Rosary pilgrimage made to country church

The memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary on October 7 saw a special celebration in a holy place on the Awhitu Peninsula north of Waiuku in Auckland diocese.

People made a pilgrimage to The Church of the Most Holy Rosary at Matakawau to pray the rosary – the five luminous mysteries – and to be at a Mass celebrated by Waiuku parish priest Fr Mathew Vadakkevettuvazhiyil.

In his homily, Fr Vadakkevettuvazhiyil said that “we have a lot of history here”.

“That is something for which we are really grateful. We thank God for that,” he said.

Fr Vadakkevettuvazhiyil described how the people of the district worked hard to raise funds to build a Catholic church. It opened in 1954, and it is planned that a platinum jubilee celebration will be organised for next year.

A notice on the door of the church stated that the first general meeting was called in January, 1938, for the purpose of raising funds to build a Catholic church in the area.

Fundraising methods included dances, raffles, car evenings, bazaars, and donations. Although these stopped during World War II, eventually a church was built and opened in 1954, at a cost of 3000 pounds.

In his homily on October 7, Fr Vadakkevettuvazhiyil noted the great faith of these people.

He observed that some family members from the district were in the congregation, including Audrey Halliday (nee Dryland), who was married to Arthur Halliday in the first nuptial Mass celebrated in the church on February 4, 1961.

Sunday Mass is now celebrated once a month at the church, and numbers are small, in contrast to the yesteryear, when the church would be full of people at Mass.

But old, faithful parishioners have died or have gone to live in retirement homes, and young people have moved away.

“But that is not the end of it,” Fr Vadakkevettuvazhiyil said. “We have a life. It doesn’t matter how many of us are here. And that life must be celebrated.”

He spoke of being visited in Waiuku by the Little Sisters of the Poor recently, and of going with them to Matakawau to pray the rosary. The idea of making pilgrimages to the church was discussed. The Little Sisters organised a vanload of people to be at the celebration on October 7.

Fr Vadakkevettuvazhiyil hopes that many more people will decide to make a pilgrimage to The Church of the Holy Rosary, “this sanctuary of Our Blessed Mother”, in the next few months.

“Our plan is to invite the people to Matakawau once a month through this year of Jubilee leading to the 70th Anniversary, platinum jubilee next year,” Fr Vadakkevettuvazhiyil told NZ Catholic.

One of those who made the journey to Matakawau on October 7 was Bishop Emeritus of Hamilton Bishop Denis Browne. After the Mass, Bishop Browne told the congregation that “it seems a long time since the last time I was here to celebrate Mass, [but] it is not that very long ago”.

“One of the things that always struck me when I came out to this part of the diocese of Auckland, in the very early days, was the devotion of the people,” Bishop Browne said.

“And we see it again today here as we celebrate this [day].”

“I remember the hard work that went into the building of the church, and it being given the title.”

Bishop Browne linked the name of the church with the dedication of Aotearoa to Our
Lady Assumed into Heaven by Bishop Jean-Baptiste Pompallier.

“As we recall memories and talk about the wonder and beauty that God has given us in this land, let us always remember that we owe so much to Bishop Pompallier, and to those wonderful people who took up his vision when he landed here,” Bishop Browne said.

“His arrival in New Zealand was regarded in a way as a miracle, because he managed to get over the bar on the Hokianga Harbour, and many people foundered trying to get into that beautiful harbour of the Hokianga,” he added.

In his homily, Fr Vadakkevettuvazhiyil described how the memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary came to be instituted by Pope Pius V in the sixteenth century, following the defeat of Ottoman Turkish forces in the battle of Lepanto.

“We are waging a war [today] not in terms of enemies coming to kill us,” said Fr Vadakkevettuvazhiyil, “but certainly a war against the forces of evil we find every day in our lives.”

“Evil in terms of forms of exploitation, in terms of inability to make responsible choices in life, in terms of upholding the dignity and sanctity of life, in terms of the proper assistance to people in need . . . and again in our own experience . . . we need inner freedom and inner joy, and the means is prayer.”

Several group photos were arranged after the Mass, both inside and outside the church. Fr Vadakkevettuvazhiyil thanked those who had mowed lawns, and who had helped prepare the church for the celebration.