Mass of Ages - Spring 2025

Mass of Ages T H E Q UA RT E R LY M AG A Z I N E O F T H E L AT I N M A S S S O C I E T Y

FRAGMENTS FROM CALVARY The Holy Cross Pilgrimage begins this coming Good Friday

H O LY Y E A R - L M S S I X T I E T H A N N I V E R S A RY

ISSUE 223 . SPRING 2025 . FREE

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CONT E N TS 16

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Chairman’s Message

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Anniversary Year planner

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Fragments from Calvary The Holy Cross Pilgrimage, in which a relic of the True Cross will traverse England and Wales, begins in London this coming Good Friday. Richard Pickett reports

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The Monastic Life John Whitehead reviews a new study of medieval monasticism in both the Orthodox and Catholic traditions

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Learn Latin! As the Government announces its decision to stop teaching Latin in state schools, Matthew Spencer offers an alternative, ‘curiosity based’ method of learning

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World News Paul Waddington reports on what’s happening around the Globe

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Spirituality Fr Thomas Crean on The Angelic Warfare Confraternity

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Sister Mary of St Peter Our Lord spoke in French to reach Russian ears, as Mary O’Regan explains

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Architecture Paul Waddington takes a look at the Church of St Chad in Manchester, otherwise known as the Manchester Oratory

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Wine A fine fermented drink has catechetical and devotional properties, as Sebastian Morello explains

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Finding Faith Adult convert Joseph Jarvis tells the story of his journey to the Traditional Latin Mass

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Pontifical High Mass of All Saints A Pontifical High Mass was celebrated at Dorchester Abbey. Photographs by John Aron

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Safety valve James Preece on why there is no need for a home education register

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Art and devotion The True Cross: Caroline Farey on Biblical typology for children

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Theology In his second article on the Creed, Fr Aidan Nichols explains that whatever the universe contains, from a galaxy to a gnat, it only does so through created participation in God’s unique, incomparable, ‘act’ of being typology for children

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Reports from around the country What’s happening where you are

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Appeasing the world? How will the Synod on Synodality affect the Church, asks Dr F. Andrew Wolf

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Do not lose heart Edward Dundon on Our Lady of the Warning

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Master of Camelot Charles A. Coulombe remembers Arthurian historian Geoffrey Ashe

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Liturgical calendar

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Crossword

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The Latin Mass Society 9 Mallow Street, London EC1Y 8RQ Tel: 020 7404 7284 Registered UK Charity No. 248388

Mass of Ages Editor: Tom Quinn, editor@lms.org.uk Design: GADS Ltd & Selina Fang Printers: Intercity Communications Ltd

Due to the considerable volume of emails and letters received at Mass of Ages, it is regrettably not always possible to reply to all correspondents.

DISCLAIMER: Please note that the views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the Latin Mass Society or the Editorial Board.

Great care is taken to credit photographs and seek permission before publishing, though this is not always possible. If you have a query regarding copyright, please contact the Editor. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without written permission.

Mass of Ages issue 223, Spring 2025

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Cover: Relic of the True Cross. Photo by Gareth Copping

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CONTACTS

THE LATIN MASS SOCIETY FOUNDED 1965

PAT R O N S Sir Adrian Fitzgerald, Bt . The Rt Hon Lord Gill . The Rt Hon Sir Edward Leigh, MP Sir James Macmillan, CBE . The Lord Moore of Etchingham Prof. Thomas Pink . John Smeaton

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Dr Joseph Shaw SECRETARY: David Forster TREASURER: Alastair Tocher HONORARY OFFICERS: Paul Waddington Roger Wemyss-Brooks OTHER COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Kevin Jones Antonia Robinson Nicholas Ross Aileen Seymour Sarah Ward

S TA F F A N D F R E E L A N C E R S GENERAL MANAGER: Richard Pickett, richard@lms.org.uk FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATOR: Gareth Copping, gareth@lms.org.uk OFFICE ASSISTANT: Mauricio Rodriguez, info@lms.org.uk ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER: Louisa Dawes, louisa@lms.org.uk EDITOR, MASS OF AGES: Tom Quinn, editor@lms.org.uk COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: Portia Berry-Kilby, portia@lms.org.uk LONDON DIRECTOR OF MUSIC: Dominic Bevan, southwell@lms.org.uk

