Sir Patrick Mahony (centre) with his sons Tom Mahony (l) and Ged Mahony (r) present their family-held candlesticks to Garin College. The silver candlesticks had once belonged to Fr Garin.
WelCom October 2017: At our Garin Day Mass this year, Tuesday 15 August, Garin College school community gathered to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, and our founder Fr Antoine Marie Garin.
Fr Seph Pijfers, Parish Priest for Holy Family, Nelson-Stoke, presided and students and staff participated with prayer and song.
The celebration was an historic occasion for Garin College. Sir Patrick Mahony and his two sons, Tom and Ged presented us with a gift of two silver candlesticks from Fr Garin’s travelling Mass kit from the nineteenth century.
The candlesticks were originally gifted to Sir Patrick’s grandparents and have been in the Mahony family since. Fr David Kennerley, Provincial of the Marist Order, who also celebrated Mass, blessed this historic taonga for our college on behalf of the Marist Order.
Garin College is immensely honoured and grateful to Sir Patrick and his family for their gift. These historic silver candlesticks enable our college community to make both spiritual and physical links to Fr Garin.
Portrait of Fr Antoine Marie Garin (1810‒1889) with the candlesticks.
Vicar of Education for the Archdiocese, Jenny Gordon, said ‘I felt privileged to be part of this spirit-filled celebration and to witness the home-coming of Fr Garin’s candlesticks, to become taonga for the college’.
As a Marist, Fr Garin modelled his life on the person of Mary. He was quick to do God’s will and to follow God’s call to bring the Gospel to our region. Fr Garin valued the education of young people, seeing them as the way to change the world for the better.
Our relatively young school opened in 2002 and we are conscious of the need to build traditions and a sense of history. We thank the Marist Order and Sir Patrick Mahony and his family for their generosity.
John Maguire, Principal