Mass of Ages Summer 2016

Mass of Ages The quarterly magazine of the Latin Mass Society

Issue 188 – Summer 2016

FREE

world apostleship of faTima: Planning for next year’s Centenary plus: Joseph Shaw, Colin Mawby, Alberto Carosa, Edmund Adamus, Fr Bede Rowe & Fr James Bradley

ALSO: Traditional Catholic News, Opinion, Liturgy, Mass Times, Notices & Events PLUS: Interviews, Photos, Reviews & LMS Diocesan Reports

CONTENTS

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

COMMENT 2

Introduction

3

Chairman’s Message

11 & 16

Prayer for the Jews: Joseph Shaw

15

Letters to the Editor

18

Dressing Modestly: Mary O’Regan

19

Do We Believe in Royalty?: Fr Bede Rowe

20 & 21

Honouring the Family: Edmund Adamus

47

AGM & Elections: Macklin Street

NEWS & FEATURES 4 to 6

Interview with Colin Mawby, KSG

8 & 9

Fatima Centenary: Donal Anthony Foley

9

Chant and Family Retreat: Clare Bowskill

10

Triduum in the Old Rite: Clare Bowskill

12 & 13

Ordinariate and the Old Rite: Fr James Bradley

14

My First Old Rite Mass: Robert Kingsmill

16

In Illo Tempore

17

Liturgical Calendar

17

Crossword: Alan Frost

21

Priest Training Conference

22-23

Art & Devotion, Pentecost: Caroline Shaw

23

Juventutem Reading: Stephanie Hogan

26

The Latin Mass in Bedford: Barbara Kay

42 & 43

The Birmingham Oratory: Paul Waddington

44

Roman Report: Alberto Carosa

45

Comfort Eating: The Lone Veiler

46

Book Review: Merton and Waugh

DIOCESAN REPORTS & EVENTS 24 & 25

LMS Year Planner

27 to 34

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.

Oremus Pro Invicem

I

t was 100 hundred years ago next year that the Virgin Mary appeared to the children of Fatima: Lúcia dos Santos and Francisco and Jacinta Marto. But an Angel appeared to them first, in 1916. The cover of this edition marks the centenary of this angelic apparition, as well as next year’s anniversary, which is highlighted in an article by the Secretary of the World Apostolate of Fatima in England and Wales, Donal Foley.

Writing of the events of 1916, St Lúcia dos Santos described the Angel as “whiter than snow, which the sun rendered transparent as if it were of crystal, and of great beauty.” He was so beautiful that the children were silent as he announced, “Do not fear! I am the Angel of Peace. Pray with me.”

Prayer and sacrifice formed the core of the Angel’s message.

He prepared the children for when they would converse with the Mother of God the following year. But the Angel also wished that all take up his offer of praying for the conversion of sinners and making sacrifices in reparation for sins.

I am a sinner, and there are many acts of reparation left for me to perform on behalf of my own failings. So I include myself and my past in any prayers for conversion or acts of reparation. But now that the centenary of the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima is near, maybe we can all respond again to the message of the Angel, by praying and making sacrifices?

God often breaks into our lives through unexpected encounters. It need not be an angelic vision! Rather, a sense of vocation, a death of a loved one, falling in love, a new job, or an increase in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God, I have a wonderful life, but recently some “angels” (if I may call them that) burst into it, and as a result I am now facing a dilemma.

Should I sacrifice one beautiful life for what may be an even greater one, or should I continue on a path that seems secure?

When faced with these questions, when God forces us to choose a way, it’s comforting to know that all things work for the good for those who love Him (cf Rm 8:28). For those who are, or at least desire to be, in a state of grace, there can only be beauty, and angels, and mysteries and gifts from the highest heavens. But, as the Angel of Peace of 1916 reminds us, it is also necessary to pray and make sacrifices.

As times and seasons change, and people come and go, please pray for me, and be assured of my prayers for you. As they used to say: oremus pro invicem.

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; David Forster – Secretary; Paul Beardsmore – Vice President; James Bogle; Michael Carroll; Kevin Jones; Stefano Mazzeo; Roger Wemyss Brooks

Cover image: The children of Fatima, Lúcia Santos, Francisco and Jacinta Marto. This photo is commonly attributed to Joshua Benoliel (1873-1937)

2

Mass of Ages No. 188

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: Managing Editor: Dylan Parry Design: GADS Ltd Printers: Cambrian Printers Ltd

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

CHAIRMAN’S MESSAGE

Don’t sit on the Bean-Bags!

Dr Joseph Shaw

I

am writing just after the publication of Pope Francis’ long-awaited Post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia. While much of it is not as clear (or as succinct) as Mass of Ages readers might prefer, it is not quite the earth-shattering document some had been predicting.

All the same, liberal Catholics are going to be making the most of it, so I’ll say something about it. The first thing to note is that, although it is a response to the two Synods on the Family which have taken place in Rome, which discussed possible solutions to pastoral problems, it does not endorse any specific, new pastoral practice. It does not say, for example, that Catholics who have been married, divorced, and have remarried without gaining an annulment, should be allowed to receive Holy Communion.

What it does say is that cases should be treated on their merits, rather than pigeonholed on the basis of a superficial assessment. Of course, we tend to give people the benefit of the doubt about their personal circumstances, and I’m sure no priest would look at a divorced Catholic and assume, without further ado, that he or she was morally responsible for the failure of the marriage. A more careful consideration of a case will in many cases lead to a less lenient judgement about it.

Amoris laetitia also explores the question of being in a situation in which no solution appears to be morally good.

This appears most clearly in a footnote, as something ‘many people’ say in response to the standard advice to a couple, with children, whose marriage cannot be made valid. That advice, found in Pope John Paul II’s 1982 Familaris consortio and other places, was that if you need to maintain a common home for the sake of the children, you should live ‘as brother and sister’. What ‘many say’ is that such a lifestyle may itself undermine the relationship, and that therefore following this advice is not a good option either. Pope Francis does not develop this little dialogue any further, but it is not difficult to imagine how it might go on. The canonised pontiff would no doubt point out that the risk to the relationship posed by sexual abstinence is no justification for engaging in grave sin.

A life of marital continence is not ideal, certainly, and it is not easy, but in the circumstances it will allow the parties to return to the sacraments, which God established on earth as the ordinary means of salvation. Perhaps it’s not such a bad bargain after all.

The virtual ink on the subject of the Exhortation was flowing freely when an interesting announcement was made on the subject of the Society of Pope Pius X (SSPX), by Archbishop Guido Pozzo, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei. La Croix reported: “The difficulties raised by the SSPX regarding Church-State relations and religious freedom, the practice of ecumenism, and the dialogue with non-Christian religions, of certain

aspects of the liturgical reform, and of its concrete application, remain the object of discussion and clarification, Archbishop Pozzo added, but they are not an obstacle for the canonical and legal recognition of the SSPX.” If readers have any spare prayers or penances, please offer them for the reconciliation of the Society of Pius X.

I was interested to read the article in the last edition of Mass of Ages about the postures for the laity at the Traditional Mass.

The accompanying table looked a little complicated, even though it omitted to say, with some authorities, that the laity kneel, rather than stand, for the Collect and Post Communion during Lent and at Masses for the Dead. Including that would have required yet more columns.

We included basic instructions about posture in the Latin Mass Society’s Ordinary Prayers booklet, because people ask what they should do, but we have also noted that there are in fact no binding rules for the Faithful. I would recommend readers to follow the local custom, and avoid distracting your fellow worshippers, with the proviso that if the local custom is to sit on bean-bags during the Gospel and at the Consecration, you may want to find another locale. As the accompanying Brother Choleric cartoon indicates, just as the reform simplified the rubrics for the priest and servers, it introduced complicated rubrics for the laity, an example of the deliberate blurring of the boundary between clerical and lay liturgical roles. In the Extraordinary Form, there are many ways of participating spiritually in Mass: don’t let anyone tell you that you are doing it wrong.

Cracks in the Curia (1972), by Br Choleric (Dom Hubert van Zeller)

3

INTERVIEW

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

All Shaped By A Rainstorm Mawby on God, Music, Liturgy and the Church To mark the occasion of the 80th birthday of Colin Mawby KSG in May, Dylan Parry recently met the acclaimed composer and musician, who is a former Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral (1961-76) and is one of the Patrons of the Latin Mass Society.

© Joseph Shaw

think some were ill-judged. Going back to what Cardinal Heenan said: the document [Sacrosanctum Concilium] was fine, it just got into the wrong hands. It got into the hands of ‘experts’ – liturgists who were determined to make these changes. I remember when the Missa Normativa was first unveiled in the Sistine Chapel, Cardinal Heenan was dead against it. He said, “If you introduce this Mass in this form, churches will only be full of women – no men at all… and not very many women.” Heenan always spoke with frankness, though he could be a very subtle man.

Looking back, at your career, are there any high or low points that stand out for you?

I think the high point of my career was to provide the music for the Mass for Cardinal József Mindszenty. He was visiting the Hungarian community in London and ended his visit by singing High Mass at Westminster Cathedral. It was a most extraordinary occasion. It’s the only time that I’ve witnessed a Mass where the celebrant let off energy in what he was doing. When Mass was over he walked out and the organist, who played Widor’s Toccata, was totally drowned by the applause of the congregation. I was thrilled afterwards because Cardinal Heenan introduced me to him. They spoke in Latin and Heenan translated the Latin into English for me. It was the most extraordinary and wonderful experience to be in the presence of a martyr. As a person who is very weak, to actually talk to a martyr is something that has made a most marvelous impression on me. That was the highlight of my career. It’s not a musical one – it’s a spiritual one. But it’s spirituality that’s crucial to the work I do.

Low points… have we got all night? I can’t say that Vatican II was a low point, as I think the Council was the work of the Holy Spirit. I think some of the liturgical changes were low points. I

4

What special memories of Heenan do you have?

One of the best memories I have is the opening of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, when he was the papal legate. It must have been a source of great pride for him to walk into that place. It had been very controversial at the time – ‘Paddy’s Wigwam’ and all that rubbish. I think it’s a superb building.

Also, on a personal level, the thing that impressed me enormously was when I was having great problems with belief. He sent for me and said, “You’re not going to communion; what’s the problem?” So we sat down and we talked at very considerable length about the Vatican Council and the liturgical changes. He gave as good as he got. In the end he said, “If you want to come and talk to me, just knock on my door and if I’m busy I’ll tell you to go away, and if I’m not we can carry on our discussion.” And I did this. This was an indication of a man who was extremely pastoral. His most important motivation was the salvation of souls. If you came up with a new idea, his first question was, “What is this going to do to help the salvation of souls?” In a way, my friend Wilfred Purney described him as an oversized Irish parish priest. This is a good description. People think Heenan was arrogant or pompous, but this is total rubbish. I remember once walking into his confessor, Canon Ronald Pilkington, who had just heard his confession. Pilkie was radiant. He walked into me and said, “The Cardinal is a very, very humble man.” That made an impression on me.

Heenan was very upset by all the clergy leaving. His own personal belief was fine, but I remember him saying to me, “If I had a pound for every time I have revelled in saying the Latin Mass, I’d be a billionaire now.” Again, that made a great impression on me.

He was always interested in music and he would talk with me about music. He was a genuinely caring pastor who is, unfortunately, still misunderstood. He wasn’t pompous. He used to go around wearing a cappa, but that’s what they used to do in those days. I remember when Basil Hume came to Westminster, one of the first remarks he made to me was, “I am not going to wear that thing!” I said to him, “Well, it goes with the job, you know!” Of course, what he didn’t realise was that as a Benedictine, he could have worn a black one!

ISSUE 187 - SPRING 2016 What do you think Pope Francis is trying to achieve for the Church?

That’s a very wide question indeed. I think he wants to clean up the Curia, but I also think he wants to develop the question of evangelisation. He wants to bring the Church into contemporary culture. The problem is that the Church is, to some extent, always on the defensive. New discoveries come along and the natural instinct is to defend against them, to condemn them. It’s always been like that. There was a pope once who condemned coffee. I’m drinking a cup now – I’ll probably go to Hell! If you go through the things some popes have condemned over the years, it’s quite priceless really.

The question of what we mean by the phrase ‘the Church’ is an interesting one. What do we mean when we say ‘the Church’? The Church consists of individuals. It consists of sinners like me, it consists of saints like Mother Teresa. It is a great conglomeration of people with different gifts.

I think the Pope is a very good man, but he needs to learn not to talk so much. He is learning that. I mean, when you consider how as a retired person he found himself as pope, it must have been quite a shock to the system. It must have been a shock to move from where he was living and then to suddenly find himself in Rome. He was living in a one bedroom flat, wasn’t he?

Then to find himself surrounded by some of the finest art and architecture in the world. What do you think?

I think he’s a very fascinating person. Hopefully he will be succeeded by somebody similar. It always puzzles me that priests take a vow of celibacy and they can get out of it fairly simply from what I can see, but the married person can’t. The business of the married person who has a divorce seems to me to be the only sin which cannot be forgiven. What about those in second relationships and they have children – the children can go to communion but the adults can’t. How do they explain this? I spoke with Cardinal Burke about this and he was very interesting on the subject. His views were, to my mind, those of a canon lawyer and not of a pastoral priest – I might be entirely wrong, I don’t know. Unfortunately, we have to have canon lawyers. There has to be some form of structure for the Church. But surely, there is a pastoral side to this.

Over your 80 years of life, who or what have been your greatest inspirations?

I suppose that musically it would be George Malcolm. I think some of the great people who work for charity are inspirations.

Great inspirations are the young people who go abroad, to places like Africa, to build homes and that sort of thing. A woman like Mother Teresa is an inspiration. There are all sorts of things which inspire. Perhaps the greatest inspiration is to witness the love of a person towards another. I’m not talking about marriage – but a person looking after an old mother, or something like that. One sees the work of Christ in that.

When I lived in Ireland, the choir there used to put on outreach programmes, one of which was operas for children. I used to write the operas. Two things stood out for me. I went to a school for disadvantaged children in Cork and the lead role was taken by a girl who only had about three months to live and it was distinctly moving to see that my music had made the end of this girl’s life rather wonderful. Another thing I remember is when we went to a hospital in Dublin that dealt with children who had been traumatised. There was a girl there who had taken one of the lead roles in the opera and she came in having lost all her family in a motor accident. She was so traumatised that

INTERVIEW she couldn’t speak. When the opera came she intimated that she would like to take part in it, and because of that she began to speak – well sing – and I thought my music had enabled her to do this. This was something that was deeply, deeply moving and inspiring to me. In fact, that was the absolute musical peak of my career.

How has the Church, or Westminster Cathedral, inspired you?

You’ve had a deep and enduring relationship with both.

I have had a long relationship with the Cathedral. I went there as a nine-year-old boy, and it’s been up and down. There have been terrible things and there have been good things.

When I was eight in 1944, it was the first time since the opening of the war that we were able to have a Midnight Mass at Christmas. Dad took me down to it, and it’s engraved upon my memory… The walk down to the church was about 20 minutes and the sky, I can see it now, was totally clear – stars everywhere.

And because I was naïve I hoped to see Father Christmas in the sky – but I didn’t! Anyway, when we got to the church the parish priest was playing the organ and to my amazement there were what I called three priests (it was a Solemn High Mass) and dad was in tears – they were rolling down his face. And this is what caused me to love the old liturgy – this experience. And it’s as if it happened yesterday. I can visualise everything: the stars, the liturgy… Father Christmas, the whole lot. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience, which I talked about for days afterwards.

It led to a love of the liturgy.

My mother had died when I was three in 1939, and dad married again in 1943 and I think that perhaps I didn’t fit in very well. He decided to send me to a boarding school. He picked up the Catholic Herald and saw an advert for the reopening of the Choir School. He took me along and I was accepted – there weren’t that many, only about 18 of us when we started. Dad didn’t have the money to pay the fees of £28 a term in those days, but the local parish priest – a good Irish priest – paid for me to go there. This has absolutely shaped my life.

You see, my life is really shaped by an extraordinary thing that happened before I was born. Dad was caught in a rainstorm outside the Catholic Cathedral in Portsmouth. He had nowhere to shelter, so he went inside where he saw a most extraordinary thing going on. It turned out to be a Pontifical High Mass, I think sung by Bishop Cotter, and he went to the sacristy afterwards and asked, “What on earth is this about?” And so he was told and he took instruction and that led him to become a Catholic. Now the amazing thing is that had it not been for that rainstorm, my career would not have happened. It was all shaped by a rainstorm. My experience of God is that He acts in the most peculiar ways. You might have great schemes, but they fall down, and then someone will come up to you and say “hello” and it all happens… It’s most extraordinary!

What for you is the most important aspect of liturgical music?

I was at the recent Forty Hours at the London Oratory. It was most impressive. No lights in the church apart from the 200 or so candles on the altar, a large congregation totally in silence, and some lights for the choir. The choir sang some sublimely wonderful music. Then, a few days later, I made the mistake of going to the local parish church in Ireland for Mass. The psalm was sung by a woman who had a voice like a mouse with a sore throat, then when it came to the Gospel, they played terrible loud music – Jazz, full-blast on the loud speakers. It seemed totally sacrilegious. What I should have done is go up to the priest and

5

COLIN MAWBY

Colin Mawby meeting Pope St John XXIII in 1963 complained. I didn’t. I just walked out. I could not take it. I could not take it! It had no place, in my mind, in worship whatsoever.