V O L U N TA RY R O L E S SAFEGUARDING: David Forster, safeguarding@lms.org.uk GUILD OF ST CLARE: Lucy Shaw, guildofstclare@lms.org.uk GREGORIAN CHANT NETWORK: Alastair Tocher, chant@lms.org.uk SOCIETY OF ST TARCISIUS Dr Joseph Shaw, tarcisius@lms.org.uk EDITOR, LMS ORDO: Peter Day-Milne, ordo@lms.org.uk

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L O C A L R E P R E S E N TAT I V E S BIRMINGHAM (City & Black Country): Louis Maciel, birmingham@lms.org.uk BIRMINGHAM (North Staffordshire): Alan Frost, staffs@lms.org.uk BIRMINGHAM (Oxford): Dr Joseph Shaw, oxford@lms.org.uk BIRMINGHAM (Warwickshire): John Bradley, warwickshire@lms.org.uk BIRMINGHAM (Worcestershire): Alastair Tocher, malvern@lms.org.uk BRENTWOOD (East): Alan Gardner, brentwoodeast@lms.org.uk BRENTWOOD (London): Mark Johnson, brentwood@lms.org.uk CARDIFF-MENEVIA (Cardiff): Andrew Butcher, cardiff@lms.org.uk CARDIFF-MENEVIA (Herefordshire): Shaun Bennett, herefordshire@lms.org.uk CARDIFF-MENEVIA (Ledbury): Alastair Tocher, malvern@lms.org.uk CARDIFF-MENEVIA (Menevia): Tom & Elaine Sharpling, menevia@lms.org.uk CLIFTON: Clive & Mari Carmen Osborn, clifton@lms.org.uk EAST ANGLIA (Walsingham): Tom Fitzpatrick, walsingham@lms.org.uk EAST ANGLIA (West): Gregor & Alisa Dick, cambridge@lms.org.uk EAST ANGLIA (Withermarsh Green): Sarah Ward, withermarshgreen@lms.org.uk HALLAM: Nick Ross, hallam@lms.org.uk LANCASTER: John Rogan, lancaster@lms.org.uk LANCASTER (Cumbria): Nicholas Steven, warwickbridge@lms.org.uk LIVERPOOL: Andrew Doyle, liverpool@lms.org.uk LIVERPOOL (Warrington): Alan Frost, warrington@lms.org.uk MIDDLESBROUGH: Paul Waddington, middlesbrough@lms.org.uk MIDDLESBROUGH (Ampleforth): Andrew Hutchinson, ampleforth@lms.org.uk NORTHAMPTON (South): Barbara Kay, bedford@lms.org.uk NOTTINGHAM: Jeremy Boot, nottingham@lms.org.uk NOTTINGHAM (South): Paul Beardsmore, northampton@lms.org.uk PLYMOUTH (Cornwall): Stefano Mazzeo, cornwall@lms.org.uk PLYMOUTH (Devon): Patrick Oliver, devon@lms.org.uk PLYMOUTH (Dorset): Maurice Quinn, dorset@lms.org.uk PORTSMOUTH: Carol Turner, portsmouth@lms.org,uk PORTSMOUTH (Isle of Wight): Peter Clarke, iow@lms.org.uk SALFORD: Alison Fraser-Kudlowski, salford@lms.org.uk SHREWSBURY (Cathedral): Victoria Keens, shrewsbury@lms.org.uk SHREWSBURY (Wirral): Kevin Jones, wirral@lms.org.uk SOUTHWARK (Cathedral): Oliver McCarthy, southwark@lms.org.uk SOUTHWARK (Chislehurst): Christopher Richardson, chislehurst@lms.org.uk SOUTHWARK (Clapham Park): Thomas Windsor, claphampark@lms.org.uk SOUTHWARK (Kent): Marygold Turner, kent@lms.org.uk SOUTHWARK (Thanet): Dr Christopher Serpell, thanet@lms.org.uk SOUTHWARK (Wandsworth): Julia Ashenden, wandsworth@lms.org.uk WESTMINSTER (Cathedral): Edward Kendall, westminster@lms.org.uk WESTMINSTER (Willesden): Mauricio Rodriguez, willesden@lms.org.uk

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CHAIRMAN’S MESSAGE

Happy Anniversary!

Joseph Shaw celebrates sixty years of the Latin Mass Society

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elcome to the first Mass of Ages of the Society’s 60th Anniversary year, which happily coincides with a Jubilee Year proclaimed by the Holy Father.

