Father William McCabe, chaplain with the army in Vancouver during the last year of the war, was appointed assistant priest at North Rustico on October 19, 1945. Stella Maris parish is indebted to this good priest for his innumerable acts of kindness. His great sense of humor was a real therapy when spirits were low and indeed at any time.

On January 5, 1946, Reverend Patrick Gallary opened the weekly devotions of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and blessed the picture which was plac- ed near the side altar of the church. These devotions were carried out every Satur- day evening. A box for intentions was placed in front of the Blessed Virgin’s altar and these were read before the prayers to Our Lady.

New lighting fixtures were installed early in January, 1946, and a door was opened between the choir section and the left tower as a storage place for hymn books, etc. The walls of the church were cleaned and varnished. The first building

had been finished in Douglas Fir but as this wood was too expensive, the inside walls of the wings were finished in cedar and marboleum.

The total cost of the newly enlarged church was $25,506.77. An anonymous donation of $10,000.00 made in 1946 was, no doubt, greatly ap- preciated by the parishioners.

Father McNeill continued the parish societies that were already in ex- istence when he became parish priest: Altar Society (1920); League of the Sacred Heart (1925). He began a number of new societies: Holy Name Society (1936); Children of Mary Soldality (1936); Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (1937); Confraternity of the Most Blessed Sacrament (1938); Saint Thomas Aquinas Society (1937); Canadian Catholic Students Mission Crusade (1936); Associa- tion of the Holy Childhood (1943); same as C.C.S.M.C., League of Mary (1945), Mortuary Society (1946).

Because of grave illness, Father McNeill who, unknown to many, had been suffering from cancer for years, had to retire from parish work in 1948. It might not be out of place here to recall some points of the eulogy spoken by Monsignor J.P.E. O’Hanley at Father McNeill’s funeral only three years later:

“If any priest in this diocese whom I have ever known might make his own the words of Christ, “I have come that you may have life, and have it more abundantly? that priest, I venture to suggest, was the late Joseph Douglas McNeill as pastor of Stella Maris Parish, North Rustico?

“Do you know the conditions that obtained in North Rustico in the early thirties? Do you realize that the North Rustico of today possesses assets, material and spiritual, such as are not found in any similar community in this province? Think of its school, think of its parish organization; the organization of its fishermen, co-operative store, its community hall, its electric power, its church and convent and, above all, think of its

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