But as I walked down the road, I thought to myself, “Some people like this.” That I think is a dichotomy between the traditional attitude to the liturgy and the modern attitude to liturgy. One is God-centred and the other is people-centred. Having said that, I think some people need that sort of thing. I need something else. I can’t condemn a person whose spirituality needs that which appalls me. I can’t do that. The old Latin liturgy was always the same – and you didn’t have to suffer sermons! Now the liturgy has become a point of controversy, which is sad. It’s become a source of argument and bitterness – and it’s meant to be the worship of God! The worship of God has been turned into a sense of bitterness and I think that is quite appalling.

We’ve known each other for a while. We’re both fascinated by death and the Divine. What answer do you have for those who try and face both these mysteries?

One spends one’s life thinking about God, doesn’t one? Is there a Creator, isn’t there a Creator? I think, the word ‘God’ has a lot of baggage attached to it. It’s not the best way of describing the Creator.

God is obviously many sided, as far as I can see. He has created an extraordinary universe. When you realise that the ‘Big Bang’ happened in a billionth of a second and yet in that time the results are you and me, music, trees – it’s all come from that split second. To me, this is totally unbelievable. So, if I am faced with the absurd notion that there isn’t a Creator, or that it came about by accident, it couldn’t have come by accident – it couldn’t have done! Now, this God, this Creator, is incredible. He knows everybody. He loves everybody. I used to think that was quite ridiculous until the computer was invented. Computer programs can do all sorts of things. And there are billions and billions of websites. If you wanted to create a program that counts the number of hairs on a human head, you could probably do so.

The computer is the great revelation of what God really is. I’m quite convinced that God listens to and answers prayers – that’s my own experience.

On the question of death and judgement. I think judgement is something you do to yourself. I don’t think God is up there wearing a wig with angels holding open books and computers saying, “You did this, you did that!” I think you see your own soul in the light of God. And the light of God is beyond our comprehension.

6

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016 You suddenly see yourself as you really are. I don’t think this is a very pleasant experience. I know that God loves me and that he forgives me. I look forward to death and I look forward to what’s beyond it. I’ve got to the age now where I don’t really want to live much longer. I probably will – but I don’t particularly want to. I don’t fear death, though; no, I don’t fear it at all.

Life has been an extraordinary experience. We take everything for granted. I am talking to you now; and we are taking this for granted. This is totally extraordinary. It’s totally extraordinary that we can talk to each other. We have lost our sense of wonder.

When I was a kid I used to wonder about the stars and the moon, but that’s all gone. It’s a different sort of age now. Having lost our sense of wonder, in a way we’ve lost our connection with God. You cannot look at God without wondering, “What is this force? What is this Creator?” When you see what he’s done – gravitational waves, for example… that’s extraordinary; totally, totally extraordinary. All this resulting from a split-second bang!

The thing that puzzles me is that violence seems to be endemic in the universe. It starts with an explosion and then you have planets banging into each other and stars burning out.

Violence is an essential part of creation. I find this very difficult to understand. You get violence on earth, violence in the universe.

I often look at nature and think, “Isn’t it beautiful?” But what’s going on? Wasps inside caterpillars, that kind of thing – terrible things go on. And yet, there is this veneer of beauty. This again puzzles me. In fact the whole thing is very puzzling indeed.

We are limited by time and the more you talk about Creation, the more amazing it becomes. That’s my experience. The more I get to know, the more humble I feel in the face of it.

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

TAB

7

fatima

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

Photo: Author’s Collection

Those in Most Need of Thy Mercy Preparing for the Centenary of Fatima Donal Anthony Foley

T

he Centenary of the Fatima apparitions is from May to October 2017, and the World Apostolate of Fatima (WAF) in England and Wales is involved in planning a programme to promote the message over the next couple of years in particular. To that end, the National Pilgrim Virgin Statue of Our Lady of Fatima, which was blessed by Pope Paul VI in Fatima in 1967, on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of the first apparition on 13 May 1917, and which was handed over to WAF in 1968, will be visiting various cathedrals and churches around the country.

On 13 May 1971, in the presence of more than a 1,000 people, this statue was crowned at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham by Bishop Alan Clark, Auxiliary Bishop of Northampton, with a crown specially blessed by the Pope for the occasion. On the same day, more than 50 other nations were united in honouring Our Lady in their respective National Shrines. The statue was blessed once more by Pope St John Paul II during his visit to Britain in 1982.

8

The statue will be accompanied by relics of Blessed Jacinta and Francisco, thus giving the faithful an opportunity to see it and venerate the relics, while also hearing about aspects of the Fatima message, and particularly about the importance of the Rosary and the Five First Saturdays devotion.

The World Apostolate of Fatima is a Public International Association of the Faithful of Pontifical Right, and the official Church-approved organisation for the promotion of the message of Fatima. WAF England and Wales has also received the approbation of the Bishop of Plymouth, the Rt Rev Mark O’Toole, who said he was, “particularly pleased to be able to affirm the work that you are doing to promote the regular saying of the Rosary, particularly in family life.” The Bishop went on to say, “I will continue to pray for the success of the World Apostolate of Fatima in this country. Thank you for all that you do.”

It is providential that Pope Francis has inaugurated the Year of Mercy in the year preceding the Fatima Centenary

ISSUE 187 - SPRING 2016

Family Retreat and Gregorian Chant Course Clare Bowskill

A

Photos: Joseph Shaw

year, since there are important links between this devotion and the Message of Fatima, and in fact mercy is specifically mentioned a number of times in the Fatima message as a whole. For example, when the Angel of Portugal appeared to the three seers in the summer of 1916, before they saw Our Lady, he told them that the most holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary had designs of mercy on them.

Then, during the July 1917 apparition, the Blessed Virgin told them to pray the decade prayer, which is usually rendered in English as: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy.” Later on, in 1929, when St Lúcia was at Tuy in Spain, she had her famous vision of the Holy Trinity, which features Christ upon the Cross with, under the left arm of the Cross, large letters of crystal clear water forming the words, “Grace and Mercy.”

WAF England and Wales is also working to try and bring about a renewal of the Consecration of England and Wales to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which was made by Cardinal Griffin on behalf of the hierarchy, clergy and faithful of the two countries, at Walsingham, on 16 July 1948. We would request fervent prayers that this consecration will take place next year, and obtain Our Lady’s intercession for the work of the New Evangelisation.

The Visitation programme for the National Pilgrim Virgin Statue has centred on the Archdiocese of Southwark, and has involved numerous weekend parish visitations of the Statue and Relics in London and the surrounding area. The parish visitations in Southwark will culminate at St George’s Cathedral on 13 May 2017, the 100th anniversary of Our Lady’s first apparition at Fatima, when His Grace, Archbishop Peter Smith, will receive, bless and crown the National Pilgrim Virgin Statue.

WAF England and Wales can also offer shorter Fatima presentation programmes which last either a few hours, or a day. Such a “A Day with Our Lady of Fatima” is planned for St Francis of Assisi church in Handsworth, Birmingham, on Saturday 4 June, and Bishop Byrne of the Archdiocese of Birmingham is due to preside at this.

Fatima presentations comprise a short talk and DVD on the message of Fatima, as seen through the lives of the two shepherd children, Blessed Francisco and Jacinta, and a PowerPoint presentation explaining how the Rosary and the Five First Saturdays devotion can revitalise personal faith and authentic spirituality in the life of the parish or group.

We also have an annual National Pilgrimage to Fatima every July. This year it will take place between 7-14 July, with Fr Gerard Kelly as Spiritual Director, Timothy TindalRobertson as Leader, and Mike Daley as Pilgrimage organiser.

More details about this can be seen at: www.worldfatimaenglandwales.org.uk/pilgrimage.html For more details about WAF England and Wales, and in due course, the upcoming schedule for the Visitation of the Statue and relics, please visit the WAF England and Wales website at: www.worldfatima-englandwales.org.uk/

NEWS

Family Retreat and Gregorian Chant Course sponsored by the Latin Mass Society was attended by more than 90 people over Low Sunday Weekend.

The two events took place at Ratcliffe College in Leicestershire. The retreat was led by two young priests from the remote but international Golgotha Monastery on Papa Stronsay in the Orkneys, the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer, who follow the Rule of St Alphonsus. With the accompaniment of the Traditional Latin Mass, Fr Magdala Maria FSSR, who hails from India, and Fr Jean Marie, who was born in Samoa and grew up in Australia, gave talks and led devotions for the families present, who included children of all ages.

The St Catherine’s Trust has been organising Family Retreats since 2005, with activities for children to make it possible for parents to attend talks from priests.

The liturgies of the weekend were provided by singers attending a Chant Training weekend led by Colin Mawby, the veteran composer, and Christopher Hodkinson. As well as Mass, they accompanied Vespers, Benediction, Compline, and a procession of thanksgiving in Ratcliffe College grounds.

Joseph Shaw, Chairman of the Latin Mass Society and organiser of the two events, commented saying, “I am delighted that the Sons of the Holy Redeemer have been able to exercise their special vocation to preach retreats in England, giving a very moving series of talks. They are a young and rapidly growing community, dedicated to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, and have much to offer Catholics in the British Isles.”

Donal Anthony Foley is the Secretary of the World Apostolate of Fatima in England and Wales, and has written books on Marian apparitions, and a young adult work of fiction, The Secret of Glaston Tor.

9

NEWS

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

Extraordinary Numbers Attend Triduum in the Old Rite Clare Bowskill

10

© Joseph Shaw

© John Aron

F

rom Brentwood to Birmingham, Hallam to Hexham, Southwark to Salford, Portsmouth to Plymouth, across England and Wales throughout Holy Week and Easter almost 200 Masses and services were celebrated in the Old Rite. These included Easter Sunday Masses at two of England’s Catholic cathedrals, Norwich and Portsmouth, at least six churches offering Tenebrae everyday throughout the Triduum and a variety of parishes offering both Sung and Low Masses in Latin. At St Mary Moorfields in London, where the Latin Mass Society held Masses and services throughout the Triduum, a record number of people attended, with standing room only on Good Friday and at the Easter Vigil.

Further up the country, the pattern was repeated. The Birmingham Oratory celebrated Solemn High Mass in the Extraordinary Form on Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday and Sung Mass on Holy Thursday, along with Tenebrae throughout the Triduum. St Walburge’s in Preston celebrated their second Holy Week. At the new FSSP church in Warrington, the team of servers celebrated their first Easter in the Old Rite, with the Master of Ceremonies travelling all the way from Holland to lend a helping hand. At the Dome of Home in New Brighton, many people had travelled miles in order to experience the exceptionally beautiful liturgy. A former Anglican minister was received into the Church at the Easter Vigil, and on Easter Sunday over a hundred were counted in the congregation as the professional sounding choir, led by Clare Tucker, led the music complete with trumpet and timpani.

More on various other Holy Week and Easter liturgies in this edition’s Diocesan Digest, pages 27-34.

© Joseph Shaw

© John Aron

© Joseph Shaw

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

LITURGY

The Prayer for the Jews on Good Friday Joseph Shaw

L

ast November, the Bishops of England and Wales formally petitioned the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, that the prayer, ‘for the conversion of the Jews’, used in the Extraordinary Form Good Friday service, be replaced by its equivalent in the Ordinary Form. The one currently authorised for use with the traditional liturgy was composed

by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008.

The suggestion that texts in the Traditional Mass be replaced by texts composed for the reformed Mass is deeply troubling for the international movement in support of our liturgical tradition, for a number of reasons.

As any comparison of old and new texts shows, they express different theological and spiritual perspectives. The suggestion that the perspective offered by ancient texts is theologically mistaken threatens the doctrine of the indefectibility of the Church, since these texts express the constant teaching of the Church over many centuries. They do so not just as evidence for the beliefs of Popes and Doctors of former times, but authoritatively, as a theological source.

From a practical point of view, if the Extraordinary Form is going to continue to provide theological riches to the Church, it must continue to exist as a coherent whole, consistently presenting its characteristic messages to the Faithful: of the importance of penance, of the reality of sin, of the indispensability of grace, of the intercession of the saints, and so on. If bishops’ conferences start combing through these texts to remove themes which have become, over the last forty years, unfamiliar, or even a little shocking, the 1962 Missal would be cut to ribbons.

Pope Benedict seemed to recognise this when, making the decision to change the Prayer for the Conversion of the Jews in the Extraordinary Form, he did not simply swap in the Novus Ordo version, but composed a new text more in keeping with the Good Friday liturgy of the 1962 Missal.

When the announcement was made by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, therefore, Una Voce International – the Fœderatio Internationalis Una Voce, or FIUV – sprang into action. Since I am a Council member based in England, I was closely involved in drafting our initial response, a press release; we have since published a longer, heavily researched document, a ‘position paper’, on the subject. It is available, among the other position papers of the FIUV, on the LMS website and on www.fiuv.org. In this article for Mass of Ages I will limit myself to a few observations drawn from that study of the subject.

An important fact we soon uncovered was that, while the series of prayers for different groups of people inside and outside the Church, used on Good Friday, were radically revised in the liturgical reform, removing explicit references to the conversion not only of the Jews, but of the pagans, the reformed Liturgy of the Hours (the Divine Office) has several prayers explicitly calling for the conversion of the Jews. Priests, bishops, religious, and pious laity pray many times each year for this intention: “Let Israel recognise in you [Christ] the Messiah it has longed for”; “grant that the Jewish people may accept your Gospel”; “may the Jewish people accept you

[Christ] as their awaited Messiah”, and so on. The claim that the reformed Good Friday prayers reflect the perspective of Vatican II’s Declaration Nostra aetate, and that an explicit prayer for the conversion of the Jews does not, doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. As a matter of fact, Vatican II affirmed the Church’s universal mission: Lumen gentium 16 quotes Mark 16:5, “Preach the Gospel to every creature”, and, addressing the Jewish people specifically, Nostra aetate looks forward to the day “on which all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice and ‘serve him shoulder to shoulder’.”

That last quotation is suggestive of the idea that the Jewish people will, as a corporate body, turn to the Gospel only in the final phase of history. Placing the conversion of the Jews into the context of the end of history, the eschaton, would seem to place the question of a mission to the Jews in a rather different perspective, but in this, Nostra aetate is not teaching a novelty. The conversion of the Jews as a body in the last days (while individuals and groups have, of course, converted in all ages), is suggested by St Paul (Romans 11:25-29), and affirmed by the Fathers of the Church. Since this was the dominant understanding of the role of the Jewish people in the history of salvation at the time when the ancient Good Friday service was being composed, probably in the 3rd century, it makes sense to read it in light of this Patristic theology.

The Fathers of the Church, and above all St Augustine, saw the continued presence among Christians of a Jewish community, as giving a special witness to the truth of the Christian revelation, since the Jews served as impartial witnesses to the prophecies of the Old Testament. For this reason, as well as out of common humanity, Pope St Gregory the Great, and a long line of Popes after him, insisted that Jews be respected and allowed to practice their religion in peace.

It is important to underline this point: that the ancient Prayer for the Jews, though more strongly worded than the version composed by Pope Benedict in 2008, should not be associated with an attitude of hatred for the Jews, or any thought of compelling their conversion. Those Catholics who composed and used this prayer from the 3rd century did so thinking of the conversion of the Jews as, obviously, a good thing, and something which would come about in its fullness at the end of history, but not as something to be accomplished by violence or threats, or even, necessarily, by a missionary effort specifically targeting them. The anti-Semitism we associate with the Middle Ages was something which developed as much as a 1,000 years later. It arose in the political and social context of the Crusades, and in the theological context of a new claim that, rather than being witnesses to the truth, the Jews’ adoption of the Talmud had associated them with blasphemy and falsehood.

The period from the 13th century to the end of the Middle Ages saw tragic violence against European Jews, who were frequently stripped of their property, and were expelled from a number of countries, including England in 1290. The terrible crimes of this period, however, were neither inspired by, nor

Continued on page 16

11

Liturgy

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

Mutual Enrichment Divine Worship and the Extraordinary Form

© Fr James Bradley

Fr James Bradley

T

he promulgation of Divine Worship: The Missal for the personal ordinariates erected under the auspices of the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum cœtibus represents a significant moment in the liturgical life of the Latin Church, particularly in the mainly English-speaking countries where these ordinariates are to be found.i We may say this, even though the principle and specific purpose of Divine Worship is “to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church, as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the ordinariate” (AC III). A subsidiary purpose, we might say – though one no less important – is the role of Divine Worship as “a treasure to be shared” between these communities and the wider Latin Church. Without entering into a detailed discussion of the canonical development of these structures, it is sufficient to say that their placement within the Latin Church (as opposed to their erection as a Church sui iuris) facilitates this mutual enrichment within the Roman Rite, thereby avoiding the error of liturgical syncretism which (for example, between the Eastern Churches and the Latin Church) is excluded by the universal law.ii The potential for such mutual enrichment between the liturgical praxis of Divine Worship and the Ordinary Form has been widely discussed and is, at least in some circles, highly anticipated. A recent article in L’Osservatore Romano

by Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, spoke of the desire to incorporate certain traditional elements in an appendix to any future edition of the post-conciliar Missale Romanum.iii It is noteworthy that this same article was published barely a fortnight after the Cardinal had put his name to the decree promulgating Divine Worship: The Missal, which itself includes many of the texts he mentions in its own series of appendices.iv

12

What, though, of the relationship between Divine Worship and the Extraordinary Form? Many have rightly identified similarities between Divine Worship and the pre-conciliar missal.

