Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/677

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WHITTY


615


WIBALD


baptized, consequently the ceremonies on Saturday are similar to those on Holy Saturday.

The office of Pentecost has only one Nocturn during the entire week. At Toroe the "Veni Creator" is Bung instead of the usual hj'mn, because at the third hour the Holy Ghost descended. The Mass has a Sequence, the authorship of which by some is as- cribed to King Robert of France. The colour of the vestments is red, symboUe of the love of the Holy Ghost or of the tongues of fire. Formerly the law courts did not sit during the entire week, and servile work was forbidden. A Council of Constance (1094) limited this prohibition to the first three days of the week. The Sabbath re.st of Tuesday was abolished in 1771, and in many mission.ary territories also that of Monday; the latter was abrogated for the entire Church by Pius X in 1911. Still, as at Easter, the liturgical rank of Monday and Tuesday of Pentecost week is a Double of the First Class. In Italy it was customary to scatter rose leaves from the ceiling of the churches to recall the miracle of the tierj- tongues; hence in Sicily and elsewhere in Italy Whitsimday is called Pascha rosatum. The Italian name Pascha rossa comes from the red colours of the vestments used on Whitsunday, fn France it was cu8tomar>' to blow trumpets during Divine service, to recall the sound of the mighty wind which accompanied the Descent of the Holy Ghost. In England the gentrj' amused themselves with horse races. The Whitsun Ales or merrj'makings are almost wholly obsolete in England. At these ales the Whitsun plays were per- formed. At Vespers of Pentecost in the Oriental Churches the extraordinary service of genuflexion, ac- companied by long poetical prayers and psalms, takes place. (Cf. Maltzew, "Fasten-und Blumen Trio- dion", p. 898, where the entire Greo,o-Rus.sian ser- vice is given; cf. also Baumstark, "Jacobit. Fest brevier", p. 2.5.5.) On Pentecost the Russians carry flowers and green branches in their hands.

Kellnf.b. lleoriology {.St. Louis. 1908); H.^mpson, Mcdii avi kalendarium, I (London, 1841). 280 sqq.; Brand-Ellis, Popular Antiquities, I (Londdn, 181.S), 26 sqq.; Nilles, Kalendarium ManuaU, II (Innsbruck, 1897), 379 sqq.

F. G. HOLWECK.

Whitty, Ro.sE, b. at Dublin, Ireland, 24 November, 1831 ; d. 4 M.ay, 1911. Of her two sisters one became a rehgious of the Sacred Heart; the other, Uke her- self, joined the Order of St. Dominic and in 1870 led a band of sisters to New Zealand, where she laboured till her death in 1911. Sister Rose entered St. Catherine's Convent, Sion Hill, Blackrock, Co. Dubhn, in her nineteenth year, 25 March, 1849. Seventeen years later, at the request of Bishop Moran, who then had charge of the Eastern Vicariate of South Africa, she with five others began their work at Post Ehzabeth, 23 November, 1867. She was prioress for twenty-five years of Rosemary Convent, which .she foimdcd. The diamond jubilee of her re- ligious profession was celebrated in 1910, and a Mother Rose scholarship was founded as an appro- priate memorial of her long devotion to the work of education. Her good health continued till within a month or two of her death in her eightieth year. With every mark of public veneration her remains were laid to rest in the convent cemetery of Emerald Hill Priorj', one of the convents which she had founded, on (5 Mav, 1911.

The Catholic Magazine for South Afrira (Juno, 1911).

Matthew Russell.

Whitty, Ellen, in religion Mary Vincent, b. at Pouldarrig nearOylgate, a village seven miles from the town of Wexford, 1 March, 1819; d. at Brisbane, Queensland, March, 1892. She was one of the prin- cipal .T-Hsist.ants of Mother Catherine McAuley in establishing the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy. St. David's Well, which has lately become again the


object of extraordinary devotion, lies beside her father's land; it is dedicated to St. David of Wales, said to have been the confe-ssor of St. Aidan of Wex- ford. Of her sist (>rs one became also a Sist er of Mercy ; the other married the brother of the famous convert and pubhcist, Frederick Lucas. Father Robert Whitty, S.J., was her brother. In 18.39 she joined the infant community in Baggot Street, Dublin, and was trained by the foundress. She was made mistress of novices in 1844, and in 1S49 superior general, third in succession to Mother McAuley. While she was superior, the Crimean War was carried on, and she offered the services of her nuns to nurse the sick and wounded soldiers. Her sister Mary Agnes was one of those who went to the seat of war. In 1861 she yielded to the appeal of Dr. James Quinn of Dublin, a member of a priestly family, who had been ap- pointed the first Bishop of Brisbane in Queensland, the northern p.art of New South Wales. The new dio- cese, as large as France, Spain, and Italy together, had then only two priests and four churches. It now forms three well-equipped dioceses. Mother Whitty herself led her band of missionary sisters to their new sphere of labour, which they reached on 10 May, 1861. There she toiled with untiring devoted- ness for the rest of her life, founding more than twenty convents before her death.

Moran, History of the Catholie Church in Australia; Casboll, Leaves from the Annals of the Sisters of Mercy.

M.^TTHEW RrS.SELL.

Whitty, Robert, b. at Pouldarrig near Oylgate, 7 January, 1817 ;d.l September, 1895. In 1830 he entered MajTiooth College in his fourteenth year. Having added two years on the DumbojTie Establishment to his college course, he was still too young for ordination. He offered his services to Dr. Griffiths, Vicar Apostolic of the London District, who ordained him priest at St. Edmund's, Ware, 19 September, 1840. From the first he showed a warm sympathy with the Oxford converts and formed a friendship with Newman and Oakeley before they had become Catholics. Dr. Wiseman showed his appreciation of his priestlj' zeal by making him provost of the newly appointed metropolitan chapter and his vicar-general in 18.50. In this capacity he was responsible for the pubhcation of the famous pastoral "From the Flaminian Gate", in which Enghsh bigotry pretended to discover papal aggression. "The Cardinal never blamed me", he WTote long afterwards, "but others did." In 1857 Father Whitty obtained leave to resign his position, and entered the novicoship of the Society of Jesus at Verona. On his return to England he was appointed professor of canon law in St. Beunos College, North VVales. After labouring for some time in Scotland, he was appointed provincial. Subsequently he was assistant to the Father-General Anderledy. He fiUed other important offices, and worked until the end, giving ecclesiastical retreats even in the last summer of his life. He died at the age of 78 years, of which he had spent 38 as a Jesuit.

Ward, Life of Cardinal Newman (London, 1012).

Matthew Russell.

Wibald, Abbot of Stavelot (Siablo), Malmedy, and Corvey, b. near Stavelot in Belgium in 1098; d. at Bitolia in Paphlagonia, 19 July, 11.58, while returning from an imperi.al emhas,sy to Con.stantinople. He studied at the monastic schools at Stavelot and Li^ge, and entered the Benedictine monasterj' at Waulsort near Namur in 1117. After presiding for some time over the monastic school at Waidsort he went to the monasterv at Stavelot and in 11.30 was elected Abbot of Stavelot and Malmedy. On 22 October, 1146, he w,as also elected Abbot of Corvey and four months later the convents at Fischbeck and Kemnade were annexed to Corvey by the emperor. During the abbacy of Wibald the monastery of Stavelot reached