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.

Churches and clergy in 1837

Father Bede Sumner OSB
Ordained in old Saint Mary's Cathedral
9th May 1836,
being the first priestly ordination in Australia.

In March of 1837, when Bishop Polding wrote the Lenten Pastoral to his Flock, quoted in our previous posts, the white settlement of Australia had taken place less  than 50 years previously.  In 1837, the British Government was still sending convicts to the Colony of New South Wales.  In 1837, the settlement of Melbourne and Adelaide had only taken place a year or two previously.  A settlement had existed in Perth for some years, but it might well have been on another planet.  White settlement in Australia was mainly confined to what we now know as NSW and Tasmania.  The indigenous peoples of Australia continued to live in and around white settlement, on land they had occupied for thousands of years.  Much of what we know now as urban Australia was bushland, undisturbed by European civilisation.

In March of 1837, there were but eight (8) priests actively serving on the Australia Mission; these are their names and where they were stationed :

Father John McENCROE, Chaplain at Sydney; arrived in Australia 1832

Father Henry GREGORY OSB, S' Mary's Seminary; ordained in Sydney 1837

Father Bede SUMNER OSB, Chaplain at Parramatta; ordained in Sydney 1836

Father John Joseph THERRY, Chaplain at Campbelltown; arrived in Australia 1820

Father James Vincent CORCORAN OP, Chaplain at Windsor; arrived in Australia 1835

Father Christopher Vincent DOWLING OP Chaplain at East Maitland; arrived in Australia 1831

Father Ambrose COTHAM OSB Chaplain at Hobarton; arrived in Australia 1835

Father James WATKINS Chaplain at Hobarton; arrived in Australia circa 1835

OTHER :

The Very Reverend William Bernard ULLATHORNE OSB Vicar-General (visiting Europe 1836-38)

Father Philip CONNOLY, arrived in Australia 1820; resident in Hobarton.


There were also a small number of ecclesiastical students at the Sydney seminary, some of whom in the few years following were ordained at Saint Mary's.

It might be noted from the above that what is now South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory did not have a resident Catholic priest; in some of these places, a Catholic priest had never visited.


CHURCHES

In 1837, although there were quite a number of temporary places of Catholic worship, there were only a handful of permanent churches in the settled areas of Australia, as follows :

Sydney : S' Mary's Cathedral (no longer in existence);

Sydney : S' Joseph's chapel (adjacent to the Cathedral, no longer in existence);

Parramatta : S' Patrick's Church (original church no longer in existence);

Campbelltown : S' John's Church (still existing, but no longer a church);

Maitland : S' Joseph's Church (East Maitland, no longer in existence);

Wollongong : a temporary church (subsequently replaced);

Windsor : Saint Matthew's church (in the process of being built);

Richmond TAS : Saint John's church (still existing and in use);

Hobart TAS : a temporary church (subsequently replaced);

AMDG.

Regulations and Dispensations for Lent 1837

Appended to Bishop Polding's Pastoral Letter - reproduced in our previous post - were these Regulations and Dispensations for Lent:

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will be celebrated, and a lecture given each morning at half past eight - in general, also, Mass will be celebrated at half past seven.

Part of the Rosary with night prayers will be recited in St Joseph’s Chapel each evening at seven o’clock.

Each Wednesday evening, Benediction of the most Holy Sacrament will be given, and a lecture delivered in reference to the calumnious aspersions cast upon the Catholic religion, or explanatory of its tenets.

Each Friday prayers will be said, and a lecture given at seven o’clock in the evening.

The faithful are earnestly exhorted to attend the public devotions of the Church according to their circumstances, and if prevented, let each one if private or in his own family devote a space of time to prayer and pious reading.

The Easter indulgence commences on Passion Sunday, and continues till Whit Sunday inclusive; during this period all the faithful are required, if they have the opportunity, to confess their sins, and with the permission of their Pastor, to receive the most holy Communion.

The dispensations from the strict fast of Lent granted to all the faithful are the following :

Meat is allowed on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays till Palm Sunday inclusive; on the three last mentioned days at dinner only.

A small collation may be taken in the morning and evening. But at this collation, milk, butter and cheese, are not allowed. Eggs and cheese are allowed at dinner on all days, except on the Wednesday of Holy Week, and the Fridays of each week.

