First Traditional Mass Celebrated at New Brighton
Masses for All Saints' and All Souls' Days
Regular Sung Masses in Ramsgate
Photos and Report on LMS Oxford Pilgrimage
Masses for All Saints and All Souls
Willesden Pilgrimage on Saturday
Traditional Mass in Afghanistan
Oxford Pilgrimage Tomorrow (Saturday, 22 October)
Mass Listings for November 2011 to January 2012 Available to Download
Traditional Confirmations - Deadline This Thursday
Aylesford Pilgrimage Blessed With Good Numbers and Good Weather
Salaried Positions in the LMS Office
Aylesford Pilgrimage Tomorrow (15 October)
New Venue for Mass in Peterborough
Pictures of the Rosary Crusade
Rosary Crusade of Reparation in London Tomorrow
Afternoon of Prayer and Recollection in Leeds
Requiem Mass in Arundel Cathedral
Long Distance Walk in Aid of Good Counsel Network
Last Call for Aylesford Pilgrimage Coach
LMS Priest and Server Training Conference in April 2012 - Book Now!
Three EF Masses During Forty Hours at Oxford Oratory
We extend a warm welcome to Canon Olivier Meney, ICKSP, who took up residence at SS Peter and Paul's Church, Atherton Street, New Brighton, Wirral CH45 9LT, at the weekend. Canon Meney celebrated his first public Mass in the church this morning, Monday, 31 October.
As you will no doubt already know, the Bishop of Shrewsbury, Rt Rev Mark Davies, recently invited the Institute of Christ the King to re-open SS Peter and Paul's as England's first Traditional Parish, an arrangement mandated by the Holy Father's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. Bishop Davies has also asked the Institute to run the parish as the diocese's permanent centre of Eucharistic devotion.
Renovation on the church and presbytery, which were closed in 2008, has been proceeding for several months now, but the main structural work is almost complete. There is still work to be done to get the church into a suitable condition for parish use, but Masses can now be said at a side altar.
More Masses for this week announced
Canon Meney has announced that there will be Masses at SS Peter and Paul on All Souls' Day (Wednesday, 2 November) at 8.00am and 8.30am, and on Thursday, Friday and Saturday of this week (3-5 November) all at 9.00am. Further Masses have yet to be announced.
On All Saints's day, Canon Meney will celebrate Mass at the nearby Sacred Heart Church at Moreton at 11am.
A full listing of Masses on All Saints' and All Souls' Days can be seen here. A full listing of Masses in Shrewsbury diocese can be viewed here.
We congratulate Bishop Davies on his far-sighted, pastoral decision to re-open the church at New Brighton and to make it available to the Institute of Christ the King. Canon Meney's arrival at New Brighton coincided providentially with his order's patronal feast day of Christ the King (Sunday, 30 October). We ask you to keep Bishop Davies and Canon Meney in your prayers.
Final Reminder!
We have listed details of Masses on All Saints' Day (Tuesday, 1 November) and All Souls' (Wednesday, 2 November) at nearly 40 locations across England and Wales. All Saints is a Holy Day of Obligation on which all Catholics are obliged to attend Mass.
Download the full listing here (updated as we receive more information).
The people of Ramsgate in Kent are truly blessed. St Augustine's Abbey Church, which already has a weekly Sunday Mass in the Extraordinary Form (8.30am), will in addition be having monthly Sung Masses (on the 2nd Sunday of the month) at 12 noon. That's right - two EF Masses on a Sunday! This is thanks to Fr Marcus Holden, the excellent parish priest of St Augustine's. It is a clear example of a pastor putting into practice what the Holy Father has called for, namely, that all Catholics should have the Traditional Mass readily available to them as a spiritual treasure of the Church.
Exceptionally, in November, the Sung Mass will take place on 6 November at 12 noon. From December onwards it will be on 2nd Sundays at noon. Here is a downloadable poster with details of the music for November's Sung Mass.
Full address: St Augustine’s Abbey Church, St Augustine’s Road, RAMSGATE, Kent CT11 9PA
A little late with this, but photos from the LMS's Pilgrimage to Oxford last weekend can be seen on our Flickr page here. LMS Chairman Dr Joseph Shaw has reports on his Chairman's Blog here and here.
This really is the season of LMS pilgrimages: with Aylesford and Oxford under our belts, this Saturday (29 October) we're in London for the Pilgrimage to Our Lady of Willesden. More details here.
