Mass of Ages Autumn 2016

Mass of Ages The quarterly magazine of the Latin Mass Society

Issue 189 – Autumn 2016

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“Going on pilgrimage… is one of the people of God’s most eloquent expressions of faith, and… is an authentic form of evangelisation which always needs to be promoted and enhanced.”

Pope Francis Traditional Pilgrimages: A special feature on the Pilgrimage to Chartres by Clare Bowskill Archbishop Thomas Gullickson on the Persecution of Christians Fr Bede Rowe asks whether we still believe in Europe?

Interviews with Mgr Keith Newton & Prior Cassian Folsom OSB Mary O’Regan on Fatima and the Rosary PLUS: All Latin Mass Society news and events, book reviews, diocesan reports & full Mass Listings and Calendar

CONTENTS

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

COMMENT 2

Introduction

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Chairman’s Message

13

Photographing the Mass: Daniel Blackman

15 & 16

Letters to the Editor

18

Fatima and the Rosary: Mary O’Regan

19

Do We Believe in Europe?: Fr Bede Rowe

21

Relics of the Saints: Lone Veiler

42

Roman Report: Alberto Carosa

47

Website & Christmas Cards: Macklin Street

NEWS & FEATURES 4 & 5

AGM: Archbishop Gullickson on Martyrdom

6

On Evelyn Waugh: Archbishop Gullickson

7

The Sacrifice of Praise: Canon Francis Altiere

8 & 9

The Chartres Pilgrimage: Clare Bowskill

10 & 11

Interview with Mgr Keith Newton: Dylan Parry

14

My First Mass: Edward Kendall

16

In Illo Tempore

17

Liturgical Calendar & Crossword

20

Indifferentism: Anthony Hofler

22 & 23

Art & Devotion, Seven Sorrows: Caroline Shaw

23

Book Review: The Divine Office (Baronius)

24 & 25

St Charles Borromeo, Hull: Paul Waddington

44 & 45

Prior Cassian Folsom on God and the Liturgy

46 & 47

Book Reviews

DIOCESAN REPORTS & EVENTS 26

LMS Year Planner

27 to 33

Diocesan Digest (Reps Reports)

MASS LISTINGS 35 to 41

Masses throughout England & Wales

DISCLAIMER: Please note that the views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the Latin Mass Society or the Editorial Board.

Great care is taken to credit photographs and seek permission before publishing, though this is not always possible. If you have a query regarding copyright, please contact the Editor. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without written permission.

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Moving on...

he cover of this month’s Mass of Ages shows British pilgrims on this year’s Chartres Pilgrimage. And the theme of pilgrimage runs through this edition, in one way or another. The LMS Publicity Officer, Clare Bowskill, writes about the pilgrimage to Chartres, which is increasing in popularity year on year. Mgr Keith Newton discusses his own pilgrimage from the Church of England to the full communion of the Catholic Church. Whilst our LMS Year Planner lists all Latin Mass Society pilgrimages yet to take place in 2016.

Life itself is a pilgrimage, which takes on special significance for the Christian, who walks towards its ultimate goal, following the One who trod the way of suffering and who shares in every aspect of our lives: Jesus Christ. He is the Way, and He teaches us how to walk a path that leads to the Heavenly Jerusalem – the holy place for which every soul longs – whether we know it or not. And what a wonderous and most marvellous homeland it is: “Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest, Beneath thy contemplation sink heart and voice oppressed.

I know not, O I know not, what joys await us there, What radiancy of glory, what bliss beyond compare.”

But until we reach, by God’s grace, those Heavenly portals that lead to the Father’s home, we continue on our journey through this oft happy, oft tiresome, but always fleeting world.

It is a journey that God wants us to be on, and for that we must be grateful. Every new dawn is a blessing and an opportunity to turn away from evil and walk in the footsteps of the Master.

God calls, and we, please God, follow...

This leads me to my concluding remarks as Editor of Mass of Ages, for I hope that by the time you read this I will have entered the religious life. This will be quite a change for me, and I would be grateful for any spare prayers you can offer on my behalf – and on behalf of the community I will be joining!

I would like to thank Dr Joseph Shaw and the LMS Committee for entrusting me with this magazine over the past year. I am also grateful to my colleagues at the LMS, especially Stephen Moseling and Clare Bowskill, as well as Gareth and Hannah in the office. I am very grateful that Providence has provided a new editor, Tom Quinn, who will, I’m sure, prove himself to be a great blessing for this publication.

May God bless this magazine, and may He bless you all.

Dylan Parry

The Latin Mass Society 11-13 Macklin Street, London WC2B 5NH Tel: 020 7404 7284 editor@lms.org.uk PATRONS: Sir Adrian Fitzgerald Bt, Lord (Brian) Gill, Sir James MacMillan CBE, Colin Mawby KSG, Charles Moore COMMITTEE: Dr Joseph Shaw – Chairman; Paul Waddington – Treasurer; Kevin Jones – Secretary; Paul Beardsmore – Vice President; James Bogle; Eric Friar; Antonia Robinson; Roger Wemyss Brooks;

Cover image: The British Chapter on this year’s Chartres Pilgrimage © John Aron

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Mass of Ages No. 189

Registered UK Charity No. 248388

Due to the considerable volume of emails and letters received at Mass of Ages it is regrettably not always possible to reply to all correspondents.

MASS OF AGES: Editor: Dylan Parry Design: GADS Ltd Printers: Cambrian Printers Ltd

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

CHAIRMAN’S MESSAGE

It’s A Great Honour To Serve Dr Joseph Shaw It is not only our official activists and employees who are needed for our work, however: we also need our members and supporters, the readers of this magazine and all our wellwishers. We need your help in all sorts of ways, in attending and promoting our events, ‘liking’ our Facebook posts, providing moral and practical support to priests often facing difficult situations in celebrating the Traditional Mass, and in providing the Latin Mass Society with its financial stability.

On the last point, I’d like to take the opportunity to thank all readers who are members and benefactors of the Society, and all those who have thought to make provision for the Society in their wills. And I would like to appeal to those who have not yet joined, or could consider making an additional regular donation through our ‘Anniversary Supporters’ scheme, to do so. Of all the Society’s many kinds of resource, the most stubbornly tangible and unforgiving is money. To continue our work at the current level the Society needs to increase its income. As Our Lord said in the Gospel on the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, we should use this tainted thing, the ‘mammon of iniquity’, to do good in this world, so we may be received into everlasting habitations.

Under the Constitution, Officers and Committee members normally stand down after two terms of office, at least for a year’s break. I have myself now completed two terms of office as Chairman, plus the remainder of my predecessor’s term of office. Under the Constitution the Committee can, however, ask a trustee to stand again after two terms, and that is what has happened to me. In the absence of any other nominations for the post of Chairman, I have been re-elected unopposed.

It is a great honour to serve the Society in this way. I hope the continuity I provide will be of benefit to the Society and enable us to complete the projects I mentioned above, and others like them, and develop the Society’s work in every way.

It has been very hard work, over the last six years and more, but it has also been extremely interesting and rewarding, and I don’t begrudge a service which seems to be making a positive difference.

I hope readers feel the same as I do about the importance of the Society’s work, and support it accordingly.

© John Aron

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am writing just after the Annual General Meeting, so I would like to repeat to the wider audience of Mass of Ages readers something of what was reported to those gathered in Westminster Cathedral Hall, although this year I kept my own remarks brief. The outgoing Secretary, David Forster, set out the process of renewal which is always necessary in any organisation: of Committee members, officers, and Local Representative retiring and being replaced. I would particularly like to welcome Eric Friar and Antonia Robinson to the Committee; our new Secretary is Kevin Jones, who for some time has been our Representatives for Wrexham and a Committee member. I am delighted that the Society is able to recruit new and younger activists and Trustees of their calibre.

We can this year congratulate ourselves on the publication of the booklet of Ordinary Prayers of the Mass, which was a big project developed on over a few years. We have other new or revised publications in the pipeline, notably a new edition of Simplicissimus, our popular Latin course book, and an entirely new collection of texts and chant settings for the feasts proper to England and Wales celebrated with the Extraordinary Form. Among other areas of renewal, between this edition of Mass of Ages and the next we should have a new website, which will not only give visitors an enhanced experience, but also enable us to expand our online shop, which is now making an increasingly important contribution to the Society’s revenues. We also look forward to further development of Mass of Ages itself.

Some of these projects are arguably overdue; others are necessary simply because time, and technology, does not stand still, and however good a publication or website may be at one moment, a few years later it will need to be revisited.

We are fortunate in having the resources, and above all the expertise, to address these matters. The amount of work going on behind the scenes at the Latin Mass Society at the centre, on these kinds of things, is enormous. The amount going on at the local level, behind our Masses, pilgrimages, and other events, is simply incalculable.

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AGM

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

Persecution and Martyrdom Through which many are saved...

Archbishop Thomas E Gullickson addresses the LMS Annual General Meeting

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he guest speaker at this year’s Annual General Meeting of the Latin Mass Society was Archbishop Thomas E Gullickson, the Apostolic Nuncio to Switzerland and Lichtenstein. He addressed the meeting at Westminster Cathedral Hall on the morning of Saturday 9 July, before High Mass was celebrated by Mgr Gordon Read in the Cathedral. The Mass, which marked Mgr Read’s 40th anniversary of priesthood, was offered for the Good Estate of HM The Queen, in this her 90th year. Fr Matthew Goddard acted as deacon and Fr Mark Elliott Smith as sub-deacon. The Archbishop attended in choir.

The AGM re-elected Dr Joseph Shaw as LMS Chairman and elected new members of the Committee, including Eric Friar and Antonia Robinson. Thanks was given to those Committee members whose terms of office ended this year, including David Forster (outgoing Secretary) and Stefano Mazzeo and Michael Carroll (Committee members).

Archbishop Gullickson took the feast of Ss John Fisher and Thomas More and the example of these martyrs as the theme of his address, in which he reflected on the continuing persecution of the Church in our day, as well as the Papacy in the life of the Church and the significance of the present Pontificate in that perspective.

After discussing the history and nature of Christian martyrdom, Archbishop Gullickson said, “Ss John Fisher and Thomas More, one a prince of the Church, the other the king’s good servant, but God’s before all else, can both be declared martyrs of conscience, but not in some autonomous and hence erroneous sense of the term. Conscience is ordered to objective truth and hence to the Word of God, in the Person of Christ and in and through His Body, the Church. Both the high priest, Fisher, and the layman, More, are thoroughly identifiable with the Vicar of Christ, the Pope, in their stance vis-à-vis King Henry VIII and his henchmen. It is thus that these two men were judged true unto death to the Catholic faith in its fullness, as it is to be found only cum et sub Petro.”

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After discussing the lives of both Ss John Fisher and Thomas More and how they continue to inspire Catholics to this day, the Archbishop continued, “Apart from the Middle East and certain parts of Africa, where it suffices to be baptised to expose yourself to danger of death, Christians are the object of hate crimes and discrimination, especially in the West, because we confess Jesus as Lord, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I wish then particularly in a good old Catholic sense, cum et sub Petro in faithfulness to the truth which comes to us from God …to offer you some considerations on the continuing persecution of the Church in our day.”

Here we reproduce some of the Apostolic Nuncio’s reflections on the first part of his talk, the persecution of the Church: “The refusal to admit suffering from persecution as a part of the Christian life is not so much a question of our struggle with the problem of evil (why must the innocent suffer?) as it is of properly attributing the ongoing suffering of the just to Satan’s wrath and to the presence in our midst of not few people unwilling to renounce the father of evil and his works and pomps. Why are there martyrs today? Why are Christians persecuted today? Because the ‘Beast’ is on the loose. The Church, the Body of Christ is lacerated yet today by those who serve the Father of Lies and the Prince of Darkness, by those who prefer darkness to light. To this mix, as it has to do with denial in the hearts and minds of fellow Christians, just add a heaping spoonful of ambiguity and will to obfuscate, then stir in stupidity and faithlessness, and you have a better idea as to why our insistent prayer should be that the Lord come quickly.

“In his introduction to John Gerard, Autobiography of a Hunted Priest, Ignatius Press, Kindle Edition (2012-07-20), Fr James Schall writes about the ambivalence characteristic of times of persecution in the Church: “‘Gerard implies that the one thing the Lord requires of us, even in persecution, is persistence in virtue and faithfulness

The AGM High Mass, offered for HM The Queen

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

of belief and sacrament. For this cause, many good priests and laymen gave their lives. They were officially ‘traitors’ to their country even though they stood for what the country traditionally stood for. In fact, they were closer to Socrates and Christ. They gave their lives so that others could believe and live. We are still in their debt. Ultimate sacrifices of life and limb in the name of truth do not always “win” in this world.

None of the men depicted here, including John Gerard himself, ever thought that it would.’ (Kindle Loc. 92).

“What I am saying is that there is something both right and wrong about posing the question concerning the continuing persecution of the Church in our day. ‘How long, Lord?’ is certainly a thoroughly Catholic lament. Nevertheless, the wrong comes in when we totally exclude the possibility of persecution, torture and death as the destiny of co-religionists in other parts of the world or, God forbid, as our possible lot.

“The accounts of those who fell away in the early days of the Church make this resistance to suffering understandable, but perhaps the spirit of the age makes it even worse. Just as in the world of medicine a false notion of inevitable progress, of science and its capabilities, expects that generally in life we be spared suffering, illness and pain: as in the old days before less invasive surgeries and ultra-sound to shatter gallstones, the single greatest complication to gallbladder surgery was the unwillingness of the patient to endure the post-operative pain.

Mutatis mutandis: the same can be said of our expectations of the Christian life in these ‘civilized or enlightened times.’ We never think that a possible lesson from the Book of Job might be that all but our very lives just could be turned over to the evil one for trial in the crucible of suffering and this for the sake of a sharing in the Cross of Christ. You may remember the stir some time back at the publication of certain writings of Mother Teresa of Calcutta where she described her darkness and desolation.

Few bothered to read on about the joy she discovered when it dawned on her that the Christ she loved so dearly had taken her on her word and granted her a share in the terrible darkness of His own hour.

“As a child, I was taught that the Sacrament of Confirmation involved the strengthening of the Baptismal grace, making of us soldiers for Christ. The frequent, present emphasis in preparation for Confirmation on ‘Christian maturity’, of choosing the faith for ourselves, is beside the point; the clear notion of our duty in faith is being given short shrift here and the dynamism of soldiering as image for our following Christ is largely being lost.

“Do not get me wrong! Even for the Catholic without illusions concerning our life this side of heaven, well, enduring persecution and possible death at the hands of the wicked is a fearful thing. Then again, I suppose persecution would be tolerable if we could cleanly identify it as coming from without from the enemy. That is and never was the case, not since Judas

Iscariot. Just as often in the times of our great saints John Fisher and Thomas More, and as John Gerard recounts, the betrayals came from within the recusant community itself, so often today our greatest trial comes from fellow Catholics surrendering or denying all that is sacred […]

“If you are familiar with the beautiful novel of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, Callista: A Tale of the Third Century, you would know how with great insight and faith the Cardinal explains the dictum: the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians. Here is part of his description of the fruits of a martyr’s death: “‘This wonderful deliverance was but the beginning of the miracles which followed the martyrdom of St Callista. It may be said to have been the resurrection of the Church at Sicca. In not many months Decius was killed, and the persecution ceased there. Castus was appointed bishop, and numbers began to pour into the fold. The lapsed asked for peace, or at least such blessings as they could have. Heathens sought to be received. When asked for their reason, they could only say that Callista’s history and death had affected them with constraining force, and that they could not help following her steps. Increasing in boldness, as well as numbers, the Christians cowed both magistrates and mob. The spirit of the populace had been already broken; and the continual change of masters, and measures with them, in the imperial government, inflicted a chronic timidity on the magistracy. A handsome church was soon built, to which Callista’s body was brought, and which remained till the time of the Diocletian persecution.’ (Kindle Locations 5102-5109).

Evergreen Review, Inc. Kindle Edition.

“I would be the very last to wish the trial of persecution upon the Church, but I firmly believe that out of travail our loving Lord does indeed work good. My message is not so much ‘toughen up’ as it is ‘sober up’ and understand what we are dealing with for opposition; this is Satan raising his ugly head in defiance of our loving God Who comes to give us life. Recognise for all its import what you may have seen on video or TV! I am referring to those images from North Africa in our day, where you can see or perceive, like the witnesses present there that day, the name of Jesus pronounced with almost a smile on the lips of the young Coptic martyrs so brutally beheaded before rolling cameras. ‘In odium fidei’ or ‘in odium Christi’: we must understand persecution and martyrdom today as a chance to stand with Jesus and for His Church to prosper for the sake of the salvation of the many.

“We are mindful of the words to the angel: ‘Wield your sharp sickle, fill the winepress and tramp out the vintage… Yes, our God is King!’”

All photos: John Aron

The sacred ministers, servers and Archbishop after Mass

AGM

Vespers on Friday 8 July (see page 6) This is a short extract of one part of Archbishop Gullickson’s talk. To read his address in full, including his reflections on the Papacy in the life of the Church and the present Pontificate, please see the LMS website.

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EVELYN WAUGH

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

Giving His All For The Mass The 50th anniversary of Evelyn Waugh’s death

© Mark Gerson/National Portrait Gallery, London

During his recent visit to the UK to address the Latin Mass Society’s AGM, Archbishop Thomas E Gullickson, the Apostolic Nuncio to Switzerland and Lichtenstein, also delivered a panegyric for Evelyn Waugh – marking the 50th anniversary of his death. It followed Pontifical First Vespers of Ss John Fisher and Thomas More, which was celebrated on Friday 8 July by the Archbishop at the church of St Mary Magdalen, Wandsworth. We reproduce his words below, with kind permission.

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ne of the oddest little indicators of poor faith vitality on the control panel of life would seem to be that overwrought grief, that too great and seemingly endless sadness at the passing of a loved one. Not just today but in every day and time, this inconsolable sorrow tends to work as a hindrance toward fulfilling our duty in prayer in supplication for the repose of the soul of our dear departed. This deep sorrow will not admit mention of anything but heaven. It is the flipside or the dark and cavernous heart of the all too frequent, “he’s in heaven now” or “she’s with grandma in the Lord now.”

Those cheery noted denials of sadness at separation have more of denial about them, more unwillingness to accept the sorrow of separation in death than they do of hope in the resurrection to be ours beyond Golgotha.

I say this by way of admonition and invitation to a personal examination of conscience. Do we embrace the doctrine as we should, or as ones without faith, do we simply deny and cover over the consequences of the sin of our first parents and of our own personal sins? Even after 50 years, the proper Christian reflex is to pray for the repose of the soul of Evelyn Waugh. Until he is canonised by the Church, we can admire and emulate him, but never flagging in our prayer to the Lord to take him home to heaven freed of any temporal punishment due to sin.

