A POOL PARTY RATHER THAN PENANCE FOR OUR LADY OF LOURDES PN

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That champion of innovation and heterodoxy, Father Joe Grayland of Our Lady of Lourdes, Palmerston North, has surprised his congregation once more. His latest brainwave was to invite parishioners to celebrate their patronal feast yesterday with a Pool Party after Holy Mass.

A Pool Party? In Palmerston North, mid-morning? To celebrate Our Lady of Lourdes, who called us to prayer and penance? You've got to be kidding. No. A Pool Party - and 'Games', even.

We conjecture that Father Grayland must cut a fine figure in his bathers, and would have led his hapless people off the diving board with great aplomb.

As one OLOL parishioner commented: "What next? THE POOL will be OPENED! After a Mass!?  I'm not against swimming, but the thought of it being something you participate in with parishioners after Mass seems so degrading in our culture.  This is NOT the pool of Bethesda. Just saying! Cannot get my head around this one!"

Another says: "You can see where it's headed. Naturism."

Instead of opening the pool, why didn't Fr Grayland expose the Blessed Sacrament for an Hour of Adoration of Our Lord Jesus Christ and reparation for offences against His Blessed Mother, and to pray for the Church in the greatest crisis in her two thousand-year history? To do penance and pray for sinners, as Our Lady asked at Lourdes?   

Quite the contrary. Along with opening the pool, another proposal is to cancel OLOL's Friday Hour of Adoration of the Eucharist, the reason being, there is no priest available (or willing) to expose or repose the Blessed Sacrament. 

Meanwhile, over the Track in Pahiatua, St Brigid's thinks it's a Good Idea to cut their Sunday Adoration time by half, from four hours to two. The reason given is "to make it more special". Que?  At St Brigid's too, they manage Adoration without a priest. It's a matter of having to, and as long as you have an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist or - interestingly - a layperson of either sex (see the 1973 Instruction "Immensae Caritatis").

Interesting I say, because here in Holy Trinity CHB, Father told me I couldn't "do" Adoration any more because I'd resigned as a 'Minister of the Eucharist'. The one remaining weekly Hour of Adoration went by the board some time ago, unnoticed by the Parish Council, when the 5 p m Mass following was cancelled because there was a congregation of one. Useless for me to suggest to the Council (as I had, more than once) that Mass should be held at 5.10 p m in the hope that parishioners in the workforce might attend. No, instead Mass and along with it, Adoration, was scrapped.

These are the facts, and if Father's statement that this layperson can't "do" Adoration any more sounds a bit like punishment for resigning as 'Minister of the Eucharist', when St Joseph's is so short of them, well, that can't be helped.

According to the mind of the Church - if not the mind of the PP - Adoration does not need a priest to expose and repose the Blessed Sacrament. But Adoration does certainly need a priest to promote it, and in Holy Trinity CHB as in so many churches in New Zealand, misled by their liberal bishops our priests don't even attend Adoration, let alone promote it.

Except for Maundy (Holy) Thursday, I can't recall ever seeing a priest attend Adoration, let alone promote it, here in Holy Trinity CHB. So now we have only one hour a week in the parish, at St Patrick's Waipawa, attended by 2-3 at best.

It makes a token, or farce even, of Sunday Mass attendance. If lay people truly believed in the Presence of Our Lord and God in the Eucharist, would they not turn up to Adoration, where they can beg Him to hear their prayers, or just visit Him sometimes in the tabernacle? If priests truly believed in the Real Presence, would they not encourage their people to pray like this? Would they not do it themselves?

At St Mary's in Palmerston North, with Indian Rosminian priests and a high percentage of parishioners being immigrants from India, where Catholic culture is so much more faithful and traditional than in NZ, Fr Manoj Mathew offers Benediction with bells on: incense, Latin hymns, and incense, the lot, after an Hour of Adoration on Sunday afternoon. "Very beautiful," I'm told, and "quite a good turn-out".

