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No backing down for monarch who would sooner abdicate Editorial - page 16
Saint Columba’s is dedicated to Christ, with love By Robert Hiini IT had been a long wait, but St Columba’s South Perth was finally dedicated and consecrated last Sunday, 75 years after it was blessed and opened. Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB joined Parish Priest Monsignor Brian O’Loughlin and long-serving Parish Priest Emeritus Fr Michael Casey, for the occasion. In his homily, Archbishop Costelloe said the day of the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) was an ideal time to celebrate St Columba’s solemn dedication and consecration: “We Catholics, I think, have an instinct which is deep within us that the celebration of the Eucharist is at the very heart of our faith; the
heart of our church; at the heart of our identity as Catholics,” the Archbishop said. “So it seems to me there is no better day for us to do what we are doing here in the church tonight …
In those days a church could not be dedicated unless it was paid for ... After 75 years the right time has finally come. when we remember and celebrate the Lord’s gift of himself to us in the Eucharist and his call to us to give ourselves to others.” The church had not been dedi-
cated at the time of its opening because protocol dictated that a church could not be dedicated unless it had been paid for. In a sense, the Archbishop said, the altar had already been consecrated by the many celebrations of the Eucharist that had taken place in the church over the past 75 years. “We want to ask the Lord that this altar, and this church and this community of faith will still, in the years to come, be a place of blessing and of hope,” the Archbishop said. “Tonight … there is the opportunity once again to acknowledge that while this church is yours, it is first and foremost the Lord’s church. “It is our Church because it is the Lord’s Church; because it is Him who draws us into the Church and makes us member of his body
Archbishop Timothy Costelloe with students from St Columba’s Catholic Primary School after the dedication of their church. PHOTO: ROBERT HIINI