The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be will you all - Amen.

+John Bede Polding
Bishop and Vicar Apostolic.

NOTES

These regulations are reproduced from the anthology The Eye of Faith.

Saint Joseph's Chapel seems to have been built in the year 1829 as an extension to a building which had been constructed some years earlier by Father John Joseph Therry to serve both as the residence for the Catholic Chaplain and as a Catholic schoolhouse.  Together, these buildings formed an " E " shape, as is shewn in the illustration above.  The buildings occupied that spot just north of the present Saint Mary's Cathedral Presbytery. The buildings were demolished in 1867 to allow for the construction of new Saint Mary's Cathedral.

This view of the Chapel, School and Priest's residence was painted in 1834 and is part of the collection of the National Library of Australia.  The artist took a certain licence in illustrating the buildings, but the form of Saint Joseph's - a two-storey colonial building - is accurate.  

Lenten Pastoral Letter 1837

The Pastoral Instruction for Lent 1837

Addressed to all the Faithful in New Holland and Van Diemen's Land

By the Right Reverend John Bede Polding DD Bishop and Vicar Apostolic

Now, therefore, saith the Lord, be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting and in weeping and in mourning.  From the Prophecy of Joel 2 : 12

When John the Baptist, in the exercise of his high commission, announced to the world the coming of its Redeemer, he preached the baptism of penance … The Church in like manner, at the commencement of this holy season, enjoins her pastors to entreat all under their charge to prepare their souls to celebrate the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, and to bring themselves into the disposition most fitting the contemplation of these sorrowful mysteries, by a renunciation of sin, by a sincere conversion, by penitential exercises in atonement for past crime, and as a means to purify their affections from carnal pursuits.

¶
The world and its business usurp that place in our hearts which God alone should occupy; hence indifference to prayer, hence neglect of attendance at Mass, hence years follow each other in rapid succession, and the Sacraments are not received. This being the case, with bitter grief we view the fatal consequences in the prevalence of vice, which spreads like a desolate and cancer over this land. The sacred name of God is blasphemed worse than among the Gentiles; the holiness of an oath is trampled under foot; Sunday is no longer deemed that day consecrated to the Lord; children grow up in the habits of sin unchecked and unheeded; with a lamentable precocity (sic precociousness) - before their mental or corporeal power are developed - they emulate the bad example of their parents; the sanctity of marriage is deemed of no account. Drunkenness - the parent and progeny of misfortune and of crime - who shall recount the victims this monster daily sacrifices to hell? 

But the word of the Lord remaineth for ever. This gracious offer to pardon a sinful people is held out also to us. But the conditions on which that pardon is offered must be fulfilled. The first of those conditions is a change of heart … the second condition is a determination to avoid evil and to do good … The third condition of repentance, a disposition to atone for past sins, and to preserve our souls in good purposes by works of penance.

¶
And if Jesus vouchsafed to suffer for us and thus make a full atonement for our crimes, do not imagine that you are thereby exempted from the works of penance.

¶
From these principles it follows, Dearly Beloved, that each one who acknowledges himself to be a sinner, and professes to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, is bound to deny himself, to take up his cross after the example of his blessed Master. A life of labour, each according to his vocation, abounding in the exercises of penance and of all good works, is the life of the true follower of Jesus Christ.

¶
Whilst the Church hath exhorted her children to live at all times in the strict discipline of a Christian life, from the earliest period of her existence she has set apart a season of the year preparatory to her celebration of the mysteries of our Redemption, during which she has called upon the faithful to enter on a more severe course of penance, to live in deeper retirement, and to seek a more intimate union with God in exercises of devotion.

¶
Dearly Beloved, in no portion of the Christian Church ought the sacred time of Lent to be observed with greater strictness than in this (country) which the Lord has committed to our pastoral charge. Are there not very many who live in a systematic contempt of the ordinances of Religion, whom we have repeatedly exhorted to return to the practices of the Christian life, to throw off their habits of criminal indulgence and indolence? 