The key to interpreting this correlation, however, lies in the reason for the inclusion of these texts and rituals in Divine Worship. Their presence undoubtedly contributes to contemporary discussions concerning the role of the Extraordinary Form, as well as the ongoing implementation of Sacrosanctum Concilium as expounded particularly in the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, but it must be stressed that this is not the principal reason that they are found in Divine Worship, even if their presence might be timely. Rather, they exist in the liturgical books of the personal ordinariates because they formed part of that Anglican heritage which “maintained and nourished Catholic faith among Anglicans throughout the period of ecclesial separation and which in these days has given rise to aspirations for full communion with the Catholic Church.”v This heritage includes in a very significant way, of course, the various iterations of the Book of Common Prayer, but also the Anglican missals that emerged from the late nineteenth century, and which draw much of their language from the Prayer Book tradition.vi Those tempted to raise an eyebrow at the appropriation of texts such as the Roman Canon by the communities of the personal ordinariates, as well as the ceremonial of the pre-conciliar missal, would do well to recall the near-exclusive use of the Roman Missal of their day (either in Latin or Anglican-produced translations) by the likes of Gregory Dix, Eric Mascall, and the thousands of Anglican clergy and lay faithful who actively sought reunion with Rome from the time of Newman’s conversion. Indeed, as early as 1916 Lord Halifax claimed that as many as 3,000 Church of England clergy used the Roman Canon on a regular basis.vii The Order of Mass of Divine Worship honours this tradition, which promoted and prompted “aspirations for full communion,” by permitting the use of certain elements of what AngloCatholics called the Western Use (i.e., the pre-conciliar Roman Rite).viii These include the prayers at the foot of the altar, the Gallican offertory, certain gestures associated with the Roman Canon as it is found in the pre-conciliar Missale Romanum, the full text of the Libera nos, and the Last Gospel from the prologue of the Gospel according to Saint John (and also a proper Last Gospel for Christmas). Several genuflections, such as those before and after the consecration of the Host and Chalice respectively, are also retained, as are many of the osculations of the altar by the priest before greeting the faithful. Divine Worship also makes extensive use of the orations of the pre-conciliar missal, using translations from Anglican sources, and provides the complete propers for each Mass (Introit, Gradual, Alleluia or Tract, Offertory, and Communion). The proper calendars of each personal ordinariate also maintain the practices of Ember Days, Rogation Days, and certain octaves that are not kept in the 1969 General Roman Calendar.

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016 Perhaps of particular interest to those attached to the Extraordinary Form, though, are those places where Divine Worship recovers texts omitted by even the 1962 Missale Romanum. On Palm Sunday, for instance, the preface before the blessing of palms (removed in the Holy Week reforms of Pope Pius XII) is found. Also in Holy Week, the singing of the Litany at the Paschal Vigil, divided in the Pian reforms, is restored as a single integral text.

ordinariate life.”x Those attached to the more ancient forms of the Roman Rite have an insight to offer the communities of the personal ordinariates in this regard. Your prayers, friendship, and practical support, might be the greatest enrichment that we could hope to receive.

Mutual Enrichment

Fr James Bradley is a priest of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. He is currently studying Canon Law at the School of Canon Law of the Catholic University of America, Washington DC.

Finally, what of the question of mutual enrichment between Divine Worship and the Extraordinary Form? This is harder to discern. It has been remarked that Divine Worship resembles the 1965 Ordo Missæ. This insight might serve as a starting point for discussion of pastoral and liturgical practices in Divine Worship and the Extraordinary Form, particularly in places that wish to introduce the Extraordinary Form to faithful principally formed by the Ordinary Form. Here, I would suggest, the provisions of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei for the Missa Conventualis, as celebrated in those Benedictine houses under the competence of the dicastery, and extended to parishes in 1997, might be of use.ix Divine Worship permits, and in some places presumes, the variations provided herein: might this be a contribution worth discussing?

Perhaps the most important point is this: those who worship according to the Extraordinary Form often have a keen sense of the centrality of the sacred liturgy in the life of a particular community. As Archbishop Augustine Di Noia has said concerning Divine Worship, “The manner in which an ecclesial community worships uniquely expresses its inner

i The three extant personal ordinariates cover the episcopal conferences of England and Wales, Scotland, the United States, Canada, and Australia. ii CCEO Canon 701. iii Robert Sarah, “Silenziosa azione del cuore. Per leggere e applicare la costituzione del Vaticano II sulla sacra liturgia,” L’Osservatore Romano (12 June 2015). iv Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Decree Christi corporis exoptans (Prot. N. 160/15), 28 May 2015. v Steven Lopes, “Divine Worship: Occasional Services. A Presentation,” The Jurist 74 (2014) 81. vi These were various translations of the Missale Romanum, including (to a greater or lesser extent) certain Anglican prayers or, at the least, using Anglican translations of the orations and lections of the Roman Rite.

See John Hunwicke, “From the Convocation of 1559 to Pope Benedict’s Apostolic Constitution of 2009,” Pusey House Annual Report and Journal (2008-2009) 9-15. vii Halifax, The Doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Dislocation of the Canon. The Presidential Address delivered by Viscount Halifax at the Fifty-Seventh Anniversary of the English Church Union (London: Office of the English Church Union, 1916). I am indebted to the Reverend John Hunwicke and the Reverend Canon Dr Robin Ward for their assistance in locating the comments of Lord Halifax. viii The Rubrical Directory of Divine Worship: The Missal makes this explicit. ix Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, Prot. No. 40/97 (26 March 1997). x J. Augustine Di Noia, “Divine Worship and the Liturgical Vitality of the Church,” Antiphon 19, vol. 2 (2015) 109-115.

13

FIRST MASS

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

Assertive in its Humility First Mass in the Extraordinary Form Robert Kingsmill

14

prayers at the foot of the altar, for example, and the quiet prayer by the congregation (in marked contrast to the habits of the congregation for the Novus Ordo) as well as a large part of the congregation saying prayers after Mass.

Over the process of several years, I became more and more attracted to what I now identify as a very masculine, logical and consistent form of worship. The masculinity is something that matters more and more to me – I find the Mass unashamedly assertive in its humility, its service, and in its recognition of something more – which I believe to be what men are called to be in life and in our Faith. I am no expert in these matters, but I see this loss in our society too.

To summarise my thoughts, and to paraphrase St John the Baptist, by making ourselves less, He can be more.

Unfortunately, my wife began an affair with a fellow parishioner several years ago – this led to her securing a civil law divorce, with all that brings. But I have three children, and my son now serves and also shares my preference for the Traditional Mass. My two daughters are also committed and find it more holy, more reverent: exactly what young Catholics need in this modern world, which is so far from our Faith.

I plan our holidays around finding the Extraordinary Form Mass – giving us the chance to share our Faith in a common language, wherever we might be.

One highlight of this new family habit was Christmas 2014 – in what turned out to be my last Christmas with my father in Australia – where I set out on a three hour round trip on Christmas Day to the Wangaratta Latin Mass Society in Australia, where I met some wonderful new friends, and yet another very fine priest. The drive home from that Mass was the most joyful moment of that trip.

I am fortunate to live close enough to the Brompton Oratory so that I can attend the Extraordinary Form every week. I have attended Mass in the Extraordinary Form exclusively now for several years; I am making up for my lost youth in which I received new age catechesis. As the Church says, the Sacrifice of the Mass is the source and summit of our life as Catholics, and it will only be in the Extraordinary Form that I share in that prayer for the rest of the time I have.

Photo: Author’s Collection

I

first attended Mass in the Extraordinary Form at St Bede’s in South London in 2008. I was married and had young children. I had been a practicing Catholic during my childhood and youth, having returned to the Faith only after the birth of my children. The parish church I attended was a vibrant one, attached as it was to a highly sought after school, and my wife had recently joined the Church, but I think it fair to say that my return to the Church was more external than internal. My upbringing was Catholic through my mother, with weekly Mass, altar serving and Christian Brothers for education, and discipline, but my catechesis was, and does, leave much to be desired.

I was fortunate to have met a member of Juventutem through work, whose living faith inspired and challenged my own faith.

He invited me to attend my first Old Rite Mass. Without being superficial, it was a key turning point in my life.

It is hard to separate my initial impressions now several years later. But my first impression was how much sense the Mass made – it was coherent. There were things in the Novus Ordo Mass which I hadn’t been able to evaluate, much less resolve. My first Mass in the Extraordinary Form was an awakening. I had no sense of the priest having his back to the congregation – rather I wondered why or how a priest could stand with his back to God, now realising that ad orientem worship was possible. Two other things stood out – the lack of interference by the congregation through not having lay people in the sanctuary for the readings or before communion, and the lack of the communal ‘giving’ of the ‘sign of peace’, which had always seemed to me a bizarre socially driven distraction.

There was, also, to be sure, a feeling of disorientation of not understanding my own Mass, which led to something approaching anger at not comprehending a liturgy that my mother’s own family would have taken for granted. This was highlighted for me when visiting my 90-year-old grandfather a few months later, and after informing him about my experience, having him and my elderly aunt immediately recite several prayers from the Mass, prayers I didn’t know. I felt that loss acutely.

I then began a process, with the help of my aforementioned friend, in discovering why we had these two forms of the Mass, and his very patient guidance in answering what to him must have been very shallow questions. It is striking now to consider the prayers left out of the Novus Ordo: the

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

LETTERS

Letters to the Editor

Requiems are not Tasteless

Pearse wasn’t the only Catholic

Sir, I am appalled by the letter opposing the celebration of a Requiem Mass for King Richard III (Letters, Spring 2016).

Having carried Richard III’s remains from the car park in 2012, and having given him a rosary which was buried with him last year, and a crown which was placed upon his coffin, it is perhaps understandable that I have positive feelings for Richard III. But even if one feels that he was a sinner (as, in various ways, we all are) would not that make it absolutely appropriate to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for his soul?

As for the claims presented in the published letter, they show a great degree of ignorance. One needs to understand clearly that Richard III was offered the throne of England by the Three Estates of the Realm. They took this action because a bishop had revealed to them that the sons of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville (the so-called ‘princes’ in the Tower) were not princes but bastards. The bishop knew this because he himself had married Edward IV to Lady Eleanor Talbot, daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and Eleanor (later a Carmelite tertiary) was still alive when Edward IV secretly married Elizabeth Woodville. Also, there is not a shred of contemporary (1483) evidence of the later (1502) claim that Richard III murdered the bastards in the Tower.

Sir, While the devout Catholic faith of one of the leaders of the uprising in Dublin against British rule at Easter 1916 was well told by your writer in the Spring issue of Mass of Ages (“Would Modern Ireland Welcome Patrick Pearse?”), some reference to the Catholic faith of the other leaders would have provided broader context.

In their Proclamation of Independence, the seven signatories took pains to stress their Catholic ethos. They appealed to Irish men and women “in the name of God” and placed their cause “under the protection of the Most High God.” All the Catholics among the 1,500 rebels (of whom a significant number were women) were instructed by their leaders to go to Confession and receive Holy Communion that Easter. Most did, to the surprise of Dublin priests, who delighted in the large number of young men performing their Easter Duty!

Along with Pearse, two others of the seven signatories of the Proclamation were poets – Joseph Plunkett and Thomas McDonagh. Plunkett was allowed to marry his fiancé, Grace Clifford (aged 28), a few hours before he was executed.

Baptised in the Anglican Church, she had been received into the Catholic Church that Easter, just before the Rising began.

Among the poems Plunkett wrote is one entitled “I Saw the Sun at Midnight” wherein he worships the redemption wrought for us by Christ, who “pawnest Heaven as a pledge for Earth/ And for our glory sufferest all shame.” Theosophy attracted the interest of many intellectuals of the period, and to “see the sun at midnight” is a theosophical reference to those initiates who, after proper preparation, glimpsed the bright spiritual nature of the universe underlying the darkness of materialism. Some writers (e.g. Rudolf Steiner) said this experience is expressed in the Christmas Midnight Mass, when, during the darkest time of the year, the Sacred Host rises up from our altars, and the faithful are allowed a glimpse of Our Saviour, the true Light of the World. (Catholic devotions make accessible to all mystical experience which some religious bodies reserve for the few!)

A further indication of the Catholic nature of the Rising was the reconciliation of another signatory of the Proclamation, James Connolly, with the Church before he died. His Marxist ideology had estranged him from his Catholic faith for many years, but he too received the sacraments on the eve of his execution.

Dr L J F Ashdown-Hill, MBE, FSA, FRHistS Honorary Senior Lecturer, Department of History, University of Essex Leader of Genealogical Research and Historical Adviser, ‘Looking for Richard’ Project Sir,

As the Diocesan Representative responsible for arranging the Requiem Mass for Richard III in Leicester, I can assure Victor Haberlin (Letters, Spring 2016) that there was nothing tasteless or sacrilegious about the event. This was not an attempt to rehabilitate Richard, but rather an acknowledgement that he was, like all of us, a sinner in need of prayer. This point was emphasised during the Mass in Fr Neil Ferguson’s sermon, and is, in any case, inherent in the prayers of the Traditional Rite. The fact that the secular authorities in Leicester and in the country at large had indulged in a “reinterment jamboree” some five months earlier is no reason why we should not offer him the only thing that can be of any help to him now – our prayers. This was done most fittingly on the anniversary of his death, by a community of friars who had a house in Leicester at the time of his death and original burial, and in a rite that the King himself would surely have recognised.

I tend to agree with Mr Haberlin concerning Richard’s probable guilt, but we cannot possibly know that he is damned.

All the more reason then, surely, to pray earnestly for his soul, and what better form of prayer can there be?

Paul Beardsmore Market Harborough Leicestershire

Rev Daniel Horgan St Columban’s Solihull

We welcome letters from our readers. To write to the Editor, please send emails to editor@lms.org.uk or letters to Mass of Ages, The Latin Mass Society, 11-13 Macklin Street, London WC2B 5NH. Please note that letters should not exceed 200 words in length and that the closing date for the next issue of Mass of Ages is Friday 1 July. No submissions will be considered for publication in the Autumn edition after this date.

15

LITURGY Continued from page 11 influenced, a liturgical text which had already been in place for ten centuries. The teachings of the Fathers of the Church on the Jews were, eventually, vindicated, and hysteria about the contents of the Talmud was in time overcome by careful study, beginning with Raymond Martin’s great work, the Pugio Fidei (c. 1270). When the issue was raised at the Council of Trent, the Congregation of the Index was asked to look into it again, and declared that the Talmud could be freely printed, with a tiny number of excisions. It is important to remember that, if some of our Catholic predecessors have been fools or criminals, others have opposed them with intelligence and charity.

On that theme, I want to end by drawing attention to a recent publication: My Battle Against Hitler by Dietrich von Hildebrand (New York: Image, 2014). In the face of the rise of the particularly hideous anti-Semitism of the 20th century, Hildebrand, a philosopher who was a convert to Catholicism and a friend of the future Pope Pius XII, gave a heroic witness.

He was obliged to flee to Austria when Hitler came to power in Germany, and in Austria, while in constant danger of assassination, he published an important Germanlanguage newspaper which opposed both Nazism and Communism. He had to flee again when the Nazis annexed Austria, and after many sufferings found his way to the United States. He is of special interest to Catholics attached to the Traditional Mass, since 30 years later he became one of the intellectual heavy-weights of the nascent Traditional Catholic movement, and readers may be familiar with his great books of this later era, Trojan Horse in the City of God, and The Devastated Vineyard, both of which are still very much worth reading today.

My Battle Against Hitler includes selections from his very detailed autobiographical notes, and a number of newspaper articles he wrote in Austria, opposing various aspects of Nazism. It offers a fascinating insight into the era of the rise of Nazism, and Hildebrand’s relentless opposition to it, an opposition rooted in his Catholic faith, and his love of Catholic culture and liturgy.

The enemies of the Traditional Mass would like nothing better than to associate our cause with extremist politics and anti-Semitism. The issue of the Good Friday Prayer for the Jews offered them an opening for this, and it was with consciousness of this danger that Pope Benedict composed a new version of the prayer. To counteract the potential negative media narrative, Catholics attached to the ancient liturgy need to understand the history of that prayer, a history which separates it by such a vast gulf, temporally and theologically, from the anti-Semitic movements of the later Middle Ages, and also keep in mind that among the founders of the Traditional movement are men like Dietrich von Hildebrand, who risked his life to oppose the anti-Semitism of his own day.

16

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

In Illo Tempore

A

particular tension has always tugged at the heart of the Church. Catholics feel the need to be obedient to those in competent authority, while also sometimes remaining true to causes that make them seem disloyal.

This is a problem that has been encountered throughout the centuries. St Ignatius of Antioch, writing at the turn of the 2nd century wrote, “Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be, even as wheresoever Christ Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church”, words that are contrasted by St Athanasius’ famous, “The floor of hell is paved with the skulls of bishops” (often also attributed to St John Chrysostom.)

Such tensions were brought to light during the reforms that followed certain interpretations of the Second Vatican Council.

As a result, Traditional Catholics have often flocked to those in authority who have shown them compassion or understanding. Pope Benedict XVI understood that those Catholics who had merely held onto the Faith as expressed through the centuries had suddenly been made to feel unwelcome in their own Church after the Council – cf Address to the French Bishops, Lourdes, 14 September 2008.

In reading his Message from the Chairman in the May 1976 LMS News Bulletin (No 28), one gets the sense that Alfred Marnau took great comfort from words expressed to him by the newly installed Archbishop (later Cardinal) Basil Hume. Following a meeting with Hume, Marnau wrote, “I am delighted to inform members [that] His Grace, Archbishop Basil Hume, honoured the Society by receiving so soon after his elevation to the See of Westminster, the Chairman and a member of the Committee, Lt Col Pender-Cudlip.” “As we took leave,” he ended, “His Grace assured us that his heart was full of understanding for our cause (though perhaps not so much his head) and he gave our Society his blessing.”