As another correspondent remarks: "Any priest who doesn't spend at least an hour before the Blessed Sacrament daily is a priest who follows the Lord far off. And therefore will be unable to remain orthodox and faithful to Christ. It's simply not possible, especially in this current crisis in the Church! 

"That is why so many priests fall victim to the great apostasy we find ourselves in. "All the virtues are possessed by contemplation!" says St Teresa (of Avila). And the outpouring of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Ask yourself how often you see our bishops and priests before the Most Blessed Sacrament on a daily basis! 

"Two particular gifts of the Holy Spirit I find lacking in priests are discernment and wisdom, which they should have by their training and theological knowledge especially of the Sacred Tradition of the "Science of the Saints".

"Scripture must be interpreted in the light of unchanging Tradition and the Magisterium, not in the light of solo scriptura and Pope Francis' self-proclaimed Magisterium Pontificate!"

Bob Gill says:

It doesn’t say much for the parishioners of Our Lady of Lourdes, Palmerston North not objecting to a pool party. They should have canned the idea at the start and, as you suggested, opted for a traditional church event. There’s still time to celebrate, though, because the actual feast of Our Lady of Lourdes is not until 11 February (today).

Adoration, or Exposition with Benediction, seems to be a bit of a rarity in the Palmerston North diocese. It was Father Bryan Buenger, for example, who introduced the monthly 7pm service with Benediction at St Joseph’s Dannevirke after it not being celebrated on a regular basis for years. Now we have a new parish priest, Father Vince Onesi, I am hoping he will carry on with what Father Buenger started. Perhaps we can eventually end up with at least weekly Exposition, rather than just a monthly service.

As only a handful of parishioners currently attend our 7pm session, though, including the children of one family, I have suggested we canvass parishioners to find out which day and time of day would suit the parishioners so we can maximise on attendance. At the same time we should be targeting the children as most in the parish never attend church services other than the small number who attend Mass on a Sunday.

I do hope we get a bishop who is interested in investigating why so few children attend Sunday Mass. I can’t understand, for example, why so many parents ensure their children attend the local Catholic school to be educated, but don’t get them to Sunday Mass here.

I say:


A PN lay person, a bit of a liturgist, had this advice for St Brigid's Pahiatua, where their Sunday Adoration is threatened by a move to cut its time in half:
"I recommend that you try to put a halt on any decisions until you have had a chance to voice your concerns to Fr Vince once he is settled.  If he would be willing to expose and repose, then that would be the best case scenario, regardless of how many hours the Lord is exposed for.  The rest of the time, He awaits us in the Blessed Sacrament!  Perhaps Fr Vince would be able to offer Exposition with Benediction, as I'm sure he would be very familiar with this - he was with Fr Manoj for a time and Fr Manoj offers Benediction with all the Latin hymns, incense etc, as you have seen at St Mary's every Tuesday and some Sundays.  It is very beautiful.  You must ask him and let him know that you'd like it how Fr Manoj offers it! 
St Mary's is also organising 24 Hours of Adoration, as last year, as   an introduction to Lent.

Stephanie Tichbon says:

Last September we went to Lourdes and bathed in the healing water. We brought back a large container of Lourdes water. There were 5 people outside of our own family that took some of this precious water, including one of our holy priests who makes good use of it. We have plenty more healing water if anyone wants some. 

At our very own 'Our Lady of Lourdes' Church, the pool party for the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes is perhaps bringing to the surface, that some have stopped listening to the Lourdes story and the scientific evidence of the healing qualities of Lourdes water. 

Bob Gill says:

It's not just the Lourdes story not being listened to by some. Our church pastors in NZ have made a point of not celebrating most feasts of Our Lady throughout the year. Most churches for example, will not even have mentioned the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes on Feb 11. In contrast, England still loves the Mother of God, as the country is to be re-dedicated nationally as 'The Dowry of Mary' on March 29 2020.

Philippa O'Neill says:

Bob, you are so right ... all but ignored ... just so awful. How did we get to this? We have a beautiful icon of Our Lady in our church ... given to us all from past members. It has a light behind it and the power to it was cut off some time ago so that it cannot be turned on ... that speaks volumes to me.