As old as I am, I doubt if I am old enough to have appreciated him while still in this life. I don’t think I could have relished his wit as a teenager: thank heaven for books and for time to grow!

Apart from the riotous good humor in his novels and the all too bizarre character sketches which abound therein, I know him too as a pious Catholic, particularly through a little book, A Bitter Trial - Evelyn Waugh and John Carmel Cardinal Heenan on the

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Liturgical Changes, Edited by Dom Alcuin Reid, 2011, Ignatius Press, Expanded Kindle Edition. From the correspondence and articles contained therein it is evident to me that Waugh saw clearly and spoke out, putting himself in harm’s way for the sake of the Mass of all time, for the sake of his beloved Catholic Church. At 50 years from his death and knowing his upright and courageous stance, we can certainly condole with him. He saw rightly and handled straightforwardly. Would that Cardinal Heenan had done more?

Evelyn Waugh at 50 years from his passing from this life!

As I was mulling over what to say, the figure of Joseph of Arimathea as praised by Thomas à Kempis in his meditations on the passion of Christ (Tylenda, Joseph N, On The Passion of Christ According to The Four Evangelists (pp 158-159). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.) came to mind and I quote: “Venerable Joseph, rejoice because the task you accomplished was most holy and gave you the opportunity to express your unspeakable love for Christ. Indeed, I am most grateful to you and I laudably commend your noble character in doing what you have done and for carrying it out in a most dignified and deferential manner. Not only did you request Pilate’s permission to bury Jesus’ body, but you also offered your own sepulcher, which you had prepared for yourself and in which you expected to be placed after your own death. How greatly God must have cherished you, for him, whose power extends over the entire world and over all that is contained in the heavenly orbits, to choose to be buried in your tomb, rather than in any other place on earth. Most illustrious of men, I tell you that as long as this world lasts and there are faithful on the earth, you will be held in honour before God and men.”

Thomas à Kempis is lauding Joseph’s faith and deep piety; he gave all for the Body of the Lord; he did so without regard for feared consequences resulting from his confession of devotion. The Resurrection of the Lord was venerable Joseph’s own special recompense. We can be confident and say the same of Waugh with regard to his alarm over the liturgical changes, which at his death in 1966 perhaps few could see with the same clarity as we do today.

We commend Evelyn Waugh to the mercy of the Almighty and All-Seeing Lord. We thank the Lord for the gifts this talented author showered upon our world, for so much reading entertainment and insight into a world which may not always deserve to be mocked but certainly merits a laugh or two more than we may often concede.

We thank the Lord most especially for the great heart, the love and courage of this Catholic layman, who left us such an eloquent protestation of his love for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as it has come down to us over the ages.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine! Et lux perpetua luceat eis! Requiescat in pace!

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

LITURGY

The Sacrifice of Praise

An Introduction to the Divine Office Canon Francis Altiere, ICKSP

© Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest

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n taking on our human nature, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity undertook to glorify God and save us from our sins. Likewise, the Church which he founded has this same twofold mission. As Blessed Columba Marmion explains: “If God had created nothing, had left all things in the state of possibility, He would, however, have had His essential and infinite glory. By the very fact of being what He is, the Eternal Word is like a Divine canticle, a living canticle, singing the praise of the Father, expressing the plenitude of His perfections.” (Christ the Life of the Soul.)

All the works undertaken by the Church – even the work of evangelisation itself – are subordinated to the Church’s fundamental mission of glorifying God. “The liturgy is the summit towards which the activity of the Church is directed: at the same time, it is the font from which all her power flows.

For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of His Church.” (Sacrosanctum concilium, § 10.)

The Church accomplishes this mission of glorifying God principally though the sacred liturgy, which is sometimes called the opus Dei, the “work of God.” All those in major orders, as well as professed monks and nuns, have the duty to recite each day what is known as the Divine Office (officium means “duty” or “service” in Latin). The book that contains the Divine Office is called a breviary. The purpose of the Divine Office is to sanctify the various parts of the day by setting aside some time to praise God. Spread throughout the day, it is a concrete way by which the Church puts into effect the recommendation given by Jesus Christ and the Apostles: “Pray without ceasing” (I Thessalonians 5:17). The early Christians inherited the practice of praying at certain times throughout the day from the Jews.

We know that the Old Testament priests prayed solemnly in the Temple, by offering incense, twice a day: in the morning and in the evening, in services which correspond to our Lauds and Vespers (when these offices are celebrated solemnly the altar is incensed). Moreover, we know from various passages in the Scriptures that the Jews in Old Testament times, and the Apostles themselves, especially sanctified the third, sixth and ninth hours of the day by prayer. Our Saviour himself used to spend entire nights in prayer. Christianity is the fulfilment of Judaism, and so it is natural that the Church adopted – and adapted – certain prayer customs of the synagogue.

Each of the eight parts of the Divine Office is called an “hour.” The practice of offering prayer to God eight times during the day is sanctioned by King David: “I rose at midnight to give praise to thee” (Psalm 118:62); “seven times a day I have given praise to thee” (Psalm 118:164). The names of the eight hours are: Matins during the night followed by Lauds at daybreak; the workday begins with Prime (the hora prima, or “first hour” of day, according to the old Roman way of counting time), when we ask God to bless our undertakings and keep us free from sin; Terce (the hora tertia, or “third hour” after sunrise) in the middle of the morning; Sext (the “sixth hour”

of day) at midday; None (the “ninth hour”) in the middle of the afternoon; Vespers in the evening before supper and then Compline at the end of the day.

Vespers and Lauds have a similar structure, as do Terce, Sext and None. The psalms form the backbone of the Office.

These inspired canticles, written by David and others, give voice to the full range of sentiments which animate the soul in its relationship with God; many of them are also prophetic in character, speaking of the life, mission, suffering and exaltation of the promised Messiah. Matins has nine psalms; Lauds and Vespers each have five (but in fact, the fourth “psalm” at Lauds is actually an Old Testament canticle); and the other hours – called for this reason the “Little Hours” – all have three psalms. The psalms of the Office are distributed in such a way that the whole Psalter (book of 150 psalms) is gone through each week. The longer psalms are broken up into several parts (for example the very long Psalm 118 is spread out through the Little Hours of Sunday).

Catholics are well aware that the Mass is the centrepiece of the sacred liturgy and are also familiar with the sacraments, but sadly the Divine Office tends to be less well known. At best, if they are lucky, Catholics may be able to attend Sunday Vespers or the Tenebrae of Holy Week. Although every service of the Catholic liturgy is ultimately intended to manifest God’s glory, the sacraments tend more immediately to the sanctification of man, whereas the Divine Office is more primarily directed at the glorification of Almighty God. This is not to say that the Office has no bearing on the sanctification of man; on the contrary, it perfectly inculcates the sentiments of adoration and reverence without which true religion is impossible. One has only to think, for example, of the conversion of the poet Claudel, struck by the truth of the Catholic faith when he heard the Magnificat sung at Notre Dame, Paris, during Vespers on Christmas Day 1886.

Canon Altiere is the resident priest at the Catholic shrine church of St Walburge, Preston.

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FEATURE

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

The Tradition of Pilgrimage

Following in the footsteps of the Chartres pilgrims Clare Bowskill

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ince the earliest Christian pilgrims travelled to the Holy Land to look for the places Jesus and his disciples had lived, an intrinsic part of our Catholic faith has been to close the distance between ourselves and God by seeking out spiritual closeness through physical endeavours. The act of Pilgrimage itself calls us to leave behind our material possessions, to abandon the comforts of our modern lives and venture out into the unknown.

In the Middle Ages pilgrimages were so popular, particularly where the great cathedrals of Europe were located, that they were considered to be big business. Now, fast forward or even scroll to the 21st century and our modern era of mobiles and obsessive social media watching, and the idea of the pilgrimage to disengage ourselves from the everyday to bring ourselves closer to God seems even more relevant. And so we find ourselves standing outside the Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, on a cold May morning with 15,000 other pilgrims waiting to embark on a seventy mile journey over three days to Notre Dame Cathedral, Chartres.

Welcome to Western Europe’s biggest pilgrimage, the Pilgrimage of Notre-Dame de Chretiente, now celebrating its 34th year. It attracts Catholics, young and old, from over 20 different countries, all united in prayer to Our Lady and Christ the King. This year the theme was “Come, Holy Ghost!” and as the Pilgrimage is always at Pentecost, it was a very fitting theme indeed.

Each year, the Latin Mass Society subsidises the cost for 15 pilgrims to undertake this extraordinary journey. If long hours of walking, early morning starts, and arriving at the campsite late in the evenings wasn’t enough to encourage prayer and penance, we asked some of our pilgrims to record their experiences.

Meet Eden (17), Wojtek (29) and Helen (43)

Helen Parry lives in Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, and this is her seventh Chartres pilgrimage. She says she got the “bug” after the first time.“It’s become a ‘must-do’ annual event for me – it helps me to recharge my faith and being surrounded by so many like-minded Catholics is so heartening. The reverence given Helen (centre) to the Blessed Sacrament is so moving. The challenge of the walk never gets any easier, but I find better ways of coping with it.”

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Eden, holding the Union Flag Eden is from South Croydon, in London and despite only being 17 has walked the annual Chartres Pilgrimage an incredible nine times. “Although it is a struggle, and full of suffering this pilgrimage is one of the most amazing and spiritually rewarding experiences of my year. Not only is it a chance to renew my Catholic faith but also a chance to meet and socialise with many other Catholics from around the world.”

And finally Wojtek, who was on the Chartres Pilgrimage for his first time, writes: “The pilgrim always follows two ways.

While the feet are heading towards the end of the pilgrim’s path, the soul is taking strides towards heaven, hoping to meet God at the end of the journey.”

The pilgrims began their journey on Friday 13 May with a Traditional Latin Mass in the crypt of Westminster Cathedral at the somewhat unholy hour of 7.00am. From there the coach whisked them to Dover and across the channel to their hotel in Paris. The following morning, once again at 7.00am, thousands of pilgrims were gathered together in Notre Dame, Paris, for Solemn High Mass, clutching their bags and banners. There were boys in their scout uniforms, nuns with retro rucksacks, and queues of young people waiting for Confession. The anticipation for the long day ahead was exhilarating. Knowing you had to walk 27 miles and knowing it was going to be a struggle was enough to send anyone running for absolution!

The pilgrims walk in a group or chapter, carrying with them very basic provisions. Eden was part of the lively Juventutem chapter who, “whilst walking... sang the rosary and hymns, listened to fantastic meditations, and had Confessions available.”

Helen meanwhile was in the adult Chapter led by Jamie Bogle. She describes the first day walking as “undulating” and rather hilly.

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

NEWS

Day Three

Day two was Pentecost Sunday and the pilgrims were woken at 4.00am to freezing temperatures and frost. Eden recalls that, “Many people think the first day is the worst because we walk the most miles, however in my opinion the second day is definitely the hardest. All the aches, pains and blisters from the previous day have settled overnight and cause much discomfort in the morning.”

Wojtek writes, “There was something in the air on the Pentecost morning. You could sense excitement mixed with quiet reverence for what was to come later in the day. The chapters were marching out of the campsite – an unending river of pilgrims meandering through the golden fields. Flags and banners of Mary and the saints would remind you of an army heading for the battle. And we certainly did. Today, we were waging the battle against the toil and pain of the pilgrimage, of the weakness of our bodies and spirits as we offered them up to God.” The highlight of the second day is undoubtedly the experience of the Holy Sacrifice of Mass celebrated on a racecourse in Sonchamps – “a sight to behold,” says Eden.

With only 15 miles to go, the pilgrims woke to glorious bright sunshine. Despite this, though, poor Eden was not sure she could manage the final day. “Waking up on Monday morning my knees and ankles were on fire. I wanted to drop out, but the thought of how much I had already accomplished and the support of my cousin, Olivia, and my friends helped me get up and get going.”

The pilgrims weave their way through narrow paths in grape seed fields, all searching for the same sight in the distance that their forefathers would have seen. “Finally, there they were” says Wojtek, “the two distant spires piercing the sky, like Adam’s fingers stretched to reach God on Michelangelo’s famous painting. It was the very same sight which for centuries uplifted pilgrims’ hearts as they have been walking here to honour our Lady. We quickened the pace, for a moment forgetting about the blisters, pain and fatigue.”

With the Cathedral in sight and the bursts of “Jubilate Deo” rising into the cloudless sky, sore feet and Wojtek (centre) blisters are all but forgotten.

“What joy! What awe! Once we finally reached the Cathedral and saw its facade in the full splendour. We stood there speechless, beholding its beauty, feeling as if the 70 miles we walked over the past three days brought us to the gates of heaven,” said Wojtek.

On reaching Chartres, Mass this year was held outside the Cathedral because of renovations, but still Eden reflects on what a beautiful and triumphant celebration it was. “The beauty of the Latin Mass is that it is universal; no matter who you are, where you come from, what language you speak, the Latin Mass unites all Catholics under Mother Church.”

On the Tuesday morning before returning to London, as our British pilgrims gathered for one final Mass this time in the crypt at Chartres Cathedral celebrated by Fr Ian Verrier FSSP, they had a final moment to reflect on the experiences of the last three days.

Helen who was celebrating being ‘blister-free’ for the first time said, “I think it was one of my most enjoyable Chartres pilgrimages as I had the opportunity to meet and chat to so many other pilgrims. If you’ve not been on the pilgrimage, you must. I can’t recommend it enough – it is an experience that stays with you forever.”

All photos: John Aron

Day Two

By the end of Mass on the second day, the sun had become uncomfortably hot and so many of the tired pilgrims were starting to feel the pain. People were beginning to hobble but still the sound of Rosaries being recited permeated in the sticky sun. When they finally reached the campsite and their bed for the second night, where Eden said she shed many tears of tiredness, there was Benediction on the open-air altar. The Blessed Sacrament remained exposed until 4.00am.

Clare Bowskill is the LMS Publicity Officer. There will be many LMS pilgrimages taking place throughout the late summer and early autumn. To find out more, please see page 26 or visit the website: www.lms.org.uk

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INTERVIEW

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

‘United, But Not Absorbed’ Mgr Keith Newton on the Ordinariate, the Church and the Old Rite Prayer. Those who were on the commission, and I was not a member, wanted material that came from historical Anglican sources that would be compatible with Catholic teaching and worship. I would therefore say that it’s not simply a translation of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

You’ve now lived and ministered in the full communion of However, there are certain prayers and things that we the Catholic Church for five years. What are the greatest do within Divine Worship: The Missal (Ordinariate use) that are not in the Roman Rite. For example, the Collect for differences between Anglicanism and Catholicism?

Purity at the beginning of the Mass, which is a very ancient That’s quite a difficult question for me to answer in one way prayer that comes from the Sarum Rite. This prayer is often because what I believed about the Church and her sacraments used in sacristies in Catholic churches, but it’s always been hasn’t really changed much. But I think I’ve part of Anglican liturgy. We also have the come to experience the sense of universality Prayer of Humble Access, which definitely to a much greater extent. comes from the Book of Common Prayer, The Anglican Communion is a worldthough it’s in a different position in Divine Worship. This prayer is a preparation for wide communion, but there isn’t the sense Communion. In the Roman Rite the priest of unity or universality that there is in the prepares for Communion silently, and we Catholic Church. That’s the thing that I’ve expect the congregation to be preparing felt is the greatest gift of Catholicism. You by silent prayer, but in Divine Worship: can be anywhere in the world and be in The Missal, the priest and people prepare communion with the local people, who are to receive the great gift of the Blessed themselves in communion with the Holy Sacrament together – so we say, as one, See – that’s significant. this prayer which comes from the Book of Although in the Catholic Church there Common Prayer. After Communion we say are varieties of opinions regarding certain the Prayer of Thanksgiving, which is again questions, on the whole it is fairly clear from the Book of Common Prayer. This is what we believe, which is set out in the not a post-Communion prayer, but is an Catechism of the Catholic Church. There is occasion for the priest and the people to a unity of faith and a common view taught give thanks together for having received by the Church on Christian morals. There is the Blessed Sacrament, before the priest a big difference between Anglicanism and goes on to say the post-Communion prayer.

Catholicism regarding doctrine and morals.

Another thing people notice about Divine I’ve sometimes found that the worship An Ordinariate Use Mass Worship: The Missal is that the Confession in Catholic churches is a lot more informal than I had probably been used to in the kind of Anglican does not come at the beginning, but in the middle, after churches I dealt with. The Ordinariate itself tends to be the ministry of the Word, the Creed, and the Prayers of the more formal about liturgy. So the churches I visit and the Faithful – again, this is something that comes from the Book of Common Prayer. congregations I worship in tend to be more formal.

Having said all that, there are elements which many One of the defining aspects of the Ordinariate is its liturgy, Anglicans did use that come from the Old Mass – for instance, which is a form of the Roman Rite. Many have commented that Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, the Last Gospel and the it is like an Elizabethan English version of the Old Rite. What traditional Offertory Prayers. These have been given to us do you think to this? as options that may be used. I am not a liturgist, so I am no expert, but it is interesting that many people say that these I don’t think that it is. I think that if it were an Elizabethan sort of options are ones that really ought to have been retained version of the Old Rite it would be what we used to call the and made available in the Novus Ordo. I gather that the English Missal, which is basically a translation of the Old Rite present Prefect of the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Sacraments is quite in favour of these being possible options into English.

When the commission Anglicanae Traditiones met, the within the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite. members were clear that they wanted material that came from So, I wouldn’t say that the Ordinariate Mass is a translation historical Anglican sources. The English Missal did not come of the Old Rite, but it does have some elements from the from historical Anglican sources, as it came from Catholic Extraordinary Form which can be used within it. So, when ones – though sometimes priests who used the English Missal celebrated using all those elements, it has a very formal, would say the words of consecration from the Book of Common dignified and prayerful atmosphere to it. © Dylan Parry

Earlier this year, Dylan Parry met the leader of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, the Rt Rev Mgr Keith Newton, to discuss with him various aspects of Church life, including liturgy, ecumenism and evangelisation.

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ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

ORDINARIATE

Many of your clergy celebrate the Old Rite, some having learnt how to do so soon after ordination. Is this something that you are happy with?

© Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk

‘English Catholicism.’ When the Hierarchy was restored in England and Wales in 1850, for obvious reasons the sort of ethos of Catholicism here was linked to Irish immigrants and Italian traditions. Often, Catholics have forgotten the great Yes – I’m not unhappy about it. It’s quite clear in the Apostolic history of the Church in these islands up to Henry VIII. So there Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus that the priests of the can be a lot of devotion to the modern saints, but not a lot of Ordinariate are allowed to say Mass in the Ordinary and the devotion to the saints of the centuries before the Reformation.

Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite, as well as using a rite We had a great story of faith which the Venerable Bede talks that has been specifically provided using Anglican traditions. about – Aiden and Augustine, Paulinus and Frideswide. We So, I don’t see how anyone could say that they can’t celebrate should try to relink to that past. It’s illustrated that we’re not the Old Rite. I wouldn’t want it to become the main use of any really linked to that history in that many people in our country Ordinariate congregation, but I don’t see why any priest of are not aware of, or use, the Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham. the Ordinariate, when they’re asked to, cannot celebrate the Many go to Fatima and Lourdes, but have never been to their Extraordinary Form. I have no problem with that. own shrine, which was one of the greatest shrines of Our Lady Here at Warwick Street, the parish priest has been asked in medieval Europe. I know that Mgr Armitage, the Rector of to have a regular Wednesday evening Sung Mass in the the Catholic Shrine at Walsingham, wants to try and rekindle Extraordinary Form, which we’re very happy to host. It’s not that love and tradition. The Ordinariate links to that tradition run by the parish, but is hosted by the parish, and it is fulfilling and to ancient English Catholicism. a need. When the Extraordinary Form is done well, it is very Ecumenically, I think the Ordinariate is very significant. beautiful. Personally, though, it would not be a form of worship The significance is seen much more clearly outside these that I would want to be my norm – partly because I come from islands than within, sadly. The question is, if we pray all the an Anglican background and my Latin is almost non-existent. I time, as we should, for the unity of Christ’s Church, what might have no objections, though, to my priests being able to do this, it look like? The great phrase that come from the Malines and I think it a very good thing that they are able to do it.

Conversations between Catholics and Anglicans in the early twentieth century was ‘United but Warwick Street is known as one of not absorbed.’ Now what would the few parishes with three forms that look like? It seems to me that of the Roman Rite. the Ordinariate is one way of seeing how this might work. We all agree That’s right, and I think that’s that for the Church to be united, a good thing. It seems to me that it doesn’t have to be uniform, so Pope Benedict’s publication of the way of bringing in different Anglicanorum Coetibus goes traditions, which are compatible hand in hand with Summorum with the Catholic faith, is a very Pontificum, because both promote significant issue. The Ordinariate the diversity of worship that is Missal is one way in which that’s possible in the Catholic Church. being done. The Missal is a very As long as there is a unity of historical document as it is the faith and everybody recognises Mgr Newton at Westminster Cathedral last year first time, as far as I know, that the that the Mass is the Mass, I think Catholic Church has produced a diversity is good for the Church. People’s spirituality can be missal which has elements from ecclesial communities that very different and some grow in their faith using one form of originate from the time of the Reformation. This has huge worship, which might not be as useful for another. This unified implications. Ecumenically, therefore, the Ordinariate is a diversity is a great blessing for the Church. kind of test-tube to see what could be done if other churches really do come together, so that there is a unity of faith, a unity What do you think the Ordinariate has to offer the wider of order, but some diversity of practice. I’m surprised that Church in terms of evangelisation and ecumenism? ecumenists don’t find the Ordinariate more exciting, because I think they should.

We all have our part to play in evangelisation. It’s a really important issue for our times. There are a lot of lapsed Catholics As Protestants prepare to mark the 500th anniversary of in the UK and they need to be reintroduced to the Church and Luther’s ‘Reformation’, do you think this is something that we returned to the sacraments. But in a country which is, for the Catholics can or should celebrate? most part, post-Christian, many people don’t know anything I can understand why people would want to mark it, but I about the Faith. So we also have a role to evangelise the nation.

One of the things that has often worried me about find it difficult to understand why we as Catholics would want evangelisation in England and Wales is that people only see it to celebrate it. I think it was very sad that it happened. Many in terms of trying to get lapsed Catholics back to Mass. I think good things came from the Reformation, not least the Counterthat’s a limited understanding of what we should be doing. We Reformation, which made the Catholic Church look again at have a ministry to everybody and a call to go out to the whole certain things, and renew them. But I don’t see it as something that we could or should celebrate. Whether we should support world and preach the Name of Jesus.

The Ordinariate will have some part to play with the rest those churches of the Reformation in marking this, I don’t of the Catholic Church. One of the things that we might have know. Personally, though, it is not something I would want to to offer is a bit more of an emphasis on what we might call celebrate.

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Please pray for the souls of all members who have died recently Requiescant in Pace Mary Virginia Bowes Archibald Campbell-Murdoch Helen Considine Mary Cooper Jane Crosse Elizabeth Dilloway Bernard Taunton John Thornton Every effort is made to ensure that this list is accurate and up-to-date. However, if you know of a recently deceased member whose name has not, so far, appeared on our prayer memorial, then please contact the LMS, see page 2 for contact details.

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ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

Annual Requiem Mass

Saturday 5th November 2016 High Mass of Requiem in Westminster Cathedral at 2.00pm celebrated by

The Rt Rev Mark JabalĂŠ OSB Emeritus Bishop of Menevia

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

comment

Photographing the Mass A reflection from the other side of the lens Daniel Blackman

What’s been good?

Hidden moments: You get access to parts of a church or venue most people don’t see. Whether it’s the sacristy, the choir loft, the private area reserved for a VIP, or up-close during proceedings, the photographer is there to capture hidden moments. A good photo can reveal something about the mysteries celebrated in the liturgy not readily seen, as you get to see things from a new angle outside the view of the person in the pew.

Evangelisation: Photos can evangelise. A photo shared on Facebook among friends, or a calendar given as a present, can spread the influence of the traditional liturgy far and wide.

It’s taking the Mass out of the Church and into the world, in the same way cloistered nuns bring the riches of Gregorian chant to the world, thanks to CDs and the internet.

Posterity: I remember someone once saying that a generation of Catholics have grown up where the memory of what was lost has itself been lost. There’s something special about a grainy black and white photo of Pope Leo XIII or Pope St Pius X celebrating Mass. We can enjoy these photos precisely because a photographer was there to capture the moment. Photos taken today will be appreciated by generations to come – providing the internet doesn’t crash, and photos are still printed.

Useful: If you’re planning a calendar or a magazine, it’s handy to have a range of high-quality photos. And we live in an increasingly visual age. Social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instragram tell us that the ‘visual is king.’ And photos get shared online much more than text.

Human value: There are plenty of events with social aspects to them, so it’s nice to take photos of attendees. It helps build a sense of belonging and pride in one’s presence at some event with friends old and new.

What needs some work?

Hidden moments (again): Despite the point made above, there’s something to be said for keeping hidden things hidden.

The rood screens, plums of smoke from burning incense filling the sanctuary, prayers uttering in a low voice, and the veiling of sacred vessels remind us of the value keeping something things hidden and mysterious. Can photographing everything somehow trespass these boundaries?

Praying: It’s easy to get caught in the moment: dashing from one location to another, adjusting the lens, trying a new angle. You’re focused on doing a good job, so it’s easy to start seeing the liturgies as events, rather than holy moments. This is less of an issue at a conference, but ever present at Mass.

The Consecration is a bit of a battle between getting what can be the most moving and powerful of photos, and attempting prayerful interior participation in the sacrifice.

Anthropocentrism: A lot of photos are of the priest before, during, and after a liturgy, together with lots of photos of altar servers. It’s natural to take photos of people. ‘News is people’ as the saying goes. But there might be something of a hidden danger. Could these photos risk our minds falling into the same error that the new rite of Mass is criticised for – too much emphasis on priest, servers and people? Naturally, photos will include them, but can this sometimes make us skew the focus?

Repetition: It’s easy to keep taking photos of the same thing, in the same way. Granted, the liturgies aren’t constantly changing and adapting (thank goodness, you say!), which means repetition can creep in.

There are some weighty points made here, I think. I’ll keep taking photos, work on those things that need working, think, and welcome comment from others. As you see, there’s more going on that just pushing a button. Spare a prayer for the next photographer you see at Mass.

Daniel Blackman is a photographer and journalist who works in communications.

© Daniel Blackman

T

he weekend after Cassius Clay (aka Muhammad Ali) passed away The Sunday Times carried a 16-page supplement honouring his boxing career. It was a poignant reminder of the power of a good photo.

Nowadays, there isn’t a wedding or First Holy Communion Mass that doesn’t have its photographer, plus all the families and guests with phones and tablets taking snaps of the special occasion.

And in the last 10 years or so there has been an explosion of photography around traditional liturgies and social events.

Photos are a popular part of major Catholic websites, blogs and publications.

As someone who has been snapping away at lots of Traditional Masses, pro-life events, and conferences for about a year, it got me thinking more about my own photography, and more broadly, the role that photography plays in communicating the message of Traditional Catholicism.

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FIRST MASS

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

‘Dona eis Requiem’ First Mass in the Extraordinary Form Edward Kendall

I

first attended Mass in the Extraordinary Form at the church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street, London on 8 June this year. As I walked up to the church I did not know what to expect. A recent convert, I had never before attended a Mass in Latin in the Ordinary Form, let alone in the Extraordinary Form.

Indeed, my Latin leaves much to be desired.

To give you a bit of my background. I was baptised as an infant at the hands of an Anglican cleric and confirmed by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, at the age of 14, so my upbringing was Anglican. However, as I discovered more about Catholicism, I was increasingly attracted by the integrity of the Catholic faith and the Church’s reverence for the Eucharist, and so eventually, after a few years of discernment, made the decision to become a Catholic and was received into the Church in April this year at my university’s Catholic chaplaincy.

The Mass was the initiative of a group who organise a weekly High Mass and felt that they ought to do something to help Mother Angelica, who did, and, we pray, continues to do so much to help Holy Mother Church. This High Mass, therefore, was a Requiem, offered for the eternal repose of her soul.

I have always been curious about the past and I was about to experience the Mass as it was celebrated before Vatican II and the aggiornamento. Indeed, the Mass with its plainsong chanting and clouds of incense, combined with my romantic historical imagination, was evocative of the medieval era.

As I entered the church I took note of my surroundings and the people around me. Some were kneeling in silent prayer or praying their rosaries, whilst others sat in quiet reflection. There were plenty of mantillas. The silence was only broken when a bell was chimed and everyone rose as the priest and servers proceeded to the foot of the altar. Meanwhile, the choir burst into chanting the beautiful words of the introit: “Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis...” This was shortly followed by the Kyrie. We then had a reading from the first letter of St Paul to the Thessalonians followed by the sequence hymn: “Dies irae, dies illa solvet saeclum in favilla, teste David cum Sibylla...” The opening words sound gloomy, but remember that the hymn ends with this beautiful line, “Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem.” This was followed by an appropriate reading from the Gospel according to St John concerning Jesus’ dialogue with Martha about resurrection.

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The readings were followed by the offertory chant and the Sanctus, the preface separating the two. After the Sanctus we all knelt as the priest recited the beautiful words that are the Roman Canon. Whilst most of the Canon is recited inaudibly by the celebrant, when he spreads his hands over the oblation the sacring bell is rung. At the consecration I bowed down my body in solemn adoration – an act of faith in the Real Presence of our Saviour’s Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, under the sacramental veil. At the elevation of the host and then at the elevation of the chalice the bell was rung thrice. The chiming of the bell contrased with the silence in a way that really brought out the solemnity of the sacred mystery that happened before our very eyes.

We received Communion kneeling and on the tongue – a humble posture that better suggests the reverence appropriate when receiving the Body of Christ than standing. Furthermore, the words of administration were a beautiful expression of our faith, “Corpus Domini nostri Iesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam.”

Because this was a Requiem Mass, instead of having the sermon after the Gospel (which is the usual practice), we had it at the end of the Mass. After the homily, or panegyric, had ended, the celebrant censed the catafalque and sprinkled it with holy water to recall Mother Angelica’s baptism.

Before going I had heard complaints of the Traditional Latin Mass being non-participative and in some ways this is true – there are very few responses to be made by the congregation as most of them are made by the altar servers. But we still participate in the Mass through our presence and through the postures we adopt throughout the Mass.

What particularly stood out for me was the fact that there were no laypersons giving the readings or in the sanctuary before communion, and there was no communal ‘giving’ of the ‘sign of peace.’ The latter seems to me a socially motivated distraction from the Mass – there’s usually plenty of time for shaking hands and socialising once the Mass has ended. What I also came to appreciate was that having the Mass celebrated in Latin gives the faithful a chance to share the Faith in a common language, wherever they might be. It occurred to me that were I to find myself in a non-English speaking country on a Sunday I would probably seek out a Latin Mass, and feel less alienated there than were I to go to a Mass celebrated in the local vernacular. It is also striking to consider those elements which have been left out of the Ordinary Form, for example: the prayers at the foot of the altar and the beautiful Gospel reading from the Prologue of St John’s Gospel at the end of the Mass.

As the Church says, the Sacrifice of the Mass is the ‘source and summit’ of our lives as Catholics, and after my experience in Warwick Street I hope that in the event of my death my Requiem Mass be celebrated strictly according to the Extraordinary Form.

Edward Kendall is reading Philosophy and Religion at Bangor.

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

LETTERS

Letters to the Editor Republics and Republicans Sir, I thought that it had been agreed a few years ago not to print articles in Mass of Ages praising the Queen. But since Fr Bede Rowe’s article has been published, may I suggest too that you publish an article praising republicanism? I am not personally a republican, but the Catholic Church has flourished in many countries that are republican, not least the Republic of Ireland.

Yours faithfully, Christopher Guyver Sent via email

Sir, I’m writing in response to the most extraordinary letter by the Rev Daniel Horgan, in the Summer 2016 edition of Mass of Ages (“Pearse wasn’t the only Catholic.”)

I find it most peculiar that a man of the cloth should see fit to defend the ‘Catholic nature of the Rising’ (with reference to the 1916 ‘Easter Rising’ in Dublin.) I have news for him. It didn’t have any.

In defence of his ‘thesis’ the Rev Horgan refers to the appeal to ‘God’ in the, badly formulated, ‘Proclamation of Independence.’ The 1916 Republican use of pseudo-theological terminology, in the cause of an armed insurrection which had no popular or moral sanction (except for the one which they made up for themselves), verged on the blasphemous. The highly presumptuous manner in which they placed their cause “under the protection of the most High God” adds further insult to their implicit blasphemy.

Many a brigand in European history has managed to find some Divine justification for a morally dubious armed insurrection. Finding an ethical raison d’être for the spillage of blood is the challenge, and one which would be hard to identify within the Irish Republican tradition.

I have no doubt that a lot of the rebels went to Confession before they started killing people. This means very little, to me, except to say that the prospect of physical death does sharpen the mind. The fact that the clergy of Dublin were “delighted” to see “large numbers” of men performing their respective Easter duties would indicate that it was probably a first. The same clergy were probably not delighted to see the centre of Dublin wrecked during the Rising. Personally speaking, I also wouldn’t get too excited about the fact that the socialist James Connolly received the Last Rites just before he was about to be executed for his treason (against the Irish Nation I would add). Horgan seems to suggest this act of devotion helps to retrospectively validate his revolutionary activities even, though, he probably had no intention of reconciling himself with the Church before he joined the uprising. There is nothing to suggest that the Church’s moral theology informed his revolutionary activities.

But Horgan really does give the game away when he starts talking about Rudolf Steiner and the Theosophical movement.

This is cloud cuckoo land stuff on steroids. Theosophy was something which “attracted the interest of many intellectuals

of the period.” But I wouldn’t associate Plunkett with it just because he refers to the “Sun at Midnight.” However, one could easily associate Theosophy with W B Yeats and his curious circle of Anglo-Irish friends (Celtic revivalist nutters) and their attempt to endow 20th century Ireland with a neo-pagan identity.

One could go on and talk about the things which Horgan omits to mention. The inimitable Irish journalist Kevin Myers does it far better than I ever could. Please allow me: ‘’Who gave John Connolly of the Irish Citizens’ Army the right to murder the unarmed police constable James O’Brien outside Dublin Castle at noon on Easter Monday in 1916? Who gave Constance Markievitz [an Irish proto-feminist] the right to shoot dead Constable Michael Lahiffe in St Stephen’s Green a few minutes later? Who gave some unknown gunman the right to shoot Royal Dublin Fusilier John Humphreys in the back of the head at around the same time, fatally injuring him? Who gave another gunman the right to shoot dead an unnamed woman outside Jacob’s factory, at point-blank range?... These people had risen from their beds that morning, with no notion about the republic or a rising or anything other than getting through the day.”

Yours faithfully, Gerard Hanratty Kent

Remembrance of Things Past Sir, On reading the Spring 2016 issue of Mass of Ages, I read words by Alfred Marnau in the column “In Illo Tempore.” He wrote about the change from the Latin Mass to the modern one.

“What chance”, he asked, talking of the elderly who faced these changes, “would they have to live in peace within the Church during their closing years? All they have is a remembrance of times past, the happy feast days of their youth, what is their chance to die as they have lived?”

I still have passion for the memories of the Latin Mass, so I asked my parish priest to have my funeral Mass in Latin. I think he was rather taken aback by this. He has now thought about this for a while and has come to a decision! He tells me that he is unable to say this Mass or to be with a priest who will say it, but he will find another priest who can say that Latin Mass. Please God it will be so.

I am now unable to get to any Latin Masses, and often am unable to get to the parish Mass, but am able to use my days in prayer, and hear daily Mass on EWTN. Will the Latin Mass ever come back? I know it won’t in my time of life, but wouldn’t it be marvelous if it returned for always? We can only pray hard and hope.

Yours faithfully, Miss J Simmons East Sussex Continued overleaf

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LETTERS Continued from previous page

Sir,

When I was being attracted to the Church in the 1950s, one thing that I found irresistible was the sense of the presence of God in Catholic churches, which made the buildings different from any others on earth. This sweet, powerful presence made phrases like ‘Bride of Christ’ and ‘Holy Church’ wholly meaningful.

Then came the modern form of the Mass and this wonderful sense of the presence of God gradually disappeared, and I was left, as it were, with just an ordinary space to have pious ceremonies in. Although this new arrangement was a valid Mass, it seemed as if the first commandment had been brushed aside to be replaced by the second; community instead of pure worship of God. Although some windows were left ajar to let in the supernatural for those who liked that sort of thing, for me God had apparently left. What does God think of all of this?

Since the installation of the modern Mass, statistics show that the Church has horrendously declined in the West until it only has half the strength of what it had 70 years ago. There is no need to quote the dreary saga of closed churches, seminaries, dwindling congregations, etc. Other causes, such as a watered down catechism have contributed to this, but since the Mass is the main source of power in the Church, and since now there is evidently less power, there must be something wrong in this area; something blocking the proper flow of God’s grace.

