Burse-making in Hampton Court with the Guild of St Clare

Burse-making at the RSN with Heather Lewis


The Guild of St Clare is collaborating with the Royal School of Needlework to provide a special one day course in burse-making. This is a unique opportunity to learn the skills necessary to make one of the more tricky pieces of the traditional vestment set. The tuition will be provided by RSN tutor Heather Lewis, who led our previous Guild of St Clare course in ecclesiastical goldwork, back in 2012. The course will take place at Hampton Court Palace in the RSN's teaching apartments, and is subsidised by the Guild of St Clare.


The date is the 8th February 2020, and the course will run between 10am and 4pm. Tea and coffee are provided; you will need to bring a packed lunch, or you can visit one of Hampton Court Palace's cafes. The cost, including the materials and the special Guild of St Clare discount, is £105.


For more information please email Lucy on lucyashaw@gmail.com, or book through the registration link on the LMS website.

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Colin Mawby 1936-2019, Requiescat in pace

Colin Mawby, Catholic composer and a Patron of the Latin Mass Society, has died aged 83.



He was a great supporter of Gregorian Chant, and took an enthusiastic part in several chant training events the Latin Mass Society organised. The above two photographs are from 2016, below I found one from 2012. His enthusiasm was infectious and his knowledge and practical experience enormous. As Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral over the time of the liturgical reform, he was responsible at that crucial moment for the Cathedral's musical tradition not being jettisoned like so much else.

LMS Pilgrimage in honour of Our Lady of Guadalupe, 2019

Today we had our second pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Catholic Church of the Holy Child and St Joseph in Bedford.



They have there a very special reproduction of the famous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which goes on tour around the country. The church has recently been officially designated as a shrine.

Requiem at St Benet's Hall: photos

Fr John van den Burgh of the London Oratory, an alumnus of St Benet's, celebrated a Sung Requiem Mass for the deceased of the Hall on Saturday 9th November. He was assisted by Fr Daniel Lloyd. Mass was accompanied by the Schola Abelis of Oxford.

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Photos from the Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage, 25-27 Oct

Above: Bishop Dominique Rey of Frejus Toulon celebrating Mass in Sta Trinita on Sunday 27.



Mass in the Pantheon on Friday 25

A response to Zita Ballinger Fletcher: the Mass is not 'a cult of toxic tradition'

Procession to St Peter's during the Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage

My latest on LifeSiteNews.

A certain Zita Ballinger Fletcher, writing in the National ‘Catholic’ Reporter (a notoriously not-very-Catholic publication) has written an unintentionally hilarious article attacking the traditional Mass. It alternates between statements of the obvious, presented as though they were horrifying revelations — the Latin Mass is said in Latin! The priest celebrates facing away from the people! — with bizarre non sequiturs: this form of the Mass is sexist, oppressive, and clericalist.

And worst of all, people aren’t allowed to wear red.

Fletcher is worried about division in the Church — at least, this is presumably the point of talking about the Latin Mass creating ‘sects’ — but it is she, not Catholics attached to the ancient liturgical tradition, who is causing divisions with this article. Her embittered and rather personal attack contrasts very much with the attitude of her victims. Traditional Catholics do not fill their leisure hours attacking the character of Catholics who attend the ‘Ordinary Form’. 

Continue reading.

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The problem with 'Great Books'

My latest in the Catholic Herald: a book review.

In the 1920s, some influential academics were dismayed to find that many graduates of elite American universities were, not to put too fine a point on it, culturally illiterate. They lacked the knowledge that could be taken for granted among cultivated Europeans at the beginnings of their tertiary education, let alone at the end.

The academics’ natural response was to attempt to address this lack, and so the “Western Civilisation Course” or “Great Books Programme” was born, and made compulsory (or strongly recommended) in many institutions. These courses frog-marched students through a carefully selected canon of Western literature, from the Greeks and Romans onwards, with excursions into philosophy and history.

Continue reading.

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