The Expectation of Our Lady

Dom Prosper Gueranger on Our Lady's Expectation:

2009-12-19T17:39:00.003Z

This feast, which is now kept not only throughout the whole of Spain but in many other parts of the Catholic world, owes its origin to the bishops of the tenth Council of Toledo, in 656. These prelates thought that there was an incongruity in the ancient practice of celebrating the feast of the Annunciation on the twenty-fifth of March, inasmuch as this joyful solemnity frequently occurs at the time when the Church is intent upon the Passion of our Lord, so that it is sometimes obliged to be transferred into Easter time, with which it is out of harmony for another reason; they therefore decreed that, henceforth, in the Church of Spain there should be kept, eight days before Christmas, a solemn feast with an octave, in honour of the Annunciation, and as a preparation for the great solemnity of our Lord’s Nativity.

In course of time, however, the Church of Spain saw the necessity of returning to the practice of the Church of Rome, and of those of the whole world, which solemnize the twenty-fifth of March as the day of our Lady’s Annunciation and the Incarnation of the Son of God. But such had been, for ages, the devotion of the people for the feast of the eighteenth of December, that it was considered requisite to maintain some vestige of it. They discontinued, therefore, to celebrate the Annunciation on this day; but the faithful were requested to consider, with devotion, what must have been the sentiments of the holy Mother of God during the days immediately preceding her giving Him birth. A new feast was instituted, under the name of the Expectation of the blessed Virgin’s delivery.

This feast, which sometimes goes under the name of Our Lady of O, or the feast of O, on account of the antiphon which begins O Virgo virginum, is kept with great devotion in Spain. A High Mass is sung at a very early hour each morning during the octave, at which all who are with child, whether rich or poor, consider it a duty to assist, that they may thus honour our Lady’s Maternity, and beg her blessing upon themselves...

Most just indeed it is, O holy Mother of God, that we should unite in that ardent desire thou hadst to see Him, who had been concealed for nine months in thy chaste womb; to know the features of this Son of the heavenly Father, who is also thine; to come to that blissful hour of His birth, which will give glory to God in the highest, and, on earth, peace to men of good-will. Yes, dear Mother, the time is fast approaching, though not fast enough to satisfy thy desires and ours. Make us redouble our attention to the great mystery; complete our preparation by thy powerful prayers for us, that when the solemn hour has come, our Jesus may find no obstacle to His entrance into our hearts.

O Virgo virginum, quomodo fiet istud? quia noc primam similem visa es, nec habere sequentem. Filae Jerusalem, quid me admiramini? Divinum est mysterium hoc quod cernitis.

O Virgin of virgins! how shall this be? for never was there one like thee, nor will there ever be. Ye daughters of Jerusalem, why look ye wondering at me? What ye behold, is a divine mystery.

(H/T to Fr. John Zuhlsdorf)

Eric Hester meeting with Bishop McMahon

2009-11-04T15:35:00.003Z

Bishop Malcolm McMahon of Nottingham is the new Chairman of the Catholic Education Service

Eric Hester writes : 'Bishop McMahon is the bishop in charge of education for the Bishops' Conference. I recently went to see him after he and I had exchanged letters on the subject of the government's plans to make sex education compulsory for all children in state schools and the support this has received from the CES (Catholic Education Service). The first thing to say is that the bishop very readily agreed to meet me, arranged a time to suit my travelling to Nottingham and treated me most courteously, allowing our talk to go on beyond the hour arranged. In fact, it all went beyond courtesy: the bishop listened most carefully and sympathetically and allowed me to make all the points that I wanted and to produce the relevant evidence. He discussed things with me, raised some questions and was most willing to answer all my questions to him. And the result? Well, I had hoped to persuade the bishop there and then to renounce any support for the government. This he did not do. However, he agreed to consider carefully all that I had said to reconsider his position especially when the government announces the results of its 'consultation' and to talk the matter over with others.

'One thing the bishop said surprised me: he said that he was not aware that there was any special alarm among Catholic parents and others about the government's proposals. I think that we all need to consider what we do here. Perhaps we look at supportive websites, read our own publications and assume that the case for or against something will be obvious and does not need stating. It could be, too, that Catholics have been so badly treated in the past that they feel it is a waste of time writing to the bishops. I do not believe that this is the case with Bishop McMahon. We need to do more, I think. I do not want to shower the bishop with sudden letters, but it would be a good thing if those who do feel strongly ensured that they wrote to him, mentioning perhaps who they are 'Writing as a parent, grandparent, former teacher, school governor, etc' and making simple points in their own way to show their concern. At the same time, they could send a copy of the letter to their own bishop or write another letter to him.

The address is: His Lordship the Bishop of Nottingham, Bishop's House, 27 Cavendish Road East, The Park, Nottingham. NG7 1BB. Finally, I made it clear to the bishop that if the CES continued its support for the government, it, and the bishops, could expect the greatest opposition ever seen by lay Catholics in England since the rights of parents on sex education are 'inalienable' and may not be usurped by anyone, not even a bishop, let alone the members of the present government.

(h/t to Jackie Parkes)

Traditionalists of all churches: unite!

2009-10-30T23:02:00.004Z

“Traditionalists of all churches, unite under the dome of St. Peter’s!” Father Kung wrote in an editorial Oct. 28 in the Rome daily La Repubblica.

“Look: The fisherman is fishing above all on the ‘right’ side of the lake. But the water is muddy,” he said.

(The Holy Father is committing the unforgivable act of bringing traditional Anglicans into the one true fold, where they may be united to the chief shepherd, vicar of Our Lady's son.)

So Hans Kung writes about the latest move of our present Holy Father to send a life raft to the sinking ship of Anglicanism. Yes, Fr. Kung, we all know how bitter you feel now that you are a nobody, a laughing stock and a dinosaur from the sixties that some young catholics have not even heard about, let alone take seriously! And while you are now rapidly being forgotten about and becoming history, every work and word of your contemporary and colleague Joseph Ratzinger is listened to, studied and broadcast all over the web and blogosphere. For he has been given the power of the keys, as Pope Benedict XVI! Yet you have said that you do not in any way feel bitter...

While you gained popularity and support from the world's media by your attacks on the church's teaching and magisterium, in particular Humanae Vitae, Joseph Ratzinger was universally hated and vilified for defending it. But now the tables have been turned, and divine justice has been done. Our Lord will always reward obedience and fidelity to the teachings of his mystical bride the Church. For he who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

Dr. Rowan Williams....

2009-10-25T22:09:00.002Z

"I christen this ship C of E!"
Thus proclaimed Rowan Williams with glee;
Now he paddles around
Trying not to get drowned
On his archiepiscopal see.

A pastoral provision for dissaffected Anglicans

2009-10-20T13:12:00.005+01:00

This news has just come in from Damian Thompson. This could have effects as far reaching as Summorum Pontificem! Also here is a statement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

This is astonishing news. Pope Benedict XVI has created an entirely new Church structure for disaffected Anglicans that will allow them to worship together – using elements of Anglican liturgy – under the pastoral supervision of their own specially appointed bishop or senior priest.

The Pope is now offering Anglicans worldwide “corporate reunion” on terms that will delight Anglo-Catholics. In theory, they can have their own married priests, parishes and bishops – and they will be free of liturgical interference by liberal Catholic bishops who are unsympathetic to their conservative stance.

There is even the possibility that married Anglican laymen could be accepted for ordination on a case-by-case basis – a remarkable concession.

Both Archbishop Vincent Nichols and Archbishop Rowan Williams are surprised by this dramatic move. Cardinal Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was in Lambeth Palace only yesterday to spell out to Dr Williams what it means. This decision has, in effect, been taken over their heads – though there is no suggestion that Archbishop Nichols does not fully support this historic move.

Incidentally, I suspect that Rome waited until Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor’s retirement before unveiling this plan: the cardinal is an old-style ecumenist who represents the old way of doing things. His allies in Rome, and many former participants in Anglican-Catholic dialogue, are dismayed by today’s news, which clears away the wreckage of the ARCIC process.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is unlikely to be pleased, though he was vigorously concealing any displeasure at a press conference this morning. (There was a lot of spin about this decision “arising out of dialogue”.) The truth is that Rome has given up on the Anglican Communion. With one announcement, the Pope has given conservative Anglicans a protected route to union with Rome – and promised that, even once they are members of the Catholic Church, they will be offered a permanent structure that allows them to retain an Anglican ethos.

Thousands of Anglicans who reject women bishops and priests and liberal teaching on homosexuality are certain to avail themselves of this provision. Within a few years, there will probably be “Anglican ethos” Catholic parishes in England and Wales (and one wonders how many conservative cradle Catholics will gratefully start attending Mass there).

Under the supervision of a “Personal Ordinary”, who can be a priest or unmarried bishop, ex-Anglicans will be able to put forward their own candidates for ordination. In the short term, there will be no difficulty in ordaining married former Anglican clergy.

The Vatican would not use the phrase, but this is very close to the setting up of a “Church within a Church”. Yet that is not as unusual as it might seem: Eastern-rite Catholics have their own liturgy and church structures, and in America a small number of ex-Anglicans use service books that borrow from the Book of Common Prayer.

Anglicans will have to request their own “Personal Ordinariate”, to use the Vatican’s clunky term. How might that play out in England? This is just a guess, but the most pro-Roman C of E bishop, the Rt Rev Andrew Burnham, Bishop of Ebbsfleet, could submit a request to Rome. He would be ordained a Catholic priest, and might himself be made “ordinary” (bishop in all but name) of ex-Anglican clergy and lay people who have been received into the Catholic Church together.

This unprecedented canonical structure will affect different countries and dioceses in different ways. But we are not talking about the creation of an “Anglican-Rite” Catholic Church. Although some parishes will want to use the Anglican-usage liturgy, in England many ex-Anglican congregations will be only too happy to avail themselves of the new English translation of the Roman Rite, to be introduced next year.

This is a decision of supreme boldness and generosity by Pope Benedict XVI, comparable to his liberation of the Traditional Latin Mass. The implications of this announcement will take a long time to sink in, but I suspect that this will be a day of rejoicing for conservative Anglo-Catholics and their Roman Catholic friends all over the world.

Ordination of Br. Lewis Berry to the diaconate

2009-10-17T08:40:00.004+01:00

Please pray for Br. Lewis Berry of the Birmingham Oratory, who was yesterday evening ordained to the diaconate by Bishop Philip Pargeter. May he be blessed in his vocation as an Oratorian, and please God, as a future priest.

St. Lawrence, deacon and martyr, pray for us

The relics of St. Therese at the Knights of Malta conventual chapel

2009-10-16T16:44:00.006+01:00

Yesterday evening the relics of St. Therese of Lisieux made a stop over at the Knights of Malta conventual chapel at St. John's and St. Elizabeth's hospital, St. John's Wood, London. I was asked to come down and sing for the pontifical English high mass and veneration by a friend of mine, where we sang Missa Surge Propera by Victoria and Surge Amica Mea by Guerrero.

The place as to be expected was packed out, as you can see above as the relics arrive. Naturally the sick were given priority for veneration, but in the chaos everyone managed it in the end. For us singers, we had to rehearse outside the chapel in the hospital corridors, as patients were being wheeled in and out!

We sang from what were very cramped balconies, and had to put up with several on - duty nurses barging their way through us singers to get a glimpse of the relics during the mass. Such is the popularity of this saint! When we had a few spare moments we all took some photos.

At the end there was slight hiatus, and then the relics were borne off to the sound of a piper, a most poignant moment, and very quickly the throng dispersed and went their separate ways. As for me, I stopped over on the way at a pub to Marylebone station to have dinner, and then catch the late train home to Birmingham.

Request for prayer

2009-10-14T11:32:00.002+01:00

In this month of the rosary please do remember in your prayers, for things are going somewhat pear shaped for me at the moment. My gastric complaints have returned with a vengeance and I have had to leave work today, and I also have other issues on my hands....

It's just not going to happen...

2009-10-12T13:14:00.002+01:00

For those that hold the notion that reunion between the Catholic and Orthodox churches could happen in a few years time, here is yet another reality check from Interfax Religion, the news agency of the Moscow Patriarchate, on the Feast of the Holy Rosary:

Moscow, October 7, Interfax - Head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk has denied reports that Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia might visit the Vatican in the near future.

"No preparations are being made for the Patriarch's trip to the Vatican and his meeting with the Pope at any particular place or at any particular time," Archbishop Hilarion said while taking questions from journalists in Moscow.

The possibility of the Pope's visit to Russia in the near future is not being discussed, either, he said.

"The matter may imply a meeting on neutral ground, as they say now," he said.

Archbishop Hilarion insisted that the main purpose of a dialogue between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church is not so much a meeting between their heads as such as "radical improvement in our relations and the overcoming of the existing problems."

He mentioned among such problems proselytism, a too aggressive missionary policy on the part of the Roman Catholic Church in the traditional Orthodox territory in the 1990s, and the expansion of the Uniates in Ukraine.

Quite bluntly, reunion is just not going to happen! And this comes clearly apparent should anyone take into account the human reality of the split between East and West. You are not going to overturn a millenia of schism and doctrinal, spiritual and institutional divergence in just a few years. Both churches have gone their separate ways for a long time. And not are you going to overturn the legacy of state and political domination (among the Russians) or that of Islamic influence from Ottoman rule (among the Greeks, where they have the slogan: Orthodoxy or death!). Consequently there are strong undercurrents of deep, visceral hostility towards Catholicism and the papacy. At best, we can hope for greatly improved relations, but not alas for reunion.

