By good fortune I was in St Walburge's, Preston, yesterday, for Sung Mass, a church that is in the care of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. It is a magnificent edifice, gradually being fixed up by the ever-active Institute. Water penetration to the sacristy and the nave of the church has been stopped, so decoration and restoration of the interior can be addressed.
The flaking paint does not diminish the splendour of this church, and the confidence of successive Bishops of Lancaster in the Institute to revive it: it so happens that the current bishop, Patrick Swarbrick, was once a parish priest at St Walburge's and in that capacity invited Canon William Hudson ICKSP to celebrate Mass there twenty years ago. It was only some time after that initial contact that the Institute was given the church, in 2014, by Bishop Patrick Campbell.
Although both the holiday season and during a torrential downpour (don't the two go together?) there was a good-sized congregation. The scale of the church is clearly not going to be inappropriate to the size of the apostolate in the longer term.
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What is the recumbent statue before the altar?
ReplyDeleteChrist in the tomb. It is on the free-standing alter formerly used in this church.
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