises, and of others to thankfulness and joy.  Of the former, the period of Lent may be considered the principal. It becomes us to enter into the spirit of this holy time, in order that our souls may duly profit by it.

And what is that spirit? Too frequently the time of Lent is deemed merely a period during which abstinence from certain kinds of food, and a restriction over the cravings of the sensual appetite are required. Under this impression, its observance sinks down into a mere outward formality, by which the soul is not in the least amended. But, Beloved Children in Jesus Christ, the Church aims at something more than this; she intends Lent to be a season of retirement, of self-examination, in order that the soul - when she has by these means come to a knowledge of her state - may employ herself in subduing her enemies, in rectifying her inclinations, her powers, and in bringing the entire man, by salutary restraint and mortification, under subjection to God. Hence, not only is fasting ordained; prayer and alms-deeds according to our means must be used. These three : prayer, fasting, alms-deeds, are the eminent good works, which through the merits of Jesus Christ, sanctify the soul and establish the reign of God within her.

Prayer is absolutely necessary for salvation : so requisite, indeed, that no other means whatever can supply the graces which are attached to it. Accordingly, no duty is more strongly insisted on in Holy Writ; to none is a reward more distinctly promised. Pray always; watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation; Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full; Knock, and it shall be opened. Thus, whilst prayer is assured of its recompense, no gift from God is promised unless it be asked for: the door will not be opened unless we supplicate for the favour.  Hence, prayer is one of the principal duties of the Christian. And what is prayer? It is, observes the Catechism, * a raising of the heart to God, whereby we ask to receive all good, and to be delivered from all evil. Let our prayer be from the heart, and it will never fail to obtain success, so far as may be conducive to our salvation.

Wherefore, Beloved, we exhort you to continued, earnest prayer. Never omit to offer your supplications each morning and evening; before and after your meals say a prayer; follow the custom of the first Christians, and acknowledge the bounty of Him who opens his hand and fills his creatures with benediction. Be assiduous in reciting the form of prayer to commemorate the goodness of our Saviour in becoming man for our sakes, known by the name of the Angelus. Assist at the Sacrifice of the Altar, not on Sundays and holy days only, but even each day, if your circumstances will permit. Habituate yourselves to walk in the Divine presence, and from time to time in the course of the day, to raise your thoughts to God by some prayer. Thus will you accomplish the precept of praying always.

And for whom are we to pray? The love of self imperceptibly extends its influence even over our devotional exercises. We pray for ourselves, for our families, and we conclude that we have discharged our duty.  It is not so, Beloved.  Members of one holy Church, which unites in one all her children, we are bound to pray for her welfare, for the welfare of the Head of the Church, of our own [bishop], pastor, and other superiors; we are bound to pray for all ranks and conditions of life, that to all may be given according to their respective wants. And even as we cannot in Christian charity neglect to relieve the bodily wants of those in distress, so that same Christian charity requires that by humble, continued, earnest supplication, we endeavour to obtain the grace of repentance for all in the dreadful guilt of mortal sin. Wherefore, we strongly exhort you … [to pray for] … the grace of conversion for those who still sit in darkness and under the shadow of death. We entreat you to remember the duty you owe to your own country and people.

To be continued

Excerpts from Archbishop John Bede Polding's Pastoral Letter for 1848 and 1849 as contained in the anthology The Eye of Faith.

NOTES

The Eye of Faith was printed by the Lowden Publishing Co., Kilmore Victoria in 1977.  The editors were Gregory Haines, Sister Mary Gregory Foster and Frank Brophy.  Special contribution to the volume were made by Professor Timothy Suttor and James Cardinal Freeman.

The Archbishop's mention of the Catechism most probably refers to the Catechism of the Council of Trent.


AMDG

Hyde Park Sydney 1869

Image : State Library of NSW

This rare photograph from the State Library of NSW was taken looking across the southern-most end of Hyde Park in 1869.  The formation of pathways and an arcade of trees is clearly shewn.  In the middle ground, running from left to right is College Street and just to the right of centre is the intersection of College and Liverpool Streets.  All the buildings shewn in this photograph have long since disappeared.

AMDG.