There is general agreement that the modern Mass is a very different thing from the Traditional Latin Mass of the last millennia, and, being so, in such an important matter, they should have looked for a sign of God’s approval in the beginning before continuing with it.

Yours faithfully, Mr J Allen Torquay

Apologies to Newman Sir,

Further to the article by Paul Waddington on the Birmingham Oratory in your latest issue (Summer 2016), I would like to point out that St Philip’s chapel is in fact the National Shrine of Blessed John Henry Newman, and has been since being blessed by Pope Benedict XVI in September 2010.

Above the altar are a portrait of the Blessed and a reliquary containing a few personal items. In the centre of the chapel is a reliquary containing what few pieces were found in the Cardinal’s grave when it was excavated in 2008.

I am sorry to have to point this out but as a member of the Oratory parish, I am concerned that the shrine of Cardinal Newman has been omitted in view of its importance.

Yours faithfully, Anne Roebuck Birmingham We welcome letters from our readers. To submit a letter (by post or email), please see page 3 for our contact details.

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ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

In Illo Tempore Often, those who remain loyal to Traditional Catholicism are branded “dissenters.” The idea that remaining true to what has been considered holy and beneficial by the Church over millennia can somehow be wrong is, of course, illogical. As Pope Benedict XVI, and many others, remind us, what was once holy cannot suddenly become unholy.

The August 1981 LMS News Bulletin (No 49) records the address given by the then Chairman, Alfred Marnau, to that year’s AGM. After describing the way members of the Society are often “an easy target” who are “ignored or ridiculed... regarded as a dying species soon to be extinct”, he said, “what [really] makes us special is, above all, that we are not dissenters.

Dissenters wish to change things for the better or for worse.

We do not wish to change anything – we want what was great and beautiful and holy to stay as it was, unchanged... It was not us who called in the repair squad. There was nothing needing repair. They entered unasked; repaired nothing; ruined what was perfect, leaving a mess behind. But they did remember to send us the bill...”

The theme of so-called “dissent” appeared in the August 1976 LMS News Bulletin (No 29), which carried a letter (first published in The Times) from the Society’s President, Miss Alexandra Zaina:“This is one aspect of the suspension of Msgr Lefebvre from all his preistly duties... which should be a matter of concern even to those outside the Roman Catholic Church, namely that he has been condemned without being heard. The refusal of the Pope to receive a fellow prelate of known integrity and holiness of life (unless he first dismantle his work) should disturb any fairminded person.”

The President continued: “His real crime of course is not that he has ‘persistently refused to follow the teachings of the Second Vatican Council’ (this could only be true if that council differed radically from its predecessors), but that through the training of his priests he ensures that the old Roman Mass, with its origins in the early Church, codified by Pope St Pius V in 1570, shall continue to be offered.”

Writing in the August 1991 LMS News Bulletin (No 89), the Chairman, Christopher Inman, described the “frustration” felt by those who were viewed by bishops with suspicion due to their allegiance to the Old Mass. Yet, he warned against “Bishop bashing”, saying:“By and large, those who negotiate with bishops on behalf of the world-wide organisations affiliated with Una Voce follow a consistently courteous course, putting their cases and requests firmly and informedly...”

He continued: “Some people, however, few if any of whom have had any experience of negotiations, seem to fondly imagine that confrontational, forceful, dogmatic approaches that upbraid bishops would be more successful. Where these have occured they have been counter-productive, especially with bishops who are hesitant but not ill-disposed to the old rites. What is often overlooked or not understood is that there are bishops who are sympathetic, who however have priests, often influencial ones, who are not. It is a rare old ‘mish-mash’ of feelings and personalities... Diplomacy is the key to further progress, not bombast, constituted as we are to work under the authority of our diocesan ordinaries and in loyalty to Peter.”

So, the question remains: What is dissent, and who are the dissenters?

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

CALENDAR / CROSSWORD

AUGUST 2016 Sun 14 Mon 15 Tue 16 Wed 17 Thu 18 Fri 19 Sat 20 Sun 21 Mon 22 Tue 23 Wed 24 Thu 25 Fri 26 Sat 27 Sun 28 Mon 29 Tue 30 Wed 31

XIII SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G ASSUMPTION of the BVM I Cl W S JOACHIM FATHER of BVM II CI W S HYACINTH C III Cl W FERIA IV Cl G ‡ S JOHN EUDES C III Cl W S BERNARD Ab C D III Cl W XIV SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G IMMACULATE HEART of the BVM II Cl W S PHILIP BENIZI C II Cl W S BARTHOLOMEW § Ap II Cl R S LOUIS K C III Cl W FERIA IV Cl G ‡ S JOSEPH CALASANCTIUS C III Cl W XV SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G BEHEADING of S JOHN the BAPTIST § III Cl R S ROSE OF LIMA V III Cl W S RAYMUND NONATUS C III Cl W

SEPTEMBER 2016 Thu 1 Fri 2 Sat 3 Sun 4 Mon 5 Tue 6 Wed 7 Thu 8 Fri 9 Sat 10 Sun 11 Mon 12 Tue 13 Wed 14 Thu 15 Fri 16 Sat 17 Sun 18 Mon 19 Tue 20 Wed 21 Thu 22 Fri 23 Sat 24 Sun 25 Mon 26 Tue 27 Wed 28 Thu 29 Fri 30

FERIA IV Cl G ‡ JCHP S STEPHEN K C III Cl W SH S PIUS X P C III Cl W IH XVI SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G S LAURENCE JUSTINIAN B C III Cl W FERIA IV Cl G ‡ FERIA IV Cl G ‡ NATIVITY of the BVM II Cl W FERIA IV Cl G ‡ S NICHOLAS of TOLENTINO C III Cl W XVII SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G MOST HOLY NAME of MARY III Cl W FERIA IV Cl G ‡ EXALTATION of the HOLY CROSS II Cl R SEVEN SORROWS of the BVM II Cl W SS CORNELIUS § P & CYPRIAN § B MM III Cl R OUR LADY’S SATURDAY IV Cl W † XVIII SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G SS JANUARIUS B & COMPS MM III Cl R FERIA IV Cl G ‡ S MATTHEW § Ap Evangelist II Cl R S THOMAS of VILLANOVA B C III Cl W EMBER DAY II Cl V EMBER DAY II Cl V XIX SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G FERIA IV Cl G ‡ SS COSMAS § & DAMIAN § MM III Cl R S WENCELAUS Duke M III Cl R DEDICATION of S MICHAEL ARCHANGEL I Cl W S JEROME Priest C D III Cl W

OCTOBER 2016 Sat 1 Sun 2 Mon 3 Tue 4 Wed 5 Thu 6 Fri 7 Sat 8 Sun 9 Mon 10 Tue 11 Wed 12 Thu 13 Fri 14 Sat 15 Sun 16 Mon 17 Tue 18 Wed 19 Thu 20 Fri 21 Sat 22 Sun 23 Mon 24 Tue 25 Wed 26 Thu 27 Fri 28 Sat 29 Sun 30 Mon 31

OUR LADY’S SATURDAY IV Cl W † IH XX SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G S TERESA of the CHILD JESUS V III Cl W S FRANCIS C III Cl W FERIA IV Cl G ‡ S BRUNO C III Cl W JCHP BVM of the ROSARY II Cl W S BRIDGET W III Cl W XXI SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G S FRANCIS BORGIA C III Cl W MOTHERHOOD of the BVM II Cl W FERIA IV Cl G ‡ S EDWARD K C III Cl W S CALLISTUS I P M III Cl R S TERESA V III Cl W XXII SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G S MARGARET MARY ALACOQUE V III Cl W S LUKE Ap Evangelist II Cl R S PETER of ALCANTARA C III Cl W S JOHN CANTIUS C III Cl W FERIA IV Cl G ‡ OUR LADY’S SATURDAY IV Cl W † XXIII SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G S RAPHAEL ARCHANGEL III Cl W FERIA IV Cl G ‡ FERIA IV Cl G ‡ FERIA IV Cl G ‡ SS SIMON § & JUDE § Aps II Cl R OUR LADY’S SATURDAY IV Cl W † OLJC the KING I Cl W FERIA IV Cl G ‡

NOVEMBER 2016 Tue 1 ALL SAINTS I Cl W Wed 2 COMMEMORATION OF ALL THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED I Cl B Thu 3 FERIA IV Cl G ‡ JCHP Fri 4 S CHARLES BORROMEO B C III Cl W SH Sat 5 OUR LADY’S SATURDAY IV Cl W † IH Sun 6 V SUNDAY remaining after EPIPHANY II Cl G Mon 7 FERIA IV Cl G ‡ Tue 8 FERIA IV Cl G ‡ Wed 9 DEDICATION of the ARCHBASILICA of the SAVIOUR II Cl W Thu 10 S ANDREW AVELLINO C III Cl W Fri 11 S MARTIN B C III Cl W Sat 12 S MARTIN I P M III Cl R

Alan Frost: July 2016

Clues Across 1 Moving and thrilling or very colourful (7) 5 Couchant animals on England sports shirts, link to evangelist Mark (5) 8 ‘--- ad loquitor ---’, ‘heart speaks unto heart’, re: J H Newman (3) 9 An insignificant person or the self-view of one truly humble perhaps (9) 10 Things on an agenda perhaps (5) 11 & 14 Acr: ‘Lord I am not worthy’ (6,3,3,6) 14 See 11 Across 18 Deploy scissors when grief stricken? (3,2) 21 Type of chant (9) 22 Negative response, made by a horse we hear! (3) 23 Sister to look after (5) 24 One who critically interprets Scripture (7) Clues Down 1 Preparations given to counter possible diseases (8) 2 US composer who set 3 Down to his famous Adagio (6) 3 Lamb of God in the Mass (5,3) 4 ‘------ Ergo’, Benediction hymn from Aquinas’s Pange Lingua (6) 5 See 17 Down 6 A prayer (from Latin ‘to pray’) (6) 7 Island whither ‘bonny boat’ should speed in song of hoped-for Carolingian restoration (4) 12 State of coming into being (8) 13 One newly converted (8) 15 Heavenly body (6) 16 A religious at the beginning of his or her training (6) 17 & 5 Down: One of the Forty Martyrs; she was executed at Tyburn in 1601 (2,4,4) 19 Bishop Philip, who will welcome Oratorians to Bournemouth in September (4) 20 Celebrant’s ceremonial vestment in High Mass (4)

ANSWERS: SUMMER CROSSWORD Across: 1 Hominem 5 Dowry 8 Lar 9 Conqueror 10 Nihil 11 Araucaria 14 Sebastian 18 Faber 21 Aristotle 22 The 23 Light 24 Preston Down: 1 Holiness 2 Martha 3 Nicklaus 4 Monica 5 Deum 6 Worser 7 York 12 Confrère 13 Aberdeen 15 Boxing 16 Instep 17 Obstat 19 Paul 20 Stat

Closing Date & Winner

The closing date for the Autumn 2016 Crossword Competition is Friday 30 September. The winner of the Summer 2016 competition is Mr Smith of Taunton, who wins a copy of Treasure and Tradition by Lisa Bergman.

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OPINION

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

The Rosary is a Powerful Weapon And that’s no secret…

Mary O’Regan On my tombstone, I’d like the inscription: “At Fatima Our Lady asked us to offer a daily Rosary, please do so in my memory.”

Now we are in Autumn 2016, we are beginning a vital year of preparation. October 2017 will be the month dedicated to the Holy Rosary 100 years after Our Lady appeared at Fatima. How can we use the coming 12 months to ensure that Our Lady’s requests at Fatima are better observed?

I think we are living during the unfolding of the Third Secret, and I wonder if we are meant to spend our time making better known the theories that surround the Third Secret. This Secret, of course, is one of the distinct revelations granted to Fatima visionary Sr Lucia in connection with Our Lady of Fatima’s apparitions in Fatima, Portugal.

One of the great controversies in the Catholic Church, and in the world, in the 20th century was the expected release of the Third Secret in 1960. At that time, the Vatican did not release it as many expected, causing widespread speculation as to why it was not made public and what it contained. On 13 May 2000, the Vatican released a text entitled “The Third Secret.” While some have questioned whether the released text was the full text of the Third Secret or not, for purposes of this reflection, I shall take that text at face value and restate it here for reference: “After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’

And we saw in an immense light that is God ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it’ a Bishop dressed in white ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father.’ Other bishops, priests, men and women religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other bishops, priests, men and women religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.” Since the election of Pope Francis, my mind has attached various meanings to the words of Sr Lucia, who gave the description of seeing a bishop dressed in white who gave her “the

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impression” that he was the Holy Father.

Is one permitted to wonder whether, in this anomalous time of a Pope emeritus and a reigning Pope, whether one of them could be the “Bishop in White” referred to by Lucia? This is made perhaps more curious by Pope Francis’ strong emphasis on his role as the Bishop of Rome, which he referred to soon after his election.

If the ‘Pope’ that Lucia saw (in the vision Our Lady gave her) passing through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow is either Pope Benedict or Pope Francis, this could be reading into appearances, but given Benedict’s advanced age, it could be that he is the Pope of “halting step”?

The text of the Third Secret has tended to perplex some people because they have assumed that the bishop in white and the Holy Father are the same person. Is it possible one is Francis and one is Benedict? There could be a hint in the date that Pope Francis ascended the Throne of Peter, 13 March 2013. I wrote to Pope Francis and connected the date he became the ruling Pope with the fact that Our Lady appeared at Fatima on the 13th of every month. “Your Holiness, You ascended the Throne of Peter on March 13, 2013. There are two 13s in that date, one is for each living Bishop who bears the mark of the Papacy on their souls. Could it be that there is one 13 for you and one 13 for Pope Benedict? Could it be that You and Pope Benedict are both implicated in the Third Secret?”

While I think it is of the utmost importance to take the Third Secret very seriously, I have to spend everyday as an ordinary laywoman prioritising the precise role Our Lady has asked someone like me to take. My one claim to consistent Marian devotion is that I offer a five-decade Rosary each day. Had Our Lady not repeatedly asked Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco to make known her request that we offer a daily Rosary, I think that I would only offer the Rosary in times of great suffering.

I’d still do my utmost to go to Traditional Latin Mass each day and tell myself that I was doing better than offering the Rosary each day, which is a trap that many fall into, thinking that just because they assist at Holy Mass that they can skip the Rosary, but they are not doing as Our Lady requested.

What I suggest is that each of us, every single last one of us, take it seriously to offer the Rosary every day for one person in particular and offer the particular intention that the recipient of our daily 50 Hail Marys starts to offer their own daily Rosary.

Gently and with great tenderness make it known to the person you care about that you are offering the Rosary each day for them.

Then make yourself available to answer any and all questions they may have.

You may think you are only one person, and that if you only get one other person to offer the Rosary that this will be a small result.

But if you consider that the readership of this magazine hovers around 4,000, then if each reader gets a new person to offer a daily Rosary, that will then be 8,000 people offering a daily Rosary.

Mary O’Regan is a writer and journalist. She recently edited John Carmichael’s memoir, Drunks and Monks, available on Amazon.

ISSUE 189 185 - AUTUMN 2016 2015

DO WE STILL BELIEVE IN...?

TAB

Do we still believe in...

Europe?

Fr Bede Rowe

W

ell, what do you know? We voted to leave Europe! I think that before the vote on 23 June the Bishops said something (which I took the precaution of not reading) but I am not convinced that there was a ‘Catholic’ answer to the question. It was simply one of those extraordinary moments when the UK was given a referendum vote over something important, and if you ask someone something, then they are going to give an answer.

Europe as a continent still exists. I can say that with some certainty as I looked it up on the internet, which we all know, never lies. But what an interesting thing it is to look at Europe through Catholic eyes. In 2007, Pope Benedict said, “It is a question of a historical, cultural, and moral identity before being a geographic, economic, or political one; an identity comprised of a set of universal values that Christianity helped forge, thus giving Christianity not only a historical but a foundational role vis-à-vis Europe.”

What then is Europe? It is history, culture and moral identity. And is all of those things based on Christianity? Pope Benedict was quick to point out that the attempt by European politicians to ignore Christianity, when they were writing the European Charter, was both foolish and deceitful. Without Christianity, Europe is reduced to a piece of geography which you can point to on a map, or a political body which can change on the whims on the individual members, and which can be left or joined at will (for example Brexit). It is only through history, culture and moral identity that peoples and individuals can be melded into something greater than themselves.

Our principal ‘natural’ identity, the sense of who we are, comes from our family. This is why we react almost without thinking to protect those who are closest to us, even to the point of giving our life. Then comes our ‘clan’ – our extended family, our region, our football team. The largest natural unity that any of us can really identify with is our country.

The further away from the intimate

unit, the more strained identity is. When Europe, then, tries to have a claim on us, it is already going to be an uphill struggle.

On the ‘natural’ level, Europe indeed can seem distant and different.

But this should not necessarily be the case. Pope Benedict points us to the true European identity, one that is not ‘natural’ but rather ‘supernatural’. The thing that binds Europe together is not economic success, or fear of war, or political influence, but faith… and by faith I mean Catholicism. True European culture pointed to God and was created for His glory. True European governance was through kings and princes for the good of those in their charge, but kept in check by the moral power of the Church.

True European prosperity was the common good, where monasteries and convents were as valued as those who farmed and made goods. And the true European army defended these values when they were challenged or attacked.

This is the history of our continent, and this history was informed by and fostered our culture, all underpinned by the moral values which come from God. In the light of this Catholic lens, which Pope Benedict so wisely and clearly gave us, we can see that facile arguments about immigration and economics can become dangerous. The Church sent men from one part of Europe to the other.

The Archbishops of Canterbury (the last being Cardinal Pole in 1558), included the Italian St Anselm, who came to us via the French Abbey of Bec. And how would the monks of Jarrow have learnt the latest chants, if St Benet Biscop had not brought back a chant master from Rome?

The Cistercians advanced agriculture and farming methods throughout Europe by sharing their expertise, and when the call came to defend the Holy Places, nationality was put aside.

All of these things we can identify with, because faith transcends national boundaries. That smallest and most intimate unit, the family, my family, is repeated and grows through all my brothers and sisters in the faith, bound together not by a political will, nor an

economic necessity, nor even a fear of the ‘other’, but by a common identity brought about by baptism in Christ. Europe is the privileged place where Ss Peter and Paul met their death, and in Europe that faith grew and spread, nurturing a culture and history in safety and truth brotherhood.

All of this happened because it was founded, not on the sand of human desire, but rather on the supernatural presence of Almighty God in the Church which He willed into existence for His glory and our salvation.

Europe is something which has been made beautiful by her history and culture, but which can only remain beautiful by recognising God in her midst.

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COMMENT

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

The Scourge of Indifferentism

Ripping the heart out of effective evangelism Anthony Hofler

E

xamples of waywardness and need of God’s mercy are many and easily found. I do not look for them, but have come across some which distressed me. People’s reactions differ; you may find interest in comparing mine with yours.

