Triduum in Lanherne

I've mentioned the Convent at Lanherne, occupied by the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate, a couple of times before; here are some photographs of the Triduum services they had there this year.

Here also is a short report:

Fr Joseph M. Taylor writes:
The Sacred Triduum went well at Lanherne. We are deep in the Cornish countryside and there are very few Catholics about and, hardly surprisingly, even fewer Traditionalists! We had an average attendance over the three days of about 18 laity. Some of these came down from London, lodged locally, and assisted at the entire liturgy. Of course, all the Sisters attended, and we are greatly indebted to their Chaplain, Fr George Roth FI, who officiated on each day.
The Sisters sang marvellously – it was a great delight.











More photos.

Rosary Crusade of Reparation: pictures

I was there. As always, it was a great occasion. It really deserves more support: this is a unique opportunity for large-scale Catholic witness and public reparation for abortion.












Full set of photos; slideshow.

Rosary Crusade of Reparation

I've received the following announcement. I've been on this myself and it is a magnificent witness to the Faith.

The Rosary Crusade of Reparation, in its Jubilee Year, takes place this year on Saturday, 16th October 2010.

The Abbot of Farnborough, the Rt Rev Dom Cuthbert Brogan OSB, will lead this year's event.

The Procession starts at 1:45 PM on Saturday, 16 October 2010 outside Westminster Cathedral in Central London (nearest underground station is Victoria). The procession makes its way through Westminster and Knightsbridge to South Kensington, ending at the the Brompton Oratory (nearest Underground station South Kensington).

At the Oratory, following prayers and hymns, there will be Solemn Pontifical Benediction and an opportunity to enroll in the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Westminster Cathedral Exhibition

This morning I went to the Westminster 'Cathedral Treasures' exhibition, which I see is now described as 'permanent'. There are some lovely things there, and I recommend it.
It is interesting to note how the extent of the organisers' unfamiliarity with the Church's liturgical traditions has hampered them. As Fr Anthony Symondson remarks in a review in the current Catholic Herald, it must be ignorance of liturgies celebrated ad orientem which prompted them to display vestments with their richly decorates backs against the wall. Another example is the candlesticks for funerals being displayed with bleached, not unbleached, candles in them.
There is also an astonishing mistranslation of Latin. Cardinal Manning's motto, embroidered on his cope, is 'Malo mori quam foedari'; this is translated 'I prefer death to compromise'. But 'foedari'' means 'to be dishonoured' not 'to compromise (the fact that it is a passive infinitive should be a clue). John Hunwicke, Anglo-Catholic vicar and former Latin teacher, expostulates here.
Perhaps they should have had a trad advisor: all the stuff here was intended for the Traditional Mass and asociated ceremonies.

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Mass in Long Crendon

Today, for the first time I took the Schola Abelis out of Oxfordshire and Archdiocese of Birmingham, to sing at a Mass in Long Crendon, Buckinghamshire (diocese of Northhampton). This was in honour of the Oxford martyr, Bl Thomas Belson, and his companions, who were executed in Oxford in 1589; his home, at Brill, is in the parish.

It is not coincidence that the Belson family lived over the county boundary. At the time of the Reformation the family had property in both Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, but they moved their main residence to a secluded spot in the latter county because the Sherrif was a Catholic. Asked to list the local 'recusants' (Catholics who refused to go to Protestant services), the necessary investigation was less than zealous.

The long arm of the law caught up with Bl Thomas Belson, however, on more than one occasion, and after violating a sentence of exile by returning the England to help priests in the mission, with his intimate knowledge of the local area, Thomas was arrested with two priests and an inn servant in a Catholic inn, the Catherine Wheel, in Oxford. All four were executed there. Thomas was 25 years old.

Fr Eric Manley-Harris has been a great supporter of my project to have a plaque put up to mark the martyrdom, and we had a Missa Cantata in the 'side chapel' he has created behind the main altar of his modern, circular church. Fr John Saward sang the Mass. Pleasingly some of Thomas Belson's descendents attended the Mass.

The feast of the Martyrs of England and Wales is peculiar to England and Wales, and falls on May 4th. The propers can be found in Missals with the necessary supplement; not without some difficulty I got hold of the chants for the feast, since Graduales with an E&W supplement are rare. I intend to put the chants and propers on-line in some form to make them more widely available.

The Mass was a great occasion. The congregation, mostly from the local parishes, filled the chapel, and in addition to the Chant we had a polyphonic ordinary. The proper chants were put together first for the feast of St Thomas More and St John Fisher, who were beatified in 1886 and canonised in 1935. The texts are sanguinary, being taken mostly from Ps 78, but the chants, though awkwardly composed in places, lend them a certain gentleness. Even as the blood of the martyrs runs in rivers and cries out for vengeance, the tone is one of humble petition. It is an interesting comment on the feelings of English Catholics at the time.

I'll be putting up video clips of the singing as soon as I've processed them.

More pictures here.

Here is Fr Saward's sermon.

Local events

I have some important local events to announce. For the full Mass listings see here.

