LMS Residential Latin Course: photos

The Latin Mass Society's Residential Latin Course is an under appreciated event. It has benefitted teenagers and octagenarians, priests, seminarians, and novices, and the discount for clergy is extended to those who are planning to attend seminary the following year.

This year the week-long course (Monday to Saturday) took place in Park Place Pastoral Centre in Wickham, Hampshire, with 18 students -- equaling our largest ever group in 2019 -- and three tutors, who were able to offer different levels of Latin to the mixed-ability attendees. 

Park Place's modern chapel accommodates the Traditional Mass quite well, and attendees were able to participate in daily Mass. We even had two Sung Masses: one for the Assumption, and another for the final day.

The Latin Mass Society's commitment to Latin learning is ongoing, with our exclusive Latin coursebook, Simplicissimus, which uses the Latin of the Missal for all its examples and exercises, and support for clergy and seminarians doing online Latin courses. If you'd like to emailed when the next Residential course is announced, email info@lms.org.uk .

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SCT Summer School 2024: photos

Latin questions in the end of school quiz.

I've not had time to blog about the August events I've been involved, but here are a few photos of the first of these: the St Catherine's Trust Summer School, which took place Sunday to Saturday, 4-10 August, in St Cassian's Retreat Centre, Kintbury, for children aged 11-17. I founded the St Catherine's Trust as a vehicle for these events back in 2005, and we've done them ever since -- though we had to cancel two during Covid.

Iota Unum talks this autumn

The next season of Iota Unum talks is confirmed:

Friday Sept 27, Joseph Shaw: The family and Catholic culture

Friday Oct 25, Calum Miller: title tbc

Friday Nov 29: Prof Tom Pink 'Conscience and the Law'

Talks take place in the basement of Our Lady of the Assumption; please enter by the back entrance into the basement: 24 Golden Square, W1F 9JR near Piccadilly Tube Station (click for a map).

Doors open at 6:30pm; the talk will start at 7pm.

There is a charge of £5 on the door to cover refreshments and other expenses.

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Evelyn Waugh on the liturgical reform: on this day, 1964

The liturgical reform ushered in by the Second Vatican Council was not a matter of replacing the 1962 Missale Romanum with the 1969 edition. Between the two there was a veritable blizzard of documents and liturgical changes, starting with Vatican II's own Sacrosanctum Concilium in 1962 and the Instruction Inter Oecumenici. The concrete changes began with the latter, which was promulgated 26th September 1964, but plenty of experiments and abuses were taking place in the meantime.

This period saw an intense debate about the liturgy in the Catholic press, and on this very day 60 years ago, a letter by the Catholic convert novelist Evelyn Waugh was published by the Catholic Herald. This letter is often quoted, but as a matter of historical interest I am publishing it in full on its anniversary.

Catholic Herald, 7^th August 1964

Questions for the 'Progressives'

SIR.— Like all editors you justly claim that you are not responsible for the opinions of your correspondents and claim credit for establishing an open "forum".

On the other hand you write of "exploding renewal" and "manifest dynamism of the Holy Spirit", thus seeming to sympathise with the Northern innovators who wish to change the outward aspect of the Church.

The Way of Beauty: in Catholic Answers

Brand new Altar Rails at St Mary Magdalen's, Wandworth (London),
replacing those destroyed many years ago.

My latest on Catholic Answers.

Pope St. John Paul II wrote twenty-one years ago,

[We should not] overlook the positive contribution made by the wise use of the cultural treasures of the Church. . . . Artistic beauty . . . a sort of echo of the Spirit of God, is a symbol pointing to the mystery, an invitation to seek out the face of God made visible in Jesus of Nazareth (Ecclesia in Europa 60).

This observation would not have surprised Catholics in previous centuries. When John Paul II said it, however, it was an intervention into a highly controversial, and sometimes embittered, debate, which still rages today.

Read it all there.

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Mass in Dundee

On Sunday 14th I had the privilege to attend Mass in the Lawside Convent in Dundee. Different parts of the complex now house the Marian Franciscan Friars and Sisters. Mass was celebrated by Fr Philomeno.

 

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Conversation with 'Learn Latin'

The other day I had a live conversation with Diego of @latinedisce Learn Latin, on a Twitter 'space'.

@latinedisce promotes Latin, and has created free online resources to learn it.

This was a wide-ranging conversation, introducing the Traditional Mass, its history, and the way people engaged with it. If you missed it, here it is on YouTube.

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