A Catholic man told me that because his baptised Catholic daughter had been unable to marry a divorcee in the Catholic Church, she deserted it and ‘married’ in an Anglican one. He blamed the Church. He said that although Our Lord had ruled out divorce, that it was a long time ago.

Again without enquiry, I was told of someone’s conversion from Catholicism to a non-Christian religion. “Oh dear,” I said.

“It’s not ‘Oh dear,’” my Catholic informant replied gently, and the conversation passed on to other matters before an amicable “good-bye.” That specific case then arose in conversation with a mutual friend. This graduate of two Catholic colleges, who was appointed RE teacher and lay chaplain in Catholic schools, defended the apostasy with forceful indignation, equivalent to “how dare you imply that Catholicism is better than other religion!” That was compounded (obliviously regarding the first case cited above) by unprompted and defiant praise of Catholics who enter ‘marriages’ which are (like Anglican ‘orders’: Apostolicae curae) objectively void.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (“a sure and authentic reference text,” wrote Pope St John Paul) affirms that other religions contain elements of truth and holiness, and indicates briefly the possibility that their adherents can achieve eternal salvation. That provides support for my friend’s statement that “Christianity is one of many ways to God.” But surely not for a false conclusion that none is objectively superior to another.

Instead of proclaiming that there is no need to be baptised or, as the Catechism requires, to remain in the Church, loyalty to Our Lord obliges us always to promote the fact that there is such need.

The Catholic Church possesses, uniquely in this world, the authority of Christ. Therefore its doctrinal and moral teachings are intrinsically supreme among religions, and are the standard by which truth is to be distinguished from error. That needs to be stated regularly to counteract the damage from ‘members’ who dispute it openly or undermine it by waffle or silence, compounded by ecumenical and inter-faith vagueness, the surrounding secular atmosphere of pseudo-tolerance, and the predictable, intrinsically-hypocritical condemnation of ‘judgmentalism.’

There seems a real danger that those well-established phenomena will benefit (even if unintentionally) from the current focus on God’s mercy. For example, the annual Divine Mercy novena’s final day requests mercy for people who are lukewarm. Our Lord told St Faustina that in Gethsemane his soul “suffered the most dreadful loathing” because of them.

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That is unlikely to be highlighted, because it might not ‘go down well’ among the lukewarm legions. Although justified, credit should be given ungrudgingly, eagerness to credit non-Catholic religions suggests (especially when combined with certain other factors) lukewarmness for Catholicism. An indifferent Catholic is like a salesman for a manufacturer of tyres telling enquirers that fundamentally it doesn’t matter whether they buy his tyres or those made by someone else, because “they’ll all take you wherever it is you want to go, if you want to go, but you don’t have to.”

That seems to underlie the disappearance of denominationally distinctive messages from officially Catholic sources. Banality reigns. Just as, in the words of the Vatican, “an overly benign interpretation was given to the homosexual condition,” and has hardened into the now standard intimidatingly assertive defence of it, so an overly benign attitude to other religions can become indifferentism and apostasy. Therefore, what is the object of evangelising?

We have been advised to ‘live and let live’ (a cornerstone of secular permissiveness), and not to try to convert people to our faith, and not to be ‘faith-controllers’ or religious ‘customsofficers’ who engage in ‘inspecting and verifying’ in order to maintain sound doctrine and discipline. The implication is that differences between Catholicism, Protestantism, and sundry non-Christian religions are of little, if any, importance – an idea not contradicted by our leaders. I have read of Catholics and Protestants going around in joint missionary groups. Imagine an exchange between those missionaries and a ‘prospect’ – “Good morning, we’re Christians. Have you ever thought about religion?” “Which Church are you from?”

“Different ones, but we’re all Christians.” “Well, which one should I think about joining?” “It’s up to you; whichever one you feel most comfortable in.” People such as my “many ways to God” friend would applaud that. Instead of “on this rock I will build my Church,” up-to-you ecumenists and inter-faith enthusiasts tell people (in effect), “Come and choose from the products in our religious supermarket. There’s a branch near you. (Offers always available in the Conscience Department.)”

Why does all this weigh heavily on me? The reason was illustrated very well by Dawn Eden, as follows: “When I am standing in a crowded subway car and someone steps on my toe, I know that it is my toe that was stepped on, because I feel the pain. Somebody didn’t just step on my toe; they stepped on me” (My Peace I Give You (2012), p.69). When someone ‘steps’ on the faith and the Church, they ‘step’ on me. That is how closely I identify with it. Do you?

Suitable groups who might wish to hear talks by the author can contact him at lonefurrowprojects@yahoo.co.uk

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

LONE VEILER

Relics of the Saints Gifts that keep on giving...

Lone Veiler

F

or as long as I can remember, relics have fascinated me.

They are a tangible presence of someone holy, whose life was close to God, and who can help me get closer to God. I know relics have had a bad press over the past few centuries, but they speak to people.

The desire to possess something relating to someone admired is universal, and not an exclusively religious practice.

Those who might scoff at the thought of a medal which has been touched to the tongue of St Anthony might not think twice about buying a signed football shirt, or an authentic Elvis autograph.

We have photographs of our most recent saints. We recognise St Thérèse of Lisieux and St Bernadette of Lourdes, and now we can also see the faces of St Anthony of Padua and St Nicholas as their skulls have been reconstructed, but there’s nothing like visiting a saint’s bones.

When St Thérèse was on her British tour a few years ago, we took a mini-pilgrimage, as so many others did, and the atmosphere and the queues were fabulous. It was very moving to finally see the casket, I touched the rosary bracelet that I permanently wear to her relics. I bought a terrible statue of St Thérèse and a large fake rose, kitsch souvenirs of a truly joy-filled and memorable day. I wasn’t lucky enough to visit St Thomas Becket this year, but had I been able to I would have like a shot. Not because I’m superstitious, but because I think there is great value in honouring those who have shown us such great examples of the Christian life, whatever it cost them. My wrist rosary is a permanent reminder to me of St

Thérèse’s (not so) ‘Little Way’, for which I am grateful. Relics of the saints are wonderful, and I don’t think there’s enough veneration of them, which is a tremendous shame. Who wouldn’t want to thank a saint for their witness and prayers, whatever the class of relic?

The most awe-inspiring relics have to be those of Our Lord and His Mother. The Shroud of Turin (just a minor obsession of mine), the Sudarium of Oviedo (likewise), St Juan Diego’s tilma with Our Lady of Guadalupe’s image on it (this too), and yes, mea culpa, I even read studies about the Holy Grail. Note I said ‘studies’, not really dodgy bestsellers or pseudoscience pseudo-history channel docudramas. Well, okay, perhaps I have scoffed at the odd docudrama.

Returning to the tilma. The miraculous image of Our Lady has been well examined over the years, and no one is any the wiser as to how it was made, likewise with the Shroud of Turin.

But miraculous images tend to be like that don’t they? So, when I was recently lent a DVD by a friend about St Juan Diego, all over again the wonder of the miracle hit me. I went online to do more digging around, like you do, and found the Nican Mopohua. This is the earliest written vernacular account of the apparition of Our Lady to Juan Diego, penned by Antonio Valeriano. A hand written 16th century manuscript copy is available to peruse on the New York Public Library Digital Collections, a mere Google away if you feel so inclined. The whole account is mesmerising, especially if you find a dual text in English and Nahuatl (the language spoken by the Aztecs).

There are many differences between the various translations, but whatever the translation, I am particularly fond of the part when the saint fails to bypass Our Lady in his rush to fetch a priest for his dying uncle, and she comes down the hill and finds him anyway. Caught, he said to Our Lady that he hoped, “...you are well and happy. Are you in good humour and health this morning?” How can you not love St Juan Diego for asking if the Queen of Heaven had basically had a good night’s sleep?

It is also in this section of the account that Our Lady gives those wonderful words of consolation to St Juan Diego, “Am I not here, I, who am your Mother?” The image on the tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe is beautiful. The information contained in it is even more amazing. There is too much to mention here, but if you haven’t seen the research about the constellations, geography, the fabric itself, have a look, it’s fascinating stuff.

The great thing about relics, miracles, appearances of Our Lady, is that there is always something new to be discovered each time you look at an account of the event. Even when I think I have covered everything, something new presents itself, they are inexhaustible spiritual resources. It is very helpful in reassuring me that we have friends in heaven who were truly here before us, because relics originate from real people. The more you ponder, the more you find, relics are truly gifts to us from heaven that keep on giving.

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ART & DEVOTION

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

Ah Mary, the Most Sorrowful of all Mothers Caroline Shaw

Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows by Adriaen Isenbrant, c. 1518, Church of Our Lady, Bruges, Belgium

S

eptember is traditionally the month in which we remember the great sorrow of Our Lady, and on the 15th is celebrated the feast of the Seven Dolours of Our Blessed Mother. This beautiful painting by the Flemish artist, Adriaen Isenbrant, conveys clearly and with great dignity the seven episodes in Mary’s life during which she suffered most particularly. In the centre of the scene, seated on an elaborate niche-type throne, sits Our Lady. Her hands are clasped together, half in prayer half in sorrow; her eyes are downcast and her inward gaze is clearly meditating upon all that she and her blessed Son have suffered. It is extremely moving to notice that the artist has captured the tiredness in Our Lady’s eyes – for grief is perhaps the most fatiguing of all emotions.

Behind Mary, ranged around her throne, are seven scenes portraying the Seven Sorrows upon which she meditates, and upon which worshippers at the church of Our Lady in Bruges, in which this painting still hangs, would have meditated in union with Mary. Beginning with the bottom scene on the left, we see the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, and the moment in which the holy man Simeon foretells that this infant “has been established as a sign

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which will be contradicted.” He tells Mary that, “a sword will pierce your own heart,” and this, as St Bernard of Clairvaux tells us, is the foretelling of Our Lady’s martyrdom at the foot of the Cross. Above this is the Flight into Egypt, in which a concerned-looking Mary cradles her precious newborn baby in her arms, and St Joseph looks anxiously behind him, as if to check for soldiers as they flee Herod’s massacre. At the top we see Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem, seated on a throne much like the one on which the artist has placed Our Lady, surrounded by the teachers listening in amazement to His words. To the left stand Our Lady and St Joseph.

They have found their Son, and are clearly awed by the sight of Him, a 12-year-old boy instructing the wisest men of Jerusalem. The sorrow for Our Lady and St Joseph was during the three days of loss before the moment pictured: three days of anxiety and mourning which pre-figure the three days of Our Lord’s death and resurrection.

Above Our Lady’s head is the scene in which she meets her Son on the Via Dolorosa as He carries the cross towards Golgotha. She holds a cloth to wipe her Son’s face, and, unusually, the artist portrays Mary in red in this scene,

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016 possibly to convey the idea of the start of her martyrdom. On the right hand side at the top is the Crucifixion. This is the greatest sword that pierced Our Lady’s heart, the moment at which, in obedience to God’s will, she watched her precious Son die. It is also the moment at which she was given to us as our mother. The two final scenes, the deposition and the entombment, complete the sorrowful cycle.

Although it was only inaugurated as a formal feast of the Church by Pope Benedict XIII in 1727, the Seven Dolours of Our Lady has its origins, like so many feasts, in the late Middle Ages. In Italy in 1239, the Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order adopted the Sorrows of Our Lady at the foot of the cross as the principal devotion of their order, and it was to this order that were granted the first permissions.

In the 14th century, the visions of St Bridget of Sweden did much to establish and propagate the devotion more widely. According to St Bridget, Our Blessed Mother will grant seven graces to all those who honour her on a daily basis by saying seven Hail Marys and meditating upon the Seven Sorrows. The seven graces are as follows: 1. “I will grant peace to their families” 2. “They will be enlightened about the Divine Mysteries” 3. “I will console them in their pains and I will accompany them in their work” 4. “I will give them as much as they ask for, as long as it does not oppose the adorable will of my Divine Son, or the sanctification of their souls” 5. “I will defend them in their spiritual battles with the infernal enemy and I will protect them at every instant of their lives” 6. “I will visibly help them at the moment of their death.

They will see the face of their Mother” 7. “I have obtained this grace from my Divine Son, that those who propagate this devotion to my tears and dolours, will be taken directly from this earthly life to eternal happiness, since all their sins will be forgiven and my Son and I will be their eternal consolation and joy.”

During the 15th century the devotion spread to France and Flanders, thanks in great part to a Flemish priest named Jan van Coudenberghe. He believed that devotion to the Seven Dolours of Our Lady was the only way to end the civil war raging in his country following the death in 1482 of Mary of Burgundy, and therefore he did much to promote the devotion. Coudenberghe was in charge of three churches in Bruges, and in each one he placed an image of the Virgin together with an inscription recalling the seven events during which she had suffered most acutely. Many of the faithful began meditating upon these mysteries, and soon a confraternity was founded under the name of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows. Devotional books were printed from as early as 1492, in which each sorrow was illustrated by an image. This painting by Isenbrant, which was completed during this period, is one of the earliest images of the devotion and may well have been painted for the confraternity.

In September, the month of the Sorrows of Our Lady, may we all heed the words of St Alphonsus Liguori in his beautiful sermon ‘Mary Queen of Martyrs’: “If we can make no other return for such love, let us at least give a few moments each day to consider the greatness of the sufferings by which Mary became the Queen of Martyrs.”

BOOK REVIEW

From the Rising of the Sun…

The Roman Breviary Baronius Press £245.00

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rom the rising of the sun to its setting the Church praises God and offers Him unceasing prayer through the Divine Office. The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council encouraged the lay faithful to sanctify their day by praying the Office as it is the prayer of the entire Church, and not just the clergy or monastic communities.

This breviary published by Traditional Catholic publisher Baronius Press can be used communally in church or oratory, or individually as part of one’s private prayer. Six ribbons are provided helping the user to follow the hours without losing his or her place. Hopefully it will encourage the faithful to pray all the canonical hours, starting from Matins (properly said as the clock strikes midnight or as the first rays of the morning sun appear in the eastern sky) and ending with Compline, in the traditional form.

The rubrics are those promulgated by Pope St John XXIII, which is the form of the traditional breviary approved in Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio Summorum Pontificum.

Furthermore, for those of us who want to use the 1961 breviary but whose Latin leaves rather a lot to be desired the English translations provided in this edition are a real help.

Based on the popular three-volume breviary published

by Collegeville in 1963, this 6,064-page edition (also in three volumes) contains the text of all the liturgical hours in Latin and English with rubrics in English. Scriptural texts in English follow the Confraternity translation, which is a 1940s revision of Bishop Challoner’s Douai-Rheims translation and retains all its elegant prose. The Psalter is the heart and soul of any breviary and St Jerome’s Gallican Psalter from the Vulgate is used throughout this one. This breviary also contains the Office for the Dead and, for your Lenten reading, the Penitential Psalms.

There is no doubt that praying the Psalter as part of the Divine Office will improve your spiritual life and deepen your connection to the prayer life of the church. Benedict XVI pointed out in Summorum Pontificum that the ‘Latin liturgy of the Church in its various forms, in each century of the Christian era, has been a spur to the spiritual life of many saints, has reinforced many peoples in the virtue of religion and fecundated their piety.’ This breviary will undoubtedly be a spur to the user’s sanctification.

The imprimatur and foreword is from Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz STD of Lincoln, Nebraska. A slipcase is provided for each volume for additional protection. EK

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ARCHITECTURE

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

From Barn to Baroque

St Charles Borromeo, Jarratt Street, Hull

Photograph: © www.stcharleschurchhull.co.uk

Continuing his series on Church architecture, Paul Waddington examines a church in Hull which resembled a barn when first built, but now is decorated in the most extravagant baroque style.

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lthough the East Riding of Yorkshire was home for many recusant families during penal times, the City of Hull was very much a Protestant town. The few Catholics living in Hull in the mid-18th century used to travel seven miles to Marton on the Burton Constable estate, where the Rev Dr Charles Howard was chaplain. Sometime around 1770, Fr Howard started saying a monthly Mass in a “simple but light, uncluttered room” in Posterngate.

This arrangement lasted until 1780, the year of the Gordon Riots. Taking their lead from Lord George Gordon and his followers, who had sacked several embassy churches in London, a fanatical anti-Catholic mob set fire to the chapel in Posterngate, rendering it unusable. In the years that followed the Catholics of Hull, who numbered 59 by this time met for Mass in a variety of locations, until 1798, when Abbé Foucher, a refugee from the French Revolution, became Hull’s first resident priest. Abbé Foucher used his own money to build a small and very plain chapel behind a house in Prospect Street.

The Abbé was replaced by the Rev John Smith, who in 1826

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purchased a plot of vacant land with a view to building a more permanent church.

Interestingly, the land was purchased from the Rev Robert Jarratt, a Protestant clergyman whose family were property owners, and who gave his name to Jarratt Street. The church envisaged by Fr Smith would accommodate a congregation of about 800, which was far in excess of the requirements of the time. It was to be extremely simple, built from a rough red brick, and measuring 104 ft by 40ft. Externally, it would be very plain, with no features identifying it as a church, although the interior – especially the sanctuary – would be ornamented. A schoolroom was to be provided in the basement.

The plan was approved by the Vicar Apostolic, but met with a mixed reaction from the local congregation, many of whom thought it was far too large, and an extravagance. Nevertheless, the project went ahead, with the foundation stone being laid on 4 November 1828, the feast of St Charles Borromeo, to whom the church would be dedicated. The unfinished church, which was little more than a barn, was officially opened on

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

Photo: © Stephen Richards/Geograph.org.uk

29 July 1829 with a Solemn High Mass. Festivities were somewhat muted, partly in view of the overwhelmingly Protestant sentiment that still persisted in Hull but also because of the continuing division amongst the congregation.

The division was so severe that the Vicar Apostolic found it necessary to replace Fr Smith with Fr Joseph Render, who was able to handle the difficult situation with diplomacy. In fact, Fr Render not only reunited the congregation, but also went on to improve and beautify the church. Soon after his arrival in 1831, he commissioned the architect, J J Scholes, to convert the “rectangular barn” into a building worthy of the name church.

Externally, Scholes provided the street facade with a gableend, giving it a heavily dentilled pediment in the classical style. He also inserted a central door with niches on either side. Formerly the building had a hipped roof, and access was via a side passage. The rough brick was rendered and provided with imitation rusticated quoins. Internally, the sanctuary was enlarged, and an altarpiece featuring Ionic pillars supporting an entablature was installed. The now partially classical church was reopened in 1835 with a little more ceremony than at the original opening.

