HUNDREDS of Catholics have celebrated the centenary of Holy Name Church – destroyed by fire, rebuilt, and having stood as a beacon of faith for generations in Toowoomba North.
“The strength of our parish has always been based on the quality of our members who have shown great tenacity and willingness to give time and talent again and again to achieve our goals,” parish priest Fr Darrell Irvine said, marking the celebration on November 7.
“Today, Holy Name is a vibrant and growing parish of families and youth whose rich past focused on forming and nourishing our ancestors in the faith.
“Today, as we celebrate this anniversary, we are not looking simply to the past, but considering what God is doing now, and calling us to in the future.”
To mark the centenary, about 250 parishioners and visitors from across southern Queensland attended Mass led by Toowoomba Bishop Robert McGuckin and concelebrated by Fr Irvine, Fr Mick Carroll and Fr Ray Johnson.
This was followed by a Eucharistic Procession around the Holy Name Church grounds, then lunch with lots of chatting, catching up and reminiscing.
“A lot of older people came back, which was really great,” convenor of the centenary celebrations, Peter Lynch said.
“We wanted to make a statement that the Catholic faith is alive and strong – I’m sure we did that.”
The first Holy Name church and school opened in 1905 but was destroyed by fire in 1919. A fire bug was suspected but never caught.
Parishioners then had to make the trip across Toowoomba to St Patrick’s Cathedral to fulfil their Sunday Mass obligation.
A new Holy Name Church, built at a cost of 9500 pounds, opened 18 months later in 1921.
By the late 1920s the parish hall was built to help pay for the new church through popular fund-raising events.
A church history records that on the first night, a big dance was held and couples danced to the music of the “Red Peppers”.
As well as being a vibrant, social hub for an entire community, the history also records a strong devotion to Church and faith.
Outdoor Eucharistic Processions were popular in the Holy Name parish.
Every year thousands of worshippers gathered on the Holy Name Oval for the Corpus Christi Procession.
It was estimated that 4000 people attended the 1968 procession.
For the Ranger family, the church history records that Holy Name was “like a second home”, with the family connection dating back to when the original church building burnt down.
Terry Ranger was baptised at the church in 1937, and was an altar boy for many years.
“I recall with pleasure, and the memory of frozen hands and ears, riding our bikes to serve Mass on weekdays at 6.45am and at 6.30 on Sundays,” he wrote in church history.
“Father Eddie Concannon was our parish priest through all those years and more – almost forty years, in fact.”
Since 2014, Holy Name Church has served a rapidly growing community of faith – notably the St Mary’s Catholic Community of Toowoomba, consisting of members from the Syro Malabar Catholic Church (Eastern Church).
Mr Lynch said the mixing of many cultures had enriched the local church community.
“We’re all fairly traditional Catholics – and people are coming,” he said.
