Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 February 1914 — St. Augustine’s Church Notes. [ARTICLE]

St. Augustine’s Church Notes.

Next Sunday Is Septuagesima Sunday. The word Septuagesima means seventy. According to the first council of Orleans, in the year A. D. 545, many pious ecclesiastics and lay persons of the primitive church used ,to fast seventy days before Easter and their fast was called, therefore! Septuagesima a name which was afterwards retalped to distinguish this Sunday from others. The same was the case with the three following Sundays; many Christians commencing their fast sixty days before Easter, whence the name Sexagesifna,; others fifty days, whence Quinguageeima; others forty days, whence Quadragesima. On Sunday next the services will be as follows: Early mass at 8 o’clock. The St. Rose Sodality will receive holy communion at this mass. A short sermon will be given. Rosary high mass with sermon at 10 o’clock. The subject of sermon at high mass will be “The Dignity of Man as Husband.” At 2:30 Christion doctrine, devotional exercises and benediction. After vesper prayers, those to take part in our next entertainment will meet in the school hall for practice. Last Sunday at their meeting the Christian Mothers’ Sodality elected the following officers for the ensuing year: Mrs. Mary E. Drake, president; Mrs. Julia Eigelsbaeh, secretary; Mrs. Elizabeth, treasurer; assistant officers to be appointed at the next meeting. —- At 2 o’clock last Sunday about 60 men met in the parochial school hall for the purposa of organizing the Holy Name Society. A permanent organization was effected, with the following as .officers: Edward Lana president; Alonzo Healy, secretary; Edward Kanne, treasurer; Edward Honan and Joseph Nagel, eonsultors. These five officers will constitute the council of the society. All present have pledged themselves to obtain new members and it is hoped by the 22nd of February, when the solemn reception takes place, over 200 have been enrolled.

That there Is need of a Holy Name Society in our day none can deny. There Is indeed an abuse —of the name “Jesus,” There is a tendency to speak lightly of God and His saints, a growing custom of laughing and ridiculing whatever approaches the supernatural. And it was to fight these evils that the Holy Name Society was organized. More serious is the attack made on the divine character of Christ by those who wear the guise of friendship; who pretend to see in Jesus the perfection of manhood, the embodiment of all that is good in our nature, yet doubt, if they do not deny, His divine origin, his equality with the Father and the Holy Spirit. To maintain and to increase man’s faith in the divinity of the Savior is the Chief object of the society; to promote respect and honor for the name, the means; an organized body of men striving hear!; and soul to make Jesus the man God better known and better loved—this is the Holy Name Society and its aim.