Later, in 1841, again under the direction of J J Scholes, further decorations were added and the whole of the interior was painted, but the church of St Charles was still very different from the church of today. It was time for Fr Render to turn his attention to other pressing matters. In 1842, he removed the school from its dark and dank position in the basement of the church to a new site in Canning Street, and in 1843 set about building a presbytery next to the church. It seems that, by this time, Fr Smith’s ambitious plans had been vindicated.

Irish immigration had greatly swelled the congregation, to the extent that a curate was required. The presbytery was built in a Georgian style alongside the church.

ARCHITECTURE

Fr Render was replaced as parish priest in 1848 by the Fr Michael Trappes, who did much good work promoting Catholicism in Hull, but we have to jump forward to the year 1886 for the next phase in story of the church building.

It was in this year that the Fr William Stanislaus Sullivan arrived in the parish, and he was responsible for a complete remodelling of the church. A local firm of architects, Smith, Brodrick and Lowther, was engaged to carry out the transformation.

The church was structurally altered by the addition of side aisles, which allowed side chapels to be built at the eastern (liturgical) end. To achieve this, four arches were cut into each of the sidewalls. This was done without disturbing the existing fenestration, which had deliberately been limited to clerestory level in view of possible developments on adjacent land. The new side aisles only increased the seating capacity marginally, but made the church much more convenient to use. A large choir and organ loft was installed at the western end which required additional windows, and these were made to match the Georgian windows of the presbytery.

Internally, a false ceiling was ingeniously inserted into the existing roof trusses. It consisted of horizontal panels at the margins and a barrel vault in the centre. The existing horizontal beams and king posts were decorated to suit the new basilica style. The sanctuary area was defined by iron and brass communion rails flanked by Ionic columns, and the sanctuary walls provided with numerous niches for statues. A dome with lantern was installed above the sanctuary, and many other works were carried out to make the church look like a Roman basilica.

A very talented artist was employed to deal with the internal decorations. He was Heinrich Immenkamp, an immigrant from Munich who was living in Wright Street, Hull. He gave an extravagant baroque treatment to every surface, most notably his polychrome treatment of the many statues lining the sanctuary. His masterpiece was above the altarpiece, where he depicted the Trinity amongst clouds and surrounded by angels looking down on the earth below.

In this composition there is more than a hint of the Rococo reflecting Immenkamp’s Bavarian origin. Immenkamp’s work is very extensive and almost defies description. It really needs to be seen to be appreciated. There was a ceremonial reopening attended by Cardinal Vaughan in 1895, although Immenkamp continued his work after that date.

The final episode in the story of the transformation of St Charles’ church came in 1910 when a Corinthian porch bearing the inscription, ‘DOMVS DEI’, was added to the Jarrett Street facade. It is very fortunate that the church has largely escaped post Vatican II reordering. In order to accommodate an ad populum altar, the top step of the altar steps has been removed, something that could be reversed without too much difficulty. Currently, Latin Masses are celebrated at 6.30pm on the first Wednesday of the month at St Charles’.

Paul Waddington is the LMS Treasurer.

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YEAR PLANNER

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

LMS Year Planner – Notable Events Details of all our events can be found on our website, together with booking and payment facilities where applicable.

Thursday, 25 August - Sunday, 28 August 2016 LMS Walking Pilgrimage to Walsingham This will be our seventh walking pilgrimage to Walsingham for the conversion of England. Pilgrims meet at Ely on the Thursday evening and, after Mass early Friday morning, start the 55-mile walk to Walsingham.

Saturday, 24 September 2016 Missa Cantata in St Augustine’s, Snave The LMS returns to Snave on the feast of Our Lady of Ransom for Mass at 12 noon, celebrated by Fr Marcus Holden, with music from the Victoria Consort. St Augustine’s is one of the medieval churches on Romney Marsh now in the care of the Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust, who have kindly given permission for us to celebrate Mass there.

Saturday, 1 October 2016 LMS Pilgrimage to Aylesford Our annual pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady at Aylesford will include Solemn Mass, a Spiritual Conference, enrolment in the Brown Scapular and the pilgrimage will conclude with Vespers and Benediction.

During the pilgrimage there will be a sung Traditional Latin Mass each day, Confessions, recitation of the Rosary, the singing of traditional hymns, periods of silence and quiet reflection, and the chance to chat and relax with other pilgrims.

Arriving in Walsingham on the Sunday, pilgrims will be joined by day pilgrims from around the country. For those wishing to make a day pilgrimage on the Sunday, a bus will leave central London, returning in the evening. To book a seat on the bus, please register online or contact the LMS office.

Monday, 29 August 2016 Tyburn Walk The Tyburn Walk retraces the footsteps of the Catholic Martyrs from Newgate Gaol (now the site of the Old Bailey) to the site of Tyburn tree at the renamed Marble Arch. Starting at 1.00pm, the Walk will end with Low Mass in Tyburn Convent at 3.00pm. Please contact the LMS Office for more details.

Saturday, 10 September 2016 LMS Pilgrimage to Glastonbury The LMS Pilgrimage to Glastonbury begins with Mass in the Abbey Grounds at 11.00am. After lunch, there will be a rosary procession to the Church of Our Lady Glastonbury, where the day concludes with Benediction. If wet, the programme is to hold the event in the Church of Our Lady of Glastonbury commencing at 11.15am.

Saturday, 10 September 2016 LMS Pilgrimage to Brinkburn Priory The 21st annual Solemn High Mass in the beautiful 12th century church of the Augustinian Priory of Brinkburn.

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Saturday, 5 November 2016 Annual Requiem Mass High Mass of Requiem in Westminster Cathedral at 2.00pm.

This is our annual Mass offered for the repose of the souls of all deceased members of the Latin Mass Society. It will be celebrated by the Rt Rev Mark Jabalé OSB, Emeritus Bishop of Menevia.

Before Mass, representatives of the Committee will lay a wreath on the tomb of Cardinal Heenan, this is in recognition of his role in keeping alive the Traditional Mass in England and Wales after the New Mass was brought in.

Saturday, 12 November 2016 Confirmation in the Traditional Rite Our annual celebration of the Sacrament of Confirmation will take place in St James’s church, Spanish Place, London W1U 3QY, on Saturday 12 November 2016 at 11.00am. This will be followed

by Pontifical Benediction. The celebrant will be the Rt Rev John Sherrington, Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster and Titular Bishop of Hilta. To register your child or yourself to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation please contact the LMS office.

© Joseph Shaw

© Joseph Shaw

Saturday, 22 October 2016 Meeting of LMS Committee and Local Representatives Each year members of the LMS Committee meet with our Diocesan and Assistant Representatives to discuss matters of mutual interest, and to share views and opinions about issues that we face and initiatives and projects that we are running.

This meeting will be at the church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street, London. Further details will be sent to Committee members and Reps nearer the time.

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY

DIOCESAN DIGEST

Mass of Ages quarterly round-up Arundel and Brighton Annie Mackie-Savage 01323 411370 amacsav@sky.com www.arundelbrightonlatinmasssociety.blogspot.co.uk

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fter a very long break, I am very pleased to report the resumption of third Sunday of the month Masses at St Thomas More, Seaford. Masses began again in May with a Missa Cantata, Fr Bruno Witchalls celebrating, and the Seaford Schola singing.

There is more good news – another opportunity to hear the Latin Mass has opened up. Fr Gerard Hatton agreed to say Masses on the second Sundays of the month at 8.00am at Our Lady of Ransom, Eastbourne. Masses will begin in September, and we are very grateful to him for enabling the Mass to be known more widely this side of the Diocese.

The usual Latin Mass times are unchanged as I write this, although any additions, cancellations, or alterations, can be found on the Arundel and Brighton blog. Please contact me if there is anything I can do to help forward the Latin Mass in your area, and thank you for your ongoing support.

Birmingham (City & Black Country) Louis Maciel 07855 723445 louis.maciel@gmail.com www.birmingham-lms-rep.blogspot.co.uk

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n addition to the regular Sunday High Mass at the Birmingham Oratory, the last quarter saw additional Masses celebrated for Corpus Christi and the Feast of Ss Peter and Paul. There will be a Pontifical High Mass at 7.00pm on the Feast of the Assumption.

Our Lady of Perpetual Succour in Wolverhampton accommodated two High Masses, one on the Feast of the Annunciation, which I am told saw around 100 people turn up, and another for the Feast of the Most Precious Blood. These Masses were particularly special because the choir and the servers all came from within the parish and there was no need to ‘import’ them from elsewhere! There is another High Mass scheduled for the Feast of the Holy Rosary in October.

We are trying to have a regular-ish High Mass at St Augustine’s in Solihull, but unfortunately this has been scuppered on the last couple of occasions by the lack of a subdeacon. A Missa Cantata was celebrated on 8 July however, in place of the usual First Friday Low Mass.

I served a one-off Mass for the Feast of the Visitation at Our Lady of the Angels in Nuneaton in neighbouring Warwickshire, with about 30 in attendance, which may become a regular Mass if there is enough demand. Perhaps you could contact me if you are willing to support it.

Birmingham (Oxford) Dr Joseph Shaw 01993 812874 joseph.shaw@philosophy.ox.ac.uk www.oxfordlmsrep.blogspot.co.uk

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e have had a busy and successful quarter in the Oxford area, but as always with the academic timetable, summer events can be harder to organise because people are away, and after that much will depend on new arrivals. Anyone able to serve Mass or sing is warmly encouraged to please get in touch with me.

A first this past quarter was the Sung Dominican Rite Mass for Bl Margaret Pole, celebrated by Fr Richard Conrad OP in Blackfriars.

The Latin Mass Society’s annual Oxford Pilgrimage will take place on Saturday 29 October. This includes High Mass in the Dominican Rite at Blackfriars, at 11.00am, in honour of Oxford’s Catholic martyrs, followed by a procession through the streets to one of the sites of these martyrdoms. Please note the date.

For other events, we hope to cover the great feast with sung Masses, but please see the Mass Listings and, because of some uncertainties over the availability of singers, the local website. And if you are not on the local email list, please email me to add you.

Birmingham (Worcester) Margaret Parffrey 01386 750421

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e began Corpus Christi with a Missa Cantata sung by Fr Talbot, followed by a pilgrimage to the old parish church for Benediction. Children spread flowers in the path of Our Lord.

First Sunday of May saw the Feast of St Joseph, and Fr Grynoski said Mass at St John the Baptist, Spetchley. Our grateful thanks to him for this and his help with the Mass at Redditch.

Our servers and laity remain ever faithful and we welcome our youngest server, Harry Lewis, who recently made his First Holy Communion. Long may he serve on the altar of the Lord.

Schola Gregorianus Malverniesis and Fr Grynoski sang a Missa Cantata on the fourth Sunday of June, which included a delightful motet by John Hilton (O Sacrum Convivium). The Mass was served by the Lewis Family, Tim and three sons with MC, S Quick. Please contact Alistair Tocher if you would like to join the choir. They are based at Malvern, Worcestershire.

Fr Lamb at St Ambrose, Kidderminster, continues to celebrate Mass as may be found in the current Mass Listings.

Fr Christopher at Evesham continues to offer Mass every Tuesday at 7.00pm.

On the feast of Out Lady of Evesham, a small party of Traditionalists honored Our Lady of Evesham with a Rosary Pilgrimage on the site where she appeared to St Egwin. Here she asked for a Benedictine Priory to be built, which was blessed

by St Wilfred. Our prayers and thanks to all who helped.

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REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY Clifton Ken and Carol Reis (Main Reps) 07896 879116 pussyfooters@blueyonder.co.uk www.lmsclifton.blogspot.co.uk

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There was a Mass at St Gregory’s, Cheltenham, for the celebration of the Feast of Ss Peter and Paul. The statue of St Peter in the church was resplendently dressed in a red cloak.

The Mass was celebrated by Fr Ian McCarthy. It was great to see a large congregation of over 70 at the Mass.

It is with great sadness that we have to report the death of our oldest known supporter of the Latin Mass, Archie Campbell Murdoch, who died on 29 June, aged 105. Requiescat in pace.

© Sara Harvey-Craig

uring this period we have been lucky to have had a couple of High Masses and a Sung Mass.

There was a High Mass for the Feast of St George held at Downside Abbey and the celebrant was Dom Boniface Hill, deacon Dom Anselm Brumwell, and sub-deacon Fr Philip Thomas. The music was provided by the St John’s Festival Choir, and the singing was magnificent. The Mass was well attended and Dom Boniface gave an inspiring homily on St George.

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

East Anglia Alisa and Gregor Kunitz-Dick igregord@gmail.com alisarkd@gmail.com 01223 322401

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We also had the first High Mass celebrated in Yeovil for some time at the Holy Ghost church. The occasion was The Ascension of Our Lord on 5 May. The celebrant was Fr JeanPatrice Coulon, deacon Fr Philip Thomas and sub-deacon Fr Peter Clarke (who is a member of the Bristol Ordinariate living within the parish). This Mass was very well attended, and it was well supported by Fr Jean-Patrice’s own parishioners.

For the Feast of Corpus Christi at Ss Joseph and Teresa, Wells, we had a Sung Mass and the celebrant was Fr Philip Thomas. Music was provided by the Rupert Bevan Singers.

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he regular Masses in East Anglia continue as before. The weekly Sunday Mass at Blackfriars in Cambridge remains the principal celebration of the Traditional Mass in the western part of the Diocese owing to the kind ministrations of the friars, for which we are grateful. Volunteers to serve at these Masses will be received with enthusiasm and provided with training in the peculiarities of the Dominican use.

The annual walking pilgrimage from Ely to Walsingham will take place as usual in late August, beginning this year on the evening of Thursday 25 August and concluding on Monday 29 August. The deadline for booking is 15 August; more information in this edition of Mass of Ages and on the LMS website.

Sung or Solemn Mass will be celebrated on each day of the pilgrimage. The details of these are in the Mass Listings, and attendance, naturally, is open to all. Please keep the pilgrims, and the pilgrimage’s intention of the conversion of England, in your prayers.

In May, Solemn Mass on the feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary was celebrated at the parish church of Our Lady of the Annunciation in King’s Lynn. This was well attended, despite the weather. We are grateful to Canon Rollings, the parish priest, and to Fr Whisenant for organising and celebrating the Mass.

Beginning in September, classes in Latin and Greek will be held in Cambridge for children aged three years or older under the patronage of Ss Jerome and Macrina, to teach the reading of biblical, patristic and medieval texts. Please direct any enquiries to us.

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016 Cardiff Andrew Butcher Cardiff Representative 07905 609770 andrew.butcher@lmscardiff.org.uk www.lmscardiff.org.uk

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ll Mass times and locations within the Archdiocese remain unchanged at the present time. Masses may be announced at short notice, if a priest is available. I will do my very best to keep you informed, but if you have the internet, checking our website weekly or signing up for our newsletter would be the best way to stay in touch. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact either Shaun Bennett (Hereford) or myself. Masses in the Archdiocese have been included in the Mass Listings in this edition of Mass of Ages.

Our website is due its annual spring clean (during the summer) so please bear with us during this upgrade.

We also have commissioned an app, which is available to all Android users from the Google Play Store. The app contains all the latest updates, Mass times, photographs and much more. Search for ‘LMSCardiff ’ or ‘Latin Mass Society Cardiff ’ and you will find it. I am sorry if you are an iPhone user, the app is still unavailable to you at the moment, but do not worry, it is in the pipeline.

Of your charity please continue to remember Dom Antony Tumelty OSB in your daily prayers who is seriously ill at this time. Pray too for his father, brother and his family. Our Lady and all the Saints and Blesséds of England and Wales, pray for him.

Lancaster Bob and Jane Latin 01524 412987 lancasterlms@gmail.com www.latinmasslancaster.blogspot.co.uk In May there were two very encouraging events. First, the parish of Our Lady of Eden (which comprises Our Lady and St Joseph, Carlisle and Our Lady and St Wilfrid, Warwick Bridge) welcomed Bishop Michael Campbell on his annual visitation. Bishop Campbell attended the start of the Sunday evening Extraordinary Form Mass and was welcomed by the choir singing Ecce Sacerdos Magnus. He then gave a brief address before Mass, and we quote from the Countercultural Father blog: “In it he spoke very simply and movingly about the importance of our attachment to the traditional liturgy of the Church; about its particular power, including the power of chant, to turn one’s heart and mind to God. And he exhorted us to continue to worship in this way, not worried by the small numbers who attend this Mass. Naturally, priest and people are heartened by his understanding and support.

Ad multos annos!”

DIOCESAN DIGEST The second event was when Fr Philip Conner, Chaplain at Lancaster University invited Canon Altiere of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest to the Chaplaincy. To quote from the Chaplaincy Facebook page: “Canon Altiere gave an illuminating talk on ‘Divine Worship” – what the Mass is, what the Extraordinary Form is and why it has a place in the Church today, how the Extraordinary Form differs from the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite that most of us are used to, and how we can participate in the Traditional Mass. The talk provided a helpful context with which to understand the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.” Canon Altiere then celebrated the Traditional Mass, a first for the Chaplaincy and this was followed by a convivial reception.

Two of the three Masses to be held at Sizergh Castle this year took place on 17 June and 15 July, celebrated by Fr Simon Henry and Canon John Watson. Many thanks to them both. God willing, Fr Henry will celebrate another Mass for us there on 9 September.

For the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on Monday 15 August, there will be traditional blessing of herbs and fruit followed by a Sung Mass and Procession at 7.00pm at St Walburge, Preston.

As announced in the last issue, we will be standing down as Local Representatives in December. We hope that we will be able to bring you good news of our replacement in the next issue, so please keep our Diocese in your prayers.

Middlesbrough Paul Waddington paul@gooleboathouse.co.uk 01757 638027

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egular Sunday Masses in the usus antiquior continue at St Wilfrid’s church, York, where the Oratorian community offer a Sung Mass at 12 noon. There are also Masses at St Wilfrid’s at 6.00pm on major feast days. The recruitment of choral scholars has enabled high musical standards during the last academic year, and there is every expectation that this will resume in October.

Regular Sunday Masses continue at the Sacred Heart church in Redcar, where a Low Mass is offered at 6.00pm in the summer months and 11.00am during the winter. However, the attendance is modest, and I would be grateful for assistance in organising Latin Masses at the northern end of the Diocese.

At Hull, there is a Low Mass on the first Wednesday of the month at 6.30pm in the church of St Charles. These have proved popular, and I am in discussion with the bishop about increased provision of Latin Masses in Hull.

At the small rural church of the Most Holy Sacrament in Marton, near Hornsea, Fr Mark Drew has started saying occasional Masses on feast days. It is expected that these will increase next year.

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LMS REPS’ REPORTS Nottingham (Central) Jeremy Boot 0115 9131592 jeremy.boot2@gmail.com

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e have managed to get a fourth Sunday Mass at Our Lady and St Patrick, so three out of four Sunday obligation Masses are now provided for. The Cathedral mid-week Mass on the third Wednesday of the month, continues successfully too.