Equal opportunities double standards

2009-10-10T16:58:00.003+01:00

We hear constantly that we must show greater consideration for persons from ethnic minorities, particularly those of African and West Indian origin. Therefore according to this principle the secularist liberal establishment should be more sympathetic and understanding towards you if you are black. But, as Denise Haye, a Christian worker for Lewisham council was to discover, this only really applies if you hold the 'correct' liberal views and opinions. She has been wrongfully dismissed, for equal opportunities does not apply if you are a black Christian.

Her crime? She posted unfavourable comments about gays on the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) website using her work computer. She wrote that Sharon Ferguson (its head) should be "ashamed" of herself and that homosexuality was "not normal" and a sin. Citing the importance of repenting in the "last days", Haye added, in capitals, "the wages of sin is death". She at first unaware of what this site was, and had come across it while looking for church information online. The full story can be found on The Voice.

H/T to Fr. Tim

Forty hours

2009-10-08T16:33:00.005+01:00

The Birmingham Oratory holds its annual Forty Hours festival from the first Tuesday of October to the following Thursday, with an all night vigil from 10pm on Wednesday evening to 6.30am the following morning. We start off with a votive high mass of Corpus Christi, and finish off with a votive high mass of the Sacred Heart, with a procession of the Sacrament around the church. This year I was unable to make the all night vigil as I was too tired, but I managed to fit in a few hours before the sacrament, and take some pictures:

ADORO te devote, latens Deitas,
quae sub his figuris vere latitas:
tibi se cor meum totum subiicit,
quia te contemplans totum deficit.

Visus, tactus, gustus in te fallitur,
sed auditu solo tuto creditur;
credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius:
nil hoc verbo Veritatis verius.

In cruce latebat sola Deitas,
at hic latet simul et humanitas;
ambo tamen credens atque confitens,
peto quod petivit latro paenitens.

Plagas, sicut Thomas, non intueor;
Deum tamen meum te confiteor;
fac me tibi semper magis credere,
in te spem habere, te diligere.

O memoriale mortis Domini!
panis vivus, vitam praestans homini!
praesta meae menti de te vivere
et te illi semper dulce sapere.

Pie pellicane, Iesu Domine,
me immundum munda tuo sanguine;
cuius una stilla salvum facere
totum mundum quit ab omni scelere.

Iesu, quem velatum nunc aspicio,
oro fiat illud quod tam sitio;
ut te revelata cernens facie,
visu sim beatus tuae gloriae. Amen.

Tonight we finish with high mass of the Sacred Heart.

Two reality checks for ecumenism

2009-10-05T21:45:00.004+01:00

There has been much talk of immanent reunion between Rome and Orthodoxy on some of the blogs, and there are also those in England who still believe that 'reunion' is still possible between what remains of the Anglican 'communion' and the Holy See. But the two following articles courtesy of Rorate Caeli and Fr. Dwight Longenecker should bring some of these professional ecumenists to their senses.

The first is an extract from a letter of Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon, the Ecumenical Patriarchate's most prominent exponent of ecumenical dialogue to the Metropolitans of the Orthodox Church of Greece, denouncing the vehement opposition within that Church to dialogue with Rome:

3. It is being propagated very falsely and conspiringly that the signing of the union of the Churches is imminent! A professor emeritus of Theology, who is well known for his ill-will towards my person, had visited a Hierarch of the Church of Greece and had told him that he knew with certainty (!) that the union had already been signed (in Ravenna!) and that the relative announcement was a matter of time!!! Clergy and laity have approached me and asked me if it is true that the union is to be signed in Cyprus, in October!

Obviously, a feeling of unrest is being attempted among the people of God through this behaviour, with unpredictable consequences for the unity of the Church. However, those who are disseminating these things are fully aware (as long as they have not been blinded by empathy, fanaticism or a mania for self-projection), firstly, that the ongoing theological Dialogue has yet to span an extremely long course, because the theological differences that have accumulated during the one thousand years of division are many; and secondly, that the Committee for the Dialogue is entirely unqualified for the "signing" of a union, given that this right belongs to the Synods of the Churches.

Therefore, why all the misinformation? Can't the disseminators of these false "updates" think of what the consequences will be for the unity of the Church? «He who agitates (God's people) shall bear the blame, whoever he may be» (Galatians 5:10)

The second from Fr. Dwight is more pithy, concerning reports that the queen is extremely concerned (and rightly so) about the state the Church of England has fallen into:

Let's face it, the Church of England is never going to roll over and submit to the Holy Father, but it would be rather nice if a conservative group were to split off, join the Catholics and have Her Majesty come long for the ride. She could repudiate her role as the head of the Church of England, and the Anglicans could elect Elton John to take her place. That way they could have everything they really want: homosexual marriage and an old English queen as the head of their religion.

Eucharistic miracle in Poland and forthcoming 40 hours devotion

2009-10-04T14:39:00.006+01:00

Reports have just got out about a miracle concerning a host that was dropped at a mass in Saint Anthony’s Church in Sokółka, Diocese of Białystok, Poland. I was first informed about this at high mass in the Oratory this morning by our superior who had just returned from Poland. Here is the news article from News Poland which I found on the web.

A special commission from diocese in Białystok is being checked if there occurred a miracle in Saint Anthony’s Church in Sokółka. Dissolved Host looks like a part of human heart. This interesting miracle has been kept in secret since six months.

“We are not sure that it is true. We must investigate this case and be sure that a real miracle occurred in this church” – said priest Andrzej Dębski who is a spokesman of the Curia.

The miracle happened during the mass. One of local priests was giving the Holy Communion when suddenly it fell down on the floor. So he took it and put into a chalice. After several days the chalice was filled with red water which was poured out on a special ceremonial tablecloth. As it turned out, there was also a strange things examined by the doctors. According to them it was a part of human heart at the point of death condition. The commission will try to investigate truthfulness of the miracle.

Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano

This miracle is a most welcome incentive for us to participate in the Oratory Forty Hours devotion which begins this next Tuesday evening at 8.00pm with high mass of the Blessed Sacrament, with all night vigil the following Wednesday to Thursday and closing with Votive High Mass of the Sacred Heart. This will be good opportunity to pray for the conversion of left wing heretics and right wing schismatics: in particular for the Russian Orthodox church, the Pius X society in their negotiations with the Holy See, and some of the Bishops of England and Wales....

Benedict XVI to come to Brum, and beatify Newman?

2009-10-02T19:11:00.006+01:00

There is some reason to hope that our Holy Father may come and visit us at the Birmingham Oratory, if these extracts from this Catholic Herald editoria l prove to be right:

It has been suggested that the Pope will be present at the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman. Church sources say London, Birmingham and Edinburgh would be likely destinations, as well as Oxford.

Some Catholics are hoping the Pope will break with convention and beatify Cardinal Newman himself.

Fr Federico Lombardi, the Pope's spokesman, said such a trip would be an "obvious occasion" to beatify Cardinal Newman. A journalist in the Czech Republic noted that Benedict XVI had previously expressed a preference to allow beatifications to be carried out by the local Church rather than by the Pope. In response, Fr Lombardi said: "We have a year to figure that out."

A Church insider said: "Cardinal Newman is the major event. It wouldn't be ridiculous to suggest that it's a possibility. The Pope has said it's his rule not to preside at beatifications but it's his rule to break.

"Pope Benedict is a great admirer of Newman and this visit is about Newman, and about what it says about the Church. It's not as simple as him turning up to bash politicians on the head. He always comes to boost those countries he visits, and England and Wales will benefit."

It seems that despite hysterical bigotry to the contrary from the National Secular Society, a papal visit will be almost universally welcomed in this country. But, please God, may he come to us! Now that will give the secularists and Tabletistas something to whinge and cry about...

Habemus Episcopum!

2009-10-01T19:02:00.006+01:00

Today on the Feast of St. Therese of Lisieux it has been announced that Bishop Bernard Longley, Auxiliary in Westminster, has been appointed by our Holy Father to the metropolitan see of Birmingham. He seems to be a reasonably safe appointment, and thankfully at least we have not been given one of those episcopal horrors from the dioceses of the south coast!

Please do remember to pray for him that he will be a wise and holy pastor, who will feed the flock entrusted to his care well, and will courageously uphold the faith and magisterium of the church both in and out of season. Of all the dioceses in England and Wales, Birmingham has been among those that have withstood the assault on the church in the last forty years better. May it continue to do so, and also follow the program of renewal of Benedict XVI.

St. Therese of Lisieux, pray for us.

St. Chad of Mercia, pray for us.

Ven. John Henry Newman, pray for us.

Michaelmas

2009-09-29T13:14:00.005+01:00

Today is the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, traditionally known in England as Michaelmas. This is a feast which has marked the beginning of autumn and of the new academic year in universities, as well as the end of the summer holidays (and the beginning of the grim long winter's nights...). There is also as far as I'm aware a superstition that it is bad luck to pick blackberries after this feast. If this is true, it does not bode well for me, as I have yet to harvest the considerable crop that appears in Birmingham for jam and puddings!

Sancte Michael Archangele,
defende nos in proelio;
contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium.
Imperet illi Deus, supplices deprecamur:
tuque, Princeps militiae Caelestis,
satanam aliosque spiritus malignos,
qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo,
divina virtute in infernum detrude.
Amen.

Absolutely shocking!

2009-09-27T21:53:00.015+01:00

The Bishops of England and Wales have commissioned two songs from Mike Stanley of CJM Music fame for the visit of the relics of St. Therese of Lisieux. They have been brought to my attention recently as examples of 'Catholic' music that really takes the biscuit for sheer awfulness and saccharine sentimentality.

The MP3 files can be downloaded here: Child of Grace (Therese) and My Song of Today. Being an amateur composer, organist and singer myself (go to my CPDL site for what I have written), I thought I might listen and give my opinion. They are exactly as I have heard others describe them, and let me tell you, they require considerable stamina and guts to listen to. I must say, I take back all my harsh words against Maria Parkinson's As I kneel Before You. It sounds like Bach and Palestrina in comparison to this! And a word of warning: DO NOT LISTEN to the downloads without having a sick bucket handy.

I feel sorry for the Little Flower that such appalling music should have been written in her honour. Even I could do a better job than this shocking and embarrassing attempt! Why the hell couldn't the Bishops of England and Wales commission Britain's leading Catholic composer James MacMillan for the task? Now that would have indeed been a genuine and real act of devotion, for one of twentieth century's greatest saints.

Grant Roberts R.I.P.

2009-09-26T12:41:00.000+01:00

Of your charity please pray for the repose of the soul of Grant Roberts, a long time stalwart of the Oratory parish community, the Latin Mass Society and one of the founding members of the Birmingham branch of the Walsingham Association. He died in hospital of a heart attack on the eve of the Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham, following on severe cancer of the liver. This was just short of the 40th anniversary celebrations of the branch.

This morning an extraordinary form requiem was celebrated for his repose in St. Philip's chapel. May he and all the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace, Amen.

Walsingham Association Birmingham branch 40th anniversary mass

2009-09-25T21:27:00.004+01:00

Yesterday the Birmingham branch of the Walsingham Association celebrated its fortieth anniversary with the mass of the feast of Our Lady of Walsingham celebrated by Bishop Philip Pargeter,Auxiliary of Birmingham. It was a very joyful occasion, but it was also overshadowed by the death of one of the founding members, Grant Roberts, yesterday. Please remember to pray for the repose of his soul.

Above is Bishop Pargeter delivering the homily: he celebrated the golden jubilee of his ordination this year. For those of you wondering, this is a concelebrated English novus ordo mass celebrated ad orientem! Below is Anne Roebuck leading the bidding prayers: the national Walsingham association chairman and stalwart of the Oratory parish.

Unfortunately due to the lighting in the Oratory unless you have professional equipment photographs come out with a red tinge! But that can't be helped. The mass continues with the offertory:

Bishop Pargeter leads the final prayer and blessing:

And then we have the procession of the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham around the church to the hymn, 'Sing the praises of Mary, the Mother of God.' The Walsingham mass is an annual event in September which is an integral part of the devotional life of the parish. There is a great tradition of devotion and pilgrimages to Our Lady of Walsingham here which was begun by the late Fr. Humphrey Crookenden, one of the Oratory fathers who died in 1978.

And finally, we had a buffet in the parish hall afterwards, where Bishop Pargeter was presented with a gift for his golden jubilee of ordination on behalf of the Walsingham Association members.

Pope to visit England next year

2009-09-24T23:28:00.004+01:00

Just recently news has come from unofficial sources that Pope Benedict XVI will visit England next year, at a time that could well coincide with the upcoming beatification of Cardinal Newman. If this is true, let us hope he will come to visit us in the Oratory in Birmingham. If that does happen, it will be one of biggest news stories of the English church in years. And what a snub it will be to our enemies and critics! I would love to see the reaction of the Tablet and some of the Bishops of England and Wales to a papal high mass in the Oratory...