Next Tuesday, 1 November, is the Feast of All Saints and is a Holy Day of Obligation. All Catholics are bound to attend Mass under pain of grave sin (subject to the usual exceptions, such as serious illness). The following day, Wednesday, 2 November, is All Souls Day or The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, the day on which Masses are offered for the Church Suffering, the Souls in Purgatory, who, though destined for Heaven, are there until the temporal debt attached to their sins in this life is paid off ('to the last farthing').
Details of Masses on these two major feastdays in England and Wales can be downloaded here.
The Holy Souls can no longer do anything for themselves to shorten their stay in Purgatory, only we on earth can help them, through Masses, prayers and other sacrifices offered up for their repose. The Month of November is dedicated to the Holy Souls and the Church urges us to make reparation on their behalf with extra fervour during this season. It might be worth planning now to do something specially for them next month. Giving a stipend to a priest to have a Mass offered for the Holy Souls is an excellent means of helping our suffering brethren.
This is a last reminder that the LMS's pilgrimage to Our Lady of Willesden takes place this weekend on Saturday, 29 October, starting at 11.00am. This pilgrimage has fallen into abeyance over the last two or three years, but we have revived it and it looks well worth attending. Solemn Mass starts at 11am, but there is also a procession and Benediction, plus the Rosary, Confessions, a Spiritual Talk and Traditional October Devotions.
The Shrine was founded in the late medieval period and saw rapid growth right up to the Reformation when it was destroyed under Henry VIII. St Thomas More venerated the shrine and indeed visited it in early 1534, shortly before his arrest when the storm clouds were gathering. The shrine to Our Lady of Willesden was resurrected by the Church in the 1930s. It was regularly visited by St Josemaria Escriva.
How to get there:
Street address: Our Lady of Willesden, Acton Lane, Willesden, London NW10 9AX
Tube/mainline trains: Willesden Junction (in walking distance of the church)
Buses: PR1, 187, 224, 226, 260, 296, 487.
A History of the Shrine from Medieval to Modern Times
In order to whet your appetite and encourage you to attend the pilgrimage this Saturday, here is more about its fascinating, sad, but inspiring history, courtesy of the Roman Miscellany blog:
'Willesden might seem an unlikely place to find a shrine to Our Lady. In fact, when we think of shrines and pilgrimages, we tend to think of long, often expensive journeys and exotic locations like Fatima or Guadalupe. Yet for centuries Our Lady has been honoured at sanctuaries much closer to home. Situated in one of London’s most multicultural areas, right on the edge of Central London, the shrine of Our Lady of Willesden is a veritable ‘sign of contradiction’ and a powerful witness to the Catholic Faith.
'The origins of the shrine at Willesden are obscured by the mists of time. It was originally located in the church of St Mary’s, Willesden which may go back as far as the tenth century and is now served by the Anglican Communion. A Visitation report of 1249 mentions the presence of two statues of Our Lady. The locals particularly honoured one of these statues there may even have been a vision or a cure in the distant past, though the evidence is sparse. It seems that the church also boasted a ‘holy well’, which was thought to possess ‘miraculous’ qualities (especially for blindness and other eye disorders). Indeed, the very name ‘Willesden’ probably means ‘spring at the foot of the hill’ and this spring was recently rediscovered and renovated. The Vicarage of St Mary’s must be one of the few in the country to dispense bottles of holy water to those who ask for them the nearest thing Middlesex has to Lourdes!
'There is little evidence of pilgrimages to Willesden until the end of the fifteenth century. Devotion to Our Lady of Willesden may have been promoted by St Paul’s Cathedral (which owned the parish) in order to raise money for essential repairs, thus combining economic necessity with the promptings of Divine Grace. Willesden’s rise to fame was rapid. Already by May 1502 it was attracting the attention of the Queen (Elizabeth of York), who sent an offering of 30 pence during her seventh and final pregnancy. Londoners flocked to the shrine in the years leading up to the Reformation, including St Thomas More himself.This familiarity is expressed in some of his polemical writings where he defends the practice of pilgrimages (citing Willesden as an example) against the attacks of reformers like Thomas Bilney. St Thomas’ last visit to the shrine was in 1534 (probably in early April), just before his arrest. We can imagine the saint praying for strength and perseverance at the foot of the statue.