Congregations otherwise vary; though it is disappointing that the thinnest congregation is in fact a first class venue (Good Shepherd, Saturday before the second Sunday, 4.45pm). Some members may have reservations about the Saturday-for-Sunday arrangement but it fulfils the Sunday obligation. Masses are sung for the second and third weeks; Low Masses for the fourth and the Cathedral Mass.

A student, Lawrie Swithinbank, who had been serving our Masses, was about to join the Benedictines in the South of France and had been promised a High Mass before he went.

Final confirmation came at only a few days’ notice and much had to be prepared. Fr Paul Gillham IC was celebrant, Fr Crean OP from Leicester Holy Cross was deacon and Fr John Cahill sub-deacon. Servers valiantly came from Leicester as well as locally at short notice. The church was Our Lady and St Patrick’s in Nottingham, not ideally designed for a High Mass, but it was a great success and quite a few students attended as well as the usual congregation.

Perhaps inspired by its success, some days later, with the same ‘cast’ at St Peter’s Leicester (Paul Beardsmore’s area – but we frequently work together), we had another High Mass for Ss Peter and Paul in the evening. Two such Masses in the East Midlands within 10 days is not bad going.

None of these Masses happen without much planning and sometimes improvising. Many thanks as ever to our celebrants, servers and musicians, without whose good will none of this would be possible.

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ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016 Plymouth (Devon) Maurice Quinn Email: mq018q1057@blueyonder.co.uk Mobile: 07555536579

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s the newly appointed Assistant LMS Rep for the Plymouth Diocese (Devon), I have to thank a number of people for ensuring that the Vetus Ordo Mass has been celebrated here in the county.

We thank Bishop Mark O’Toole for his constant support, and also the Abbot of Buckfast, the Rt Rev David Charlesworth OSB, for allowing us to have Fr Tom Reagan OSB celebrate the Traditional Mass once every month in the Abbey on feast days, and Lord Clifford, for allowing us the use of the beautiful St Cyprian’s chapel at Ugbrooke House.

We are indebted to the seven very busy priests who regularly give us their time to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass – Mgr Adrian Toffolo, Fr Michael Wheaton, Fr Paul Rea CRL, Fr Guy de Gaynesford, Fr Peter Cox, Fr Tom Reagan OSB, and Fr George Roth FI. (Fr George has now moved with his community to Gosport in Hampshire, and we all wish him well.) Then there are the parish priests whose churches we regularly use: Fr Jonathan Stewart (Blessed Sacrament, Exeter), Fr Ian Hellyer of the Ordinariate (Christ the King, Plymouth), and Fr Guy de Gaynesford – already mentioned – parish priest of Bovey Tracy and of Chudleigh (St Cyprian’s, Ugbrooke House.)

We need to thank the former Assistant LMS Rep, Ann Proctor, whom I replaced, and the two very experienced MCs, Christopher Bleasedale (Plymouth), and John Cox (Exeter and Ugbrooke House), both of whom still oversee our celebrations.

Mr Peter Kiely, whom I replaced on the altar, has given us many years of good service, and the three boys – Michael, Joseph, and Dominic O’Toole, all of whom serve or have served whenever possible at Blessed Sacrament, Exeter, and Alex Garside, the Ordinariate altar server, who is learning to serve the Traditional Rite ‘on the job’.

We still require more altar servers for our future needs, and we are still short of singers and organ players to provide the music.

We have neither choir nor organist for the Plymouth Mass, but Fr Peter Cox bravely sings the whole Mass from beginning to end, which acts as a prompt for the very small congregation there.

The congregation size at St Cyprian’s and at Blessed Sacrament is much healthier. I shall make a proper tally at all celebrations in the future, and I am working on getting the Traditional Mass more widely known. We do have an organist and a couple of singers for Mass at both of these venues (the same stalwarts) but we certainly need to recruit more singers. More about our singers and organist in a future issue of Mass of Ages.

The Mass at Buckfast Abbey is often very well attended due to the many daily visitors that join us, and again, I shall make a point of keeping a check on numbers attending. (It is interesting to note that as Fr Tom and the altar servers process out after the Mass, there is always a group of curious onlookers/visitors attracted by what has just taken place.) The Abbey has put up one of my notices in the porch outlining the times and venues of the Latin Mass at the various venues in Devon for visitors to attend, and this will be replaced accordingly.

Compared to some counties, we are doing quite well with having a Traditional Mass on three Sundays per month, and a monthly weekday Mass at Buckfast Abbey, but there is still much work to be done for it to grow. Although it would be better to have the Sunday celebrations take place in the mornings, this is not as yet possible. If any readers would like to attend the Traditional Mass in Devon, see the Mass Listings, but contact me (mobile

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016 phone or email) regarding the Buckfast Abbey celebration, because this is on different days, and cannot be known too far in advance.

Now that the LMS is putting on the mailing list any parish where Mass of Ages can be distributed for free, and realising that this may well increase numbers at the Traditional Mass, I am in the process of speaking to local priests. Here, I have to thank Fr David Lashbrooke of the Ordinariate Mission at Chelston, Torquay, for being the first willing recipient of the Mass of Ages package (Our Lady of Walsingham and St Cuthbert Mayne.)

Finally, if any of you take a holiday here in Devon we would love to meet you at any Traditional Mass, so please do make yourself known. (We always have tea afterwards!)

FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY Southwark (Chislehurst) Gerard Hanratty

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ince I wrote my last Report the frequency of the Latin Mass has increased. We are now blessed with a weekly Sunday Mass, at 11.00am, along with a weekly Friday Mass. We are very grateful to Fr Briggs for accommodating us.

In practical terms what this means is that there is now, once again, a weekly Old Rite Sunday celebration in South East London for the first time since the EF ceased being celebrated at Our Lady of the Rosary, Blackfen.

Portsmouth (Isle of Wight) Peter Clarke 01983 566740 pclarke@wighttiscali.co.uk

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e were pleased to have a Mass and Corpus Christi Procession in St Mary’s church, Ryde for the 14th consecutive year. In addition to our regular Masses, we also had an Extraordinary Form Mass on the Feasts of the Ascension and Sts Peter and Paul. On this latter feast, Fr Anthony Glaysher, parish priest, reminded the congregation:“We should take comfort from the fact that these two saints, Peter and Paul, were real men just like us, with as many faults and weaknesses that most people have but they became twin pillars of the Faith. They have influenced the faith of the Church over the centuries and they continue to do so today. Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, we remember for his preaching and his missionary journeys; Peter for his leadership. He was the rock on which the Church was built, and it continues to be built and to grow and develop today. On this solemnity, we should be encouraged in our faith by the apostles’ steadfast love of God and their willingness to suffer martyrdom for Christ.”

The Island has a more elderly population than the mainland; and, sadly, death, infirmity and old age has rather depleted the numbers attending our Masses. Nevertheless, we remember and recognise that we still have the Old Mass offered regularly here on the Island, thanks to the dedication of Fr Glaysher.

It is encouraging that there is an increasing number of LMS members visiting the Island for a day visit and combining it with a visit to St Mary’s church in Ryde and attendance at an Old Rite Mass, which is offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12 noon. Before travelling from the mainland you may wish me to confirm that the Mass is being offered. Tel: 01983 566740.

Salford Dr Bernard Richards 0161 200 3325

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egular Masses continue to he held at St Chad’s – every Sunday at 4.45pm – English Martyrs – at 10.00am every Saturday – and St Marie’s Bury – every Friday at 7.30pm.

In addition, St Osmund’s, Bolton has a Mass targeted at first Thursdays but which may be moved to an appropriate Feast in that week.

The English Martyrs and St Osmund’s also have Latin Masses on the major Feasts, these being listed in the Mass Listings.

I am indebted to altar servers from the parishes and servers from my team who help to make these Masses available.

The parish priest of St Mary’s, Chislehurst, Fr Charles Briggs.

In the foreground to the left one can see Maria Davies who is the wife of the late, and great, Michael Davies – buried in the parish churchyard.

Attendance at the Sunday Mass is very stable and the choir goes from strength to strength under the very able direction of Julia Jones. Peter, our resident organist, provides the choir with most professional accompaniment. We are also blessed to have an ample number of altar servers, most of whom belong to the Clovis family.

The Church, in general, is in a state of turmoil in Europe.

Not so at St Mary’s – a parish characterised by stability.

Fr Charles Briggs will be celebrating his 30th Anniversary, in the parish, on 15 September. There will be a High Mass followed by a social event. I am sure that local members of the LMS will be happy to join Fr Briggs in wishing him well.

This is my last report as LMS parish representative. I would like to take the opportunity to thank Stephen Moseling, at the LMS office, for his assistance.

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Southwark (Kent) Marygold Turner 01580 291372

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e carry on as before, Deo gratias, and have been very lucky to have had Mgr Conlon celebrating Mass for us on the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord, and Fr Richard Whinder came on the Feast of Corpus Christi.

Fr Neil Brett will be celebrating Mass on the Feast of the Assumption again at Headcorn. A very special event, which repeats last year’s Mass, Fr Marcus Holden will be the celebrant on Saturday 24 September at 12 noon – a Sung Mass at the pre-Reformation church on the Marsh. This will be the second Mass said in that church since the Reformation and will served by David Hurley and Paul Vercruyssen as last year.

We are most grateful to the Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust for their permission and welcome. Over 75 people came last year, and we hope many more people will be able to come to this beautiful church this time.

There will be Masses at Headcorn on All Saints and All Souls at 12 noon.

Southwark (Isle of Thanet and East Kent) Antonia Robinson LMS_Thanet@icloud.com 01843 845880

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uch to be thankful for this quarter in Holy Thanet.

First, and most exciting news, is that we have a new priest in the deanery and a new regular Traditional Latin Mass. Fr Mark Higgins has joined Fr Marcus Holden in Ramsgate and will be saying a Low Mass every Tuesday evening at St Ethelbert’s. This means that we now have the Traditional Mass five days out of seven in Thanet, with two sung Traditional Latin Masses on Sundays. The senior MC from Margate is helping to train two new young servers for this newest Mass.

St Augustine’s Week (27 May-4 June) brought the liturgy out of the church and onto the streets and the beaches of Ramsgate. There was a procession with the relic of St Augustine along the clifftop overlooking Ramsgate and Pegwell Bay, and a second procession along the same route on Corpus Christi; a traditional blessing of the sea, and a Solemn High Mass on the Feast of Saint Augustine (celebrant: Fr Armand de Malleray; deacon: Fr Timothy Finigan; sub-deacon: Fr Mark Higgins); sacred music concerts, lectures, readings and tours of sacred sites in East Kent rounded out the week. Saint Augustine Week ended with a procession from Pegwell Bay (where Saint Augustine is reputed to have landed in 597AD) to St Augustine’s Cross which marks the spot where one great saint met another:

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ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016 it is here that Augustine first encountered King Ethelbert and was given permission to spread the good news of the Gospel throughout Ethelbert’s lands.

Hundreds of people turned out for the procession and it was an astonishing sight to see this large file of people praying the Rosary through the villages and countryside.

The preacher for this year’s Augustine Sermon was Fr Timothy Finigan (parish priest of St Austin and St Gregory’s, Margate).

In Margate the Monday evening and Sunday Latin Mass continue with healthy attendance. There was a splendid Mass for Corpus Christi with visiting singer Andrew Bosey and a procession in the church. There are two new young servers in training and a second MC has been trained and has assumed duties in July while the senior MC visits ICKSP in France.

So, we now have a new priest, a new Traditional Latin Mass, four new servers-in-training and a new MC. Deo gratias!

Southwark (St Bede’s Clapham Park) Thomas Windsor thomaswindsor@mac.com 020 8764 0879

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t St Bede’s we are fortunate to have daily Low Mass with Sung Mass on Sunday, this makes the job of the LMS Representative here so much easier.

This quarter we started by having a Sung Mass instead of our usual Low Mass for the Feast of St George, attendance was double what we would usually expect on a Saturday morning.

We were only able to have a Low Mass on the first Bank Holiday of May, but our 12.30 Mass for the Ascension was sung.

We continued our custom of celebrating the Vigil of Pentecost with full ceremonies, this was also well attended for a Saturday morning. The Feast of Corpus Christi was also celebrated with a Sung Mass, the following Feast of St Bede sadly had to be a Low Mass, but we celebrated the External Solemnity on the following Sunday. The second Bank Holiday in May was also the occasion of another Sung Mass.

With the aid of visiting clergy we were able to have a High Mass for the Feast of the Sacred Heart. After such a busy time for our servers and choir we were then able to have a break for weekday Sung Masses, before another Sung Mass for the Feast of Ss Peter and Paul.

Our Community continues to grow, after eight baptisms last year, this year we have so far managed three. We are also blessed to have many marriages among members of our community – three last year, and one so far this, with another two in the coming weeks.

Our altar serving team continues to grow with nine servers between the ages of seven and thirteen, ably assisted by a handful of older servers. Another 12 boys under seven are members of our community, so we should not have any shortage of servers for many years.

Photos: St Augustine’s Shrine

DIOCESAN DIGEST

Westminster (St James’s, Spanish Place) Roger Wemyss Brooks 020 7224 5323

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ll Sunday Masses have been fulfilled and well attended.

Fr Michael Cullinan continues to offer these beautifully and has received assistance when he is not available from Mgr Francis Jamieson, Fr John Hemer, Fr Gregory Pearson OP and Fr Cyril Law. Unfortunately Fr David Irwin, who has usually supplied Old Rite cover, has not been well and is not able to do so for the time being; prayers are requested for his recovery. Fr Law is returning to Macau this month – his faithful and inspiring ministry will be much missed.

The Corpus Christi procession went this year from Warwick Street to Spanish Place with the Papal Nuncio and was blessed with fine weather and good attendance. It has become a wonderful act of Catholic witness in the centre of our city.

Traditional Confirmations will again be conferred in November on Saturday 12th. Please note this date in your diaries and attend to support the many young candidates with your prayers.

Wrexham Kevin Jones www.lmswrexham.weebly.com twitter.com/LMSWrexham lms.wrexham@outlook.com 01244 674011 / 07803 248170

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ll Masses took place at the usual venues in the last quarter. Numbers holding steady at each venue and indeed there has been a slight increase in numbers at the first Saturday Mass in Buckley – of course, it would be pleasing to see even more!

The small schola that has loyally supported Masses in Wrexham has now become quite depleted to a point where it is not viable to continue, therefore Masses going forward will be Low Mass. If anyone with some knowledge of Gregorian chant would like to reverse this and help us return to a Sung Mass, contact me!

The main event to report on is the Holywell pilgrimage that took place on Sunday 3 July. Due to an earlier deadline for submission of the reps report for this quarter, a more detailed report is not possible.

However, the High Mass was celebrated by Canon Scott Tanner of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, supported

by Canon Altiere as deacon (who also preached) and Fr Francis Wadsworth as sub-deacon.

It is nearly exactly one year since Canon Tanner was ordained to the sacred priesthood and was just one day before the 2016 Ordination Week for the ICKSP in Florence, Italy.

As always, Mass was a Votive Mass of a Virgin Martyr with commemoration of the VII Sunday after Pentecost. This Mass honours our local martyr, St Winefride.

REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY The musical arrangement was provided by a quartet from St Mary’s, Warrington with Musical Direction by Mr Christian Spence. The Mass was set to Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices. Many complimented the quality of the music.

I am grateful to Canon Lordan for leading the Rosary procession down to the well, where the relic of St Winefride was venerated. Other thanks go to Mr Philip Russell (MC) and servers, John Aron (photography) and David and Betty Lloyd for their help and support.

Another perennial for the LMS in Wrexham is the Summer School and Latin Course up at the Franciscan Friary in Pantasph, which takes place at the end of July. Please check http://lmswrexham.weebly.com/mass-times.html for the very latest updates and changes to Mass times.

Photos: John Aron

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ROMAN REPORT

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

The Fight is Far From Over Still battling on after 50 years…

Alberto Carosa “The Old Liturgy is not a Relic of the Past” was the title of a report written by this author on the IV Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage to the Apostles’ tombs in Rome, which was jointly held by the Cœtus Internationalis Summorum Pontificum (CISP) and the Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce (FIUV, International Una Voce Federation).

The headline was drawn up from the homily which was delivered by Archbishop Guido Pozzo, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, in the church of Santa Maria in Campitelli during a Pontifical Mass he celebrated there in October 2015 – obviously a major highlight of the pilgrimage.

But perhaps one of its greatest successes was the fact that from their initial mistrust, nothing new for an ordinary Novus Ordo church in Rome when asked to host traditional liturgical rites, after the celebration the clergy in charge of Santa Maria in Campitelli were asking, “When are you coming back?”

Nobody could then imagine that this would take place already on 11 June 2016, when Una Voce Italia commemorated its 50th anniversary (1966-2016) with a conference, whose keynote speaker was its former president Prof Filippo Delpino. This was followed by a Te Deum of thanksgiving, celebrated by Archbishop Guido Pozzo. The liturgy was provided by the Priestly Fraternity of Familia Christi.

For those who are not aware, Familia Christi (whose complete name is Opera Familia Christi) is a relatively young congregation based in Rome which, among other things, received a special mandate from Paul VI: to always preserve and perpetuate the Roman liturgical tradition and especially the use of the Latin language, the Gregorian chant and the sacred polyphony. One of the Vetus Ordo Traditional Latin Masses in Rome is in fact celebrated by this congregation on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation in the chapel of the 16th century majestic Palazzo Altemps in the city centre.

Back to the above conference, Una Voce Italia was founded on 7 July 1966, and its current president, Professor Fabio Marino, ushered in its proceedings by reading out the opening message of the FIUV, the international umbrella body encompassing over 40 national associations from five continents, through the person of its President, the Mexican Felipe Alanis Suárez. The gist of the message can be aptly summarised by his statement that in so many decades of battles, “we brought the Tridentine Mass to Taiwan.”

Incidentally, it ought to be noted that FIUV itself celebrated its 50th anniversary during its General Assembly in Rome in late October 2015, and precisely on such occasion its council elected Felipe Alanis Suarez of Una Voce Mexico as the new President. In his maiden speech he said that his election as the first non-European FIUV President represented a natural development of a steady and organic growth of the institution worldwide, in the more Catholic sense of the Church, thus proving once again the universal appeal of the

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traditional ancient liturgy, by no means confined to a very specific cultural background.

In turn, the successes of Una Voce Italia may well be seen as a reflection of the FIUV successes in a larger context, as one can aptly infer from Professor Delpino’s commemorative speech. He took the floor after Professor Marino’s introduction.