The Society was founded in early 1965, the year that Winston Churchill died, and the year after permission was first given for Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular – although this permission had been widely anticipated. A ‘mere permission’ was given, as Fr Geoffrey Houghton-Brown wrote in his autobiographical Unwanted Priest, and many priests took to it, ‘like Gadarene swine’: so much so that Mass in Latin became difficult to find.

A national organisation was needed to express the feelings of the many lay Catholics who loved the Latin Mass – preferably without the changes to the rubrics that were coming in at the same time. Our predecessors continued their battle for this same, ancient Mass, after the Novus Ordo Missae was promulgated in Advent 1969.

The Latin Mass Society has always had many friends among priests and bishops, and indeed among lay intellectuals, but its raison d’etre was and remains to be a mouthpiece, a campaigner, and an organiser, of and for the forgotten, ordinary Catholic, who simply loves the Church’s liturgical tradition. Over the decades our movement has surprised some people merely by surviving, and then by attracting new generations of Catholics, but it is not really surprising that the Mass loved by the saints and martyrs over so many

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centuries should come to be loved by modern people as well.

Our movement has attracted some hostility too, sometimes of a kind which seems disproportionate to our numbers and influence. This can reflect, I think, an uneasy conscience.

As a Dostoyevsky character remarks: ‘I did him a bad turn once, and I’ve had a grudge against him ever since.’

On this 60th anniversary, nevertheless, we have much to celebrate. The success of petitions of public figures, from 1966 to 2024, in staving off the comprehensive prohibition of the ancient Latin Mass; the widening availability of the Mass, particularly since Pope Benedict’s Summorum Pontificum in 2007; the development of all kinds of resources for the Mass, of a kind our predecessors could only have dreamed of, including reprinted books, newly formed choirs and scholas, training opportunities, and volunteers with all sorts of expertise.

Some observers might assume our movement must be at a low ebb, four years after Pope Francis apparently (though not entirely unambiguously) suggested that he wanted the celebration of the Traditional Mass to cease, at some unspecified point in the future. This is not the case at all. This has made our work more difficult, but we are also benefitting from the renewed attention – the ‘Streisand effect’ – and from a longerterm development, the culmination of a debate on the liturgy that started a century ago.

Today tradition presents itself as a rebellion against what Martin Mosebach called ‘senile avant-

guardism’ : the new ideas of the 1960s may look passé, but the tradition remains fresh, exciting, and offers vast and enticing intellectual, artistic, and spiritual landscapes to explore.

To celebrate our anniversary, we have arranged many special events.

Chief among them are short tours by two bishops, Bishop Athanasius Schneider in June and Bishop Marian Eleganti in November, who between them will be celebrating Masses in at least five dioceses with the permission of the Ordinary.

We are organising another kind of tour, of a relic of the True Cross, which will criss-cross the country with Masses and devotions: a special devotional offering by the Society in thanksgiving for the graces we have received over our six decades (and see page 9).

A third element is the Masses for ‘cultural groups’, to mark the international friendships of the Traditional movement and underline the extraordinary diversity of Traditional Mass congregations. The first of these, in honour of Blessed Michael Tansi, at the request of our friends in Una Voce Nigeria, has already taken place; to come are Masses for traditional Catholics of Maltese, Polish, and Chinese heritage, and also one, to be advertised only to those for whom it is offered, for Muslim converts.

We also hope to have some special publications out this year, and to make all of our events as splendid as possible.

To all our anniversary!

readers,

happy

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FUTURE DATES

Year Planner

At the time of going to press the following events are planned.

For fuller details and other events see lms.org.uk.

Palestrina and the Roman School, in celebration of the Jubilee Year the Southwell Consort will perform music by Palestrina and his contemporaries at Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane, London, and elsewhere. See lms.org.uk/music.

LMS High Mass and AGM: Saturday 28 June, St Walburge’s, Preston. Guest speaker: Canon William Hudson ICKSP.

Guild of Saint Clare Sewing Retreat: Friday 21-Sunday 23 February. Enjoy sewing, discussion, Mass, rosary, and reflections led by the chaplain. Booking: lms.org.uk/events.