'However, despite her popularity, Our Lady of Willesden’s days were numbered. Henry VIII’s break with Rome saw the emergence of a new orthodoxy, which frowned on the Kingdom’s shrines and images. In 1538 Our Lady was removed from Willesden and taken to Thomas Cromwell’s house in Chelsea. That autumn she was burnt on a great bonfire of ‘notable images’. According to a contemporary document, Our Lady appeared to a priest devotee of the shrine, a certain Dr Crewkehorne, around the same time as this bonfire. She said that she wished to be honoured at Willesden as she had in times past. Although Our Lady was not forgotten in Willesden - there is evidence of Catholics existing in the parish into the mid seventeenth century - the shrine was not restored until the close of the nineteenth century.
'It was in 1885 that Mass was once again celebrated in Willesden by a young priest called Bernard Ward, who later became a respected Church historian and the first bishop of Brentwood. The following year a Catholic Mission was established in Harlesden to meet the demands of the growing population. With the help of the newly founded Convent of Jesus and Mary, devotion was fostered to Our Lady of Willesden and a new statue blessed by Cardinal Vaughan in 1892. This image was carved in wood from an oak tree that had stood in the graveyard of St Mary’s, the original site of the shrine. From humble beginnings with twelve parishioners the parish began to flourish, two temporary churches were built and a beautiful Romanesque church was finally opened in 1931 as both parish church and a ‘National Shrine’ for English Catholics. Our Lady of Willesden’s greatest hour came during the Marian Year of 1954. Willesden was made the centre of Westminster’s celebrations for the Marian Year and throughout 1954 some 60,000 pilgrims visited the shrine. On 3 October 1954 a Marian Pageant was held at Wembley Stadium in front of a crowd of 94,000. The climax of the celebrations came when Cardinal Bernard Griffin crowned the statue of Our Lady and she was carried back in procession to Willesden.
'The Founder of Opus Dei, St Josemaria Escriva, often visited Willesden during his trips to London. On 15th August 1958 he made a private pilgrimage to the shrine, where he re-consecrated Opus Dei to the Name of Mary (as he did every year). He returned on 17th August 1962, this time with his future successor as Prelate, the Servant of God Alvaro del Portillo. They recited the Holy Rosary and bought some images of the statue to distribute to members of Opus Dei in Hampstead. Willesden can thus claim two saints among its pilgrims - a rare feat for an English shrine.
'Prayer: O Immaculate Queen, Our Lady of Willesden, we consecrate ourselves and all we have and are to you forever in your holy Shrine. Make this Shrine glorious as of old. Bring pilgrims to worship at it. Convey their prayers to God in your own hands. Pray for us all. Pray for the conversion of all people to the religion of your Divine Son. And obtain pardon and mercy for our beloved Dead who have gone before us with the sign of faith and sleep the sleep of peace. Amen. (Cardinal Francis Bourne granted an Indulgence of 200 days for this prayer in 1928)'
Mass on Saturday, 29 October begins at 11.00am. We hope to see you there.
Fr David Smith (pictured, centre), a British Army Chaplain and a good friend of the LMS, is currently on a tour of duty with his regiment in Afghanistan.
The Rorate Caeli blog had an interesting report this week about Fr Smith. He celebrates the Traditional Mass regularly even in Afghanistan (or perhaps that should read 'especially so'). Anyway, click here to see the report and more pictures.
The LMS's Annual Pilgrimage to Oxford in honour of the ciy's and university's many Catholic Martyrs starts tomorrow, Saturday, 22 October at 11am at Blackfriars (64 St Giles) with a Solemn Mass in the traditional Dominican Rite.
Since the Holy See's Instruction Universae Ecclesiae made it explicit that other traditional rites of Mass, particular to certain religious orders, were included in the provisions of Summorum Pontificum, there has been a quiet revival of the Dominican Rite. See here for example.
Do come to the Pilgrimage tomorrow. The choir will be the Schola Abelis (which is also the Oxford University Gregorian Chant Society) who have attained a high standard of performing both Chant and polyphony.
Following Mass there will be a break for lunch (bring your own or grab a pie and a pint in one of Oxford's pubs) and a chance to wander round this beautiful city. At 2pm there will be a Procession through the city starting from the northern end of Cornmarket by St Michael's Tower (the Anglo-Saxon church tower that is Oxford's oldest building) along Broad Street to the end of Holywell Street, the site of the town gallows and the execution of four of the city's Catholic Martyrs in 1589. The procession will be carrying a newly-acquired statue of Our Lady and the recently made LMS Banner, bearing the pictures of our co-patrons SS Margaret Clitherow and Richard Gwyn. After prayers at the commemorative plaque to the Martyrs, the procession will return to Blackfriars for Benediction at 3pm.