In his speech, significantly entitled “Spes contra spem: l’ardua difesa della Liturgia Romana” (Hope against hope: the strenuous defense of the Roman Liturgy), he pointed out that those “who introduced the celebration of the Mass in Italian” did so “in contempt of the Apostolic Constitution Sapientia Veterum, in which Pope John XXIII reaffirmed the need to keep Latin in the celebrations.”

But besides the abolition of Latin and Gregorian chant, the reformed rite “shifts the emphasis on the ‘supper’ rather than the sacrifice and diminishes the cosmic value of the Sacrifice of the Mass, extolling the community instead”, the former Una Voce Italia President noted.

Una Voce Italy has a glorious history, Delpino noted, all the more so if we think that it was marked by countless years of persecution against the background of a “battle in the night” which actually appeared as a hopeless battle. A particular aspect of this battle, as the author of this article (and his family) directly experienced as the breadwinner of a large family, was the real Calvary of those parents who wanted to secure for their children not only the Traditional Latin Mass, but also the administration of Sacraments in their traditional form, especially after the “excommunication” of the Fraternity of St Pius X in 1988.

A special tribute must be paid in this regard to Fr Antonio Coccia OFMConv, a Franciscan to whom my family and I will be eternally and immeasurably indebted for having always and perfectly assisted us and many other families in their spiritual needs.

Fr Coccia, a professor at the Pontifical Theological Faculty “San Bonaventura” (also known as Seraphicum) and until 1984 a chaplain at the Regina Cœli prison in Rome, as far as is known never celebrated the Novus Ordo and even suffered persecution by his very confreres of his congregation for his fidelity to tradition. Should an overall history of post-Vatican II tradition be written one day, Fr Coccia would feature prominently as one of its main heroes and saints, albeit being almost unknown to the public at large.

But the Traditional Mass, which dates as far back to the Apostles, Delpino claimed in his concluding remarks, against all odds has resisted and today is spreading slowly but surely (and at time not that slowly) among those many faithful disappointed by a sloppy liturgy hardly conveying a sense of the sacred. A resistance that has certainly contributed over the years to the subsequent successes and positive developments, including a watershed breakthrough such as the landmark 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum.

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Needless to say, there is still a long way to go before we can say the ultimate goal envisioned by the motu proprio has been achieved. As aptly pointed out by the then Prefect of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, during his visit to the UK on 13-14 June 2008, the intention of Pope Benedict XVI in promulgating the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum was for the Vetus Ordo Mass to become a normal and ordinary event in the liturgical life of the Church, so that all faithful may benefit from its invaluable spiritual treasures. More specifically the senior prelate told a press conference in London that the Traditional Latin Mass should be reintroduced throughout the Catholic world. Asked whether the old liturgy would eventually be used in many parishes, the Colombian prelate replied: “Not many parishes; all parishes.” He was also quoted as saying that English seminaries (and evidently, not only English ones) should train priests to celebrate the pre-Conciliar liturgy. Therefore, as one can see, despite the successes achieved thus far, the fight is far from over.

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INTERVIEW

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

Finding God in the Ordinary… and the Extraordinary An interview with Prior Cassian Folsom OSB Prior Cassian Folsom OSB, the superior of the Benedictine monastery of Norcia (birthplace of St Benedict), recently visited London. During his stay, the Editor of Mass of Ages met with him to discuss the Old Rite and Monasticism.

As a monk in a monastery that, I believe, looks after local parishes, what would you say are the main differences between the liturgical needs and abilities of a monastery and a parish?

First of all, we don’t have any responsibility for parishes.

We help out on Sundays in the local parish by offering Mass.

We don’t have any pastoral care for the faithful, but I do know monasteries that do that kind of work. Our monastery is limited to helping out the local pastor. But I can give a response to the question which I think would interest you and your readers.

A monastery, generally, has more resources than a parish – in terms of personnel and material resources. Part of our charism is the liturgical life, so we put lots of time, energy and money into the liturgy. Most parishes don’t do that. Usually, at least in the area where we live, priests are few and are mostly concerned with the basic pastoral care which they can offer.

Monasteries, therefore, have a special place in the Church, offering – at least in our monastery – an experience of the classical Roman Rite in the monastic style. Pope Paul VI, back in 1964 when he proclaimed St Benedict the Patron of Europe, went to Monte Cassino to rededicate the Abbey following its reconstruction. On that occasion, he made an appeal to Benedictine abbots and monasteries to retain the chant, Latin and the patrimony of the liturgical tradition of the Church – this was after Sacrosanctum concilium had been published. So we take that appeal seriously. That’s what we have to offer.

Monks are called to perform the opus Dei, and liturgy is very important to you personally. Do monks therefore need to be liturgically minded?

According to the Rule of St Benedict, monks spend about five hours a day engaged in the opus Dei. If you add daily conventual Mass to that, it is more like six hours. There aren’t too many monasteries that follow that programme, but there are some. If you follow that schedule, and we do, then you are immersed in liturgy for many hours a day. If you don’t want to do that, then you shouldn’t be there.

Liturgy forms people. If you want to be a swimmer, you have to spend a lot of time in the water, and if you want to be one who prays – a ‘pray-er’ – you have to spend a lot of time in prayer. Now whether that means that monks have formal liturgical training, well very often not. I do, thanks be to God, have formal liturgical training and therefore one of the observations I can make is that many monks think that by osmosis alone they have acquired formal liturgical training because they spend so much time doing it – but it’s not necessarily the same thing! Academic formation is one thing, and experiential training is another. Ideally, they go together.

But that’s rare.

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Prior Folsom celebrating Mass in London Apart from the worship of God, what are the main goals of liturgy in the Catholic Church? Can it be a means of evangelisation?

First of all, what is the liturgy and what is it supposed to do?

Sacrosanctum concilium says from the very beginning that liturgy exists for the “worship of God” and the “sanctification of the faithful.” Those aren’t two separate things, but they happen at the same time. We are sanctified insofar as we worship God. Now, if we worship God well, then hopefully our sanctification will work well too. If we worship God poorly, then I don’t think our sanctification can be that efficacious either. So those two things go together.

Secondly, it can absolutely be a means of evangelisation.

Maybe I should speak from the experience of our monastery?

The monastery is right in the centre of a tourist town, not in the country. It is located on the piazza, so we have people coming through all the time. Because we are in the church so much, a tourist coming through is quite likely to stumble into the church when we’re praying – singing – the office. We’ve had lots of conversion stories – people who, by chance, but really by Divine providence, have stumbled into the church during Mass or the Office and have been drawn by the atmosphere of prayer created by silence, by the chant, or by gestures of reverence. In our very confused culture, people have no reference point and they are really starving for God. So when they experience the liturgy, they are drawn in. For us, that is the main means of evangelisation.

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016 How does the Extraordinary Form add value to the monastic life?

Well, we switched to the so-called Extraordinary Form in 2009, two years after Summorum Pontificum. We had always used the Novus Ordo in Latin with chant before, but not Mass in the Extraordinary Form. The usus antiquior has a certain harmonious integration between the Office and the Mass. The Old Rite requires much more attention to gesture, to poetry I might say, and to repetition, but not useless repetition, rather useful repetition. Also, it operates not only on the level of the intellect, but on the level of the intuition and the heart. So our experience is that it is a much more contemplative style of offering the Mass and certainly for a monastic community it is much more conducive to our charism. So, having been immersed in it now for these seven or eight years – though we have always done the old monastic Office in Latin – I see that it has had a very powerful formative effect.

At a time when the West has, and continues to, face a crisis of vocations you’ve attracted several young men to your monastery in a very short period of time. What are the best means of fostering vocations to the priesthood and religious life?

I can speak of our experience in particular, and then maybe draw some general conclusions. What draws people is the tradition – tradition not as a museum piece but as something living and viable, full of dynamism, energy and beauty. And you could also say a tradition that has a certain severity – that is, it demands something of you. You can’t just take it or leave it, you have to take it.

Young people want authenticity, truth and want to be told the true story. They don’t want something made up, ersatz, but they want the real thing – well let’s give them that! The thing that is so difficult to understand is why people can’t see something so simple. It’s not rocket science. It’s something very simple. You live the tradition and it attracts people. But in our age there are so many ideologies floating around and these tend to provide sunglasses so that you can’t see reality for what it is as you’re blinded by them.

MONASTIC LITURGY In terms of family prayer, devotions are usually more helpful. If you have little children running around, you can’t be praying the psalms – well, you could, because children are sponges and they learn everything quickly. But you can’t turn the family into a monastery. People have tried it, and it doesn’t work. However, there is some common ground which I would like to emphasise.

Monastic life, if you can go deeper than the romantic overlay, is very plain and very ordinary. You get up in the morning, you say your prayers, you do your work, you have your meals, you say your prayers and you go to bed, and the following day you do the same thing – it’s just like family life.

St Benedict observes that the cellarer in the monastery should treat the tools of the monastery as if they are sacred vessels of the altar. This means that the ordinary instruments of everyday life have a sacramental value, which point to something beyond themselves – to God. That’s where our life and family life are very similar.

I like to call St Benedict the patron saint of the ordinary.

Monastic life is not very glamorous, it’s just very plain – and that’s really good. Our culture wants excitement all the time, but life isn’t like that. If we can find God in a plain, ordinary, life, then that’s something we really should be doing. In fact, monastic life and family life are so similar that, in my experience, ordinary folks in town have a greater affinity with the monks than they do with the parish priest, as he is specialised – a parish priest does sacramental and priestly things, but he doesn’t ordinarily have a family life. Monks have a family life. We make beer, we have to do the dishes, cook the food, and go shopping just like everybody else. That creates a bond.

I think even by the religious habit, God can use the sense of the romantic to draw people in…

True. The very first time I ever went to a monastery, it was the Saturday after Easter in my monastery of origin in the United States. I remember distinctly, I was 18 years old. There was a monk walking near the church, it was a very windy day and his scapular was blowing in the wind. Of course, it was very romantic and very superficial, you could say. But we need beauty and we need images to attract us.

How important do you think prayer and liturgy are in building up and strengthening family life?

Of course, it is extremely important, but I will need to develop that a little bit. Families can’t live like monks. That is, they cannot lead the liturgical life of monks, as that would take hours and hours a day, and parents need to take care of the children, prepare the food, go to work, and so on. Usually, the best families can do is Sunday Mass, but that means if that’s the only chance they have to experience the liturgy, then it should be really good so that they have the spiritual nourishment that they need.

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BOOK REVIEW

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

Westminster Cathedral and the Anti-Christ Gill Ingham-Rowe Lord of the World Robert Hugh Benson Baronius Press £13.95 “I have an idea for a book so vast and tremendous that I daren’t think about it… I’m afraid it is too big.” Thus wrote Mgr Hugh Benson in a letter to his mother in December 1905. The book, eventually published in 1907 – despite his prediction in other letters that it ‘will take years’ – was Lord of the World; and its subject, truly vast and tremendous, the final battle between Christ and Anti-Christ.

Benson sets his vision of the future in the early years of this century. Life is extremely comfortable, even luxurious, and every hint of the daily inconveniences of life has almost been eliminated – including, it turns out, the pain and confusion of death by the administration of euthanasia to those nearing it. Social reforms have seen the abolition of the class system, capital punishment, penal institutions and poverty. The wider political picture shows the world divided into three vast empires: the West, which includes the whole of Europe, Russia up to the Ural Mountains, and Africa; the American Republic, and the East from the Urals to the Bering Straits. As the story begins, the East is threatening to wage war against the rest of the world and thus break the long peace brought about by the new thinking.

Shadowing this geographical division is that of the beliefs which dominate the world. As an old man explains in the opening pages: “There are three forces – Catholicism, Humanitarianism, and the Eastern religions.” Catholicism – the only remaining form of Christianity – is condescendingly tolerated and allowed to operate ‘in a few darkened churches’, and at their head in Westminster Cathedral – newly built, of course, in Benson’s day – where religious ritual is followed “with hysterical sentimentality.” As for the rest of Europe, Rome has been given over entirely to poor benighted Christians and exiled royal families; and Ireland granted home rule and “opted for Catholicism.”

Benson sets up the polarity between materialism and Christianity, by giving us an intimate picture of the actions and thoughts alternately of the young Fr Percy Franklin, a priest at the Cathedral who has the job of communicating daily all news and developments to the Pope; and Oliver Brand, MP for Croydon and a rising star in the administration. Brand has a young idealistic wife, Mabel, whose character is used very much as an exemplar of the effect of the new ideology. The two sides are presented in a very balanced way, and it is not

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impossible to sympathise with Brand in his calm and kind reasonableness, and to be alienated by Franklin’s unemotional approach to his faith and his fellow-priests.

As the plot develops, and both men are given greater responsibility in their chosen fields, we hear the news that world war has been averted through the diplomacy of a mysterious American delegate called Julian Felsenberg. This is a man who, like Christ, has risen from obscurity at the age of 31. His success in persuading the east to capitulate is not explained, and the reader, like the rest of the world, never knows him at all. His actions and decisions are largely reported by other characters, who have also often heard of them second hand.

This unknown, unreachable quality effects a deep yearning in the people, voiced by Mabel as she sighs, “If he were but here!”

This is balanced by detailed – and very moving -descriptions of Fr Percy’s practice of contemplative prayer.

The identification of Felsenberg with Christ is made more and more explicit. He is hailed as “the son of Man, the Saviour of the world” and finally “Lord and God.” And immediately, communistic humanism is transformed into a religion: four annual festivals are introduced – to be held in the non-Christian Westminster Abbey – to celebrate Maternity, Life, Sustenance and Paternity, which roughly correspond with Christmas, Easter, and Corpus Christi. Attendance is compulsory.

The discovery of a plot by a few Catholics to blow up the Abbey during the Maternity festival – a passing reference to the Gunpowder Plot – unleashes horrific mob violence throughout England; and although ostensibly horrified that reformed mankind could behave so barbarously, the government does little to stop it, and Felsenberg orders retaliatory action: Rome is to be bombed out of existence, a course of action justified by the aphorism, “There is no repentence; only something better.”

Mabel is devastated that all the principles she has believed so passionately – the perfectability of man, the folly of violence, the triumph of reason – seem to have been betrayed; but she allows herself to be talked round by her husband; and when Felsenberg at last makes an appearance at the Maternity Festival, she finds herself beyond “the continuous consciousness of self and the power of reflection.” The victory of the anti-Christ appears to be complete: by saying nothing but what the people believe, he has managed to force them to do his bidding: nothing less than the destruction of Christianity.

Having completed the writing of his novel, Benson wrote in his diary, “Of course I am nervous about the last chapter – it is what one might call just a trifle ambitious to describe the End of the World!” Nevertheless, he does it very convincingly and movingly: a simplified and single-minded Church, under the Papacy of Fr Percy, continues to exist in Palestine; and the final battle takes place in… where else but Megiddo, also known as Armageddon.

This review first appeared in Oremus earlier this year, and is reproduced here by permission.

ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016

MACKLIN STREET

Books in Brief….

Sermon in a Sentence A Treasury of Quotations on the Spiritual Life St John Paul II / St Maria Faustina Kowalska Selected by John P McClernon Baronius Press £9.95 (each) John P McClernon has done an excellent job selecting and arranging quotes from the writings of both St John Paul II and St Maria Faustina Kowalska to make these two wonderful small anthologies published by Catholic publisher Baronius Press last year, as part of their Sermon in a Sentence series.

Both anthologies contain selected quotes from the writings of two popular saints and the first 15 chapters in both works are arranged under virtues corresponding to the Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary, thus bringing this work in line with the devotional life of the Church.

St Maria Faustina Kowalska was marked by her humility and a burning desire to see all humanity converted to Christ by the attraction and power of his Divine Mercy. What comes through her writings is the deep piety and devotion that sanctified her and eventually resulted in her canonisation by Pope St John Paul II. St John Paul II was a prolific writer and his writings helped the Church remain faithful to the doctrinal and moral teaching it inherited from the apostles. His speeches and writings remain a popular source from which Catholics can draw their knowledge of the faith. He was also a stalwart defender of the family and the unborn. EK Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine Archbishop Michael Sheehan New edition, revised by Fr Peter Joseph Baronius Press £19.95 This new revised edition of Archbishop Michael Sheehan’s celebrated magnum opus, Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine, came out last year and has much to commend it. This is the book that nourished the faith of English-speaking Catholics for almost four decades and sold well over 450,000 copies. This revised edition from ‘traditional’ Catholic publisher Baronius Press has retained all the conservatism and robustness of the original. Fr Peter Joseph has done an excellent job at updating Sheehan’s work, retaining the original text where possible and making changes, additions or deletions only where necessary. The arguments Sheehan puts forward in this book are powerful, logical and persuasive. He is a highly-capable apologist who powerfully makes the case for the integrity and rationality of the Faith. In so doing he fends off objections to the Faith with considerable panache and ease. One thing this book is lacking, however, is a defence of the Church’s moral teaching. For that you will have to consult part three of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, this book is essential for all who want to know the rationale behind the Catholic Faith. EK

To purchase the above mentioned books, please visit www.baroniuspress.com (for UK visitors to the site, please choose United Kingdom under ‘Select Country’ at the bottom of the page.)

New Website on the Way Stephen Moseling

T

he office staff have been spending a great deal of their time preparing our new website. The present site has become cluttered and not easy to navigate. The new site will have a fresh, modern look, be easy to navigate and contain some new features. All aspects of the activities the LMS undertakes will be included in the site. The all-important Mass Listings will be presented in a new way. In particular, it will be possible for people to search for details of Masses by diocese, parish, distance location and date range. This will be especially useful to people who travel around the country.

Integral to the site will be a much expanded shop. We shall have available a wide selection of books, CDs, religious articles and cards. If you speak to other charities and retailers, they will tell you that on-line shopping is now the preferred way for people to make purchases. It is hoped that a more attractive and user-friendly shop will provide increased revenue for the LMS. Once the website has gone live, if you have any suggestions for products we could sell, please contact the office.

After an absence of many years, we shall be producing a selection of Christmas cards. “Don’t speak about Christmas in August”, I hear you say. Unfortunately, some things do need to be planned well in advance. Even with the increased cost of postage, many people still like to send a card at Christmas.

The LMS Christmas cards will feature a selection of traditional Nativity scenes and will contain a scripture verse – in Latin, of course. By purchasing our Christmas cards you will not only be able to convey the true meaning of Christmas, but you will be supporting the work of the LMS. The new website will still be at www.lms.org.uk and it is envisaged that it will ‘go live’ sometime in September. So, as the saying goes: “Watch this space.” www.twitter.com/latimmassuk (@latinmassuk) www.facebook.com/latinmassuk

To contact the General Manager, Stephen Moseling, please email stephen@lms.org.uk or telephone the office.

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