Iota Unum Talk: Nina Power, writer and philosopher, on Overcoming Modernity's Process of Deracination. Friday 28 February.* Southwell Consort Concert – ‘Holy Week in the Sistine Chapel’: Friday 7 March, 7.30 pm at the Rosary Shrine, Haverstock Hill NW5 4LB and Saturday 15 March, 7.30pm at St James's Spanish Place W1U 3QY. Programme of Palestina, Allegri, Morales and Victoria directed by Jeremy Summerly, Tickets: lms.org.uk/music.

Society of St Tarcisus Server Training Day and Guild of St Clare Vestment Mending Day: Saturday 15 March, St Mary Moorfields, London, 10.30 am – 3.30 pm. Booking: lms.org. uk/events.

Iota Unum Talk: Dr Daniel Dolly, Oxford anthropologist, on Why is God the Father: Man and Woman in the language of Divine Revelation. Friday 21 March.* Guild of St Clare Opus Anglicanum Embroidery Course, Saturday 29 – Sunday 30 March, Royal School of Needlework, Hampton Court Palace. Booking: lms.org.uk/events.

Iota Unum Talk: Niall Gooch, journalist in the Spectator, the Catholic Herald and UnHerd. Friday 25 April.* Iota Unum Talk: Dr Joseph Shaw, LMS Chairman, on Why liberalisation enslaves us. Friday 30 May.* Society of St Tarcisus Server Training Day and Guild of St Clare Vestment Mending Day: Saturday 31 May, St Mary Moorfields, London, 10.30 am – 3.30 pm. Booking: lms.org. uk/events.

Paris – Chartres Pilgrimage, taking place over the Whitsun weekend, Saturday 7 - Monday 9 June. The pilgrimage is organised by Notre-Dame de Chrétienté: nd-chretiente.com.

See chartresuk.blogspot.com or chartrespilgrimagescotland. com for details of UK chapters. Details of LMS bursaries for young adults (18-35) will be published on our website.

LMS Walsingham Walking Pilgrimage: 21-24 August. Annual walking pilgrimage from Ely to Walsingham. Booking opens in March. Early bird discount for those booking before Ascension.

Visit of Bishop Athanasius Schneider – LMS sixtieth anniversary celebrations Meeting with Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, Wednesday 11 June.

Whit Friday Pontifical High Mass, Friday 13 June, Shrine of St Augustine, Ramsgate, 6.00 pm.

LMS Sixtieth Anniversary Conference – Faith and Culture, Saturday 14 June, London Oratory. Speakers: Cardinal Raymond Burke (via video link), Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Fr Christopher Baseden, Dr Tim Stanley, James Gillick and Dr Joseph Shaw.

Pontifical High Mass, Sunday 15 June St William of York, Reading, 11.00 am.

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LMS Residential Latin Course: 11-16 August, Boars Hill Carmelite Priory, Oxford. Expert tuition in ecclesiastical Latin. Booking opens in March.

Chideock Martyrs’ Pilgrimage, Saturday 20 September. High Mass followed by devotions, 12 noon.

Snave Sung Mass, Saturday 20 September. Annual Sung Mass at St Augustine’s, Snave, 12 noon.

Oxford Martyrs’ Pilgrimage, Saturday 11 October. High Mass at Blackfriars Priory, St Giles, Oxford, at 11.00 am followed by procession and Benediction.

Visit of Bishop Marian Eleganti OSB – LMS sixtieth anniversary celebrations Pontifical High Mass of All Saints, Saturday 1 November.

Annual Mass of reparation for abortion, Holy Child, Bedford, noon. Followed by reception.

Pontifical High Mass, Sunday 2 November, SS Peter and Paul, New Brighton, 10.30 am.

Pontifical High Mass of Requiem, LMS Annual Requiem, Saturday 8 November, Blackriars Priory, Oxford, 11.00 am.

Rome Pilgrimage – Peregrinatio ad Petri Sedem, 24-26 October. Details to be posted at summorum-pontificum.org.

Catholic Police Guild Annual Sung Requiem, Monday 3 November. Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane, London, 6.30 pm.

Catholic Military Association Annual Sung Requiem, Monday 10 November. Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane, London, 6.30 pm.

Masses for cultural groups - at Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane, London, Mondays, 6.30 pm. The Latin Mass Society is a member of Una Voce, a worldwide confederation of national and regional organisations dedicated to the traditional Latin Mass. Throughout the Holy Year 2025 the society is holding a series of special Sung Masses in association with other Una Voce groups. The first two of these Masses have taken place for members of the Nigerian and Maltese diasporas.