Among recent pontiffs, St John Paul II showed sympathy towards those attached to the Old Rite. Maybe this explains Marnau’s concern when the Pope was shot at in the early 1980s.

Writing in the May 1981 issue of the LMS News Bulletin (No 48), he began, “After a night of anguish, following the shots outside St Peter’s, we almost dare not grant hope its victory and say: the prayers of that night have been answered.” Writing of John Paul II, he continued, “Sadly the triple crown was never placed upon his august head, but crowned is he now for all that, and for all the years of his life, with a martyr’s crown.”

Christopher Inman in his Chairman’s Letter in the May 1991 edition of the LMS News Bulletin (No 88) expressed his frustration at the letters he received after each edition, “sometimes heated and sometimes extreme.” “For it is,” he wrote, “impossible to please everyone in such a diverse membership all the time.” It seems that some of his correspondents felt that the LMS wasn’t being critical enough of the bishops. But as Inman explained, “While wishy-washiness never got a cause anywhere, causing offence is usually counter-productive.” “The bulletin,” he continued, “is not merely read by our members but also by the Bishops, under whom the Society is constituted to work... some sympathetic to our cause and some hostile.”

The need to be politically astute does not limit itself to those in authority. The merry-go-round of Church politics remains an important one – one that is not restricted to the bishops.

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

MAY 2016 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue

CALENDAR / CROSSWORD

15 WHIT SUNDAY (Pentecost) I Cl R 16 WHIT MONDAY I Cl R 17 WHIT TUESDAY I Cl R 18 WHIT WEDNESDAY (Ember Day) I Cl R 19 WHIT THURSDAY I Cl R 20 WHIT FRIDAY (Ember Day) I Cl R 21 WHIT SATURDAY (Ember Day) I Cl R 22 FEAST of the MOST HOLY TRINITY I Cl W 23 FERIA IV Cl G 24 FERIA IV Cl G 25 S GREGORY VII P C III Cl W 26 CORPUS CHRISTI I Cl W 27 S BEDE the VENERABLE C D III Cl W 28 S AUGUSTINE B C III Cl W 29 II SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G 30 FERIA IV Cl G 31 BVM QUEEN II Cl W

JUNE 2016 Wed 1 S ANGELA MERICI V III Cl W Thu 2 FERIA IV Cl G Fri 3 MOST SACRED HEART of JESUS I Cl W Sat 4 S FRANCIS CARACCIOLO C III Cl W IH Sun 5 III SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G Mon 6 S NORBERT B C III Cl W Tue 7 FERIA IV Cl G Wed 8 FERIA IV Cl G Thu 9 FERIA IV Cl G Fri 10 S MARGARET Q W III Cl W Sat 11 S BARNABAS § Ap III Cl R Sun 12 IV SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G Mon 13 S ANTHONY of PADUA C D III Cl W Tue 14 S BASIL the GREAT B C D III Cl W Wed 15 FERIA IV Cl G Thu 16 FERIA IV Cl G Fri 17 S GREGORY BARBARIGO B C III Cl W Sat 18 S EPHREM the SYRIAN Deacon C D III Cl W Sun 19 V SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G Mon 20 FERIA IV Cl G Tue 21 S ALOYSIUS GONZAGA C III Cl Wed 22 S PAULINUS B C III Cl W Thu 23 VIGIL of the NATIVITY of S JOHN the BAPTIST § II Cl V Fri 24 NATIVITY of S JOHN the BAPTIST § I Cl W Sat 25 S WILLIAM Ab III Cl W Sun 26 VI SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G Mon 27 FERIA IV Cl G Tue 28 VIGIL of SS PETER § & PAUL § Aps II Cl V Wed 29 SS PETER § & PAUL § Aps I Cl R Thu 30 COMMEMORATION of S PAUL § Ap III Cl R

JULY 2016 Fri 1 MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD of OLJC I Cl R Sat 2 VISITATION of BVM II Cl W Sun 3 VII SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G Mon 4 FERIA IV Cl G Tue 5 S ANTHONY MARY ZACCARIA C III Cl W Wed 6 FERIA IV Cl G Thu 7 SS CYRIL & METHODIUS BB CC III Cl W Fri 8 S ELIZABETH Q W III Cl W Sat 9 OUR LADY’S SATURDAY IV Cl W Sun 10 VIII SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G Mon 11 FERIA IV Cl G Tue 12 S JOHN GUALBERT Ab III Cl W Wed 13 FERIA IV Cl G Thu 14 S BONAVENTURE B C D III Cl W Fri 15 S HENRY Emperor C III Cl W Sat 16 BVM of MOUNT CARMEL III Cl W Sun 17 IX SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G Mon 18 S CAMILLUS de LELLIS C III Cl W Tue 19 S VINCENT de PAUL III Cl W Wed 20 S JEROME EMILIANI C III Cl W Thu 21 S LAWRENCE of BRINDISI C D III Cl W Fri 22 S MARY MAGDALEN Penitent III Cl W Sat 23 S APOLLINARIS B M III Cl R Sun 24 X SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G Mon 25 S JAMES § Ap II Cl R Tue 26 S ANNE MOTHER of the BVM II Cl W Wed 27 FERIA IV Cl G Thu 28 SS NAZARIUS & CELSUS MM & VICTOR I P M

& INNOCENT I P C III Cl R Fri 29 S MARTHA V III Cl W Sat 30 OUR LADY’S SATURDAY IV Cl W Sun 31 XI SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G AUGUST 2016 Mon 1 FERIA IV Cl G Tue 2 S ALPHONSUS MARY de LIGUORI B C D III Cl W Wed 3 FERIA IV Cl G Thu 4 S DOMINIC C III Cl W JCHP Fri 5 DEDICATION of S MARY of the SNOWS III Cl W Sat 6 TRANSFIGURATION of OLJC II Cl W Sun 7 XII SUNDAY after PENTECOST II Cl G Mon 8 S JOHN MARY VIANNEY C III Cl W Tue 9 VIGIL of S LAWRENCE § M III Cl V Wed 10 S LAWRENCE § M II Cl R Thu 11 FERIA IV Cl G Fri 12 S CLARE V III Cl W Sat 13 OUR LADY’S SATURDAY IV Cl W

Alan Frost: April 2016

Clues Across 1 ‘Illuminat omnem -------’. The Last Gospel (7) 5 ‘Our Lady’s -----’, reference to England and name of FSSP quarterly (5) 8 Household god in Roman mythology ( just a man informally in Liverpool!) (3) 9 Sobriquet of William, monarch associated with spread of Norman churches (9) 10 & 17 Down: Latin phrase indicating ‘nothing hinders’ publication of RC book (5,6) 11 The Monkey-Puzzle tree and a famous pseudonym among crossword fans! (9) 14 Martyr Saint often portrayed in art pierced with arrows (9) 18 Surname of Founder of London Oratory who wrote ‘Faith of Our Fathers’ (5) 21 Greek philosopher whose work St Thomas Aquinas interpreted and clarified (9) 22 & 23 Acr: ‘--- ----- of the World’, famous painting of Christ by Holman Hunt (3,5) 23 See 22 Across 24 Lancashire town where ICKSP Church is one of the tallest in the land (7) Clues Down 1 Formal address for the Pope: ‘His --------’ (8) 2 Sister of Lazarus (6) 3 Saint associated with Father Christmas and name of golf champion Jack (8) 4 Saint, mother of Augustine of Hippo (6) 5 ‘Te ----’, hymn chanted at Matins and on Feast Days (4) 6 “O throw away the ------ part of it”, Hamlet (Act 3) to his mother (6) 7 Where LMS Patron St. Margaret Clitherow martyred (4) 12 Brother’s brother (8) 13 See of Bp Hugh Gilbert, OSB, which includes Stronsay (8) 15 Sport and Day associated with St Stephen (6) 16 Part of foot for marching accurately? (6) 17 See 10 Across 19 St ---- of the Cross, founder of the Passionist Order (4) 20 A single piece of numerical information [abbv.] (4) ANSWERS TO THE SPRING 2016 CROSSWORD Across: 1 Assumed 5 Papua 8 Nun 9 Samaritan 10 Servi 11 Candlemas 14 Challoner 18 Della 21 Patriarch 22 Eli 23 Dante 24 Deposit Down: 1 Agnostic 2 Sentry 3 Mystical 4 Damian 5 Part 6 Patrem 7 Anne 12 Lordship 13 Satanist 15 Austin 16 Nimrod 17 Pliers 19 Apud 20 Line

Closing Date & Winner

The closing date for the Summer 2016 Crossword Competition is Friday 1 July 2016. The winner of the Spring 2016 competition was Mr Wardle of Sheffield, who wins Dominus Est – It is the Lord! by Bishop Athanasius Schneider.

17

OPINION

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

Dressing Modestly

When women truly love themselves Mary O’Regan “Mary, why do you hide your body when you could show more leg and get lots more attention from men?”

This same question has been asked of me many times since I was a teenager.

Traditional Catholic women are used to such questions. I don’t mind when other women ask me why I don’t wear low-cut tops. They believe modest clothes would wreck their chances with men, because they are of the mind that they ‘need’ to wear skimpy clothes to ‘compete’ for boyfriends. As for men asking, well once I was on a date with a fellow who kept asking me to wear a figure-hugging dress. Even after I explained to him why I wouldn’t, he kept pressurising me. Let’s just say that I didn’t throw my wine at him (why waste good vino?) But I didn’t pursue the relationship further.

Dates like these have challenged me to be clearer as to my strong intentions for dressing as I do. I may not always dress beautifully (this is the age that beauty forgot), and I may get called uptight and a frump for dressing formally, but my intentions are always the same. This column is dedicated to exploring such intentions that all women can share.

Firstly, let me address women such as myself who feel called to marriage. An ordinary woman can respect her husband long before she meets him. By going against the ‘norm’ and not wearing cleavage-bearing tops, she is preserving intimate knowledge for the man who commits to her: her husband. From the time she is in that high street shop, ferreting out decent clothes, her intention is not to arouse the attention of the crowds of men walking down the street, or teenage boys sitting near her on the tube, or her colleagues at the office.

If, however, a woman flaunts a deep cleavage and a lot of skin to random men, she is eliciting physical reactions and giving the most personal knowledge to them; knowledge that could and should be the sole preserve of one chosen man: the man called to suffer for her as Our Lord suffered for the Church.

Now here’s where this piece of writing becomes a weapon in cultural warfare; namely against the foe: feminism. The mere notion of a woman making her flesh the exclusive view of one man who earns the right is the antithesis of feminist thought. After their triumph in the sexual revolution, feminists urged women to make themselves into public exhibitions – carried along by the supposedly libertarian idea that as long as a woman ‘wants’ to dress this way then it is okay. If a woman wants an ego lift by having men whistle at her upon seeing her bare midriff, then that’s all fine as long as it is what the woman wants.

Feminism forgets to tell women that in giving men-who-arestrangers the experience of seeing their flesh, they are rewarding men-who-are-nothing-to-them with something immensely valuable, something that these men have not earned.

It is not in a woman’s best interests to attract men solely on the basis of raw sex appeal. Nor is it in the best interests of other women. Women who dress decently are showing a lot of Christian

18

kindness to other women. A woman who dresses in a sexually provocative way may arouse the attentions of a married man. His wife at home may wish to be the only one who has this role. Most women do.

The single woman who dresses in little more than lingerie in public may want a husband who keeps his eyes for her. But why does she stir the passions of married men when a time will come when she would hate for another woman to do the same to her husband?

In this case, it is a classic example of doing unto others as you would have done unto you. It is the beauty of intention (dressing in a way that does not provoke lust in a man who belongs to another woman) that leads to beauty of soul.

This is in direct contradiction to the culture that says, if a woman wants to pour herself into clothes that before were only used by streetwalkers, then she can. There is a painful irony, in our times, because I have known ladies of the night who show less flesh than women who will never sell their bodies. During the course of my pro-life work, I met an escort who was having a crisis pregnancy (she decided against abortion). Dressed in a tasteful white blouse, she looked like a doctor on her day off. I found out about her real ‘job’ as she was trying to work out who the father was. A perceptive girl, she volunteered that she covered herself up in public because she didn’t want people to guess what she did for a ‘living’. She also told me that ‘clients’ often requested that she dressed respectably for dates, so that the people eating at the table around them would not suspect he had to pay her.

Women who are called to be brides of Christ have to guard themselves from revealing too much skin, so that their vocation does not become a house divided against itself. They have made vows to Our Lord, and yet if they wear civvies or clothes that are tight, trashy and tasteless then they may make themselves seem ‘available’ and thus their appearance can be a lie.

In the Ireland of my youth, this was the case when women who had become nuns in the great surge of religious vocations during the 1950s shed their habits in favour of figure-hugging Hilary Clinton-esque trouser suits in the ’90s. It struck me as approaching spiritual adultery; they had pledged to belong to Christ and him alone, yet what was the point of dressing in a way that confused people as to whom they belonged? It also undermines their sense of self; when a woman dresses in a full habit, there is no doubt as to who has her heart, but the tight polyester blouses and sensible shoes may lead people to think she is a married woman or female PE teacher. If a woman has the higher calling of being Christ’s bride, why not let her habit announce this for her?

Sometimes we can put ourselves under pressure to be modest, attractive and elegant at the same time. Different women have varying levels of personal beauty, and some women may be better able to find and afford the right kind of stylish clothes, and some women have better taste in dress than others. We can, however, all share the beautiful intentions behind dressing decently.

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

ISSUE 188 185 - SUMMER AUTUMN 2016 2015

DO WE STILL BELIEVE IN...?

TAB

Do we still believe in...

Royalty?

Fr Bede Rowe

O

n 11 June this year I will pour a glass of something rather nice and raise a toast to Her Britannic Majesty, as she celebrates her official 90th birthday. Of course, she had her beingborn-birthday on 21 April, but you really can’t begrudge her another one (I myself keep a three-day celebration for the feast of St Bede). No matter what, she has been a great example of steadfast service to her country – a life dedicated to the role she inherited and did not choose.

Occasionally, you hear rumblings of republicanism, or criticism of Prince Charles for being too political, and you can even sometimes hear dark murmurs of Jacobite claimants to the throne, but in the United Kingdom, for the foreseeable future, royalty seems here to stay.

This does not, of course, mean that the Church approves of it. Simply because something exists does not mean that it is good, or that it should be preserved, or promoted. In fact, one of the strengths of the monarchy throughout the ages has been that even though you can get good kings or bad kings, it is the monarchy which stands or falls. The principle is kingship, not this or that individual king. In this way it is rather like the papacy. You can have good popes, and terrible ones… but this does not abolish the institution.

So what about the Church and kingship? And here I mean monarchy in the sense of monarchs wielding political power, even to the small extent that our beloved Queen does. Well in one way, the Church does not really bother herself too much with systems of government, except, of course, when they go wrong, or are elevated to a position which damages the people put in their care. In this, it is always worthwhile re-reading Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum of 1891. It does not tell you much about political theory, but then again you would not expect it to. We have seen in recent history the dangers of atheistic Communism, and new forms of truth being proclaimed by Parliament, we have seen dictators ruling by power, and also by popular acclaim.

In industry, we have examples of small collectives and large multinationals, we have private companies ruled by the will and strength of an individual/founder, and organisations run by representative board members. Is one better than another, does one tend to good and another to evil? Should we promote this one and decry that?

Obviously (I hope!) the answer is “no.” Some may be better in certain situations than others, and none is essentially right, and none essentially wrong. For example, is it better to have a benign dictator ruling you, or voting in a democracy which then goes on to allow the killing of innocent life? Would you prefer a hereditary, all-powerful Queen who governs fairly with justice, or a series of collectives that cannot defend you or your loved ones?

This is not some paean of praise for British parliamentary democracy, simply a small reminder that the purpose of government is prescribed, and the form of that governance can change.

We creatures of God are called to live in community in harmony and peace, and to do that effectively there must be organisation and structure, but as to what that is… well it changes according to individuals and times. We are not progressing in some Marxist way, from one to another – the mentality that says, “in the olden days we had kings and Princes because we were not advanced or civilised enough to govern ourselves”.

There is one thing which is essential, and it is this: all kings, presidents, dictators, first-citizens, whoever, must realise that they are under the authority of the Kingship of Christ. Any government which violates the law of God, of which the Church is the guardian and exponent, is not worthy of its high calling. In Queen Elizabeth II, we see a woman who knows her obligations under God, and on the final day she will stand before him, as a Queen. And I have no doubt that she will acknowledge His Majesty, for she is a woman of faith.

So we do believe in Royalty… for Christ is our King.

19

INTERVIEW

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

Honour Thy Father and Mother An Interview with Edmund Adamus

On 14 May, Edmund Adamus, the Director of the Department for Marriage and Family Life at the Diocese of Westminster, addressed the LMS One Day Conference. Here he speaks with the Editor about the crises currently facing the family.

What in your view is the greatest threat facing the family today?

The greatest threat facing the family today is secularisation or demoralisation of the primary role of parents. I mean both the responsibility of parents to pass on the faith, but also the rights of parents to protect their children from all sorts of things that threaten their upbringing. We could talk about various forms of sex education and other aspects within the education system which many parents are anxious about.

There’s nothing new in this threat, the attack on the family by deliberately undermining parents has been part of a hidden and not so hidden agenda of all sorts of organisations with global reach since the earliest part of the 20th century.