For nearly forty years, particularly during the church's grim Babylonian captivity in the 70's and 80's, we were an embattled ghetto holding fast to the doctrinal, liturgical and devotional traditions of the church often by the skin of our teeth. Now those days are well and truly over and we are seen as the model for the Benedictine reforms, particularly on the web. The combination of the beatification of our founder, with a visit from the Holy Father will be the vindication of our efforts and what we have stood for.

Public health warning!

2009-09-22T13:13:00.010+01:00

Bones has issued an urgent health warning of a terrible new disease that has broken out across England and Wales. He explains in great detail the symptoms, potential remedies and what to do if you think that you have caught it.

It seems that I have caught a very mild form of it, but if you are a militant secularist suffering serious convulsions about what I have posted on in the last three days, please follow the link!

The veneration of Saint Thérèse's relics

2009-09-20T22:22:00.011+01:00

In Birmingham there is a great tradition of devotion to St. Thérèse of Lisieux and the Oratory is no exception. So deep is this that there are several parishes dedicated to her, almost every Catholic church has a shrine to her and Teresa is a very common name for Catholic girls in the city. So it was be expected there would be a big response to the visit of her relics, but not as great as I imagined!

Yesterday afternoon, after the service of Midday prayer was over for the arrival of Saint Thérèse's relics, seeing the sheer numbers of people present, I thought that it would be better to go away for an hour and wait for the crowds to subside. So after having a pint with some fellow Oratory parishioners, I came back to discover that the throng had not diminished but considerably increased! So much so that there was a long queue stretching right down the street.

Nevertheless, with a little patience I got in to venerate the casket. But very little time was given with only 5 seconds allowed to kneel before it, and then we were moved on. The sick and disabled were given priority, and were allowed to sit in the cathedral: and with just all of them alone the pews were filled to capacity!

Reports from the secularist media about the visit of the relics have ranged from cynicism at best to downright hysteria and bigotry. Most of talked about the usual knee - jerk 'medieval superstition', while some have even made thinly veiled demands that the authorities stop this event! I have seen articles saying, 'religious tolerance is being taken too far!', 'vast crowds being duped and led astray', 'politicians should not kowtow to fundamentalists', etc. etc.

But these people have good reason to react badly. The Little Flower is a saint who means business: the Nemesis of secularism and atheism! Indeed when I came back today, the crowds were even bigger, with the police maintaining a benign supervision of the event. I asked them how many people had come and how did they react to it. They told me they about 5000 - 10000 could have turned up, and yet this has been all very orderly and well organised with no problems whatsoever. Yet to secularist paranoia, Christian fundamentalist terrorists are in the making in this gathering..

Indeed, to give an idea of the scale of the crowds, here is the back of the queue towards the cathedral. It took about quarter of an hour to move through it to venerate.

This event was a real sign of Catholic unity and fellowship. People came from all across Birmingham, the Black Country and beyond, with every parish being represented, and with groups coming from other parts of the diocese in Stoke on Trent, Lichfield, Worcester and Coventry. Almost every nationality and ethnic group was represented, and Catholics whether liberal or traditionalist laid aside their differences to come together in prayer and veneration before the saint. Never once before I have seen such unity in diversity, and such a powerful sense of the mystical body of Christ. How good and how pleasant it is, when brothers live in unity!

The Franciscans of the Immaculate came down for the day from Burslem, Stoke on Trent, where they confirmed to me that five of them have just set up a new friary. They have now settled in well, and so my prayers have been answered. Deo Gratias! Later on they were to join us in the Oratory this evening for vespers.

But this is only the beginning! The relics have another month to tour England and Wales, and what we see here will be nothing compared with what will happen when the relics visit London. Let us hope that the media go wild with fury, for we will then know that the Little Flower has struck England's secularist heart.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, pray for us.

St. Thérèse comes to Birmingham

2009-09-19T19:00:00.009+01:00

Today this afternoon at two o'clock the relics of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux arrived in St. Chad's cathedral, stopping over in Birmingham over the weekend during their tour of England and Wales. I arrived just in time to the joyous peeling of the cathedral bells, where the procession was just starting up.

Slipping through the crowds, I managed to catch a few pictures. Bishop Philip Pargeter, Auxiliary of Birmingham is leading the procession, while behind him are the nuns of the Carmel of Wolverhampton. For many of them, it may be their first day out in years.

And here is the reliquary, borne in procession to the cathedral:

I expected the cathedral to be busy, but I didn't realise that I would be very fortunate to get inside for the service that was to follow! We were held waiting by the doors while the stewards managed to squeeze in a few extra persons.

And when I got inside, it was standing room only!

Then followed sung Midday Prayer, led by Bishop Pargeter, with the nuns of Wolverhampton Carmel.

At the end of the recessional, we were asked to wait for official photographs of the occasion, before beginning veneration. Seeing the vast crowds, I thought it would be better to go away for an hour for them to subside, and come back later. However, I was in for a surprise when I came back! More later...

A glimmer of hope?

2009-09-19T09:42:00.007+01:00

In recent years relations between us and the Russian Orthodox Church have considerably thawed since the election of Benedict XVI to the see of Peter, as will as the election of Patriarch Kyrill. Yesterday Archbishop Hillarion, head of the external affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate, met up with the Pope.

There has been much talk of imminent reunion between the two sister churches on the blogs. Personally, I think this is wildly optimistic. There is a very long tradition of bitterness, jealousy and rivalry between Russian Orthodoxy and Polish Catholicism which alas is still alive and kicking in the Ukraine, particularly over the issue of the Uniates. Also in Orthodoxy there are movements that are heavily tied up with Russian nationalism and identity (and Serbian and Greek in the other churches), and who are very violently opposed to any kind of collaboration, let alone reunion.

It is all too easy to forget that although doctrinally Catholicism and Orthodoxy are almost identical, Orthodoxy is otherwise in fact very different to us and in many respects just not the same. Their liturgy, iconography, mystical tradition, spiritual and devotional life, religious orders and brotherhoods are completely different and can be quite a shock to Catholics unfamiliar with them. The Orthodox likewise often strongly object to many Catholic practices such as the Sacred Heart, as they see them as not part of and conflicting with the patristic tradition, and look upon our scholastic tradition with disfavour.

But nevertheless, with God anything is possible. Benedict's theology is greatly admired in Orthodox circles. And what is more his initiatives such as Summorum Pontificem, and his courageous stance in affirming the church's moral teachings in the face of the world media, have been most warmly welcomed by them. There is a genuine feeling among many of the Russians that Orthodoxy and Rome need the support of each other in their witness against the destruction of family life and normalisation of homosexuality. With this in mind, let us ask Our Lady's help to heal an ancient rift, so that they may be one!

Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, pray for us.

A message to President Obama

2009-09-18T21:27:00.007+01:00

Prolife Catholics at www.catholicvote.com have cribbed together this short Youtube message especially for President Obama and his policies. Enjoy!

H/T to Damian Thompson

The church of St. John Fisher, West Heath

2009-09-17T19:30:00.011+01:00

The church of St. John Fisher, West Heath, Birmingham, where we had the solemn high mass two days ago is a most remarkable building and comes as a considerable surprise for several reasons. Firstly, for what is an average outer suburban city parish founded in the mid fifties, it is not a concrete carbuncle but a quite hansom modern brick church built in the shape of a Greek cross. It is totally of the period it was built in idiom and style, yet completely in harmony with ecclesiastical architectural tradition.

But secondly, it was built from 1962 - 1964, right during the council, and yet was specifically designed for the traditional liturgy. And thirdly, it has completely escaped the liturgical vandalism of the post conciliar era, to the point where no permanent altar versus populum has been installed, as you can see below. A portable altar is placed in the sanctuary for the parish masses.

Touring the church, we find three side altars completely intact for Our Lady, St. Joseph and the Sacred Heart.

Our Lady

St. Joseph

Sacred Heart

Choir gallery

Alas, the organ, a once very fine electric action instrument, has given up the ghost and been completely vandalised by amateur attempts to repair it. To get it up and running again would cost a small fortune. Hence a dreadful Hammond sounding electric organ has been placed up there (exactly the same kind I once played in the church of St. Birinus, Dorchester on Thames, producing a very ugly sound).

Ceiling

High mass in West Heath for Our Lady of Sorrows

2009-09-15T21:41:00.011+01:00

This evening my fellow blogger and local LMS rep Dr. Matthew Doyle had organised a High Mass in the 1962 missal at the church of St. John Fisher, West Heath. At last, things are beginning to move in Birmingham and the Black Country for the extraordinary form. Until Summorum Pontificem Catholic traditionalism here was virtually in a ghetto: a tiny minority of stalwarts confined to a poorly attended Sunday indult low mass in St. Catherine of Siena, Bristol Street, and then later in the cloister chapel in the Birmingham Oratory.

This was only supplemented by the occasional private mass, usually in the Oratory. It was very rare for the 1962 missal to be celebrated in any of the other parishes in the region, mainly because there was a lot of suspicion and bad feeling against it and it’s followers a decade ago. And this was very often from many clergy and laity who were otherwise loyal to the orthodox faith and church’s magisterium. I can remember well the bitter disputes about the ‘Tridentine Mass’ and the untold resentment that they caused 15 years ago. It was seen as ‘schismatic’, ‘right wing’ by some, while some traddies were saying the Novus Ordo was heretical and invalid!

However, those days are at last gone. The former Oratory cloister chapel indult mass has been moved into the main church, and now it is effectively another Sunday mass, like all the others. Numbers attending have considerably increased, attracting many newcomers. But not only that, it is beginning to move out the Oratory into the other parishes in the city. St. Chad’s cathedral had it’s first EF mass for 40 years last year, while an EF mass will hopefully be arranged in St. Michael’s, West Bromwich, in November. The change in atmosphere has been very noticeable on all sides, and vastly better.

Introit

This has been the second High Mass celebrated here this year, with the last of the parish's patronal festival of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More. (See Matt Doyle's report here). Some of us in the Oratory choir as well as our organist came along to provide the music, and we had a Gregorian mass with Mass IX Cum Jubilo as the ordinary. At the end of it, I had the comment from one lady, "It was wonderful, it is like looking into the future". If only Robert Mickens of Tablet fame could have been present to overhear this! Well, here are some photos I took from the choir gallery:

Collect

Epistle

The chants for the mass of Our Lady of Sorrows are notoriously difficult, so for the Gradual and Alleluia we had to default to singing in monotone. The Stabat Mater sequence we made a heroic attempt at, and while it was very beautiful chant, we thought it better to sing it to the Stabat Mater hymn melody. However tonight showed that you do not need major resources for good music for a high mass. With just 4 singers, and our very able Oratory organist with his brilliant improvisations on a poor electric organ, we created a quite impressive sound which was much appreciated afterwards. What a pity the church’s original pipe organ has given up the ghost: it had a excellent sound.

Gospel

Homily

Offertory

Incensation

Canon of Mass

Communion

Recessional

There was a buffet in the parish hall afterwards, and hopefully more high masses will be coming in the future. A low mass has been organised for this parish on the Feast of the Holy Rosary on Wednesday 7th October at 7.00pm.

Summorum Pontificem anniversary: patience is a virtue!

2009-09-14T21:27:00.000+01:00

Today is the second anniversary of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificem coming into effect. If anyone should think that it has made little difference in many places, we must bear in mind that two years in the life of the church is a very short time. And yet in those two short years, great deal has already happened.

For us folks in the Birmingham Oratory Summorum Pontificem has made quite a difference, independent of the fact the Oratory fathers have always been very supportive of the extraordinary form. Before SP we had low mass every Sunday in the cloister chapel at 12.45pm. After SP the mass was moved into the main church at 9.30am as part of the usual run of Sunday masses, and it’s numbers have almost trebled.

Not only that, since the holydays in England and Wales were transferred to the nearest Sundays, we have kept the old days in the EF, and we now have high mass on many of them. Also a weekly Saturday mass has started at 9.30am, has been quite well attended. Regular masses at celebrated nearby in Halesowen every Wednesday and also occasional high masses are celebrated in St. John Fisher, West Heath, Birmingham. The next one will be tomorrow for the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows at 7.00pm, which I and some of the Birmingham Oratory choir will be singing at.

The deeply ingrained prejudice against traditional Catholicism among so many of the clergy will take many, many years to overcome, if not decades. Such indeed has been the trauma of the church's Babylonian captivity of the last 40 years, that we cannot expect all to be put right in a year or so! Nevertheless like the bronze serpent in the wilderness, the standard of the cross has been by our Holy Father by the liberation of the 1962 missal. Whoever in the church has been bitten by the poisonous serpent of secularism shall gaze upon it and live. Patience is a virtue!

New music for the Oratory choir library

2009-09-11T22:08:00.005+01:00

Two weeks ago a former member of the Oratory choir donated his private choral music collection to us, and since then as choir librarian I have been very busy trying to sort, catalogue and file it all away. I have completed the total inventory: 14 new mass sets, 5 new motet sets, about 150 single copies, and this does not include a great deal of the music which duplicates what we already have. It brings our total of mass sets to nearly 200!

Not unnaturally I'm extremely pleased with what has been given us, and we will hopefully be performing two of the works donated in the coming weeks at Sunday high mass: Missa O Magnum Mysterium by Tomas Luis de Victoria, and Messe de Ste. Jeanne d'Arc by Henri Nibelle.

So if anyone has any old Catholic choral music of any kind, era, quality or quantity that they are looking to find a home for, please do get in touch and I will be much obliged! We at the Birmingham Oratory are always looking out for new music, particularly that which is out of print and of historical interest.