Upcoming Sung Masses include: • England: 28 April: St George • Poland: 5 May: Our Lady Queen of Poland • China and Taiwan: 8 September: The Nativity of Our Lady * Iota Unum talks take place Our Lady of the Assumption, Warwick Street, London (enter via Golden Square).

Refreshments 6.30 pm for 7.00 pm talk.

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WINTER 2024

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WINTER 2024

FEATURE

Fragments from Calvary The Holy Cross Pilgrimage, in which a relic of the True Cross will traverse England and Wales, begins in London this coming Good Friday. Richard Pickett reports

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he Holy Year 2025 happily coincides with the sixtieth anniversary of the Latin Mass Society. This confluence of events gives us much to thank God for. Among the special events organised to mark the year will be the Holy Cross Pilgrimage, during which a relic of the True Cross will traverse the dioceses of England and Wales.

Beginning in London on Good Friday, the relic will then make its way across the country, journeying from north to south and stopping at Catholic churches throughout England and Wales. In some locations, it will be the focus of solemn liturgies; in others, it will simply be exposed for silent veneration and prayer.

The Church Fathers ascribe latria — the highest form of worship, reserved for God alone — to the Holy Cross because of its intimate connection to Christ and His redemptive work.

For this reason, sacred relics of the Cross and Passion are held in special veneration above all other relics. The liturgical signs of honour given to the Cross bear a striking resemblance to those accorded to the Blessed Sacrament: we genuflect before it, it is carried in procession under a canopy, and it is borne with a humeral veil, emphasizing its sacrality.

The inspiration for this pilgrimage came from the account of England’s conversion recorded by the Venerable Bede. When Pope St Gregory the Great sent St Augustine and his monks to evangelize the English, they arrived carrying a silver Cross as their standard. Alarmed by the tales of the pagan English's barbarism, as recounted in Gallic reports, Augustine and his companions relied on the Cross for protection and as a sign of Christ’s ultimate victory over sin and death. Landing on the Isle of Thanet, they followed the silver Cross in procession to the court of King

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Ethelbert at Canterbury, chanting litanies and imploring God for the salvation of the English people. And so, through divine providence, the conversion of England began. In the same spirit, the Holy Cross Pilgrimage will be offered for the Church and for the (re)conversion of England and Wales, uniting the prayers of all who participate in this sacred journey.

The two small pieces of wood that form this relic of the True Cross have travelled an extraordinary path. Tradition holds that St Helena discovered the Cross in Jerusalem in the fourth century. Until John XXIII’s calendar reforms in 1960, the Roman Rite commemorated this miraculous event on 3 May each year with the feast In Inventione S. Crucis. From Jerusalem, major portions of the Cross were taken to Constantinople and to Rome, where they remain enshrined at Santa Croce and the Vatican.

Smaller fragments were disseminated throughout Christendom, and by the time of the Reformation, England had signif icant relics at Canterbury, Glastonbury, Westminster and Bromholm.

In the nineteenth century, the French scholar Charles Rohault de Fleury set out to disprove Protestant claims that there were enough relics of the True Cross to build a ship (a myth started by John Calvin).

He published Mémoire sur les instruments de la Passion in 1870, demonstrating that if all known relics were gathered together, their combined volume would not exceed that of a single full-sized cross. The relic which will tour England and Wales came into the possession of the Archdiocese of Southwark, where it was authenticated by mandate of Archbishop Amigo in 1945.

To believe that these fragments of wood come from the actual tree of Calvary upon which Jesus Christ died for the salvation of mankind requires a leap of faith. Yet this is precisely what the Church proposes to us: Ecce lignum Crucis, in quo salus mundi pependit. Venite, adoremus!

For details of the Holy Cross Pilgrimage visit holycross2025.org

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BOOKS

The Monastic Life John Whitehead reviews a new study of medieval monasticism in both the Orthodox and Catholic traditions

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onasticism is integral to historic Christianity. One of the oldest expressions of Christian life, in its earliest forms it pre-dates the Constantinian age, survived the rise of Islam and Byzantine iconoclasm in the East, and in the West was a key element in the emergence of medieval culture.

Andrew Jotischky sets out in his new book to survey the rich variety and legacy of medieval monasticism in both the Orthodox and Catholic traditions.

Monks and nuns are custodians of living traditions. From very early on large numbers were attracted to anchoritic and cenobitic ways of living out the Christian faith. The exemplars, founders, and codifiers were revered as saints. After St Pachomius and St Anthony in Egypt we have St Benedict as father of western monasticism and St Basil is a similar figure in the east.