Obviously with the advent of liberal access to contraception, spawning a widespread abortion culture (approximately 2 billion worldwide and counting) coupled with liberal divorce laws, it’s not difficult to see where it all ends. The cataclysmic breakdown of countless families and the human as well as socio- economic costs it brings on entire nations and cultures So it’s a complex web of threats which are all interconnected but I think today these have new vehicles carrying their destructive force in to homes, such as the normalisation of homosexual acts, epidemic levels of pornography addiction and now the latest so called “gender ideology”, which has been clearly condemned by the Church, most recently by Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia, where he states, “It is a source of concern that some ideologies manage to assert themselves as absolute and unquestionable, even dictating how children should be raised.” I recall also, how in April 2014, the Pope denounced ideologically driven educational programes, even to go so far as to say that, “children are not guinea pigs.”

I know there have been criticisms of Amoris Laetitia, i.e. where it entitles a whole section ‘The Need for Sex Education.’

However, despite the challenges that this section brings, in terms of it being open to misinterpretation and abuse by the unscrupulous, the Holy Father nevertheless exhorts us all that no one can deprive parents of their rightful claim to the ‘essential and inalienable right’, something he calls ‘indeclinable’ of the choosing the education they, and they alone wish for their children according to their convictions.

What role does the family have in the work of salvation?

It is absolutely central because the Fourth Commandment is “Honour thy father and mother.” So, clearly in the economy of salvation, the role and influence and responsibilities of parents to transmit faith, life and love is essential to God’s plan for the salvation of mankind. That’s not just a pious sentiment.

Christ himself as the Son of God allowed himself to be subject to the authority of Joseph and Mary. The moral authority and

20

spiritual power of parents to hand on the faith, to nurture their children, to form the spiritual identity of their children is a mandate direct from God himself. Subversion, disregard or disrespect for parental authority is affront to the Blessed Trinity.

And the reason why Canon Law obliges parents to have their children baptised is because parents, having welcomed the gift of the child, must now embark generously and tirelessly upon a lifelong task of helping the child achieve eternal life – not just have a rewarding life on earth. The role of the family is absolutely key in the salvation of individuals and for the health and vitality of the life of the Church. This is why the great ‘pope of the family’, St John Paul, spoke of parents as, “the primary agents of evangelisation.” In my view everyone in the Church, must take up the cause of parents with fresh ardor and creativity.

Is the family facing a particular attack by diabolical forces in our own time?

Every 500 years in the history of the Church there is a major rupture of heresy. During the first 500 years it is was the controversy surrounding the identity of Christ – Arianism, and so on. After 1,000 years, we had the break with the Eastern Church and the controversy surrounding jurisdiction and authority and power. One might call that era the tragic split over spiritual paternity in the Church, and where its most

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016 authoritative expression resides. Then, at the time of the Protestant Reformation, there was another split, which was triggered by different things surrounding the Eucharist, marriage and the authority of the pope. Here we are 500 years later, and we have another heresy – the twisted versions of sexuality creeping in to the life of the Church, because of the way they are manifested in the life of society in general Ideologies with their extremist perceptions and views regarding ‘marriage’ are a manifestation of an undermining of one of the most important pillars of God’s plan for humanity.

Marriage between a man and a woman, which is fruitful, faithful and life-long is also an icon of the Blessed Trinity. So, if I were the Devil, I would attack something that manifests the life of the Trinity in the world today. If you’re attacking God himself, go for the very thing that makes God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, present to people in their everyday lives.

I’m not surprised that there’s this huge epochal movement undermining marriage and the family, for if you look at the history of the Church, this is, one might say, the ultimate heresy. The vaule of the family for the mission of the Church is intrinsically linked to the power of the Holy Eucharist.

THE FAMILY

Who or what is your greatest inspiration?

For my work, for my professional life, I would have to say Pope St John Paul II. Not least because he was the pope of my youth, the one I grew up with. John Paul’s teaching for the 27 years of his pontificate is shot through with this beautiful vision of what it means to be a human person made in the image and likeness of God. The phrase ‘human ecology’ – which he used first in Centesimus Annus, but which has now been used by

Pope Benedict and Pope Francis, has a hugely important truth behind it. It’s about the choices that we make as individuals of living a life of virtue and avoiding a life of vice and sin. A huge part of that is about how people make their choices in terms of their sexuality, by which I mean how they live and behave as men, and how they live and behave as women. This idea of his which has come to be known as the ‘theology of the body’, but which would more accurately be described as his ‘catechesis on human love’, and which is still unfolding, is an incredible source of inspiration for all the Church’s teachings, not only its teachings on morality and sexuality, but its social teachings, its teachings on medical ethics and everything. It’s like a stick of rock – break it open and you find that the vision of the human person in John Paul’s ‘catechesis on human love’ is actually a golden thread through all his teachings and is therefore inherent in all Catholic truth. Of course, since his canonisation, I feel that I have a heavenly protector and someone whom I can turn to for intercession and heavenly support for what we are trying to achieve. I would have to say that he is the biggest single human inspiration in my life and the legacy of his catechesis and teaching, which I think is still only beginning to be appreciated now. More importantly, he has taught me, or should I say reminded me of that which my mother first taught me, that a closeness and intimacy with the Blessed Virgin in all things – marriage, family, work, relationships and worship – is where I try to anchor all my personal and professional aspirations, trusting that she will always guide me best in what to do. After all, given my birthday falls on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, how can I not try to put the Virgin Mary’s will before my own!

Successful Priest Training Conference

Retreat Day ‘Exploring the Traditional Mass’ Shrine Church of St Walburge Preston PR2 2QE Saturday 11 June 2016 beginning with Mass at 10.30am

© Joseph Shaw

Retreat on the theology and spirituality of the Traditional Mass, preached by the priests of the Institute of Christ the King.

A very successful and rewarding ‘Priest, Deacon and Server Training Conference’ was held at Prior Park, Bath, from Monday 4th to Thursday 7th April (Low Week). This was the 12th such training conference hosted by the Latin Mass Society. During the week, tuition was given by experienced priests and laymen in how to celebrate or serve at various forms of the Traditional Mass, according to the requirements of each student. Masses were celebrated daily in the chapel at Prior Park College.

This day-long retreat is free of charge, but please contact preston@icrsp.org to sign up.

www.stwalburge.org

21

ART & DEVOTION

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

Guided to Heaven by the Spouse of the Spirit ‘Pentecost’ by Jean II Restout Caroline Shaw

‘Pentecost’ by Jean II Restout (1692-1768), oil on canvas, Musée du Louvre, 1732.

M

ay is so full of important feasts that it was difficult to select a single subject for this issue. I have chosen a work by the French 18th century artist Jean II Restout because, in its exploration of Our Lady’s intimate union with the Holy Spirit, it forms a direct link with the subjects of the previous two paintings that we have looked at – the Immaculate Conception and the Annunciation.

In this image, Our Lady stands at the centre of the group of Apostles and women gathered in the Upper Room on the day of Pentecost. In addition to a cloak in her traditional blue, she and several of the Apostles are wearing red, the liturgical colour of this great feast. The sky is full of bright light and clouds of smoke, and we see tongues of fire falling from Heaven and resting over the heads of the men and women who form the primitive nucleus of the Church.

Each of the figures reacts differently to the great sound from Heaven, the rushing mighty wind, the flames pouring from the sky, and to what must have been an overwhelming sensation of grace, joy and holy awe. Some cower in fear, or turn violently as if to escape the fire directed towards them. Others bow their

22

heads in solemn prayer, or gaze upwards in wonder. One of the Apostles falls to his knees and sinks his head to the ground in silent adoration. The reactions, so different and so dramatic, remind us that to some of the onlookers, it seemed as though the Apostles had been drinking new wine.

To the left of Our Lady stands St Peter, bearded and carrying a long staff. He holds his hands together in prayer and looks Heavenward. This is perhaps the defining moment of his life.

He accepts with great reverence the marvellous gift of the Holy Spirit, for it is the divine grace that will transform him from the all-too-human Peter, afraid to admit his identity to a serving-girl in a courtyard before an early morning fire, into the first pope, the head of the Church that is being incarnated before his eyes. When the Apostles begin to speak, it is Peter who addresses the multitude of Jews from every nation on earth, proclaiming clearly, powerfully and fearlessly the news of Our Lord’s death and resurrection.

In the centre, Our Lady stands calm, serene and still. She gazes up to Heaven with an expression of prayerful joy, an interior ecstasy marked by deep peace, for she has known

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

ART & DEVOTION

the Holy Spirit from the beginning, and has desired all her life only to do His will. At the moment of her Immaculate Conception, Mary was not only preserved from all sin, she was also united to, and perfectly possessed by the Holy Ghost. At the Annunciation, the Holy Spirit overshadowed her and Our Lord was incarnated in her womb. Now, again by the power of the Holy Spirit, Our Lady witnesses the birth of the Church, the mystical body of Christ. It is this moment that we see represented so magnificently by Jean II Restout.

Restout is an interesting artist. Born in Rouen into a family of painters, he moved to Paris in 1707 and was admitted to the Académie in 1720, eventually becoming its Director. This painting was completed during the period in which France embraced Rococo, the light, frothy style so beloved of King Louis XV, Mme de Pompadour and their pleasure-loving courtiers. Rococo was a deliberate break with the Counter-Reformation: nobody wanted to see dramatic Baroque works full of religious fervor any more.

In fact, very few religious works were painted at this time, and those that were, tended towards the erotic: a beautiful semi-naked Susanna at the Bath might perhaps have been acceptable, though she would need to be painted more as a Venus or Diana than as a devout Hebrew wife. The fashion for the pagan over the Christian was well-attested; indeed, one art critic of the time went so far as to claim that, while contemporary art lovers could easily be moved to tears by an image of the Sacrifice of Iphigenia, they would remain dry-eyed before a painting showing the Martyrdom of St Andrew. This preference for the pagan gathered pace in

France throughout the century, with consequences that are only too well-known.

Restout, in dogged opposition to the trends of the day, painted all his life in the Baroque style, and was known principally for his religious works. Fortunately it did not stop him from rising to the top of his profession, but he was little imitated and is seen by art historians as an isolated figure in the history of French art. This vast painting of Pentecost was commissioned for the refectory of the Abbey of Saint-Denis outside Paris. Less than 50 years later, during the French Revolution, the ancient Abbey was dissolved and the painting was seized and cut down from its original size.

The canvas Restout painted was even wider and taller than it is today, with an arched top section in which the Holy Spirit descends as a dove, radiating the golden shafts of light and fire that stream down upon the Apostles. It was later transferred to the Louvre, where it hangs today.

In placing Our Lady in the middle of his vast composition, Restout was following a long tradition. From the Middle Ages onwards, Our Lady has almost always been placed by artists at the centre of any image of Pentecost, for it was she who had initiated the Apostles’ novena of continuous prayer, she who sustained them in the aftermath of the Ascension and she who would guide them in the early days of the Church. This painting reminds us that it is Our Lady who, as Mother of the Church, leads us, in union with the Holy Spirit, towards Heaven. As St Thomas Aquinas beautifully puts it, “as mariners are guided into port by the shining of a star, so are Christians guided to Heaven by Mary.”

Juventutem Reading Stephanie Maria Hogan

followed by a social at John Fisher House. The socials usually include having a home-cooked meal (thanks to Annie Grimer and Alex Smith), hearing a short talk by Fr Verrier, playing board games and ending with prayer in the chapel. The socials have been really fun and entertaining – Fr Verrier acting as the Godfather whilst playing Mafia de Cuba has to be one of the highlights!

Although I graduate from Reading this summer, I am confident that the Juventutem group will continue to be successful and numbers will grow due to the amazing people that help run the events each month. I hope Juventutem Reading continues to provide a means of meeting other young Catholics and sharing of our faith, but also acts to draw young people who may never have experienced the Old Mass to its beauty.

© John Aron

J

uventutem Reading is now up and running again, with young people from the Reading and Oxford areas meeting monthly to pray, share their faith and have fun. I set out to establish a Juventutem group to provide a platform for young Traditional Catholics in the area to meet on a regular basis and as a way of giving back to the parish which, through the Old Mass, has truly deepened and strengthened my love for God and my faith.

When I attended Mass in the Extraordinary Form for the first time at the beginning of my time at Reading University, I witnessed the immense love and respect for Our Lord through the reverent actions of the priest. I continued to attend the Old Mass at St William’s, learning more about its history. In May 2015, I joined the British Juventutem chapter on the pilgrimage to Chartres. Meeting a number of wonderful young Catholics from all over Britain, who not only share the gift of our Catholic faith, but who are also devoted to the Old Mass was inspiring and was the driving force for setting up a Juventutem group in Reading.

With the help of Fr Verrier as our chaplain, George Steven and Alex Smith, we were able to re-establish Juventutem Reading. We had our first social in October last year and have since met up each month, with around eight to 10 young people attending each month. In most cases, we meet on the last Thursday of every month starting with Mass, Holy Hour and

23

YEAR PLANNER

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

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

There will be daily Rosary, Sung or High Mass in the Traditional Rite, and Sung Compline at the end of each day.

The Summer School also includes lessons in Catholic History, English Literature and a number of other subjects taught from a Catholic perspective. There is no fixed fee, but parents and guardians are invited to pay what they can afford.

Monday, 25 July - Saturday, 30 July 2016 LMS Residential Latin Course This will be the 6th Residential Latin Course organised by the LMS and we are returning to last year’s venue, The Franciscan Retreat Centre, Monastery Road, Pantasaph, Holywell, Flintshire, North Wales CH8 8PE. The course is intensive, over six days, with accommodation close by in the St Winifrede’s Guest House in Holywell. The Latinists will be able to attend the daily Missa Cantata and sung Compline which are part of the St Catherine’s Trust Summer School, which will be running simultaneously to the Latin course in another part of the Retreat Centre.

© Joseph Shaw

Saturday, 21 May 2016 Training Day for Altar Servers Men and boys wishing to learn to serve Low Mass are invited to attend our training day, at the church of Our Lady of the Assumption & St Gregory, Warwick Street, London W1B 5LZ. The day starts at 11am and should finish at about 3pm, with a short break for lunch – please bring your own food; drinks will be provided. There is no charge but please let the LMS Office know of your intention to participate.

Sunday, 3 July 2016 LMS Pilgrimage to Holywell Our annual pilgrimage to Holywell will take place on Sunday, 3 July. High Mass will be celebrated in St Winefride’s Church, Well Street at 2.30pm, the celebrant will be Canon Scott Tanner, ICKSP. This will be followed by a rosary procession to St Winefride’s Well, where there will be devotions and veneration of the relic.

Saturday, 16 July 2016 LMS Day of Recollection Mgr Gordon Read will lead our annual Day of Recollection at St Edmund’s College, Ware. The day will include Spiritual Conferences, High Mass, Vespers, Veneration of the relic of St Edmund, Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Solemn Benediction.

Sunday, 24 July - Sunday, 31 July 2016 St Catherine’s Trust Summer School The 2016 Summer School, for boys and girls aged from 11 to 18, at the Franciscan Retreat Centre in Pantasaph, North Wales.

24

© Joseph Shaw

Saturday, 9 July 2016 LMS Annual General Meeting and High Mass The AGM will take place in Westminster Cathedral Hall, Ambrosden Avenue, London. The speaker will be Archbishop Thomas Gullickson, Apostolic Nuncio to Switzerland and Liechtenstein. This will be followed by High Mass in Westminster Cathedral at 2.00pm, which is to be offered for the good estate of Her Majesty the Queen, on the occasion of her 90th Birthday. All are welcome to attend the Mass.

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.

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.

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

NOTICES

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, now Marble Arch. Starting at 1.00pm, the Walk will end with Low Mass in Tyburn Convent at 3.00pm.

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.

OA

D A LTA

R DE

I

INT

IB

E

RO

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.

Traditional Priests’ Support Trust HMRC charitable status ref XR87762

© Dylan Parry

‘I only say the Latin Traditional Mass and could not say any other.’

Fr B – one traditional priest speaking for all

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.

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.

Please remember the faithful priests of Our Divine Lord with a donation, standing order or even a modest legacy in your will.

Since 2005 we have offered regular funding, in confidence, to individual priests resident in the UK, who are in need because they adhere to the traditional doctrine and liturgy of the Church and celebrate the Old Rite Mass exclusively.

13 Gladstone Road Headington Oxford OX3 8LL

www.traditional-priests.org.uk

25

discovering tradition

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

The Latin Mass Comes to Bedford

St Margaret Clitherow led me to the Old Mass Barbara Kay

I

believe it was St Margaret Clitherow who led me to the Latin Mass, the Mass for which she herself died a cruel death in 1586. Like me, she was a convert from Anglicanism, a happily married woman who had three children and was a catechist. Whilst finding out more about her on the internet, I came across a pilgrimage to York organised by the Latin Mass Society, and my husband and I decided to take part. This begun with High Mass at St Wilfrid’s (what a wonderful introduction to the Old Rite), we then processed past St Margaret Clitherow’s house in the Shambles and to the spot where she had been martyred on Ouse Bridge, before returning to St Wilfrid’s for Benediction. This was in 2014. In 2015, we went on this pilgrimage again.

We became more and more interested in the Latin Mass and acquired the red booklets and subsequently full missals, which we used at home in our morning and evening prayers.

There was, however, no regular Sunday Latin Mass near us; the only one nearest to us was over 50 miles away at Chesham Bois in Buckinghamshire.