¶

Dearly Beloved, we will not speak to you in the language of recrimination and reproof; rather we will entreat you in all affectionate solicitude for your welfare, to take up the yoke of the Lord with a willing mind and cheerful heart, that you may experience its sweetness. He who has so long waited for you, compassionate and gracious, is even now ready to carry you back to the fold in the arms of His mercy. He will embrace you; you will weep over your past miseries, and He will weep with you; He will cloth you with the robe of repentance; He will welcome you to the banquet of His love; in your conversion heaven and earth will rejoice.

¶
O let not this our admonition be in vain! We trust in the Lord that denying all ungodly desires, you will at length know the time of your visitation, and study the things which are to your everlasting peace.

Excerpts from Bishop John Bede Polding's Pastoral Letter for 1837 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 1842

In 1842, during the visit to Rome when he was appointed Archbishop of Sydney, John Bede Polding was accorded the rare distinction by Pope Gregory XV, of being made a Bishop-Assistant at the Pontifical Throne and a Count of the Papal Court. As a bishop-assistant, Archbishop Polding was required to wear particular vesture whilst resident in Rome (but only whilst in Rome); regardless of the fact that he usually wore the black choir dress of Benedictine bishops, the vesture of members of the Papal Chapel was to be purple in colour.

During this particular visit to Rome, a pen-and-ink portrait of Archbishop Polding was prepared by a local artist Signor Fidanza and depicts him wearing the vesture of a prelate of the Papal Chapel.  This portrait depicts the Archbishop as young and optimistic in appearance and with a full head of hair!  At the time, he was 47 years of age.  The illustration accompanying this post is a digital enhancement of Fidanza's 1842 portrait.

The illustration includes a reproduction of Archbishop Polding's signature : + J.B. Polding Sydnein. being an abbreviation of the Latin Sydneyensis, indicating his office of Archbishop of Sydney.

NOTES:

1.  The shade of Roman Purple which is now familiar for the colour of the vesture of bishops is similar to the colour fuchsia. This colour, however, was only stipulated by the Holy See in 1930s as the particular shade of purple approved to be worn by bishops and other prelates. In centuries previous, various shades of the colour violaceus were worn by Catholic bishops, some being more blue in tone than red. All these varieties were considered acceptable. But the brighter purple or fuchsia now familiar to us was hardly known before the 20th century.  Archbishop Polding is shewn in this illustration in choir dress which is more violet in colour.

2.  This digital illustration was prepared by the Saint Bede Studio and is under its copyright. 

Sydney 1849

This lovely watercolour of the city of Sydney in 1849 was painted by the colonial artist George Edwards Peacock from Woolloomooloo approximately on the site of Macleay Street.

On the left, we find William Street running west towards Hyde Park.  To the left of the centre of the painting is depicted old Saint Mary's Cathedral, shewing its apse rather than principal facade.  Adjoining the northern transept of the Cathedral is the Chapel of Saint Felician, built for the private use of the Benedictine Community.  Further to the right of old Saint Mary's is found the building now known as the Chapter House, and beyond this, the campanile designed by AWN Pugin and built to house Sydney's first peel of bells.  Along the skyline can be made out the Hyde Park barracks, as well as those buildings running along Macquarie Street which comprise the Mint Building, the Sydney Hospital and Houses of Parliament.  The spire of Saint James' Anglican church can also be clearly seen.

Dense bush is illustrated in that area which is now the Domain and the Botanical Gardens.

An enlarged section of Peacock's painting is also included here, which demonstrates the detail in which the artist captured the city buildings.

Click on the images for an enlarged view.

AMDG.

NOTES

George Peacock's watercolour is in the Collection of the State Library of NSW.

Lent 2020 with Archbishop Polding

During the forthcoming Season of Lent, we will regularly be publishing extracts from the Lenten Letters of Archbishop Polding, which were written over the forty years of his ministry in Australia.

"Each time he [Archbishop Polding] wrote he tried to draw his audience closer to God, to encourage upright human conduct and to counter evil, sin and the false ideologies which challenged God’s presence in Australia.  His letters present a consistently based view of the state of religion and of private and public morals in Australia throughout the crucial years of the nineteenth century."

From The Eye of Faith, the collected pastoral letters of Archbishop Polding.

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 engraving of Archbishop Polding was published by the newspaper The Sydney Mail in the late 1860s, based on a contemporary photograph.  The engraving has been digitally enhanced by the Saint Bede Studio.