The wisdom of Fr. Richard McBrien

2009-09-10T22:22:00.006+01:00

Recently Fr. Richard McBrien of Notre Dame University, Indiana, has offered us his great words of wisdom concerning adoration of the Blessed Sacrament: (H/T to Fr. Tim).

Notwithstanding Pope Benedict XVI's personal endorsement of Eucharistic adoration and the sporadic restoration of the practice in the archdiocese of Boston and elsewhere, it is difficult to speak favorably about the devotion today.

Now that most Catholics are literate and even well-educated, the Mass is in the language of the people (i.e, the vernacular), and its rituals are relatively easy to understand and follow, there is little or no need for extraneous Eucharistic devotions. The Mass itself provides all that a Catholic needs sacramentally and spiritually.

Eucharistic adoration, perpetual or not, is a doctrinal, theological, and spiritual step backward, not forward.

What he seems to be implying is that those who love the practice of Eucharistic Adoration (like myself, and the parish and fathers of the Birmingham Oratory) are illiterate, ill - educated, and hankering after obscurantist rituals and dead language. Also that in our devotion to the Blessed Sacrament we are neglecting devotion to the liturgy, to the mass and to Christ, if indeed (God forbid!), we are not practicing devotion to Our Blessed Lady...

In other words, we must be backward, uneducated and superstitious Irish, Italian or Polish peasants who need to be enlightened by learned intellectual American liberals like himself. Bear in mind also that our Holy Father, notwithstanding the fact he is a leading theologian, scholar, liturgist and Vatican II peritus, comes from Bavarian peasant stock, and that Pope John Paul II originated from what must be a backward Eastern Europe. With this in mind, Fr. McBrien has an excellent reason for explaining their advocacy of perpetual Eucharistic adoration.

But as for me, I would like him to explain why I am so backward in my devotions. I have great love of the liturgy and the psalms, pray the Benedictine office daily and was educated by Benedictine monks. And it is almost second nature for me to fall prostrate before the Blessed Sacrament exposed in the Oratory on Saturday mornings: the Word made flesh, that has dwelt amongst us. I must have a most immature view of the faith, or perhaps I am suffering a complex and trauma that needs to be resolved by intensive psychotherapy.

The Master and Margarita

2009-09-07T13:07:00.009+01:00

Over the last few weeks I have been watching the dramatisation of one of my favourite novels, the Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov. This is a series of ten episodes on Youtube with English subtitles that was produced by Russian television 4 years ago. It is a very faithful adaptation of Bulgakov's masterpiece Here is the beginning of the first episode:

The story is set in Stalin's Russia during the purges and mass arrests of the 1930's with three concurring tales that eventually come together that brilliantly satirise Soviet society and totalitarianism. If you have an interest in either Stalin's rule, gnosis or Russian culture and literature this is highly recommended.

The first is the visit of the devil and his angels in the guise of Professor Woland and his retinue to Moscow's literary elite where they cause mayhem and confusion, and confound the omnipresent secret police. The second is the tale of an author marginalised by the literary establishment who writes a Gnostic interpretation of the passion, of Pontius Pilate and of Matthew Levi. The third is the tale of the heroine Margarita who becomes a witch to save the author whom she loves.

Many myths, legends and omens have arisen about around the novel. Those connected with it have often come to a bad end, and previous attempts to film it have thwarted by circumstances half way through. Many Russian Christians regard it as diabolism and Satanist propaganda. I have just completed watching all the episode on Youtube, and after the final one, my computer keyboard went completely haywire, to the point I thought the machine had given up the ghost. Perhaps there is some truth in these superstitions: watch the series at your peril!

Vietnam's regime arrests a Catholic blogger

2009-09-04T19:54:00.006+01:00

Fr. Tim writes:

A catechumen of the Archdiocese of Hanoi, Bui Thanh Hieu, who writes under the pen name Nguoi Buon Gio, which means “Wind Trader” has been arrested and detained for criticising the Vietnamese government's distortion of the Pope's speech to the Vietnamese Bishops at their Ad Limina visit. I humbly encourage bloggers to post on this injustice. The Wind Trader needs our support and the Vietnamese government needs to know that its distortion of the Holy Father's message is open to scrutiny from the rest of the world.

I must add a thought that could be the subject of a future blog post: it seems absolutely essential to the success of tyranny, totalitarianism and religious persecution for total control of the means of communication and complete dominance of the media by propaganda and ideology. This is to prevent any rational debate concerning the legitimacy of state power and policy, which is fatal to the totalitarian project.

Our Lady of Lavang, pray for us

The GOBS 40th anniversary Lourdes pilgrimage

2009-09-03T19:36:00.004+01:00

This year was the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Grand Order of Babysitters, the GOBS, and here is the group photo. I am on the right holding the banner in rather absent minded fashion. Maggie O'Rourke, our high priestess (the very words of Bishop Mervyn Alexander of Clifton when he awarded her the Bene Merenti for her work!) is third from the left.

And here is me again holding the banner with at the grotto mass with the Diocese of Clonfert, Ireland, pilgrimage.

The Lourdes Rosary Procession

2009-08-31T20:40:00.004+01:00

One of the great highlights of Lourdes which even the sixties liturgical vandals could not succeed in wrecking is the evening torchlit rosary procession, which is done in the multiple languages: Latin, French, Italian, German, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish and Croatian.

Interspersed with the decades are the Lourdes Ave, and unfortunately as well as that dreadful hymn 'As I kneel before you' (its author should have been shot).

Eventually everyone gathers up in front of the Rosary Basilica, and the evening ends with the Salve Regina, with the final blessing given in Latin. Which is more than you will get in the average French parish, with the exception of those that use the 1962 missal.

Mass in the Cite St. Pierre

2009-08-30T21:02:00.005+01:00

I had returned home to Birmingham yesterday, and am still recovering from the long 21 hour coach trip. However I still have a few more pictures of Lourdes to show you. Essential to every GOBS pilgrimage is mass in the Cachot for our benefactors, which was offered by Fr. Terence Creech CSSR, built in imitation of the sheepfold of St. Barnardette. Here we are in our yellow dress.

The Rosary Basilica in Lourdes

2009-08-29T18:09:00.009+01:00

The Rosary Basilica in Lourdes at the foot of the Immaculate Conception Basilica above was designed by the architect Leopold Hardy and built between 1883 and 1889. It was consecrated in 1901 and has a capacity of 1,500. For the jubilee celebrations in 2009 the basilica was restored and new mosaic panels were made in the workshops of the Vatican on the front depicting the rosary mysteries of light. Above the main doors two mosaic circular panel represent, on the left Pope Leo XIII and, on the right Mgr Schoepfer Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes from 1899 to 1927.

Around the central dome, the arms that are the transept and the sanctuary contain side-altars with mosaic images of the 15 mysteries of the Rosary. The Transept on the left contains altars depicting the joyful mysteries of the rosary (The Annunciation, The Visitation, The Birth of Jesus, The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, and the Finding of Jesus in the Temple). Behind the sanctuary, five altars show the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary (The Agony in the Garden, The Scourging at the Pillar, The Crowning with Thorns, The Carrying of the Cross, The Crucifixion).

Finally, on the right transept are altars depicting the glorious mysteries of the rosary (The Resurrection, The Ascension, The Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, The Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven, The Coronation of Our Lady).

I cannot help feeling that if there is one form of art that the French just cannot manage it is that of mosaics: it has to be said that at best this basilica is not a great artistic success. Their other attempts at this in the Sacre Coeur in Paris and the basilica of St. Therese in Lisieux are just as poor. The side altars are of at best indifferent quality, while the image of Our Lady of Lourdes in the apse is shocking! Perhaps it would have been far more effective to use a plainer and more austere style here. However, in fairness it must be said that this church is preferable to that dreadful underground car park better known as the Pius X basilica!

The sheepfold at Bartres

2009-08-26T16:25:00.008+01:00

Yesterday we made a day trip to the village of Bartres, were St. Bernadette was fostered for a while by her aunt, and later she came back to look after her aunt's sheep. As a village it is not particularly remarkarble with the exception of the church and the house of Bernadette. While we were there it was quite wet. Here are a few pictures.

House of Bernadette

Bernadette lived in this room with her aunt, and it is open to visitors in the afternoon.

The church of St. John the Baptist is fairly notable and worth seeing. While it has remains of a medieval sanctuary, most of it dates from the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries, and has quite a remarkable reordos depicting the life of St. John the Baptist. Luckily it has been spared the liturgical vandals and is almost intact, and with a portable table for it's forward altar it is ready for ad orientem worship.

The High Altar

The Lady Altar

The Sanctuary

St. Joseph's Altar

Mass at Lourdes in the 1962 missal

2009-08-25T10:25:00.005+01:00

Lourdes has long been a stronghold of the liberal liturgical establishment, and of key strategic importance as a major international shrine. In fact the same could be said about many other major Marian shrines: they tend to have rather liberal rectors and dubious para - liturgies.

Nevertheless, even though it may be among the last liberal bastions to crumble, the extra - ordinary form has gained a foothold, and every Sunday at about 9.30am there is a 1962 missal low mass in the Upper Basilica. Or so it may seem, for I arrived at precisely 9.30am as advertised to find that they were already in the homily.

As far as I'm aware this mass took a lot of in - fighting to get established, but hopefully it will be here to stay!

On the way to Lourdes with the GOBS

2009-08-25T10:00:00.006+01:00

I have now managed to find an internet connection here in Lourdes, and so I thought I might share with you a few pictures of the trip there. It is a 21 hour journey by coach all the way from the Oratory to our destination: here is Jackie Parkes seeing off her children, and taking pictures for her blog:

By early evening we arrive at the port of Dover, for the ferry to Calais:

The ferry leaves as we have dinner:

Then it is then long haul up to Paris and down the helter - skelter motorway across Central France to Toulouse and then across to Pau and finally Lourdes, with the occasional toilet break. By the time we arrive we are pretty exausted.

Arrival at the Hotel Santa Lucia, to be greeted by our old friends Alain and Marie - Anne!

Off to Lourdes

2009-08-20T20:58:00.004+01:00

Tomorrow I begin the long coach journey from the Oratory to the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes with the Grand Order of Babysitters, and this year will be the 40th anniversary. Hence it is a particularly special year for them. I am much looking forward to this event, and I shall enjoy a long week of rest and recuperation!

Mulier Fortis on biotechnology's immorality

2009-08-19T18:37:00.007+01:00

Last year in March 2008 I did a series of posts on the various lobbies and factions behind the culture of death: The Culture of Death Rogues Gallery. One of them was about the biotechnology industry and its infamous research into human cloning and human - animal hybrids. I opined at the time that 'immoral research does not produce cures!', and now, thanks to this news given by the highly esteemed and worthy of respect Mulier Fortis (hopefully that description will not offend her this time...), I have been proven right. Here is an extract from the San Francisco Weekly:

..a teenage boy who had traveled from Israel to Russia... for an implant of neural stem cells to treat a rare degenerative disease. Four years after the procedure, according to the study, the therapy hadn't worked, and the transplanted stem cells had morphed into a brain tumor.

The article continues:

As Kriegstein shuffled through his papers, looking for the report, he explained his fear that current efforts in California to create stem-cell–based cures, which he views as premature, could have similar results. "The likelihood of something going wrong is pretty high," he said. "Something like tumors are probably going to happen. This is an area where the risks are great. The public has to be prepared."

The great Mac McLernon has also demanded that I show forth my seven greatest loves, after agreeing with her on no. 6 (caffeine, in the form of what I call Dr. Tannin: tea). So here they are in full:

1) The Catholic church, the mystical body of Christ (same as Mac).

2) Our Blessed Lady, on whose Feast of the Expectation I was born in the town of Evesham, an old shrine of Our Lady.

3) The sacred liturgy with it's wonderful sacred music.

4) The Birmingham Oratory, my beloved parish church, whose great choir I sing in.

5) Downside Abbey, my old Alma Mater.

6) Tea, as explained before.

7) Alcohol, in copious amounts. If all else fails, then just drink....

Hymn 'Ave Maris Stella' by Diego Ortiz

2009-08-17T20:04:00.003+01:00

Having lamented the fact that Jackie Parkes did not record the hymn Ave Maris Stella with polyphonic verses by Diego Ortiz from yesterday's Assumption Vespers, it appears that she has just uploaded a recording of it. Well, I take back my words, for here it is:

Second Vespers of the Assumption (transferred)

2009-08-16T21:23:00.007+01:00

In the Birmingham Oratory we have celebrated the Assumption twice: yesterday on the actual day in the extraordinary form, and today transferred to the Sunday in the novus ordo. To make things even more complicated, the rite of vespers we do is from the Liber Usuralis but in the new calender! Hence we had Second Vespers of the Assumption tonight.