We started following the Latin Mass Society website and completely out of the blue in August 2015, a heading appeared in the ‘Around the Country’ section entitled ‘Bedford Latin Mass’ with an announcement that a Low Mass would be said at our church, Christ the King, at 8.30am every Sunday from 16 August. We soon became regular attendees at this Mass.

We were already involved in our church’s Ordinary Form Mass at 10.00am as bell-ringer, reader and catechist, and so we ended up staying on for this Mass as well. In between the two Masses, over coffee in the church hall, we made a number of new friends who are deeply committed to the Latin Mass, some of whom travel considerable distances to attend the one at Bedford.

Christ the King is a wonderful venue for the Latin Mass. Our parish priest, Fr Patrick Hutton, has been most welcoming and supportive. Built in 1960, the church has a traditional layout with a nave and a sanctuary with two steps. Unfortunately, the original altar rails were removed about 20 years ago, but the benches are not fixed. The front ones on either side are moved forward at the Latin Mass to provide a place to kneel and moved back again for the Ordinary Form Mass.

26

Through attending the Latin Mass and reading more about it, I am gradually taking on the characteristics of the Traditional Catholic; I, along with my husband, have joined the Latin Mass Society, I have invested in a black mantilla, I have learnt the meaning, amongst many other terms, of ‘biretta’, ‘maniple’, ‘secret’, ‘tract’ and ‘ember days’. I have come to appreciate and love the silence at this Mass. Lent this year has been a more meaningful experience than ever before, moving into it gradually via Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima, rather than just plunging straight from a Sunday in Ordinary Time into Lent on Ash Wednesday. It is sad that most of this was lost after Vatican II. When I went to my first Latin Mass in York in 2014, I never thought that the Old Rite would come to Bedford. It is proving to be a blessing and inspiration and I hope and pray that it will continue and grow in times to come.

No saint of mine has come into your life except by my design and by my will to speak to you, comfort you, and instruct you through each one. Attend, then, to the saints whom I have charged with a mission in your life. They are more attentive to you than you can ever be to them, and this because they are perfected in charity and united to my Heart in the glory of paradise. There are saints whom I have sent into your life as my emissaries, like the trusted brethren sent by the merciful abbot to comfort the wavering brother lest he fall into too great a sorrow. From In Sinu Iesu, The Journal of a Priest.

Please pray for the souls of all members who have died recently Requiescant in Pace Andrew Broel-Plater Thomas Carty Ann Caudle Rita Cuskelly Magdalen Goffin Peter Hammond Elizabeth Howard Robert Massey Michael Sweeney Michael Telford Douglas Wilmer 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.

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY

DIOCESAN DIGEST Mass of Ages quarterly round-up

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

I

Around 40 people attended the first High Mass at St Augustine’s since 1939 in October (when Archbishop Williams celebrated Mass for the 100th anniversary of the church).

We attempted to celebrate another one in February, but unfortunately we had to reduce it to a Missa Cantata for lack of a sub-deacon. The next is planned for June to coincide with the Feast of the Sacred Heart. The regular Mass has moved from the last Friday of the month to the first Friday to accommodate this.

The Mass of the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday at the Oratory was celebrated in the Extraordinary Form along with Tenebrae on Spy Wednesday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, with the regular Sunday High Mass being celebrated for Easter Sunday itself.

At Our Lady of Perpetual Succour in Wolverhampton, Fr George Grynowski celebrated an Easter Sunday low Mass at 8am, and a High Mass on the Feast of the Annunciation at 7.30pm, with a homily being given by Fr Douglas Lamb from neighbouring Kidderminster.

History is Made at the Birmingham Oratory On Sunday 10 January a wonderful event took place at the Birmingham Oratory; the Metropolitan Archbishop sang Pontifical Mass at the throne and bestowed the customary indulgence. This was the first Mass of its kind in England since the Second Vatican Council. The context was a pastoral visitation of the parish cared for by the Oratory Fathers in Birmingham. The Extraordinary Form of Mass plays an important part in the liturgical life of the parish where it is celebrated daily. The Oratory is also the only place in England that has weekly High Mass on Sundays as the principal Mass. Archbishop Bernard Longley took great care in the celebration of the High Mass which was enhanced by his fine singing voice. The Archbishop wore the ring of Bishop Ullathorne; one of his predecessors, over his white gloves. The choir sang the Missa Papa Marcelli

by Palestrina; highly fitting for an event as the composer was a close associate of St Philip Neri; the founder of the Oratory. Our thanks to His Grace for so kindly offering to preside at this event. Please note that Solemn High Mass is offered every Sunday at the Oratory at 10.30am, to the accompaniment of fine music, please come along and support it.

A Member of the Birmingham Oratory Community

Photos: Birmingham Oratory/Facebook

t has been a breathtaking half-year for the Extraordinary Form in the Birmingham area. The Birmingham Oratory was the location of not one, but two Pontifical High Masses, one of which was presided over by Archbishop Bernard Longley as part of his visitation (see separate article), and the other presided over by Oratorian Bishop Robert Byrne on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. A daily Extraordinary Form Mass was said as part of a Novena in advance of this feast and there has been a daily Low Mass at 5.45pm on weekdays since, with Confessions available, as part of the Year of Mercy.

Our regular Mass centres at the Oratory, St Augustine’s in Solihull and the Maryvale chapel have all been designated places of pilgrimage or Jubilee churches for the Year of Mercy – a good excuse to attend one of the Extraordinary Form Masses available there.

CLARIFICATION: We would like to apologise for the fact that due to an editorial oversight, Louis Maciel’s report did not appear in the last issue of Mass of Ages.

27

REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY Arundel and Brighton Annie Mackie-Savage 01323 411370 amacsav@sky.com www.arundelbrightonlatinmasssociety.blogspot.co.uk

W

e continue to be in a state of flux with regard to some of our regular Masses here in Arundel and Brighton, with Seaford continuing to be on hold and Eastbourne still pending. At Bethany Chapel, Fr Michael Clifton is generously providing Masses, and at West Grinstead the occasional Missa Cantata is being sung thanks to Tom Haggar’s schola and Fr Hurley. I hope to be able to put firm dates and times for any pending Masses on the blog and in the listings as soon as they are available. Other Masses remain unchanged.

Birmingham (Staffordshire North) Alan Frost 01270 768144 alan.jfrost@btinternet.com www.north-staffs-lms.blogspot.co.uk

N

orth Staffordshire is in a period of stasis at this time. Our Lady of the Assumption church in the village of Swynnerton near Stone continues to be the focus for Sunday Masses, though we can report a few new faces at the Saturday and Sunday Masses.

Numbers continue to be stable if low at the First Friday Masses offered by Fr Anthony Dykes at St Wulstan’s church near Newcastle. The pattern of fortnightly Low Masses on Saturday morning at Swynnerton continues, but from May 7, 21, etc., as opposed to the original two weeks from 14 May. Birmingham (Oxford) Dr Joseph Shaw 01993 812874 joseph.shaw@philosophy.ox.ac.uk www.oxfordlmsrep.blogspot.co.uk

P

lanning this quarter has been more difficult than usual, but supporters should note in the Mass Listings the many opportunities to attend the Traditional Holy Days in and around Oxford in the Extraordinary Form.

The big event of the period will be Pontifical High Mass celebrated by Bishop Robert Byrne in Holy Trinity, Hethe (Hardwick Road, OX27 8AW), on Trinity Sunday 22 May. This, of course, is the church’s patronal feast.

The Mass will be accompanied with polyphony provided

by Matthew Schellhorn and Cantus Magnus. Mass is at 12 noon and is followed by substantial refreshments for all.

This beautiful church is in the village of Hethe outside Bicester.

It is close to Oxford and accessible from Banbury, Buckingham, Milton Keynes and so on.

28

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016 I recently had a great phone call from a lady who rang to tell me how Masses in Surrey were going, and how delighted folks are there to have Fr Sean Finnegan saying a Mass midweek. It was lovely to hear something so positive and happy! Often being a rep can be quite dismal; only getting to hear or experience the more negative aspects can be quite dispiriting, so putting the phone down after such a heartening call was quite a treat.

Thank you so much for your upbeat and encouraging chat. If anyone has anything or anyone they would like to positively affirm, I’m here for the happy stuff too, so don’t be shy.

Please check the blog for updates of Masses, and regular Masses are found on the sidebar. Thank you all for your support.

Again I would like to thank Fr Sean and all the priests who give so generously of their time to provide Latin Masses throughout the Diocese, your hard work is very much appreciated.

Birmingham (Worcester) Margaret Parffrey 01386 750421

T

he Mass centre at St John’s, Spetchley, continues to grow, directed by Fr Talbot, with our regular Mass on Sunday at 10.45am, supported every fourth Sunday by the Scola Gregoriana Malverniensis directed by Alistair Tocher. Our poor, staved souls have not heard Mass with music like this for a long time.

In February, we had a well attended Missa Cantata for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, wonderfully served by two small boys, three adults and priest. The hymn at the end, Attende Domine, was joyously sung by all and it was my first hearing of this lovely prayer. Last month we had a full sung Requiem Mass.

We had a sung Palm Sunday Mass followed by Easter Mass sung by Fr Talbot with Mr S Quick acting as the MC. At Easter, we see many of the exotic vestments handed down through the Berkley family, who allow us the use of their beautiful chapel. Since singing at our own chapel, there has been an increase in interest in the choir with four new recruits.

Our thanks to Alistair Tocher and his choir especially over the Easter period.

Finally, another grace in Tim Lewis, father of our three altar boys went to the training course for servers at Bath in April.

Notices: Trinity Sunday Sung Mass, 22 May at 10.45am, followed on 29 May with a Mass of Corpus Christi 10.45am.

Please note there was a mistake in the last set of Mass Listings as Mass at Redditch is on the second Tuesday of the month at 6.00pm (not Monday). This is said by Fr Gyronowski. Fr Christopher at Evesham continues to celebrate Mass every Tuesday at 7.00pm, faithfully served by P Hatton. Our prayers and thanks to all priests that make this possible.

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

O

ur annual LMS pilgrimage to Glastonbury will take place on Saturday 10 September at 11.00am. Weather permitting, we will be holding the Mass in the Lady

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016 Chapel in the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey. Entrance to the Abbey will be free for pilgrims. Last year the weather was somewhat inclement but the rain did just about hold off long enough for the Lady Chapel to be used. We will be praying for a better day this year so that we can fully enjoy the unique atmosphere in this historic place of worship. There is a walkway above the Lady Chapel and it was lovely, last year, to hear the wonderful singing rising up from the chapel below and many tourists paused to stay awhile and listen. After the Mass, we are hoping to have a Rosary procession round the grounds. In the event of rain the venue for the Mass will be at Our Lady of Glastonbury church. For lunch, pilgrims can either picnic in the Abbey grounds or go across to the church hall to eat. After lunch there will be Benediction in the church.

The celebrant will be Fr Philip Thomas and Fr Alex Redman will be preaching. We hope that many of you will be able to come along and join us on this special day.

East Anglia Alisa and Gregor Kunitz-Dick

W

e have recently been appointed Assistant Representatives with responsibility for the western part of East Anglia. Celebrations of the Traditional Mass in this part of the Diocese are primarily in Cambridge, where, through the continuing generosity of the Dominicans at Blackfriars, Mass is celebrated every Sunday morning according to the Traditional Dominican Rite. On average, 50 to 60 people attend. This is usually Low Mass, but it is occasionally sung. With a larger pool of servers and choir members, it is hoped that this would be the case more often, and training in the peculiarities of serving the Dominican Rite would be provided gladly.

Also in Cambridge, in term, the daily Mass on Saturdays at the university chaplaincy, Fisher House, is said or sung by the chaplain in the Old Rite.

In Peterborough there are at present no scheduled Traditional Masses. There have been in the past, and we would be interested to hear whether there is a will to pursue this once more.

There are no Holy Day of Obligation Masses on this side of the Diocese where the days do not coincide with a regularly scheduled Mass. (But on the eastern side, it is not unusual for a Traditional Mass to be said in the Cathedral.) A practicable remedy for this situation eludes us, but suggestions are welcome.

Lastly, in King’s Lynn, Solemn Mass will be celebrated on the evening of 31 May for the feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin. Details of this and of the other Masses mentioned are set out in the Mass Listings. At the time of writing there was no representative for the eastern part of the Diocese, but we believe that listings for there are nonetheless accurate.

If you wish to contact us, please write to alisarkd@gmail.com or igregord@gmail.com.

DIOCESAN DIGEST

In February at St Mary’s church, Hexham, for the 300th anniversary of the execution of James Radcliffe, third Earl of Derwentwater, a Solemn Requiem Mass was held. Fr Brown as celebrant, with Fr Philips and Fr Rowe as deacon and subdeacon. The Mass was strongly attended with a turnout of 7080 people, with several members of the Northern Jacobites attending. Dr Leo Gooch gave a summary of the life of James Radcliffe before the Mass. We would like to express our thanks to Fr Warren for hosting the event.

The Feast of St Joseph saw yet another Solemn High Mass within the Diocese. The serving team was provided by St Joseph’s church, Gateshead, and the music by the Rudgate singers. With Fr Brown as celebrant, Fr Philips as deacon and Fr Rowe as sub-deacon. As there was a strong turnout, it is hoped that this becomes an annual event alongside the Brinkburn Mass within the Diocese.

Another Solemn High Mass is planned for the Feast of Corpus Christi later this year (26 May). It is our hope that events like these continue to grow and flourish in the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle. We would like to express thanks to all those who make these events possible, not just for those who prepare and serve in the Mass but for those who attend.

We are continuing our efforts to put together a regular training program for servers and those wishing to learn to serve in Hexham and Newcastle. We will announce more information as it develops on the blog. We are also looking towards establishing another annual Solemn High Mass within the Diocese. More information on this will appear on our blog should things develop past the initial planning stages.

Hexham and Newcastle Andrew and Jayne Armstrong www.lmshn.blogspot.co.uk

I

would like to express my apologies first for the lack of a report in the last Mass of Ages, there had been a mix up and I had submitted the wrong report. Since our last report there have been several Traditional events within the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle.

29

LMS REPS’ REPORTS

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

Lancaster Bob and Jane Latin 01524 412987 lancasterlms@gmail.com www.latinmasslancaster.blogspot.co.uk

Photos: Diocese of Lancaster

T

at 7.00pm and on Sunday 17 July at 10.30am a Pontifical Low Mass will be celebrated by Bishop Campbell.

Thanks to the continuing support of Mr John Strickland and family at Sizergh Castle, there will once again be Extraordinary Form Masses there this summer. These will be on Friday 17 June and Friday 15 July, both at 7.00pm, and will be celebrated

by Frs Simon Henry and Adrian Towers. We also hope to be able to find a priest to offer another Mass in September.

© Ian Knox/Wikimedia

he numbers at the monthly Mass at St Mary’s, Hornby have started to pick up again as the weather improves and people get used to it being back in its former location, and we hope this trend will continue.

In March a congregation of some 25 people gathered at St Bernadette’s, Bispham, for a Mass for Bill Rodway RIP, celebrated by Canon Luiz Ruscillo, who used to be parish priest there. Some parishioners were present but most of the congregation were from Lytham St Annes Catenians circle of which Bill was a member.

Due to poor health, Canon Watson has left Our Lady and St Joseph, Carlisle and is now chaplain at Boarbank Hall, near Grange over Sands. Fr Millar continues to offer the regular Sunday evening Mass at Carlisle but there may be times when it has to be cancelled and it is advisory to check before travelling from any distance. In the forthcoming period there will be a Missa Cantata for Corpus Christi on Thursday 26 May at 7.00pm.

At St Walburge’s, Preston, the first part of a major restoration project has been completed and in February Bishop Michael Campbell blessed the new day chapel created from a dilapidated flower room. On that same occasion Bishop Campbell met with Bishop Athanasius Schneider, who was visiting the shrine during his tour of the country.

There will be a High Mass with music by visiting St Philip Neri Choir for the patronal feast of St Walburge on Sunday 1 May at 10.30am, followed by a garden party. From 20 to 22 May, there will be a Gregorian chant workshop for men over 18 according to the method of Solesmes. Fees including lodging and meals are £70. Please contact the shrine to book: email chn.v.poucindewouilt@icrsp.org. There will be a Sung Mass and Procession for Corpus Christi on Thursday 26 May

Photos: Diocese of Lancaster

Finally, we have to report that after much thought and review of our ongoing commitments we have decided to stand down as Local Representatives at the end of this year. We first took on the role as an interim measure to keep things going in an emergency situation when the previous representative left at short notice. It is in the nature of things that the temporary often becomes permanent and someone said to us that with our surname they thought it would be for life! But we feel that it is time to hand over to someone who can give the job the necessary energy and commitment. If you are interested please do contact us or the General Manager, Stephen Moseling.

Many thanks to the HQ staff and our priests for all their help and support during the last three years.

30

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY

Leeds Neil Walker lmsleeds@gmail.com www. lmsleeds.blogspot.co.uk

Northampton (Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire) Eric Friar 01296 482146 erichafriar@gmail.com

N

T

ovember saw our Bishop, the Rt Rev Marcus Stock, preside from the throne at the Solemn High Mass of Requiem for Bishop Wheeler in the Cathedral at Leeds.

We were made extremely welcome by the staff at the Cathedral and are already booked in for next November. After the Mass the Bishop, who declared his desire to learn to offer the Mass himself, requested that I make an appointment to meet him with Fr Wiley, the coordinator for the Extraordinary Form of Mass. This meeting took place after Christmas.

