The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-02-23
MIDDAY MASS TO Be
HELD DURING LENT
Announcement Made Yes
terday by Father COyle
is INNOVATION HERE
Father Coyle Reads Appeal For Ne
gro and Indian Mission and
Communication From Bishop
Allen of Mobile
is INNOVATION HERE

The Rev. Father James II. Coyle at the
IL o'clock service yesterday at st. PauIs
church announced that special midday
mass would be held at this church during
the Lenten season. The extra service
which will be concluded within 80 min
utes. is departure in this city and will
doubtless attract many people to tho
church during the Lenten season Father
Coyie said yesterday, when he announced
the midday mass. that the innovation
places Birmingham in class with New
York. Chicago and other large cities
where the noon masses are celebrated.
In place of the regular sermon yester-
day Father Coyle read an announcement
from the Rt Rev. r.. =. Allen. bishop of
Mobile, in reference to the mission fund
annually taken during Lent and also a
communication from the commission on
negro and Indian mission, composed OF
His Eminence James Cardinal Gibbons
archbishop of Baltimore: His Eminenoe
John Cardinal Farley, archbishop of New
York, and the Most Rev. Edmond r.
Prendergast, ID. D., archbishop of Phlla-
delphia. He called special attention to
the appeal issued and admonished the
brethren to remember the unfortunates
during the Lenten season. He read the
Lenten rules as is the custom.
The Appeal
The appeal as to the mission work in
part follows:
Dearly beloved Brethren
During the season of Lent you Will
| renew your spirit of religion by striving
to realize more and more fully the pur-
pose of life, its solemn issues and chances,
and the love of Christ for your souls. We
judge 1t I'm harmony with this sacred oc-
cupation to press upon you the consider
alton likewise of the eternal welfare of
the negroes and Indians of our land. God
| by creating them men. has lifted them
above all that perishes, and has made
them for Himself. God Wills all men to
be saved and to come to a knowledge of
the truth. He Is their good, their need,
their destiny, their God--as He is ours.
God so desires their love that He sent
His only begotten son into this world to
win ii.
We should then, from motives of faith,
feel concern for the salvation of these
races. and. from charity, unite their vel
fare with our own. 1t should be natural
for us so TO feel
THE great-hearted captain who discov-
cred our continent. like all Catholics en-
gaging in enterprise of moment, was
stirred by religion In his heroic venture.
and hoped that he might be on a mission
for God. that his caravels, tossing on the
untracked sea, might be freighted with
Il let, 80
known world.
Story of Missionaries
Love for the salvation of the natives
of the new world led missionaries In the
sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth CEN
turtles to leave their hoEnes I'm Spain and
France, cross the lonely sea, and seek,
In the vast spaces es this land, savages
who had scarcely the simplest terms of
religion In their speech. who scorned
decent restraint upon their conduct, and
who were I'm perpetual warfare.
This story is more thrilling than any
romance. Why should we not make it
this year our Lenten reading? We shall
do something worth while for the con-
version of the Indians when we get more
Interested in them. We shall carry on
the work of the pioneer missionaries with
more spirit when fathers and mothers feel
In the supreme joy of the parenthood TO
give their best sons and daughters to
Christ for the noble service OK souls
Christ is not now asking. in this service,
the apostolate of blood. but the peaceful
apostolate of church and school.
Evangelize Negroes
"Our opportunity to evangelze the
negroes of this country dates from eman-
cipation, for In slavery they followed the
religion OF their masters, and these were
commonly non-Catholics. The conversion
of the negroes was one of the chief
| anxieties of the second plenary council
envoked at the close of the civil war. A
beginning of the actual work was made
when DR.. O'Connor gave up his bishop S
throne in Pittsburg TO labor as n Jesuit
IN negro parish In Baltimore, and when
the bishops of the south set up separate
church for the negroes of their dioceses.
In 1871 Father Vaughan of England.
afterwards cardinal archbishop of West
minister, opened In this country house
of his missionaries for the conversion of
the colored race.
1--WE have not yet advanced beyond the
beginning of this promising apostolate.
The work must go on we must have souls
for Christ among the 100000 negroes of
these states. for we are Catholics. We
cannot. therefore, be a narrow sect, lim-
tied to tongue, race, or land since
the whole world for a spiritual kingdom
AID the nations for an inheritance. We
need missionaries and money.
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