My fellow blogger Jackie Parkes has taken this short clip from just beneath the East choir gallery where we sing vespers, and this is in the middle of the long psalms and proper antiphons. We are in fact one of the very few places in the world where we have vespers with polyphonic hymn and magnificat settings. I have written some myself for our choir which can be downloaded here at the Choral Public Domain Library. What a pity she didn't take this clip during the Hymn 'Ave Maris Stella', the Magnificat, and during benediction: we had the most glorious music then:

Office Hymn: Ave Maris Stella, Diego Ortiz
Magnificat: Tone 8, Orlando Lassus
Tantum Ergo: Max Reger no.4
Final anthem: Introduxit Me Rex by Palestrina
Organ voluntary: Improvisation by John Pryor FRCO on Salve Regina

Assumption EF high mass in the Oratory

2009-08-15T14:33:00.008+01:00

This morning was an exceptionally long haul for us in the Oratory choir, as we had to start rehearsal at 9.00am sharp for the extraordinary form high mass for the Assumption of Our Lady. We were doing the full Palestrina Missa Assumpta Est Maria in six parts, with Palestrina Assumpta Est Maria at the offertory and Robert Parsons' Ave Maria at communion. This as well as all the full Gregorian propers, which were more difficult than usual. So it was a two hour rehearsal for us with no break with high mass at 11.00am, finishing at about 12.30pm. Here is the entrance procession, with our organist improvising on 'Ave Maris Stella':

It was a very successful occasion, with the music much appreciated by everyone, and we had a good crowd. I managed to take a few pictures of the service from the rear gallery where we were in the spare moments I had when I was not singing.

The Epistle

The Gospel

Homily

Preface

Consecration

Last Gospel

Recessional, with Bach's Fugue on the Magnificat played on the main organ

Brothers of the Little Oratory barbecue

2009-08-14T22:00:00.005+01:00

This evening the brothers of the Little Oratory of the Birmingham Oratory held their annual barbecue in the grounds of Rednal. Being a member I travelled down to Rednal with several of the others to get everything set up, and as ever, I was roped in to do most of the cooking and light the charcoal! We started off with mass in the Rednal chapel, and when this was finished, I got down to grilling burgers and sausages, while everyone else had a drink and a chat, and complained about how the slow the cooking was...

The Oratory originated out of a group of laymen led by St. Philip Neri, who met up for prayers, pious exercises, excursions and picnics, and such was its success that St. Philip had some of his disciples ordained to the priesthood, and from that came the common life of which we know the Oratory of today. We the brothers of the Little Oratory carry on the tradition of the Oratory's early exercises, and today was no exception. Apart from my cursing and swearing over the flaming charcoal and to my fellow brethren, it was a most convivial occasion.

Double Choir Mass by Felix Mendelssohn

2009-08-13T13:40:00.007+01:00

Last July when I made a break in Paris, I started arranging a double choir mass from several a cappella choral works by Felix Mendelssohn. I have now completed the task and the mass is now on the Choral Public Domain Library at this page, and you can also listen to a Midi file here.

Mendelssohn originally wrote several 8 part movements of the mass in German for Lutheran services: the Kyrie, Ehre sei Gott (Gloria) and Heilig (Sanctus), but he omitted the Credo and the Agnus Dei. I have left out the Credo, and for the Agnus Dei I found an 8 part setting of a Passiontide piece called Herr, dedenke nicht unswer. With the exception of the Kyrie which Mendelssohn wrote in the original Greek, I have substituted the German text for Latin, having also to tweak around the rhythms to make the syllables fit. For the Sanctus, I have also split it into two sections to make a separate Benedictus for extraordinary form of mass. All in all, it seems to work very well.

This was suggested to me by a member of the Birmingham Oratory choir, who had just come back from a choir tour singing Mendelssohn's German settings as part of a church service, that a Latin version could be made up. This is carrying on a long established tradition and practice in the Birmingham Oratory of reworking Mendelssohn's German and English anthems into Latin for use at our High Mass. Hence we sing Cum Natus Esset adapted from Da Jesus geboren ward at Epiphany, Sicut Cervus from Like as the hart pants, and Justus ut Palma on St. Joseph from a chorus in Paulus.

I've been tagged!

2009-08-12T22:19:00.003+01:00

It seems that I have been tagged on the blogosphere by the venerable Mulier Fortis. Well of the seven top things that she has particular affection for, I would go for no. 6: caffeine, in the form of what I call Dr. Tannin (tea). This, as well as liberal quantities of alcohol, is essential for my sanity and good health.

Prayers at Newman's graveside in Rednal

2009-08-09T16:49:00.011+01:00

Last year we expected our annual service of prayer at Cardinal Newman's grave to be the last, as his body was to be shortly exhumed as part of the beatification process. In fact we were quite wrong. Our cardinal had always wanted to be buried with his friend Fr. Ambrose St. John, and he has gained his wish to the very end. It was found that his body had totally decomposed into the soil leaving almost nothing behind.

Hence you can see his grave almost intact. Just before we started, I took a few pictures of Rednal's surroundings. Here is shot of Jackie Parkes:

The entrance gate to the grounds:

Rednal chapel:

The crowd gathering for the prayers:

And very poignantly, the grave of Gerard Tracey, the Birmingham Oratory librarian and archivist, whom I remember well and was for many years a key figure in the life of the Oratory. He was also a great cook and used to provide wonderful buffet dinners for the parish on major feasts such as St. Philip's day and the Epiphany. He died of a brain hemorrhage, and is very sadly missed. Next to him is the grave of Frances Wootton, the matron of the Oratory school under Cardinal Newman.

Jam making

2009-08-08T21:02:00.010+01:00

Right now it is the season for making jam! This may come as a surprise for those of you who think this is a mainly countryside activity, but in fact the city of Birmingham has an abundance of open spaces with plum and cherry trees, and the Bull Ring market is laden with fresh berries from the Vale of Evesham. Today I was going for a walk up in Holly Road near St. Augustine's, Edgbaston (an Anglo - Catholic church I know well and where I sometimes practice on its fine organ), and all across the pavements were windfall plums and damsons. So I gathered some of them up, brought them home and boiled up two jars of very fine plum jam.

The method is relatively simple, and is pretty much the same for most soft fruits. You take the fruit, often in semi - decayed and battered condition, wash them, and if necessary, then cut out the stones. Then weigh them, and for the same weight of fruit you measure out the same measure of sugar. (Hence 2 pounds of sugar for 2 pounds of fruit. This may seem excessive, but this is the amount needed for the jam preserve and set.)

Then render down the fruit in a saucepan at low heat with a small sliver of liquid at the bottom, and when the fruit has broken down, add the sugar in stages, making sure it has completely dissolved to the last crystal. Then add a tiny pat of butter (to prevent excessive foaming), and bring the mixture to boil rapidly for 5 to 10 minutes, until the jam sets. You test if it has set by putting a small dribble on a cold plate, and tip it to see if it has.

The jars have also to be sterilised and preheated, otherwise they will crack with hot jam. To do this, take wet jars with a touch of water inside with metal lids loosely fitted (otherwise they might burst!), and place them upside down in an oven at around 125 degrees Celsius. A word of warning: boiling jam causes very serious and nasty burns, so be careful in handling it!

In a week or so the blackberries in my back garden and around the area will be ready for harvesting, and so I can make up a whole job lot of bramble Jam. This tends to produce a hard, rather crunchy jam (which I'm very fond of), and hence some people make a jelly out of them. The fruit is stained through muslin cloth after boiling, and then the sugar added to the juice afterwards and boiled up to set.

Baa Baa Black Sheep Kyrie

2009-08-07T14:52:00.005+01:00

Yesterday I uploaded to the Choral Public Domain Library a setting of the Kyrie which I originally planned to be part of a Missa Bone Pastor. I wrote this at Easter 2008, and while I think it is one on my more successful compositions, it became apparent that it sounds very silly and could not be performed as part of the liturgy.

The reason why is that it is based on the nursery rhyme 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' as the cantus firmus! While it may not be inappropriate for a mass dedicated to the Good Shepherd, one could imagine the reaction of the clergy on the sanctuary at a high mass on hearing it. Well, here is the webpage it is at, and you can listen to it here.

On a more serious note, today I have also just uploaded the Missa Brevis for 2 voices and organ I wrote four years ago: here is the webpage.

Terry's Short Mass in C

2009-08-06T15:36:00.003+01:00

I have just completed transcribing and editing the Short Mass in C by Richard R. Terry for the Choral Public Domain Library, and it is now uploaded and ready for distribution. It is a very fine little mass setting for unison voices and organ. It is ideal for small choirs who have limited skills and resources as it relatively straightforward, and can be performed both for the ordinary and extraordinary forms of mass on an average Green Sunday.

Richard Runciman Terry was a major figure in the revival of Catholic Church music in England in the early 20th century, and his mass settings (Short Mass in C, Mass of St. Dominic, Missa Veni Sancte Spiritus, Mass of St. Gregory the Great) formed a greater part of the repertoire of English parishes right up to the 1960's. He was director of music at Downside Abbey, then moving on to Westminster Cathedral, where he largely made the very fine choir that is still going strong.

Also, do visit my own page at CPDL, giving some of the music I've written.

St Jean Marie Vianney

2009-08-04T22:43:00.001+01:00

Pray for us

Franciscans of the Immaculate settle in Stoke on Trent

2009-08-02T15:21:00.009+01:00

Great news has come in from Fr. Tim that the Franciscans of the Immaculate have just been given the church of St. Joseph in Burslem, a real architectural gem in the Potteries. They are coming to my diocese of Birmingham from Southwark. Having seen for myself the success they have had in reviving the historic convent at Lanherne, we can hope for much from them.

Let us hope that the initiative will be a success unlike the failed attempt to set up a traditionalist parish in St. Vincent de Paul, Liverpool. Stoke on Trent and North Staffordshire have been a bastion of Catholic traditionalism since the council, and let us hope the presence of the friars will bolster it. Make a special intention for the novena leading up to the Assumption!

The story of this church itself is well worth telling, as the following article from The Sentinel of Stoke on Trent demonstrates. There is also an audio file about its restoration here.

Fred Hughes reveals the intriguing story behind an artistic gem preserved in Burslem.

It's nearly 80 years since two artistic giants dazzled the fertile canvas of Stoke-on-Trent. Alas their names and reputation have faded over time. But their work and legacy are preserved in an extraordinary mural of Christ in Glory on the sanctuary ceiling of St Joseph's RC Church in Burslem.

"It is most certainly a stunning work," says freelance writer Carmel Dennison. "Obviously it has tremendous merit in its spiritual location, but as a stand-alone work of art it commands an important place in the social heritage of the Potteries."

Carmel's research into the background of this Christian representation has resulted in a booklet entitled The Forsyths At St Joseph's Church, Burslem. It tells the incredible story of father and daughter artists joining forces with a priest and the local Member of Parliament to produce one of the city's little-known treasures.

"The church itself was commissioned by the parish priest Reverend William Browne and designed by the distinguished 20th century architect JS Brocklesby," Carmel tells me. "The style is Italian and the colours of the bricks, which were locally made at Fenton, were chosen to reflect a herringbone pattern.

"The astonishing thing about it is that it was paid for by subscription and congregation collection, and it was constructed by the hands of the unemployed men of Burslem, brought together during a time of distress and mass unemployment in the 1920s.

"Father Browne recruited these men from around the town and paid them with a daily bowl of soup and a chunk of bread. It is a credit to Burslem's community that the church was built in such a short period of time."

St Joseph's rose from the ruins of an old pottery factory. Father Browne even got the men to demolish the potbank first as they daily got stuck-in with pick and shovel. And as the church building grew, the newly appointed Burslem School of Art principal, Gordon Forsyth (1879-1952), watched with interest, as did the newly-elected Burslem MP Andrew MacLaren.

"It was MacLaren who later suggested to Father Browne that because the church had been built by Burslem's unemployed men, they should be the ones to decorate it," Carmel continues. "He said they should be enrolled in the School of Art so they could be taught the skills to make the stained-glass windows. Naturally there was no money to fund this notion so MacLaren took his plan to Forsyth. Soon a free Saturday morning class at the Wedgwood Institute was up and running for 50 St Joseph's parishioners."

At the time the church was being built, Forsyth's daughter Moira (1905-1991) was a young art graduate. Her archived correspondence, at London's Victoria & Albert Museum, reveals how the windows were made as her father taught unemployed potters and miners in a year how to cut and set the specially-selected coloured glass to correspond with the windows at Chartres Cathedral in France.

"It was an amazing feat," says Carmel. "Imagine nowadays the unemployed returning to school to learn an artistic trade from one of the finest watercolour artists of the day. And nobody got paid for their services!"

And so a bond was forged between the community, a politician, a priest and two artists. In 1945, Scotsman MacLaren lost his seat and left Burslem. He died in 1975 at the age of 82.

Gordon Forsyth, himself a radically-driven socialist, designed the windows and altar panels for St Joseph's. He retired at the end of the war and died in 1952, aged 73. His public work can be seen in the hospital buildings at Hartshill and Haywood.

But it is Moira Forsyth who ultimately completed the work at St Joseph's. Taught pottery design by her father, Moira exhibited her ceramic figures at the White City Fair to worldwide acclaim in 1925. After graduating at the Royal College of Art, she moved from ceramics to glass. Her stained-glass work can be seen in Guildford Cathedral, Norwich Cathedral and Eton College Chapel.

"Moira was totally immersed in St Joseph's Church," declares Carmel. "By the early 1930s, the priest and the art teacher's daughter began planning the huge mural for the sanctuary ceiling. Once the idea was spun, Moira, although creatively prominent by this time, refused from the outset to accept a commission fee, settling for five guineas a week incidental expenses.