The Bishop agreed that we need to be a part of a regular parish which is easily accessible and which, regardless of clerical moves, will remain as a regular centre where the Mass is offered at least on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. I am now in consultation with the Bishop as to where this might be best facilitated and in time for the September clerical moves. I shall, of course, keep everyone in the loop when I know more.

The Sacred Triduum took place again this year at Notre Dame, the Leeds University Catholic Chaplaincy, thanks to the kindness of Fr Kravos the chaplain and the indefatigable celebrant Fr Michael Hall, whose sharp and incisive preaching was as impressive as ever. We are to mark the traditional feast of Ascension Thursday with another Solemn High Mass.

Menevia Tom & Elaine Sharpling 01239 710411 Tom.sharpling@btinternet.com www.meneviastabatmater.blogspot.co.uk

G

ood news from Menevia! By the kind offer of Fr Paul Brophy, we are pleased to announce that there will be a regular Mass at St Therese’s, Sandfields, Port Talbot, on the second Sunday of each month at 6.00pm. This is a wonderful addition to the regular schedule of Masses offered by Fr Jason Jones at Sacred Heart, Morriston, Swansea.

Also, we have been pleased to see one or two new faces at the Masses and are greatly encouraged when people from the parish come along. This most often happens on Holy Days of Obligation when the Extraordinary Form Mass slots naturally into the schedule of Masses for the day.

On Palm Sunday, the Newcastle Emlyn Schola sang a beautiful Missa Cantata, and Fr Jones offered numerous opportunities for Confession before the solemnities of Holy Week.

Looking forward, we are still in need of another server as we are wholly reliant on Corey. He does a magnificent job (as becomes a server trained by the late Richard Collins), but it would be wonderful to have someone else.

Again we are grateful to all of those people who regularly attend the Mass despite travelling considerable distances.

If you would like any details about the Traditional Mass in Menevia, then please mail: tom.sharpling@btinternet.com or visit: www.meneviastabatmater.blogspot.co.uk

he weekly Sunday Mass (8.00am), and Masses on Holy Days of Obligation continue at Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, under the care of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter. The monthly third Friday Mass at St Francis of Assisi, Shefford (7.30pm) continues thanks to Canon Bennie Noonan and Fr Gerard Byrne. The weekly Sunday Mass at Christ the King church in Bedford, which started last August, has continued uninterrupted, with healthy congregation numbers.

Many thanks to Justin Bozzino and the Di Falco and Grimer families for all their support in serving and singing at our Masses.

Northampton (North Northamptonshire, including Nottingham Diocese: Leicestershire and Rutland) Paul Beardsmore 01858 434037 pbeardsmore@btinternet.com www.latinmasslnr.co.uk/

S

unday Masses continue at Holy Cross Priory in Leicester, and these are now sung on the first Sunday of each month.

There has been a pleasing increase in the numbers attending this Mass in recent weeks, with more than 70 present for the sung Mass on Easter Sunday. Sung Masses were also celebrated at Holy Cross on Ash Wednesday and for the Feast of the Annunciation, and at St Peter’s in Leicester for the Purification and the Feast of St Joseph.

Low Masses continue on a daily basis at Holy Cross, on Saturday mornings and first Friday evenings at St Peter’s, on Friday evenings at St Joseph’s, Oakham, and on an occasional basis at St Mary, Loughborough.

Requiem Mass for a deceased member, Robert Moore, was celebrated by Fr David Rocks OP at Sts Peter and Paul, Earl Shilton, on 10 March. RIP. Fr Byrne continues to celebrate Mass every Saturday morning at St Brendan’s, Corby. Masses were also celebrated there for Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday.

Nottingham (Central) Jeremy Boot 0115 9131592 jeremy.boot2@gmail.com

I

am pleased to report a breakthrough at last for an extra Mass at Our Lady and St Patrick, Launder St, The Meadows, Nottingham on the fourth Sunday of the month as well as the third. Both Masses at 2.00pm. This means that for three out of four weeks, Masses in the Old Rite are available in this area.

Alas, I realise that that still leaves large areas with none, but we can do little about that presently. If anyone in Derby, for example, feels able to approach their priest, I should be most interested to see what response, if any, is forthcoming. Mass now are: Good

31

DIOCESAN DIGEST Shepherd, Thackeray’s Lane, Nottingham NG5 4HT, Saturday before second Sundays, 4.45pm (fulfils the Sunday Obligation).

Our Lady and St Patrick, Meadows, Nottingham NG2 1JQ; third Sundays at 2.00pm; and (from 24 April) also fourth Sundays at 2.00pm. Nottingham Cathedral (Blessed Sacrament chapel): third Wednesdays at 6.15pm.

It seems to take an age to make progress, but at last things have fallen into place. I remind members of the need to attend the Masses. Bare pews are an embarrassment and a disappointment to celebrants who go out of their way to accommodate us. Please do make a great effort, and tell others as well about these Masses.

Portsmouth (Reading) Adrian Dulston www.lmsreading.wordpress.com

A

s in previous years the FSSP gave a full Triduum Liturgy including Tenebrae. Despite its length, the more one stayed the more grace came. Fr Verrier’s fine voice was a welcome addition. Thanks to the St William of York choir for the effort which goes into this sombre and demanding, but thoroughly rewarding, liturgy.

I think it is fair to say that Fr Goddard and Fr Verrier are now established into a certain routine since the departure of Fr de Malleray to Warrington. May I once again remind you to look the FSSP Mass times up on www.facebook.com/ fssp.england – scroll down for Reading Mass times. Keep in mind up and coming feast days, such as: Sunday 15 May, Whit Sunday (Pentecost); Sunday 22 May, Trinity Sunday; Thursday 26 May, Corpus Christi; Wednesday 29 June, Sts Peter and Paul; Saturday 6 August, Transfiguration; Monday 15 August, Assumption of the BVM. On Sundays, do take advantage to experience a small parish situation at Reading including tea and coffee where, perhaps, you may get me and my wife serving you! If you would like to be on the list to receive Mass times at Reading via email, then please contact Fr Goddard.

The FSSP are running boys’ and girls’ retreats in the summer, so please look this up on their Facebook page. For those in the vicinity of Didcot, there is now a regular Wednesday evening 7.30pm Latin Mass at English Martyrs Catholic church offered

by Fr Philip Pennington Harris, although there are changes and additions so please refer to the blog to keep up to date www.lmsreading.wordpress.com

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016 to all our priest friends who support us so generously.

We could do with more servers, especially young ones! We struggle sometimes to supply each week, but our devoted older generation soldier on manfully.

Southwark (Thanet and East Kent) Antonia Robinson

I

t has been a remarkably busy time in terms of the Traditional Liturgy in Holy Thanet since the last issue of Mass of Ages.

On 23 February, Bishop Athanasius Schneider visited the shrine church of St Augustine to celebrate a Pontifical High Mass, which commemorated the 1400th Anniversary of the death of St Ethelbert: a great feast for England. The Victoria Consort, under the direction of Tom Neal sang Mass for Five Voices by William Byrd. In a characteristically gripping homily, Bishop Schneider spoke of the courageous public witness of countless Christians from King Ethelbert and other English monarchs through to the Mexican martyrs of the 1920s. The full text can be read at www. augustineshrine.co.uk/?p=1850

Southwark (Kent) Marygold Turner 01580 291372

32

© Marie Muscat-King

W

e have continued with our weekly Masses on Sunday mornings in the four different parishes we cover. The Epiphany Mass at Headcorn was very special, with a Sung Mass and organist, who managed to ring out Widor’s Toccata on the very modest little organ, with great success!

Fr Andrew Southwell has just been to stay, and celebrated a beautiful Mass in my house: a great privilege. Mgr Conlon will be celebrating our Ascension Mass and Fr Whinder on Corpus Christi – such grateful thanks

For several years Fr Marcus Holden in Ramsgate has managed to have all Holy Week services celebrated in the 1962 Extraordinary Form at St Augustine’s. This year, the office of Tenebrae was added to the Holy Week schedule on Spy Wednesday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. All the Holy Week and Easter liturgies were very well attended. Fr Francesco Giordano from Rome celebrated the liturgies of Holy Week and Easter and sublime music was sung by the Victoria Consort. Music included Giacobetti’s Responsories and Asola’s Christus Factus Est for Tenebrae; The Passion according to John by Anerio, Reproaches by Victoria, O Crux Fidelis

by Gabrieli, and Salvator Mundi by Tallis on Good Friday; and Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus and Anerio’s Missa In Te Domine Speravi at the Easter Vigil.

A few miles up the coast, Margate’s parish of Sts Austin and Gregory also enjoyed some excellent liturgy and many reasons to thank God. Sexuagesima marked one liturgical year since the Missa Cantata was introduced in Margate, and was all the more remarkable as it was celebrated by Fr Timothy Finigan, whom we are pleased to report is looking marvellously healthy after serious heart surgery on 31 December: Deo gratias! Sung Masses on Sundays and feast days have continued at Sts Austin and Gregory as well as Low Mass on Monday evenings. On Palm Sunday, Solemn High Mass was celebrated by Fr Finigan with Rev Lawrence Hemming as deacon and Fr Bernard McNally as sub-deacon and included solemn distribution of palms

© Marie Muscat-King

REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY

and outdoor procession around the glorious parish gardens.

A Missa Cantata was celebrated on Maundy Thursday with procession of the Blessed Sacrament to the Altar of Repose, Sung Vespers and solemn stripping of the altars. The parish schola’s repertoire has increased to include Masses XVII and XVIII for Lent and Mass 1 (Lux et Orgo) for Eastertide. Music on Easter Sunday also included Victimae Paschali Laudes; Concordi Laetitia; and O Filii et Filiae. The congregation has gained confidence and joins in with the hymns. Attendance is healthy and growing and the traditional Mass is becoming a normal integrated part of parish life.

© Mulier Fortis

© Marie Muscat-King

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

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

© Mulier Fortis

S

unday Masses continue to be said regularly by Fr Michael Cullinan with support when necessary from recently ordained Fr Paul Gillham and, at very short notice, Fr David Irwin.

Despite one of our regular team of servers moving away from the Diocese we now have more servers volunteering than we have Masses for. Also two young members of the congregation are making their First Communions shortly.

Attendances remain steady and increased over Passiontide.

The new Latin Mass Society Mass books are proving popular.

33

DIOCESAN DIGEST

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

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

I

n a Pastoral Letter read out in churches of the Diocese on Low Sunday, Bishop Brignall communicated the implications of the review I referred to in earlier reports to Mass of Ages.

The letter – which can be read at www. lmswrexham.weebly.com – announces several church closures, parish amalgamations and revision of Mass times across North Wales.

Your representative feels that delivery of the plan will be almost as difficult as doing nothing and keeping the status quo, which is simply not an option. It is still not clear on the ramifications for the Traditional Mass provision. I have already contacted the Bishop to request that he factor in the Extraordinary Form into the plans and whilst the announced merger of Mold and Buckley parishes does pose further questions be assured that I will continue to seek clarification.

All Masses took place as usual in each month of the quarter.

A particularly high attendance was witnessed for the Easter Sunday Mass at Holywell with the congregation reaching 30.

The LMS was pleased to provide a new biretta (complete with red pom) for each of the two new canons of the Cathedral Chapter, namely Canon Francis Doyle and Canon Simon Treloar at a special Mass on 1 March. Both new canons are very sympathetic to the traditional liturgy.

Mass times for the forthcoming quarter do vary, mainly due to the presence of the Summer School and Latin Course at Pantasaph. Please refer to the Mass Listings and the Wrexham blog (web address below) for details and also see the separate advertisement for the LMS Holywell Pilgrimage on 3 July.

Finally, it is intended to have a Missa Cantata at Wrexham Cathedral on Saturday 15 October to mark the feast of local martyr and LMS patron, St Richard Gwyn – this will be a joint pilgrimage in association with the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest.

34

LMS Member Celebrates 90th Birthday

T

his image was taken on Saturday 16 April, after the 12 noon Low Mass in the Extraordinary Form at the church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street (London). It shows Lady Murton, the widow of the late Lord Murton of Lindisfarne, with Nicolas Ollivant (left) and Fr Mark Elliot Smith (right). Lady Murton was celebrating her 90th birthday on that day – a birthday she shares with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, though he is one year her junior. Lady Murton and her sister were present at the first ever meeting of the LMS. Ad multos annos!

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

MASS LISTINGS

35

MASS LISTINGS

36

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

MASS LISTINGS

37

MASS LISTINGS

38

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

MASS LISTINGS

39

MASS LISTINGS

40

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

MASS LISTINGS

41

ARCHITECTURE

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

The Birmingham Oratory A suitable memorial to Blessed John Henry Newman In the fourth of this series of articles, Paul Waddington takes a look at the Birmingham Oratory and the treasures that can be seen within.

T

he church of the Immaculate Conception, which serves the Oratory community in Birmingham, is not the first Catholic church to be built on the site. It was built between 1907 and 1910 as a memorial to John Henry Newman, as a replacement for an earlier church, which had served as a temporary building since 1853.

John Henry Newman converted to Catholicism in 1845, and was ordained a priest in Rome in 1847. Whilst in Rome, he was introduced to the Oratorian Fathers, and was impressed by their lifestyle. On returning to England, with the encouragement of Bishop Ullathorne, the Apostolic Vicar for the Central District, he decided to establish an Oratorian community in Birmingham. At first, this was located at Maryvale, near to Oscott, but soon moved to a converted gin distillery in Digbeth, in order to be nearer the centre of Birmingham. In 1852, Newman found a permanent home for his community in Edgbaston, where he was able to purchase a site on the Hagley Road. There he built a house for the growing community, together with school buildings and a modest church.

Although Newman had envisaged an impressive church in the Lombardy Romanesque style, he had to be content with a utilitarian building due to lack of funds. The resulting church incorporated the roof of an abandoned factory, and was described as barnlike. Later, John Hungerford Pollen was employed to make various improvements, including the addition of an apsidal sanctuary and a single side aisle. A fine high altar was provided in the new apse, but these alterations did little to alter the barnlike nature of the building, which remained in use till after Newman’s death in 1890.

John Henry Newman, who had been made a cardinal in 1879 by Pope Leo XIII, had made a major impact on English society, particularly through his writings, which were studied

by Catholics and Protestants alike. After his death, there was a feeling that there should be a permanent memorial to the Cardinal, and his Oratorian confrères in Birmingham decided that this should take the form of a larger and grander church.

Their decision may have been influenced by the opening of the new church of the Brompton Oratory in 1884.

The architect selected was the little known Edward Doran Webb of Salisbury. This was an unlikely choice, as all of Webb’s other ecclesiastical output was in the Gothic style, and it was very clear that a classical or Romanesque style was required for Birmingham. Although Webb did build several other Catholic churches, including the church of St Edward in Shaftsbury, the Birmingham Oratory was by far his major work. Not only was Webb required to design a church in an unfamiliar style, but he had to contend with the difficulty of building the new church on the site of the old, whilst keeping one or other open for worship. Also, the positions of existing Oratory house and school severely restricted the site. He coped with this seemingly impossible logistical problem admirably.

42

Because the new church was to be considerably larger than the old one, it was possible to build some parts outside the earlier shell before demolition took place, but because much of the new footprint coincided with the old, it was necessary to demolish parts of the old church piecemeal as the new one progressed. In fact, Webb managed to incorporate into his new structure the chapel of St Philip, which had been added to the old church in 1858.

The church is hardly visible from Hagley Road, one of the main thoroughfares of Birmingham, as its west front is set well back from the street, behind the complex of buildings that is the Oratory House and the former school. One has to pass through a small arch and into a courtyard to get a view of its neat and well-proportioned classical facade. Built from a mellow sandstone, it features tall pilasters with capitals that are essentially Corinthian but with a hint of Ionic. These support an entablature with a triangular pediment above.

There is a prominent hooded window in the centre and three well-arranged doors at ground level. Above the central door is a well-executed carving of two kneeling angels supporting a cardinal’s hat – a reminder that the building is a memorial to Cardinal Newman.

In the western facade, Webb captures the classical idiom very successfully. It is a great pity that this achievement is not visible from the street. To get any overall view of the church, one has to find one’s way around the back to a car park, where the north side can be seen, as can the dome which rises to a height of 120 ft. Viewed from this angle, the building lacks refinement, indicating that Webb was not entirely comfortable working in the classical style. Except for the well-hidden west front, the exterior does little to prepare one for the treasures that lie within.

Once inside, the visitor is treated to a riot of bright colours executed in marble, alabaster and porphyry. Any surfaces where these materials do not occur are treated with mosaics or decorative paintwork with much use of gilt. Although the overall effect is stunning, many find the variety of colours overpowering and wish for more restraint in the decoration.

Nevertheless, the Oratory church is undoubtedly a building of remarkable architectural merit.

The form of the building is that of a basilica. The nave is bounded on each side by colonades supporting a dentilled entablature in the classical style. Outside the columns are side aisles, side altars and confessionals. Beneath the dome is the crossing with very short transepts on either side. At the east end is a spacious apsidal sanctuary. The entablature bears no inscription, except in the sanctuary where the words DOMVS MEA DOMVS ORATIONIS VOCABITVR are written.

The columns are slender and made from single pieces of mottled white marble imported from the Ligurian mountains.

Their capitals, like those of the pilasters on the west front, are

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

Oratory

Photo: Author’s Collection

a combination of Ionic and Corinthian. The barrel vaulted ceiling is perhaps the most striking feature inside the church.

It springs directly from the entablature, its round profile giving the church the appearance of a tunnel. Although this tunnel effect is often criticised for being foreign to the classical tradition, the ceiling is well designed and was beautifully decorated in 1959 by Patrick Feeny of the Hardman Studios. The vaulting is pierced on both sides by large dormer windows, which provide ample natural light for the nave.

