ROMAN REPORT
DIOCESAN DIGEST Mass of Ages quarterly round-up
ARUNDEL AND BRIGHTON Anne-Marie Mackie-Savage 01323 411370 In February, Fr Gerard Hatton said a Mass for the repose of the soul of Mrs Gwen Telford at Our Lady of Ransom. Gwen was brought up in Eastbourne, and had many happy memories of singing in the choir, prior to the vernacular changes. I'm sure many of you knew Gwen and Mike from their days of travelling far and wide in search of the Latin Mass. No Mass was too far. They were a wonderful couple, and Gwen a sweet and charming lady. She and Mike are greatly missed. Any change in Mass times I am aware of will appear on the blog. If you feel like learning how to serve, help is available in the Diocese, so please feel free to contact me. BIRMINGHAM & BLACK COUNTRY Louis Maciel; Tel: 0739 223 2225 louis.maciel@gmail.com http://birmingham-lms-rep.blogspot.co.uk/ I am pleased to announce a new location for the celebration of the Extraordinary Form in the region: St Dunstan’s in Kings Heath celebrated its first Missa Cantata on the Feast of Candlemas followed by another on the third Wednesday of March. The plan is to celebrate a Mass in the Extraordinary Form on the third Friday of every month to complement the first Friday Mass at St Augustine’s in Solihull. The celebration of the Extraordinary Form at this location now means there is a Mass available in every deanery in the West Midlands area. Please see the Mass listings to find the Mass closest to you. St Mary on the Hill in Wednesbury, Our Lady of Perpetual Succour in Wolverhampton and the Oratory in Birmingham are forming a holy triangle where the Traditional Mass is celebrated on days of additional solemnity: there were Masses at Easter and the Feast of St Chad (the patronal feast of the diocese) at all these locations, with St Augustine in Solihull also celebrating the latter as it coincided with the first Friday of the month. There was an additional Mass, at Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, the usual Friday Mass of Holy Week was moved to the Monday, and a High Mass was celebrated on the Feast of the Annunciation, along with a Low Mass at St Mary on the Hill. St Mary on the Hill also celebrated an additional Low Mass on Palm Sunday. BIRMINGHAM (Little Malvern) Alastair J Tocher 01684 893332 extraordinarymalvern.uk@btinternet.com extraordinarymalvern.uk Facebook: Extraordinary Malvern It is now six months since the Mass centre at St Wulstan’s, Little Malvern was first established and we have now settled into a fairly stable schedule of Missae Cantatae on second and fourth Sundays. That is not to say we have not had our share of teething problems though: in addition to our
SUMMER 2018
second scheduled Missa Cantata, on 10 December, having been cancelled owing to heavy snow our third planned Missa Cantata on 14 January then had to be replaced by a Low Mass since the only available server was the Schola director! This temporary shortfall in servers was unfortunately symptomatic of a marked drop in overall attendance compared with our former home at Spetchley Park: halved from an average of 35 down to 18 including in each case a Schola of 8-10 singers. There are however already some hopeful signs of new growth: some at least of the congregation are new faces from St Wulstan’s parish and surroundings; we have acquired two new Schola members; and at least one local parishioner has recently joined the LMS. We have also identified a couple of experienced servers able to supply as and when needed to cover for absences of our regular servers, and we are grateful to them all for their help. We have also been represented at a number of recent events too: two singers attended the Gregorian Chant Network’s Chant Weekend at the Oratory School near Reading, and I attended the LMS Priests, Deacons & Servers Training Conference at Prior Park School near Bath, not to mention a couple of our number already signed up for the LMS Latin Summer School near Oxford. We continue to be grateful to Dom Jonathan Rollinson who travels from Belmont Abbey near Hereford to celebrate Mass for us, and to Abbot Paul Stonham for lending him to us. Now that the clocks have gone forward and summer is approaching we hope and pray for increased attendances. BIRMINGHAM (North Staffordshire) Alan Frost 01270768144 Traditional Rite Masses continue at Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Swynnerton, near Stone, North Staffs. Apart from the Sunday parish Mass there are Low Masses on alternate Saturday mornings. Fr Paul Chavasse continued with these Masses through the cold and the snow, and a decent turnout in the midst of the bad weather showed the appreciation of the faithful. A first Friday Mass was celebrated by Fr Christopher Miller at his parish Church of The Sacred Heart in Tunstall near Stoke-on-Trent on 6 April, and he intends this to be a monthly event. Fr Miller is also in charge of St Joseph’s, Burslem, which for several years (to beginning of 2013) was run by the Franciscans of the Immaculate who celebrated the Traditional Rite Masses each week. BIRMINGHAM (Oxford) Joseph Shaw 01993 812874 Oxford lacks a celebration of the Easter Triduum in the Traditional form, but we are entering a uniquely busy period for Sung and High Masses, which I dare say rivals any other part of the country. In addition to Sung Masses for the feast
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