"Most of the preparation was done at the artist's studio in London and was completed in 1937. Father Browne was delighted with the result. In a letter to Moira he writes, 'The ceiling has surpassed all my expectations. I congratulate you with all my heart. It is a lasting memorial to your genius and places you side-by-side with the great masters of the past'.

"And this is not just the view of a parish priest. Bernard Rackham, former keeper of ceramics at the Victoria & Albert Museum, valued Moira's work among the best he'd seen. She later received the Queen's Award for lifelong services to the arts. But among her finest work surely is the mural at St Joseph's in Burslem."

England's binge drinking culture

2009-08-01T18:55:00.010+01:00

Broad Street, Birmingham on Saturday night, courtesy Daily Mail

Yesterday evening I went to an office party function with some of my work colleagues for their end of quarter get together. These events can be quite enjoyable although I wish we could go to better places. Although the drinks are on a company tab we usually go to those dreadful trendy bars, with the dark, worn decor, their noisy atmosphere and the fact that they rapidly become far less salubrious as night falls.

It not uncommon for some people to have about two pints of lager to start off, and then they would go to another club or bar, and drink themselves silly, to the point where they would have about as much as five pints of lager together with several cocktails and spirits. That is if they haven't gone the whole hog for drinking. In Birmingham Broad, Street late on Saturday night is a sight almost out Dante's inferno. On the way back from the cinema I have had to negotiate vast teaming masses of people, totally inebriated out of all recognition.

If however we should think of this to be a particular malaise of today, it should be born in mind that England has had a centuries old tradition of inability to handle drink. In eighteenth century gin caused massive problems of drunkenness, to the point that there was a saying: 'Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence, straw for threepence.' To get an idea of that, look at Hogarth's Gin Lane.

Faced with the appalling consequences of England's gin fuelled squalor, it was to some extent Methodism that sobered the country up. It promulgated a very strict temperance movement whereby alcohol became a almost a taboo. During the nineteenth century abstinence from drink became a feature of working and middle class respectability. Birmingham, a bastion of non - conformist protestantism, became a city with few pubs and no nightclubs right up to the 1960's.

But the temperance movement did not really answer the problem at it's root. Part of it is that we do not have the continental culture of drinking, while it is seen as very much a social thing of which it is quite normal for children to partake. I myself have come from a family where we drank from an early age under parental supervision: hence most of us can handle drink.

However for most people it is often seen as an adult and semi - illicit activity, and for adolescents an act of rebellion. Hence in the majority of cases most people don't start to drink until adolescence, and specifically to get drunk. Consequently in many ill - formed characters, alcohol exists only for complete inebriation. Wine is not appreciated for it's subtle aromas, and nor is real ale enjoyed for its local flavours: all that usually matters are the effects of alcohol, irrespective of the drink.

The Protestant temperance movement, for all its successes, was as G.K. Chesterton saw, fundamentally Manichean and actually has laid much of the foundation for the chaos we see today. To make drink an evil is to increase its appeal as a form of adolescent rebellion. What very few of the poor souls who drink themselves into oblivion can grasp is the Catholic attitude to drink: one of the great joys of our mortal life, when taken in moderation: an important skill to be learned as part of reaching manhood.

The Tablet and Facebook

2009-07-31T20:53:00.008+01:00

Recently Damian Thompson has attempted to be rather cruel to the Tablet journal (like he usually is), by suggesting that its Facebook appreciation society has not been a rip roaring success with only 5 members. The implications are of that of course that they have not attracted interest among the largely young people who patronise Facebook. Then all of a sudden due to the publicity he has generated, he has caused membership to soar with such unlikely figures such as our Fr. Tim as well as Damian Rhodes and Dr. Thomas Pink.

I for my part take a view that the fact the Tablet has not created great interest among the Facebook cognoscenti to be largely in their favour. I myself have tried out Facebook's delights, to find that the pleasures it offered were counteracted by the fact that it got one involved in a lot of undesirable business. By its very nature it gives one's personal details to all and sundry, and those who use it have a tendency to be rather indiscreet. Indiscreet to the point where I have seen people on it upload videos of personal acts I would hate to describe in public. Hence I am no longer on it.

If however the Bitter Pill should achieve a little more success on Facebook and the web at large, it may way be that it will be the means whereby it will be brought back into line with the teachings of the Catholic faith and the church's magisterium, of which it was supposed to promote in the first place. For they will find that they are in a truly democratic open forum, where they are not protected in a liberal elite academic cocoon, and will have to answer to blunt criticisms of ordinary believing Catholics like ourselves.

Now on the Choral Public Domain Library

2009-07-30T17:50:00.008+01:00

After some waiting, I have now three choral compositions I wrote for the Birmingham Oratory choir put on the Choral Public Domain Library, as well as my own composer page. They are:

Salve Regina for SATB, written in August 2005
Alma Redemptoris for SATB, written in December 2007
O Sacrum Convivium for SAATB, written in March 2003

St. Caecilia

For us singers, the CPLD is a most useful resource of free music, in particular for that which is out of print and difficult to obtain. Also it has made it very easy to obtain music for recently formed choirs for the extraordinary form of mass. I hope in the future to add more music, in particular that of Richard R. Terry as well as my own.

Ad multos annos, Father Tim!

2009-07-28T11:08:00.006+01:00

Just a short post to wish Fr. Tim a very happy silver jubilee of his ordination, and to wish him many blessings and graces for his future priestly, or let us dare hope, his future episcopal ministry! Bear in mind that to God nothing is impossible: if anyone said twenty years ago that Joseph Ratzinger would eventually hold the power of the keys, no one would have believed it. So there is hope for Father yet!

On weddings, dancing and much else

2009-07-26T16:53:00.010+01:00

In my inveterate cynicism I have always believed that it is one of the invariable laws of human nature that weddings always bring out the worst possible taste in their participants. And this is alas true of even the best occasions and the most cultivated persons. And this Youtube clip, courtesy of Patrick Madrid, is no exception to the rule:

In the Birmingham Oratory we are right in the wedding season. It may well be believed that here we are spared most of the usual kitsch that turns up at these occasions. Alas, that is not the case. We may be spared 'liturgical nuptial' dancing but at weddings we are not spared the usual dreadful music and ditties that plague most parishes. In fact so much so weddings are choir functions that I try to avoid, despite the fact they are well paid for.

The majority of wedding couples have little knowledge of the wonderful repertoire of church music, and so they instinctively go for 'traditional Catholic' music that they have learnt in 'Catholic' schools. This means hymns from the Yellow Peril (alias the Celebration Hymnal) or Hymns Old and Even Older, such as As I kneel before you and Lord Jesus Christ, you have come to us. That is if they have 'better' taste.

Some then try to add what is for them 'cultured high brow' music, which is almost invariably 'Ave Maria' by Schubert or Bach-Gounod, and 'Panis Angelicus' by Cesar Franck (sung at a wedding service when it is supposed to be a communion motet). The organ voluntaries usually are Mendelssohn's Bridal March at the beginning (again!) and finishing off with Widor's tocatta (which is notoriously taxing on the organist's right hand).

The sad truth is that throughout the Western world many couples come for a church wedding purely for the stateliness of the occasion, with almost no idea of the reality of the sacrament of matrimony, and of the liturgy that encompasses it. Consequently with a very vague idea of what Catholic marriage is, they make a complete hash of it and make the nuptial rite into a complete joke.

What to us musicians may be an expression of the worst possible taste is in fact a small symptom of a far deeper malaise. It is the total lack of upbringing in the faith and of proper catechetical formation. Many couples are cohabiting beforehand: a practice guaranteed to put in jeopardy any chances of happy successful marriage. It is little more than the consequence of the absolute refusal of the English church and bishops to be a counter - cultural sign of contradiction in society, in worship and most of all, in moral teaching.

The joys of learning the organ

2009-07-25T19:25:00.008+01:00

Over the last year or so I have been busy learning to be an organist (of sorts), which means doing about an hour to an hour and a half of practice daily. I usually do this either on the organs in the Birmingham Oratory, or my ramshackle electric organ I have at home:

I am taking lessons in the Birmingham Conservatoire (sometimes unkindly nicknamed the "abattoir", where music is slaughtered!) Due to my short squat feet, I have to wear special organ shoes which are narrow and pointed, and have high heels for using the heel on the pedals. The result is that they look rather camp.

One of the pieces I'm learning at the moment is 'Le Banquet Celeste' by Olivier Messiaen, one of the great classics of 20th century repertoire. It is a wonderful piece that is usually played during exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, but as you may see from this extract and the fact it is in six sharps and must be played absolutely legato, it is rather hard.

One of the most difficult tasks for an organist to manage is hymn playing, which often comes as a surprise to many people. The reason why is that you have to play the bass line in the pedals quite rapidly, and try to maintain a steady pace for the congregation to follow. So to practice this, I plod through the Bach chorales daily in the pedals and the manuals, which is not the easiest thing in the world to play.

So most of the time, learning the organ is an hour going over and over again through pieces, and then half an hour of sight reading grind through chorales. It isn't much fun, but it's worth doing. However, should anyone ask me to play for church services, they may find themselves very disappointed....

London blognic

2009-07-24T23:32:00.000+01:00

Today I took the opportunity to come down to the blognic held at the Buckingham Arms near St. James Park, and meet up with some of the blogging community, in particular with Fr's Tim Finigan and John Zuhlsdorf. Although London is a fairly brisk train ride from home, I was rather tired when I reached the venue, and collapsed into a chair rapidly downing several pints. Here are two photos taken by Fr. Z himself: I am behind Fr. Tim reaching semi - inebriation. Mac McLernon is nearby.

After a while conversation began to flow freely:

And of course the star of the show was Fr. Zuhlsdorf himself: Fr. Michael Clifton is behind him. (H/T to Fr. Tim:)

Afterwards we went to the Ha Ha bar near Westminster Cathedral for dinner, a very convivial occasion. Unfortunately for me, I had to leave early as pumpkin time drew close to catch the train home to Birmingham.

Short weekend in Paris

2009-07-20T14:47:00.002+01:00

At the moment I am having a short break in Paris, staying in the Monmartre district not far from the Sacré Coeur basillica. Apart from eating, drinking and sleeping, and occasional looking around, I have been editing a mass for double choir on my laptop by Felix Mendelssohn, rewriting it from German into Latin for the Oratory Choir. Otherwise this weekend has been an occasion for delightful indolence.

Interview of Joanna Bogle by Jon Snow

2009-03-21T12:05:00.004Z

I have just posted a comment on the blog of Jon Snow, the news anchorman who conducted this interview with Joanna Bogle concerning the pope's comments that condom distribution only serves to worsen the spread of AIDS.

Should it be rejected, here it is:

While it can be argued that Joanna Bogle should have been more cool headed in that interview, I think that the handling of it was both unprofessional and a disgrace. It was manifestly obvious that it was conducted in a way to discredit what she and the Catholic Church has to say. Particularly to throw in the slanderous and absurd claim that the pope is condemning millions of Africans to death, because he expressed the view, rightly or wrongly, that condoms are not the answer to the AIDS epidemic! (There are epidemiological studies that support his view, and world medical opinion is not unanimous on this issue.)

Down with the bitter pill!

2009-02-20T22:24:00.002Z

I feel I should stick my head out in defence of Fr. Tim Finigan against the cheap shot made against him by Elena Curti of the Tablet (a.k.a. the bitter pill). Here is the infamous article in full with his comments. At least she could have given a more measured and balanced account of his pastoral efforts supported by hard facts rather than conjecture. She seems to go to the verge of accusing him of financial irregularity over his dress!

Happy feastday, and happy new year!

2009-01-01T12:53:00.010Z

Last night in the Oratory we held a vigil before the Blessed Sacrament followed with mass for the new year, to celebrate the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and to pray for peace and for the future. It was a very well attended and we had drinks afterwards.

But for members of the choir, it is a case of no rest for the wicked. I had to be up promptly in time for the choir rehearsal for the solemn high mass the next day: just like Christmas midnight mass followed by the morning high mass immediately afterwards. Jackie Parkes took these photos of the morning mass:

As we only had a schola of 5 men, we sang the Mass of St. Francis de Sales by William Sewell, the Oratory organist and director of music 100 years ago. While I think it is a very nice little unison mass, some people turned up their noses at it as awful slush, wishing we could have had a full Mozart mass! You just can't please everyone all the time, particularly when we're short of forces and very tired from the previous evening...

Michael Shields RIP

2008-12-30T18:53:00.002Z

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Michael Shields, our Oratory sacristan for over thirty years who was found dead at his home. He had suffered angina for some time, and he has now been taken to his eternal reward. He was an Irishman of great patience and humility who was always at one's disposal and of considerable cheer. Never once have I known him to lose his temper, no matter the strain he was under during holy week and the great festivals.

Here he is at Lourdes in the wheelchair with us, the Grand Order of Babysitters. I would have been very surprised if I had been told then he was to go to meet his maker this Christmas: for despite his ill health he was very sprightly and active. May he and all the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.

Oratory Christmas music

2008-12-23T13:34:00.004Z

Here is a list of the music we are doing in the Oratory choir for the midnight mass and the morning high mass of Christmas: as ever, a very busy period for us! On Boxing Day I usually collapse in bed with exhaustion from singing and over indulgence.

