Criss-crossing the country

Joseph Shaw on the Latin Mass Society’s continuing anniversary year

I write half-way through our Anniversary Year, and just before our busiest time, which is the final preparations for our August events, followed by the events themselves, of the St Catherine’s Trust Summer School, the Residential Latin Course, and the Walsingham Pilgrimage.

We have now had Bishop Schneider’s tour, and our Annual General Meeting, and as well as a sold-out conference in London; we have seen high-profile Masses in Northampton, Ramsgate, Reading, and Preston. In the autumn, we look forward to having another episcopal tour, of the retired Swiss auxiliary bishop Marian Eleganti, who will visit Bedford, New Brighton, and Oxford. With our annual events from Chideock in Dorset to Walsingham, we may not have visited every last corner of the kingdom, but we have done quite well. In the meantime, our True Cross Relic Tour is criss-crossing the country in even more detail.

After 60 years of work, the Latin Mass Society is still an organisation that spans the country: in some ways, more than ever. Our work extends to areas of the life of the Church that would have impressed our founders: we support a Summer School for children; our Guild of St Clare runs a Sewing Retreat (this year both are already fully booked); we have a Residential Latin Course (heading in the same direction at the time of writing). At the same time, readers will see in these pages announcements of four Gregorian Chant training events, in collaboration with the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge, marking a renewed effort to promote this form of music which, as the Second Vatican Council reminded us, is ‘proper’ to the Roman liturgy (‘Ecclesiae cantum gregorianum agnoscat ut liturgiae romanaeproprium’). Who else is taking Vatican II seriously on this point?

These are not huge events in themselves, but then they all involve things that can only be done in small groups. The trick is to keep doing them, and by keeping them up, gradually to increase our capacity to do them, for example by nurturing more people capable of passing on important skills to others.

If you are reading this, it seems likely that you approve of all this activity. If you are actively supporting our work, with your time, that most valuable of all resources, or as a member, I thank you. I urge readers who are not members to join us: it’s not too much to ask to put a little of your money behind your convictions.

More than this, we are this year reviving a scheme we established for our 50th anniversary, when we invited people to give an extra, monthly, donation, to become ‘Anniversary Supporters’: some of these are still contributing their extra donations ten years later. This year, please consider joining our Ad Futurum scheme, and commit to a regular monthly gift. Without you, our loyal supporters, the Latin Mass Society would not have survived until now; without you, we would not be able to do the work that we are doing today. With you, we can look forward with confidence to another 60 years: and a good deal beyond that as well.