If you can't make the whole day, feel free to dip in and out for the Mass, Procession or Benediction as your circumstances allow. We'd be delighted to see you there.
The weather forecast for Oxford tomorrow is good, so you have no excuse for not joining us!
The LMS's quarterly listings of Masses are now available to download. The latest cover the period from November 2011 until January 2012, but we've also included Masses for Candlemas (2 February) where this information was available.
You can download the PDF here.
The current listing (covers until the end of October, but with All Saints, All Souls and some early November Masses included for good measure) can be downloaded here.
It's worth pausing to consider the logistical effort that goes into compiling Masses being celebrated at around 160 different churches across England and Wales. Although most of these Masses are arranged by the LMS, others are parish initiatives, which we are very happy to advertise (if you know of any we don't, please tell us). The point to think about is that the LMS does this all year, every year, updating the listings on our website as soon as news reaches us. The LMS offers this unique service in England and Wales for all who visit our website, but it takes time and resources. If you're not a member of the LMS, please consider joining and supporting our work of promoting the Traditional Mass in this and other ways. Thank you. You can join here.
The deadline for registering your child(ren) or yourself for Confirmation in the Traditional Rite is this Thursday, 20 October 2011.
You need to have completed a registration form and sent it to the LMS Office by then. If you haven't yet, please phone us immediately on 020 7404 7284 and we will guide you through the procedure.
Confirmations take place on Saturday, 12 November at 11.30am at St James's, Spanish Place, London W1.
The revived LMS Aylesford Pilgrimage took place on Saturday and attracted good numbers (around 150 at an estimate) and beautiful weather.
After a delay with the coach arriving from London (everyone else waited patiently!) the pilgrimage started with a Missa Cantata celebrated by Fr Tim Finigan. After lunch Fr Tim gave a talk to the pilgrims followed by the Rosary and Benediction. There were also enrollments in the Brown Scapular, Aylesford being the site of St Simon Stock's vision of Our Lady instructing him to institute and spread devotion to this Sacramental with the promise of special spiritual favours attached to its wearing.
Following Benediction, pilgrims had the chance to look around the priory, including the Rosary Way, a semi-circular path through the grounds, punctuated by wayside shrines, each devoted to one of the Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary
A full set of pictures of the pilgrimage can be seen here.
Owing to reorganisation we have two salaried administrative vacancies in the LMS's office in central London.
If you would like to help the LMS achieve its objectives, including the widest possible provision of the Extraordinary Form Mass across England and Wales, and receive a competitive salary too, then please download the job descriptions below and send in your application, following the instructions given.
Applications deadline: Sunday, 20 November 2011.
The positions available are:
Office Co-ordinator (Full-time) Download job description
Financial Administrator (Part-time) Download job description
Our coach may be fully booked, but you can still attend the LMS's Aylesford Pilgrimage tomorrow (Saturday, 15 October). Sung Mass begins at 12.30pm in the Relic Chapel (the relics being those of St Simon Stock, who instituted the Brown Scapular on the instructions of Our Lady). Coincidentally, it coincides with the Feast of St Teresa of Avila, that other great Carmelite Saint, and it will be the Mass of her Feast that will be celebrated.
There will be Rosary, Benediction, a spiritual talk by our celebrant Fr Tim Finigan and enrollments in the Brown Scapular for those who wish. There will be time for you to look around the priory and the Shrine in the meantime. Please bring a packed lunch with you. There is plenty of parking available.
The location is:
Aylesford Priory,
The Friars,
Aylesford (near Maidstone),
Kent ME20 7BX
It is close to the M20 motorway if you are driving and is about an hour or so's drive from London (depending on which side of town you're coming from).
The pilgrimage is due to finish at around 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
There will be Mass at the Church of St Peter and All Souls, Park Road, Peterborough PE1 2RS on All Souls Day (Wednesday, 2 November) at 6.00pm.
This is a new venue for the Traditional Mass in a part of the country that has extremely poor provision, so please make the effort to attend this Mass. At 6pm it's ideal for after-work mass-goers.
Photo credit: Julian Dowse
Pictures of the Rosary Crusade can be seen here.