Oxford Pilgrimage 2010
First and foremost, our new Archbishop, Bernard Longley, has agreed to participate in the annual LMS Oxford Pilgrimage. He will bless a new plaque in honour of Bl George Napier, which Oxford City Council are installing in the newly revamped Castle complex, marking the spot where he died on the Castle gallows in November 1610. The pilgrimage will take place on 23rd October, close to Bl George Napier's fourth Centenary; it will start with a Solemn Mass at Blackfriars, with Archbishop Longley in choir, after which our Archbishop will lead a procession to the site of the martydom.

Other events, in chronological order.

St Anthony of Padua, Thursday 21st Jan, Missa Cantata 7pm
For the second time, there will a Sung Mass in this church thanks to the hospitality of Fr Aldo Tapparo. It is the Feast of St Agnes and will include chant and polyphony provided by the Schola Abelis.

Candlemas, Tuesday 2nd Feb, Missa Cantata SS Gregory & Augustine, 6pm
As has become the pattern there will be a Sung Mass for this important feast: once of the key dates of the Catholic calendar.

Our Lady of Light, Long Crendon, Sat 13th Feb, Missa Cantata, 11.30pm
For the first time there will be a Sung Mass in Our Lady of Light, which is over the diocesan boundary in the diocese of Northhampton. This is the home parish of Bl Thomas Belson, in whose honour the parish priest, Fr Eric Manley-Harris, has recently established a side chapel. The Schola Abelis will be singing Chant and Polyphony at a Votive Mass of the Martyrs of England and Wales in honour of Bl Thomas Belson.

Ash Wednesday, 17th Feb, Missa Cantata SS Gregory & Augustine, 6pm
For the first time there will be a Sung Mass on this important feast.

Our Lady of Caversham, Sat 27th Feb, Missa Cantata 11.45
For the first time there will be a LMS Pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Caversham, which is at the southern tip of the Archdiocese of Birmingham, just outside Reading. It is the Ember Saturday of Lent, and it will be accompanied by the Schola Abelis.

Mon 8th March Newman Society Termly Mass: Pontifical Mass with the Abbot of Belmont, Oxford Oratory, 7.15pm
The Schola Abelis will again accompany the Newman Mass, which will take place in the Oxford Oratory. The Mass is being sponsored by the Latin Mass Society.

Friday 12th March, Feast of St Gregory the Great: Missa Cantata SS Gregory & Augustine 6pm
This is the principal patronal feast of the parish church of SS Gregory & Augustine, and it will be marked by a Traditional Sung Mass in the evening, accompanied by the Schola Abelis.

Corpus Christi in Oxford

We celebrated Corpus Christi in style in Oxford, with a traditional Missa Cantata on the Thursday and a big procession of the Blessed Sacrament on the Sunday.

Mass on the Thursday, in the Oxford Oratory, was accompanied by the Schola Abelis, and reported here. For more photos of the Mass see here.

There are some excellent photographs of the procession, like this one, by Br Lawrence Lew here.

Oxford LIFE walk

I've been sent this by email. I've been on this walk a number of times but Saturdays are in short supply in early Summer. This year the walk clashes with the LMS Committee meeting! But I do encourage everyone who can, to go.

OXFORD LIFE GROUP

Come and join the

Oxford Life Walk

Saturday 6th June 2009

This is a silent walk, starting at 12 noon
from the War Memorial, St Giles, Oxford,

(near St Giles’s church --- please note the starting point)

and finishing at about 12.30 p.m. at the Old Palace, St Aldate’s (the University Catholic chaplaincy) ,
where there will be light refreshments.

Take part in this peaceful walk to support the pro-life cause, and to advertise the work of Life.

Some placards will be provided.

Bring children and friends !

Life — registered charity no. 274144

Fr Z on the Notre Dame scandal

I've been too busy to post for a few days but Fr Zuhlsdorf's comments on the Notre Dame scandal bear repeating. Fr Z. reiterates his fundamental principle that the Church's problems are not separable from the liturgy. How is it that a great Catholic institution could sink so low, and in the face of the appeals of more than 70 American bishops? It is - to cut a long story short - because its leaders, and too many ordinary Catholics, have lost their sense of the sacred and their Catholic identity.

Fr Z writes:

More than ever, we must have what the Church really says, what Holy Church really has to offer.

We are not getting the fullness of the Church’s teachings from Notre Dame or other, now lesser, water carriers of the secularist agenda.

We are not getting it from very many of our leaders in the Church.

And so…

I urge all priests and bishops who read this blog with any slight quaver of resonance or benevolence, to consider this with care:

If you sense that something quite serious and important is going on right now, for the love of God rethink your approach to how you foster Holy Church’s proper public worship.

Do all in your power and through your influence to foster a worship of God which conforms not to worldly goals – as praiseworthy as they may be in a world still dominated by its dire prince – but rather to the real point of religion: an encounter with mystery.

Our worship must become more and more focused on the one who is Other.

Seek what is truly above in your rites and raise people to encounter mystery.

You will be challenged and reviled, blocked and attacked as you do. You will be worn down and afraid under the weight of resistance.

But I think that to save the world we must save the liturgy.