The sanctuary is entered by brass gates in the centre of a marble communion rail. The walls of the sanctuary are lined with panels of deep red onyx separated by pillars of richly veined marble. Covering the semi-dome above, is a mosaic depicting the Coronation of Our Lady, flanked on either side by St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist, both patrons of Blessed John Henry Newman. The high altar, which is approached by four white marble steps, dates from 1899 and was transferred from the old church. It is the work of Dunstan Powell, who was the great grandson of both Augustus Welby Pugin and his collaborator, John Hardman. The tabernacle, which resembles the one in the Blessed Sacrament chapel of St Peter’s basilica in Rome, is particularly splendid. Suspended above the high altar is a gilded corona, carved in Rome by Ernesto Sensi.

The shallow transepts house the Lady Altar on the gospel side, and the Sacred Heart altar on the epistle side, above which is the choir gallery. Supported by Romanesque arcading, the choir gallery also houses the four manual organ. Our Lady’s altar and the marble rails that enclose it were a gift of the Feeny family and came from the church of San Andrea della Valle in

Rome. Installed in 1914 by F A Walters, the setting includes a marble niche, and two marble columns which were originally destined for Westminster Cathedral.

Above the crossing is the dome. The mosaics on the pendentives date from 1914 and depict four of the major prophets. Lining the drum are further mosaics, which are difficult to see from ground level.

There are a further six side altars in the side aisles, all of which are decorated with marbles and mosaics, and have their own sanctuary lamps. Approached through a small opening beneath the choir gallery is the larger chapel of St Philip Neri, the founder of the Oratorian movement. This chapel was part of the former church, which Webb managed to incorporate into his new building. The altarpiece, rather more monumental in style than the rest of the church, was the work of Sir George Gilbert Scott. The chapel houses an elaborate gilded cabinet, carved by Ernesto Sensi, which contains numerous relics, including those of several English Martyrs. Besides this chapel, a shrine to St Philip Neri was added to the Oratory church in 1927 in an extension designed by G B Cox. It has its own dome and lantern modelled on the one created by Webb. The altar is in the form of a sarcophagus containing an effigy of the saint.

There are many other features worthy of examination, including the marble pulpit with its wooden tester, the baptismal font and the stations of the cross. Indeed the interior is packed with works of art, making it a very worthy place for the finest liturgical celebrations. It is particularly fitting that a High Mass is celebrated in the usus antiquior every Sunday in the Birmingham Oratory church.

43

ROMAN REPORT

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

The Importance of Being Francis Alberto Carosa

P

ope Francis was elected to the see of Peter on 13 March 2013, and in the homily he delivered the following day, in the first Mass he presided over with all the Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel, he summarised the programme of his pontificate with three simple words: camminare, to walk; edificare, to build; and confessare, to profess the glory of Christ and his cross (in the unofficial translation by Vatican Radio, 14 March 2013).

Dwelling on each of these concepts, he spoke of walking as one’s lifetime journey. “Walking: our life is a journey, and when we stop, there is something wrong,” Francis elaborated, urging to walk always, “in the presence of the Lord, in the light of the Lord, seeking to live with that blamelessness.”

Then he dwelled on the concept of building, saying, “ to build the Church. There is talk of stones: stones have consistency, but [the stones spoken of are] living stones, stones anointed by the Holy Spirit. Build up the Church... the cornerstone of which is the same Lord. With [every] movement in our lives, let us build!”

And last, he explained the concept of professing, “we can walk as much as we want, we can build many things, but if we do not confess Jesus Christ, nothing will avail… When one does not walk, one stalls. When one does not build on solid rock, what happens? What happens is what happens to children on the beach when they make sand castles: everything collapses, it is without consistency.”

If one considers the name chosen by the Pope, after St Francis of Assisi (also known as the Poverello due to his choice of extreme material poverty), of particular interest was the reference to the concept of building, for the fact that it bears a striking similarity to the message from the crucifix in the small church of San Damiano in Assisi, where Jesus told Francis: “Go, Francis, and repair my Church which is in ruins.”

As aptly remarked by Benedict XVI in his general audience on Wednesday 27 January 2010, “At that moment St Francis was called to repair the small church, but the ruinous state of the building was a symbol of the dramatic and disquieting situation of the Church herself.” In other words, “At that time the Church had a superficial faith which did not shape or transform life, a scarcely zealous clergy, and a chilling of love. It was an interior destruction of the Church which also brought a decomposition of unity, with the birth of heretical movements. Yet, there at the centre of the Church in ruins was the Crucified Lord, and he spoke: he called for renewal, he called Francis to the manual labour of repairing the small church of San Damiano, the symbol of a much deeper call to renew Christ’s own Church, with her radicality of faith and her loving enthusiasm for Christ.”

Who can deny that Jesus’ words to St Francis are to a large extent as relevant today as they were at his time? As a matter of fact, perhaps a major challenge Pope Francis has to address is the renewal of the liturgy and related aspects, such as the new evangelisation with an effective ecumenism, and also outreach not only to non-Christian religions, but also to non-believers.

All the more so if we think that Benedict XVI is on record for being convinced, as he contended in his autobiography, that “the ecclesial crisis in which we find ourselves today depends in great part upon the collapse of the liturgy.”

44

But here again St Francis and his religious order have an interesting precedent to offer. Perhaps it’s not so well known, let alone talked about, the crucial role played by the Franciscans in this regard since their inception in the renewed propagation, consolidation and ultimate uniformity of the Roman liturgy and its devotional practices, in Italy and throughout Europe and beyond in perfect compliance with the Roman Pontiff ’s instructions. St Francis and his Franciscans always had a special devotion to the liturgical life, contributing mightily to its maximum development.

The saint himself lived the liturgy and wanted to teach it by example and words to his brothers. All Franciscan devotions have their foundation in the liturgy, up to the point that we can say that Franciscan spirituality is eminently liturgical, based on a liturgy overwhelmingly dominated by and informed to the Christocentric pattern.

No surprise then if the liturgy is central to the life of the Church, as aptly pointed out on a number of occasions by the then Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, a Sri Lankan Cardinal who is the current Archbishop of Colombo. He spoke of lex orandi, lex credendi, but also lex vivendi, in the sense that for a true renewal of the Church, after all called for by both the Council of Trent and the Second Vatican Council, it is more than evident for the liturgy to become a top priority. Hence the importance of the liturgical formation based on the tenet sentire cum Ecclesia (according to the mind of the Church), since priestly life is closely linked to what the priest celebrates and how it celebrates. If a priest celebrates the Eucharist well, he becomes part of Christ’s sacrifice. Therefore the liturgy becomes a fundamental aspect for the formation of holy priests, whose sanctity, needless to say, cannot but positively reverberate on the flock entrusted to them.

In this regard the case of Jean Baptiste Marie Vianney, TOSF (1786-1859), more commonly known as St John Mary Vianney or the Curé d’Ars, could not be more exemplary, all the more so because uncoincidentally he was also a Franciscan tertiary. He became internationally notable for his priestly and pastoral work in his parish in Ars, due to the radical spiritual transformation of the community and its surroundings. As a new priest, he initially experienced the tragic fruits of the French Revolution by celebrating Mass in a virtually deserted church. But, gradually, his apostolate proved so effective and renowned that on 3 October 1874 Bl Pius IX proclaimed him Venerable. On 8 January 1905, St Pius X declared him Blessed and proposed him as a model to the parochial clergy. In 1925, he was canonised by Pius XI, who, in 1929, also made him patron saint of parish priests.

Now, is it possible that Pope Francis is not aware of all this, namely the spiritual treasures of the pre-Vatican II liturgy? No, it’s not possible. Otherwise, why would he have had, as recently as 1 April this year, a personal and cordial meeting with Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Society of St Pius X, who visited him briefly at Domus Sanctae Marthae?

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

LONE VEILER

Comfort Eating versus Comfort Reading (or Watching!)

© Columbia Pictures Industries Inc

The Lone Veiler

O

n my list of minor irritations, sitting in a photo booth attempting to provide an image worthy of her Britannic Majesty’s passport office has to be right up there. It’s a real exercise in humility. All the reassurances in the world that ‘everyone looks awful on their passport’ kind of rings hollow when you look at the other person’s and they’ve even had their eyebrows tinted for the booth experience. So sliding it to one side with the renewal form, I sought solace in food.

There is something exceedingly soothing about watching particular cookery programmes. Being in the kitchen is the best thing for sure, but viewing works too at a pinch. Not that I need, or wish, to plug Mary Berry, but there is something about her that makes me instantly relax. However awful the day has been, one imaginary whiff of chicken casserole is enough to make me instantly feel better, even if we’ve just eaten it for dinner.

As for puddings, it’s a cliché, they work even better. Reading cookery books is also mighty soothing. I even sometimes read cookery columns online. The trouble with those, though, is that there are invariably links to articles politicising my jam making, cake baking, and roasting, which kind of sucks the fun out of it. Whenever I read of the evils of salt, fat, and sugar, and the money made by celebrity chefs who load their own recipes with fat, sugar, and salt while also lobbying for reductions in the same for the general public (but obviously not anyone following those particular celebrity chef recipes), I am inclined to raise both eyebrows and buy double cream.

There is undoubtedly an awful lot of pretty horrible and nutritionally questionable processed food out there, but I don’t think you can pin the blame entirely on muckdonalds, or school dinners for that matter, for every case of bad nutrition. It’s too easy for a start, and lets all the other factors which play a part off the hook entirely. What about PE and sport at school? I loathed both with a passion, very much the Flora Poste of the hockey team and every other team, but whether the weather be fine, whether the weather be not, we were not so very long ago out there being forced to get fit with horrifying regularity. Food Technology, the subject formerly known as ‘cookery’, is optional.

Gosh, this is such a no-brainer, why doesn’t the Government, supposedly so keen on promoting healthy living with its apps and adverts, insist on more PE and timetable compulsory Food Tech? Oh wait, there’s no money in it. But hey, they can make some. Sugar tax, junk food tax, salt tax, it’s not really about health. And where does tax go when it’s absorbed into the governmental coffers? Danish to doughnuts it’s not going to go where it allegedly should. We have a government hell bent on control. Whether it’s our food, or how we bring up our children, or how much alcohol we should be drinking, the powers that be believe they have the right to impose, without recourse to any real moral compass, our lives.

Speaking of doughnuts and foreign pastries, it’s also been nigh on impossible to avoid the American presidential election and Brexit. Yes, I need to be informed, and yes, I have opinions, but I confess I am fatigued to the point of nausea with both. I’m like the kids in the car asking “are we there yet?” So when fleeing from modern politics, I turn to the non-cookery book shelves, or the kindle. I’m having a John le Carré fest at the moment. I like a really long book, and I like George Smiley. In my weaker moments I have been known to turn to Biggles. Comfort reading is infinitely better for me than comfort food, although you can’t beat Jane Austen and chocolate when it’s hailing and blowing a gale. I was really pleased to rediscover, while trawling online for reading matter, some of the dogeared library books I read as a child, and have never forgotten. They were written mainly in 1940s and ’50s, some of which were turned into epics, like The Robe, and some that weren’t, like Dear and Glorious Physician.

Unfortunately, most are mainly out of print and unavailable to download to the good old kindle, so I’m looking forward to seeing what is effectively the next in the modern cinematic reboot of the theme. No, not talking about Noah, or Exodus: Gods and Kings (don’t you just love the colon in there?). I’m talking about Risen (pictured), a movie that does what the epic films of the 1950s did, it examines the lives and actions of those around at the time of the Resurrection of Our Lord, specifically through the eyes of the Roman tasked with finding the body of the Lord. The trailers I have seen look promising. I’m not sure it will be coming to a cinema anywhere near me any time ever, so DVD it shall have to be, but I am looking forward to it.

Did I retake the ghastly passport photo? No. No getting away from it. It is me, but on a really bad day. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

45

BOOK REVIEW

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

When Catholicism was on Top Two Catholics inhabiting very different worlds Eric Hester Merton & Waugh – A monk, a crusty old man & the seven storey mountain Mary Frances Coady Paraclete Press (£14)

M

ore than ever seems it certain that Evelyn Waugh was the outstanding Catholic writer in English in the 20th century. Indeed, of all novelists during the latter half of the century he is perhaps the greatest, with only Anthony Powell as a possible rival.

Brideshead Revisited is perhaps the best constructed novel in English. I once said that at a talk and someone queried, “What about the novels of Dickens?” Well, Dickens may be the greater novelist, but construction is his weak point.

I have read most of Waugh’s published work and so this book is one for me. It is easy reading, and has some letters never published before and has interest, therefore. The Waugh Estate allowed no more than two thirds of any letters to be published.

Nevertheless, I recommend this book to all those who are aficionados of Waugh and who already have read the letters and his diary. For the general reader who wants to know something of Waugh the man and his life, the best book to read is the novel The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold at least, the early chapters. I do not think that there are many aficionados of Merton.

This book publishes the correspondence between 1948 and 1952: 13 letters by Thomas Merton, the monk writer, and seven – mostly short – by Waugh, 155 pages in all. One of these letters has already been published in full in Waugh’s letters edited by Mark Amory. Waugh and Merton were unlikely correspondents. Waugh was originally asked to comment before publication on Merton’s first book The Seven Storey Mountain. Waugh, despite reservations he had, wrote well enough of the book in words published to recommend it, “I regard this as a book which may well prove to be of permanent interest in the history of religious experience.

No one can afford to neglect this clear account of a complex religious process.” Waugh, in the letters, gives Merton good practical advice about writing, such as, telling him to ask himself such questions as, “Have I used a cliché where I could have

46

invented a new, and therefore asserting and memorable form?”

The question sounds like the list we used to go through before Confession.

It is a nostalgic sadness to read now of this period in the late 1950s when the Church was growing in strength and in numbers.

Several of the most respected writers were Catholics, often, like Waugh and Graham Greene, converts, since converts were pouring into the Church by the hour. The biggest problem for the Catholic Church in England seemed to be how to build enough new churches, schools and seminaries for ever-increasing members. No one could guess that an iceberg, the Second Vatican Council, was waiting for the apparently unsinkable Catholic Church. As I write, I am waiting to hear the news from Rome from the Synod with my pen in my hand, to see whether I am to alter the heading in the Catechism, “Sins crying out to heaven for vengeance”, to “especially virtuous and politically-correct practices, highly recommended.” In the once great Diocese of Salford, we were recently informed that half of the parishes are to close. I have a mischievous thought sometimes: when bishops talk of “cluster parishes”, where churches are to be combined because they were built for the rising numbers of the 1950s and early ’60s, why don’t we ask whether there are to be, by the same argument, “cluster dioceses”, with one bishop looking after two or three dioceses? What is sauce for the sacerdotal goose is surely sauce for the episcopal gander. The fewer practising Catholics we have, the greater number of bishops seem to sit on thrones. When we had fewer bishops, we had larger congregations.

Where are we today? Everything of Waugh’s is still in print, and a fine edition of all his work is to be published. I find that the young have never heard of Merton. His Wikipedia entry does not even mention Waugh.

And the Church? Can you name one living Catholic novelist of note, or a musician, or a poet, or an artist?

But then, leaving aside the adjective, “Catholic” can you name any living poet or composer? When I ask that question when addressing audiences, I tell them that anyone saying “Yes” will be asked to recite any four lines of this living poet or whistle a few bars of the living composer. I have never had a taker.

Eric Hester was for 24 years head master of Catholic schools, grammar and comprehensive. In retirement, he led the inspection of over 50 independent schools.

ISSUE 188 - SUMMER 2016

MACKLIN STREET

Notice is given…

Stephen Moseling

L

ast month, the Chairman made an appeal to readers for donations to the LMS Seminarian Fund. The response was quite overwhelming. As a result of your generosity, we are able to continue to give financial support to the men from England and Wales training in traditional seminaries. Please accept this as a personal “Thank you” – from the LMS and the seminarians who receive support.

As you will see elsewhere in this edition of Mass of Ages, formal notice is given to members that the Annual General Meeting will take place in Westminster Cathedral Hall on Saturday 9 July 2016. Four positions within the Committee fall vacant at the time of the AGM this year. These are: Chairman Secretary Two elected Committee Members If you would like to put yourself forward, or would like to nominate someone for any of these positions, please contact the General Manager, Stephen Moseling, on 020 7404 7284 or stephen@lms.org.uk for a nomination form. Completed forms must be returned to Macklin Street by Saturday 22 May 2016.

• Candidate and Proposer must both be in good standing at 22 May 2016, having paid their year 2016 subscriptions by this date.

• Any nomination form incorrectly completed will be considered invalid.

• All candidates must have been members of the Society for at least two years.

Earlier this year, Clare Bowskill was appointed Publicist.

Clare comes to us with nearly 20 years’ experience working in television as a promotions and advertising director. A keen video editor and photographer, she has produced many advertising campaigns for companies including ITV and the BBC and more recently has been involved in producing videos to support local art projects.

Clare is also the Choir Director at St Magdalen’s church in Brighton, where the Traditional Mass is regularly celebrated.

She is a trustee of the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge and has studied Gregorian Chant at the Benedictine Abbey of Solesmes in France. She continues regular studies under the tutelage of Sr Bernadette Byrne at St Cecilia’s Convent on the Isle of Wight.

She lives in Brighton with her husband, Crawford.

Clare would love to hear from our Reps and members about events taking place in their area. She can be contacted on clare@lms.org.uk. 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.

47

2-16