CHRISTMAS MIDNIGHT MASS

Kyrie & Gloria: "Messe de Minuit" Marc-Antione Charpentier (1634-1704)

Credo III Plainchant

Offertory Motet: "Hodie Christus natus est" Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)

Sanctus: Mass VIII "Missa des Angelis"

Agnus Dei: from "Messe de Minuit" Marc-Antione Charpentier

Communion Motets:
"Beata viscera Mariae Virginis" William Byrd (1543-1623)
"O Magnum Mysterium" Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611)

Final Carol "Adeste Fideles" John Francis Wade's MS book c.1740)

CHRISTMAS HIGH MASS 11 AM

Kyrie & Gloria : Miss Brevis in D Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Credo III Plainchant

Offertory Motet: "Resonet in Laudibus" Jacob Handl (1550-1591)

Sanctus & Agnus Dei : Mass VIII "Missa des Angelis" Plainchant

Communion Motet: "O Magnum Mysterium" Adriaan Willaert (c1490-1562)

Final Carol "Adeste Fideles" John Francis Wade's MS book c.1740

Voluntary: "Rhapsodie sur les Noëls" Eugéne Gigout

What a joke...

2008-12-20T23:40:00.004Z

For further details on what his Lordship Kieran Conry has said on the subjects of confession, sin, the environment and the extraordinary form of mass as well as other matters, please consult the posts of Fr. Tim and Fr. Zuhlsdorf. As for me, I think it would be best and most charitable to say no more.

Happy feastday!

2008-12-18T15:35:00.004Z

Today is a whole year since I started blogging, and now I think I should try to restart again properly after a long relapse. However up to now my present circumstances have been very draining on my energy and resolve...

It never stops...

2008-11-08T17:51:00.004Z

The last week has been absolute murder for me in the choir, and this is one reason I have not produced any posts! Immediately after the great Newman mass on All Saints, we had to do the six part Victoria Requiem on All Souls: but all was not finished! The following days we had two Missa Cantata Requiems with Gregorian chant propers for the 5.45pm mass, one for the deceased fathers and the other for the deceased benefactors of the Oratory. As ever, I'm expected to turn up to help out with the chant...

As well as that , I have had to produce special booklets for vespers of the Lateran Dedication tomorrow, and have them ready for our organist. Such are the joys of the Oratory choir and being choir librarian to boot. For those who have asked, the music before the introit at the great mass was Elgar's Ecce Sacerdos Magnus, a setting traditionally done at the beginning of a pontifical mass, an old favourite of ours.

Tonight we are having a concert given by Ex Cathedra the music of James MacMillan. Hopefully this shall give me a bit of a rest.

Blogging resumed: All Saint's day

2008-11-01T20:16:00.003Z

Well, after a very hectic month I feel up to restarting blogging again, which I had to stop due to various factors. Hopefully I will try to keep it up, but I do not guarantee daily posts.

Tomorrow in the Birmingham Oratory we are having a special All Saints mass for the translation of the relics of our Cardinal Newman, which will be celebrated by Archbishop Vincent Nicholls, attended by Princess Michael of Kent and broadcast live on EWTN. This is the culmination of a vigil since Friday when the relics of the Cardinal went on display, and we had have three sung pontifical English by bishops William Kenney and Philip Pargeter, as well as Cormac Cardinal Murphy O'Connor.

Mass celebrated by Cardinal Cormac

For us in the choir it will be very hectic as we are singing without a break from 8.30am to 1.00pm without a break! We are doing Mozart's Coronation Mass, Stamford's Beati Quorum, Justorum Animae both by Lassus and Byrd, Byrd's Gaudemus Omnes, as well as much else beside. Hopefully EWTN will repeat this, and so you will get a feel for the Oratory liturgy.

Blogging holiday

2008-09-25T15:45:00.002+01:00

Sorry folks: due to constraints on my time and energy at the moment I will have to take a break from blogging until November. However, I have not given up and may do the occasional posts in the meantime. So stay tuned!

Shocking!

2008-09-20T20:37:00.006+01:00

Here is a sex education comic, called 'Let's grow up with Nisha and Joe', aimed at six year old primary school children. It has been brought to our attention by Fr. Ray Blake:

It encourages young children to examine and explore their genitalia, showing naked children, and has been produced by the Family Planning Association. A pilot print run of 50,000 copies have been made for nationwide introduction. This is something that my good friend Jackie Parkes has gone ballistic about in the past, and will continue to do so in the future. But as for those who have produced this comic, the words of Our Lord himself seem particularly relevant:

It were better for him, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones.

Happy Birthday, Jackie!

2008-09-18T13:22:00.003+01:00

Today my friend, neighbour and fellow blogger Jackie Parkes of Catholic Mom of 10 fame celebrates her birthday: so here is a short post to wish her happy birthday! Here is a recent photo of her looking very well.

New Blog

2008-09-17T13:13:00.004+01:00

Lawrence England, a parishioner of Fr. Ray's has started a blog called That the bones you have crushed may thrill. Do give it a visit, as it looks very interesting!

Address of Benedict XVI to the French bishops

2008-09-16T13:02:00.004+01:00

This is an address the pope gave to the French bishops in Lourdes on the first anniversary of Summorum Pontificem.

It is never too often said that the priesthood is indispensable to the Church, in the very own interest of the lay faithful. Priests are a gift from God to the Church. Priests must never delegate to the faithful [those] functions which are related to their own mission. Dear Brothers in the episcopacy, I ask you to remain desirous to help your priests live in intimate union with Christ. Their spiritual life is the foundation of their apostolic life. You shall exhort them gently to daily prayer and to a dignified celebration of the Sacraments, particularly of the Eucharist and of Reconciliation, as Saint Francis de Sales did with his priests. Every priest should be able to feel glad to serve the Church. At the school of the Curé d'Ars, son of your land and patron of all priests of the world, do not cease to repeat that a man can do no greater deed than to give the Body and the Blood of Christ to the faithful, and to forgive sins. ...

Liturgical worship is the supreme expression of priestly and episcopal life, and also of catechetical teaching. Your mission of sanctification of the faithful people, dear Brothers, is indispensable for the growth of the Church. I was prompted to detail, in the Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, the conditions for the accomplishment of this mission, in that which relates to the possibility of using both the missal of Blessed John XXIII (1962) and that of Pope Paul VI (1970). The fruits of these new dispositions have already seen [the light of] day, and I hope that the indispensable pacification of the spirits is being accomplished, thank God.

I comprehend your difficulties, but I do not doubt that you will be able to reach, within reasonable time, solutions which are satisfactory to all, so that the seamless robe of Christ is not torn anymore. No one is excessive within the Church. Everyone, without exception, must be able to feel at home, and never rejected. God, who loves all men and wills that no one be lost, entrusts us with this mission of Pastors, making us Shepherds of His sheep. We can only give Him thanks for the honor and the confidence He places upon us. Let us endeavor to always be servants of unity.

Benedict XVI
Meeting with the Cardinals and Bishops of France,
Hémicycle «Saint Bernadette», Lourdes
September 14, 2008

Our Lady of Sorrows

2008-09-15T13:11:00.006+01:00

Today is one of my favourite Marian feasts of the year, one which is particularly dear to me. Unlike most of the others such as the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption which focus on Our Lady in glory and power, this one focuses on Our Lady at her most human, and is intricately connected to the feast of her Immaculate Heart. It is a feast which tends to encourage a sober and unsentimental view of her, yet it is here when she is at her closest and most accessible for us.

The intercession of Our Lady of Sorrows is particularly relevant for those who have suffered failed marriages, broken homes and estrangement from their children. In her seven dolours she experienced all the pain of the married state. Let us call upon her help for marriage and the family, which is being attacked upon all sides.

The Triumph of the Holy Cross

2008-09-14T21:21:00.004+01:00

Today is the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. When we look around us, we see faith collapsing, the church falling apart and everywhere apostasy, dissent and rejection of the faith. But this feast tells us that death of Christ in his mystical body will lead to the church's resurrection in glory.

Indeed, all around amidst the church's collapse we are seeing signs of it's revival. Under the leadership of both John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the church has regained confidence and direction. Today is the first anniversary of Summorum Pontificem: what a difference has been made. And this year is the 150th anniversary of Our Lady's appearance saying: I am the Immaculate Conception.

Those who have hoped for the end of the Catholic church and her teachings are being confounded: heaven and earth shall pass away, but the Word of God shall remain for ever.

We hate this hymn...

2008-09-13T18:35:00.004+01:00

As I kneel before you,
as I bow my head in prayer,
take this day, make it yours,
and fill me with your love.

Ave Maria..

After having been forced to sing this hymn at Lourdes, and attracting considerable comment with my exasperation against it, I have decided to start a Facebook protest group! For those who like me can't stand it, it is:

We hate the hymn 'As I kneel before you,'

So if you are on facebook and you have had enough of it, do please join! My apologies to those who like this song; I loathe it!

The Holy Name of Mary

2008-09-12T19:39:00.005+01:00

Today, September 12th, is the commemoration of the Holy Name of Mary. It originated in Spain in the sixteenth century, and was extended to the universal church after the victory of King Jan Sobieski of Poland in 1683 against the Turks in the siege of Vienna on that feastday. Through Our Lady's intercession, Europe was saved from Islamic domination. On a more personal note, the feast of the Holy Name of Mary is also the anniversary of the consecration of the basilica of Downside Abbey, my old school.

Why is the very name of Mary holy? It is because of her singular privilege of being conceived without sin, and being pre-redeemed by her son from the very moment of her conception. Far from detracting from the honour due to Our Lord, the incarnate word, she shows forth his great power: for all the honour due to her is from Him, and from Him alone.

In the liturgical reforms of 1969, the Holy Name of Mary was abolished from the calender, but in the last years of Pope John Paul II, by his personal intervention he restored the commemoration of both the Holy Name of Jesus and the Holy Name of Mary, for which we should be eternally grateful to him.

I'm shattered...

2008-09-11T21:47:00.003+01:00

Sorry folks for the lack of posts: I have been inundated at work! This morning I had to leave at half six in the morning, travel all the way to London for a two hour training session and have only just arrived home. Not unnaturally I'm absolutely shattered....

Salve Regina by Manuel Arenzana

2008-09-09T13:19:00.004+01:00

Here is a setting of the Salve Regina by the Mexican composer Manuel Arenzana (1762 - 1821), a real gem of the very rich legacy of South American church music. This music is often performed at the Oratory by the ensemble Ex Cathedra.

Acknowledgements to Fr. Ray Blake.

The Birthday of Our Lady

2008-09-08T13:13:00.004+01:00

Today's feast usually coincides with the beginning of the academic year after the end of the summer holidays, and indeed my first term in Downside School began on this date. On this day it would be well to pray for students and seminarians. This marvellous feast originated in the church in the East, and it is generally believed that the date was chosen as it was seven days after the beginning of the civil year in Constantinople, on September 1st.

The Lourdes Grotto

2008-09-07T17:30:00.007+01:00

I finish up this series of posts of the GOBS Lourdes pilgrimage with a few photos of mass at the Grotto, which was said by our chaplain Fr. Terence Creech C.S.S.R. We were given seats at the front row.

After mass we filed past the spring as a group.

Trips out from Lourdes

2008-09-06T16:39:00.006+01:00

As part the the GOBS pilgrimage, we usually make excursions out purely for fun. In previous years we went out to what is known as the Green Lake, a former quarry that has been converted in an amusement centre where there are water slides. It is great fun, but it was given a miss this year, much to my disappointment. Some of the group went out to St. Jean de Luz by the sea, but I decided not to go.

However as a consolation we made a trip into the mountains on a cloudy afternoon, where there were some toboggan rides, which I gladly partook.

The Blessed Sacrament procession

2008-09-04T13:12:00.005+01:00

On the penultimate day of our pilgrimage, our group turned out in force to join the Blessed Sacrament procession, which began at the Prairie and finishes in the underground basilica of St. Pius X.

Most of the group remained in the underground basilica for the procession, watching it on the screens. As I was carrying the banner, I had to go to the Prairie to join the other banner bearers, and as would be expected, everywhere was packed out to the rafters.

Here is myself, with the banner of a rather butch Archangel Michael guarding two children.

The blessing of the sick with the holy sacrament is a long established Lourdes tradition, and it is here that the great majority of miracles and healings take place. The liberal liturgical establishment have done their best to turn it into a celebration of the 'people of God', and many of the chants were focusing on worshipping Christ in the 'gathering of the people'. Some of our group were asked to lead some of the intercessions: here are two of us in yellow.

The underground basilica is a concrete monstrosity designed to accommodate the vast crowds, and has been likened to an underground car park. It could easily be converted into one. Here we all are gathered at the front:

Torchlight rosary procession in Lourdes

2008-09-03T13:17:00.006+01:00

Every evening in the pilgrimage season a torchlit rosary procession is held at 9.00pm in Lourdes, where the rosary is recited publicly in multiple languages, interspersed with hymns, intercessions and various prayers.

This year due to the sheer number of pilgrims, it had to be rerouted and the size had to seen to be believes. Small groups lead the various nationalities, and one evening the GOBS were asked to lead the English group. Here we are getting ready:

So we gathered in the platform in the Praire grounds opposite the grotto in our yellows, and when our turn came, little Jacinta Parkes our youngest member said the rosary to which we answered. Unfortunately for myself we also had to lead everyone in singing that shocking hymn 'As I kneel before you,' which the rest of the group rather enjoyed. Perhaps Our Lady does have a sense of humour, or I was being made to do penance.