Sunday reaffirmed this for me. They can’t compete with the fullness of Catholic liturgy and sound preaching.Reforming the liturgy along the lines Pope Benedict has proposed may be the most loving and effective option we have in these ever hotter times.

People will have to keep working very much in the sphere of the secular. Of course! Our inward Catholic Christian identity must find outward expression and bring concrete fruits. But I think the real work now – where we will make some effective headway – must be done at the level of our public worship.

In the present circumstances, we are not going to argue most people out of danger or error. But together we can draw them in and along and back through worship.

So long as we remain doctrinally faithful and active in works of mercy both spiritual and especially temporal, if we get our public worship together we will have a strong bastion against error. Holy Catholic worship will be an attractive force for conversion.

We need to foster worship which stuns, which leaves the newcomer, long-time practicing Catholic, above all the fallen-away simply thunder stuck. Worship must at some point leave people speechless in awe. We need language and music and gesture which in its beauty floods the mind with light even while it swells the heart to bursting.

The more people encounter mystery through liturgy, the more hollow will clang the false or incomplete messages of those who have strayed from the good path, either to the left or to the right.

Requiem in the Little Oratory

My eldest sister died five years ago, and I arranged a Requiem Mass for her in the London Oratory, where more of my family could attend than in Oxford. The Mass was sung by Fr George Bowen Cong Orat, accompanied by members of the well-known Oratory Choir. At the last minute I was roped in to serve. I have actually never served Sung Mass before; I am usually singing myself! The ceremonies for a Requiem are pretty simple, however.

The Choir were first rate - as they always are. Many thanks to the Director, Patrick Russill.

Mass took place in the charming 'Little Oratory', which is the other side of the car park from the main church. There are more photographs on my Flickr set.

I was recently in the Little Oratory for Mass celebrated by Fr de Malleray when he launched the FSSP's tutorial video of the Mass: see my post on thate here. It is nice to have some photos of Mass in this chapel taken in daylight!

Archbishop Vincent Nichols moving to Westminster

An important bit of local news: our very own Archbishop is moving to Westminster to be Archbishop there. He will be installed on Thursday, 21 May 2009. He has been Archbishop of Birmingham since 2000; before that he was an auxiliary bishop in Westminster.

We wish Archbishop Nichols well in his new post. He faces the challenge of leading the Church in the context of the current persecution. But he has been at the forfront of the battle for some time. Let us support him with our prayers.

Here is the press release. Interestingly it says that, according to custom, Archbishop Nichols won't be made a Cardinal until Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor reaches the retirement age of 80, ie 2012.

'The Nation that Forgot God'

After attending the Kent Day of Recollection yesterday I drove to the House of Commons for the launch of 'The Nation that Forgot God', a collection of essays about secularisation. It is edited by Edward Leigh MP and Alex Haydon; Mr Leigh hosted the launch in his Commons office.

Edward Leigh (pictured) is a Catholic MP in more than name only. He is a founder of the Cornerstone Group, a 40-strong group of Conservative MPs who beleive in the 'spiritual values which have informed British institutions, our culture and our nation’s sense of identity for centuries, underpinned by the belief in a strong nation state'. He is also active in the pro-life cause.

The list of contributors to the book is extremely impressive, including my own ordinary, Archbishop Nichols of Birmingham, who has spoken out frequently in defence of the Church against the Government's attacks, notably on the Sexual Orientation Act; Roger Scruton, now a Fellow of Blackfriars, the Dominican Hall in Oxford University; Dom Aidan Bellinger, Abbot of Downside, and the Anglican Bishop Nazir-Ali, who caused a storm by suggesting that the Anglican Church should be making an effort to convert Muslims living in the UK to Christianity. 'Perish the thought' seemed to be the reply of the Anglican establishment.

The launch was attended by Abbot Bellenger and a number of politicians, including Iain Duncan-Smith.

The book is published by the Social Affairs Unit and costs £10; I look forward to reading it. A very interesting article in the Daily Telegraph quotes Archbishop Nichols as follows:

"Our politicians seem to live in a different world, a world that is purely secular and material, a world that does not permit a mature consideration of the key role of religious belief. "Behind this is the assertion that religious influences are bad for you, and that ignorance of religion is better than exposure to it and the study of it.
"Why is this so? It lies in the distorted and truncated notion of reason which shapes our society and, to a large extent, the education it offers. "Quite simply we have sold our soul to a positivistic understanding of reason. By this is meant that knowledge and reasoning are limited to what can be positively seen, measured and physically tested through hypothesis, experiment and observation.
"What positive knowledge and reasoning cannot do is provide anything that is normative in value or moral judgement. They can discover, magnificently, what can be done. They cannot, properly, provide and answer to the question, 'But should it be done?'
"Moral reasoning overcomes the.. 'individualism' of a positivist culture.
"A society which limits itself - and its education - to a positivistic understanding of reason will find itself unable to determine shared moral principles and values. Such a society will lack cohesion."

I think this is an extremely helpful way of articulating the problem: that what we are facing is not just a different way of life, but a different conception of rationality. To argue with a rival theory of rationality is certainly possible, but one must be on one's guard when one's opponents appeal to 'rationality' as the final arbiter. I have myself touched on this aspect of the problem of secularisation here.