As for me, I had to resist the temptation to sing this version:

As I cringe before you,
as I hang my head in shame...

I will not repeat the rest, as it may cause considerable offense....

The Cite St. Pierre

2008-09-02T13:14:00.010+01:00

In the hills immediately above Lourdes lies the Cite St. Pierre, which was founded after in the second world war by a priest as a hostel for poor pilgrims and refugees.

In it lies a chapel which is an exact replica of the sheepfold of Bartres, where St. Bernadette tended sheep for a year before the apparitions.

It is there that the GOBS have their benefactors and deceased members mass, as it has in the past brought many graces, miracles and conversions for us. This year they commemorated my late grandmother.

The centre is largely staffed by young volunteers and now receives pilgrims from mainly Eastern Europe and the third world. It is also a centre for the scouting movement, and at one spot, known as the Cathedral of the Trees, a rather rowdy charismatic renewal gathering was being held with great vigour and energy...

I was to later discover many of the participants in this were also staying in our hotel, and we to be treated to many more displays of enthusiastic songs and prayers before meals!

The Grand Order of Babysitters (GOBS)

2008-09-01T13:11:00.006+01:00

The pilgrimage group I went with has the fascinating title of the Grand Order of Babysitters, (GOBS, or gob smackers?) and largely exists to take children and young adults, often of deprived backgrounds, on holiday and pilgrimage to Lourdes. Here we are at a grotto mass:

It originally started out in 1969 as a group of seven bachelors, under the direction of a redoubtable Margaret O'Rourke, who volunteered to look after the children while their parents went for a night out after a hard days work. This group gave themselves the title originally as a joke, and also later invented its trademark: wearing yellow. Here is myself in GOBS attire.

Sooner or later however, the group turned from being a practical joke into something more serious and substantive, and a full uniform developed: yellow smocks and white aprons for the girls, and yellow T-shirts for the men.

This year will have been my sixth trip with the GOBS, coming for the Lourdes jubilee after a lapse of five years. They are still going strong under its high priestess Maggie, and next year will be the GOBS fortieth anniversary.

Lourdes' 1970's liturgy

2008-08-31T22:20:00.005+01:00

One of the more negative aspects of this great shrine to the Immaculate Conception is that liturgically it is frozen in a time warp of the 1970's, as if Pope Benedict had never been elected and liturgical reform had been yesterday. Coming to the daily English mass in the chapel of St. Cosmas and Damian is a good example. The tabernacle is in a corner, often the celebrant does not wear a chasuble and the mass is more like an international 'gathering' where 'diversity' is celebrated.

In the Blessed Sacrament procession, some of the chants were about worshipping 'Christ in the gathering of the people of God' rather than in the Eucharistic presence: more about that in a later post. In the rosary procession in the evening many of the intercessions are packed with 'better world' and liberal social justice terminology, and barely a mention is made for the conversion of sinners and repentance: what Our Lady appeared for in the first place!

The liberal French bishops obviously have major a vested interest in Lourdes, as it is the most important shrine in France with a huge international following, and it is of great strategic importance for the liturgical establishment. Unsurprisingly the pilgrimage authorities have fought tooth and nail to prevent the Extraordinary form from establishing a presence. So much is their antipathy to it that when a bomb was planted in the underground basilica of St. Pius X by Basque separatists, the blame was at first pointed to the Pius X society!

Nevertheless, due to the massive pressure in the wake of Summorum Pontificem they have conceded a 1962 mass at 9.30am every Sunday in the Upper Basilica, which I gratefully attended. This is however barely advertised in the mass times, as merely a Latin mass.

The mass was a sung Gregorian mass with chant provided by French Benedictine monks on pilgrimage, and it was packed to the rafters. There was barely space for communion.

Back from Lourdes

2008-08-30T20:42:00.004+01:00

Phew! I have just arrived back in Birmingham from a very long coach trip from Lourdes with the Grand Order of Babysitters (GOBS), about 20 hours drive with only a few breaks. In case you were wondering, I did not gain internet access when I was there, partly because I could not find any, and partly because I was too damn lazy to do any posts. Nevertheless, I have a whole series of photos to show you in the jubilee year (150th anniversary) of the apparitions.

Off to Lourdes tomorrow..

2008-08-21T13:19:00.003+01:00

Tomorrow morning I join the Grand order of Babysitters for the marathon coach journey from Birmingham to Lourdes, and return on Saturday week. It is quite a trek, but it is great fun and I am returning to the GOBS after a 6 year lapse: I am much looking forward to this. Most of the children of Jackie Parkes will be coming along as well. I shall remember all of you in this anniversary year, as a special indulgence has been granted.

Bishop Patrick O'Donohue speaks out

2008-08-20T13:11:00.003+01:00

Acknowledgements to Clerical Whispers

Roman Catholic Bishop Patrick O'Donohue of the Lancaster diocese in northwest England, has heavily criticised his fellow bishops of England and Wales for what he sees as a weak, "flat" response to many of today's moral crises, especially that of the radical homosexualist and anti-Catholic, secularist lobby.

A document is due to be published next week, in which O'Donohue calls on his fellow bishops to "rediscover" and fearlessly exercise their teaching authority in union with the Pope.

In the densely packed 92-page document, "Fit for Mission? Church", Bishop O'Donohue writes of the failure of the Catholic bishops of England and Wales forthrightly to face the issues of homosexual activism as a body.

He especially emphasizes his "disappointment that our Bishops' Conference recently could not agree on a collegial response to the Government's legislation on same-sex adoption."

"Attempting to arrive at a consensus among bishops with sometimes divergent views, Episcopal Conference statements and documents have a tendency to be often flat and 'safe' at a time when we need passionate and courageous public statements that dare to speak the full truth in love."

"I must admit that during my 15 years as a bishop I have increasingly come to share certain concerns about the relationship between individual bishops and the National Conference."

Bishop O'Donohue says he agrees with the warning of the 1985 Synod on the "necessity of limiting the authority of national Episcopal conferences."

The Bishop writes that the idea of dividing the areas of responsibility, such as education, liturgy and healthcare, among the bishops, has resulted in a "reluctance among the rest of the bishops to speak out on these issues."

He notes particularly that some bishops had reacted with "surprise" that he had dared to produce his own teaching document, "Fit for Mission? Schools", earlier this year.

"The effort to achieve a consensus" he says, "results...often in the loss of the 'scandal' and the 'folly' of the Gospel, so that we are no longer the 'salt' and 'leaven' so urgently needed."

"Confident, courageous and prophetic bishops [are] vital for the well-being of the Church during this time of increasingly aggressive secularism."

Citing the great 5th century bishop St. Augustine, Bishop O'Donohue calls for bishops to "re-exercise their individual teaching charism."

This rediscovery of the charism of bishops, he says, is needed to combat the loss of passion for Catholicism notable in many parishes and lay people.

"The passion to serve the Lord is noticeably absent in many cases - there seems to be at times a tiredness and reticence to preach the gospel." He says that in the course of the 16-month consultation in preparation for the document, he saw a "lack of confidence and knowledge of the Catholic faith."

He therefore calls for a revival of apologetics, the reasoned defence of Christianity, especially in the face of increasingly popular atheist polemics from writers such as Richard Dawkins.

In the document, produced as Bishop O'Donohue prepares to retire, he says that "Agencies and Commissions of national conferences" have failed to uphold the "fullness of the Church's teaching", particularly "doctrinal and moral teaching, in their collaboration with secular agencies."

"I'm thinking in particular of agencies with a responsibility for education or economic development. The staff of these agencies are often in a position to witness to the truth of the Church's teaching on, say, the theology of the body with its positive refutation of pre-marital sex, 'safe sex', or artificial birth control, in their dealings with government departments and committees."

Bishop O'Donohue does not name names, but many have made similar criticisms of the English Catholic bishops' overseas aid and development agency, CAFOD, that has insisted on promoting condoms as a means of controlling the spread of HIV/AIDS.

In another case, at least one Catholic adoption agency has opted to abandon its association with the Catholic Church to adhere to the government's requirement to adopt children to homosexual "partners."

When the problem of the Sexual Orientation Regulations and the Catholic adoption agencies arose in the news last year, it was revealed that many agencies held the policy of allowing children to be adopted to single homosexuals, and this with at least the tacit blessing of the local bishop.

Bishop O'Donohue's own suggestion for the Catholic social services agency was to have it adopt an uncompromisingly Catholic position and refuse to adopt to anyone who is not in a legal marriage.

In the document he criticises the administrators of Church institutions, saying, "There must be no back peddling on these issues just because certain truths are unwelcome in the corridors of power."

"We have talked too much and done too little. We have witnessed over the past forty years a growing crisis in the Catholic understanding or self-identity of the Church...Have we forgotten what it is to be Catholic?"

Hope for the future, he says, lies with the younger generation who are notably more interested in reviving the essentials of the Catholic religion.

"The maturity of the Pope John Paul II generation will lead, I hope, to a resurgence of orthodox, committed adults in the Church, gradually renewing vocations to the priesthood, religious life and marriage."

Gabriel García Moreno

2008-08-19T19:44:00.004+01:00

Andrew Cusack has a most interesting biography of the great Christian statesman and president of Ecuador, Gabriel García Moreno. In this age of Tony's cronies and Gordon's brownies he is an exemplary model of a leader. His cause for beatification is in progress.

The Assumption Catafalque

2008-08-18T13:22:00.005+01:00

The Transalpine Redemptorists in Papa Stronsay have a wonderful custom of erecting a Catafalque, or 'tomb' for Our Lady in dormition, in the triduum up to the Feast of the Assumption. This is very common in the church in the East, but not so well known in the west. Here are the photos.

St. Mary and St. John, Wolverhampton

2008-08-17T22:05:00.005+01:00

This church was the parish church of Fr. Guy Nicholls, and it was here he was baptised and ordained a priest. It is a very remarkable building that was erected in 1855 and celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2005, for which the Oratory choir came along.

For a number of years in the 1970's and 1980's it was in the care of the redoubtable Bishop Joseph Cleary of Cresima, auxiliary of Birmingham, and kept up a high standard of worship with sung latin liturgy. It then went into decline, but recently a group of Polish Paulist Fathers, who care for shrine of Our Lady of Jasna Gora have taken it on, and it has begun to revive. It is indeed in very good condition after restoration.

The sanctuary

Lady chapel

Chapel of St. Therese of Lisieux

Fr. Guy Nicholls' Silver Jubilee

2008-08-16T21:44:00.011+01:00

Today a special mass was held at the church of St. Mary and St. John, Wolverhampton, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the ordination to the priesthood of our Fr. Guy Nicholls, priest of the Birmingham Oratory. He was ordained on the vigil of the Assumption, August 14th 1983. It was a solemn high mass in Latin, and we the Oratory choir came along to sing. In the meantime I took these photos from the choir gallery.

We sang the Missa O Quam Gloriosum by Victoria, Sacerdotes Domini by Byrd at the Offertory, and Mozart's Ave Verum along with the Gregorian propers for the feast of the Assumption. For us this is very easy and familiar bog standard Sunday music, and it was all a great sucess, with the acoustics of the church perfect.

The Gospel, and the Offertory, with Frs. Andrew Wadsworth and Anton Guziel as deacons.

After mass we has a reception in the parish hall, and we gave a toast to him on 25 years of priesthood, which coincided with the wedding anniversary of his parents. Fr. Petroc Howells told the story a three Staffordshire jurors who were deprived off the bench for being 'Popishly affected.' Well, may Father Guy remain equally so!

Here is a photo of him just recently ordained, wearing the same vestment as his silver jubilee mass.

Here also is one of the ordaining bishop, the late Bishop Joseph Cleary, a great and renowned Auxiliary of Birmingham who was also the parish priest, and from which I received my confirmation in St. Mary's, Harvington.

Ad multos annos!

Happy feastday!

2008-08-15T13:12:00.003+01:00

Assumpta est Maria in caelum: gaudent angeli laudantes benedicunt Dominum.

The Newman Reader

2008-08-14T22:14:00.003+01:00

There is a website available which has most of Cardinal Newman's writings online, which is maintained by the National Institute for Newman studies: it is http://www.newmanreader.org/

Incense on a grand scale

2008-08-13T22:07:00.004+01:00

In the Birmingham Oratory considerable quantities of incense are used, particularly on the feast of Corpus Christi when two thuribles are used creating great clouds before the Blessed Sacrament. So much so this causes problems with the organs, as a thick oily deposit is left on the organ pipes causing them to go out of tune. However, all this pales into insignificance in comparison to this giant thurible in Santiago da Compostela in Spain.

Acknowledgements to Fr. Tim.

The Oratory Assumption Triduo

2008-08-12T13:16:00.004+01:00

Tonight begins the Triduo for the feast of the Assumption in the Birmingham Oratory, a service of prayers for the Oratory and the conversion of Birmingham. One particular feature of this service is that awful hymn by Fr. Faber, 'Sing, sing ye angel bands', in which every year some people struggle to hit top F at 'higher, still and higher, through fields of starry light'! It is indeed a cause for much mirth. Nevertheless we are one of the the very few catholic churches in England to keep up what was a common devotional practice in the nineteen century: long may it continue!