Monasticism helped to carry the Church sustaining the faith as it also transmitted the Classical inheritance to the future.

Historians may take much of this for granted, but how far that understanding spreads is not clear.

Most books on monasticism in English concentrate on the different religious communities as they were in England after the Norman Conquest and until Henry VIII, pay insufficient attention to the Anglo-Saxon era or to parallel developments on the continent. Their concern is with organisation and buildings, much less with spirituality.

The author of this new book pays warm tribute to the scholarship of Dom David Knowles, but beyond his books, unless you have access to an academic library, the choice of reading matter if you seek to go deeper into the topic or on a European basis, is limited.

Declining numbers I suspect that many contemporary Catholics have little knowledge of the history of monasticism even when educated or served in parishes by monks. Declining numbers may be lamented, but are accepted.

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Monasticism in Orthodox Christianity and the ancient churches of the East appears picturesque, if not exotic, the stuff of holiday snaps.

Breaking out of that self-imposed straight jacket is overdue, and Andrew Jotischky is to be congratulated on doing so, and doing it so well.

One wonders why it has not been attempted before. Maybe the sheer range of material is daunting, the complex interplay of events so extensive, that others have maybe quailed at the challenge. Professor Jositschky has not, and displays a breadth and command of knowledge

and understanding that makes his expertise very accessible. His calm and lucid work draws upon the latest research by other academics. He also indicates a sympathy for the aims and achievements of monasticism.

He leads his readers out of the tidy categories they may be used to, to experience the vitality and spiritual quest of medieval monastics. Even though he has confined himself to enclosed communities, and not included the mendicants, his study is surely destined to become a standard work of reference for years to come, and a pointer to new lines of enquiry.

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BOOKS Early virgin martyrs Monasticism is usually seen as originating in Egypt, although as the author points out that may simply reflect that less material survives to record the Syrian experience. Even before men and women retreated to hermitages and then the desert, he suggests the origin may well lie with those early Christians who elected to live a devout life in their own homes in detachment, as in the stories of early virgin martyrs.

It was in Egypt, the Holy Land and Syria that Christian monasticism began, initially as individual anchorites, adding to that the desert experience of combat with evil, leading others seeking to join them.

From such informal communities began what became the earliest cenobitic houses. Yet the appeal of the desert - be it the Near East, the wilds of Ireland and Northumbria or the wooded areas of Western Europe remained, and has often been sought out and reinterpreted by later monastic idealists. What they sought and how they led their lives would, for all the differences of time and place, still be recognisable to a monastic in 1025 or 2025. As he suggests, those who lived an alternative lifestyle in troubled times have their equivalents in the modern world.

Spread west The idea spread west to Constantinople and to Italy and thence to what eventually became France and Germany and to the British Isles. In all these lands, and in many diverse ways, asceticism similar to that of Egypt and Syria was practised, and the role of the holy man as mediator between heaven and earth and between earthly factions was important to society.

There emerged over time from St Benedict, St Basil, and St Augustine among others a series of guides for communal living. Alongside that there was also a constant return to the wellspring. The Carthusian claim to never have been reformed because they were never deformed is no idle boast. However, just as they were a conscious attempt to recreate the model of seven centuries earlier, so too there was an almost constant impulse among monks and nuns, and among patrons, to return to the essentials of asceticism, discipline and anticipating Heaven on earth. This might take

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different forms locally but appears as a common impulse to Catholic and Orthodox alike.

The division between east and west was appearing quite early in monasticism as elsewhere in the Church. It can perhaps be encapsulated in the career of Wulfilaicis. He was an Italian who established himself in the sixth century as a stylite near Trier, to the evident disapproval of local bishops, distrustful of such imported Syriac traditions. Summoned to a meeting with them he descended from his pillar, but on his return, he found it had been destroyed on their orders.

Chastened, he then organised his followers on terra firma as a monastery.

In the East he would doubtless have simply moved away and returned to being a stylite. Episcopal oversight was often contentious in all regions.

The differences b e t we e n Catholicism and Orthodoxy, between c entral i sat ion and devolut ion, between seeking uniformity and pursuing individualism - was shaping up well before 1054. In the Orthodox world the anchorite was to continue to play a much more significant - and sometimes eccentric - role than in the western Church. Nevertheless, individual hermits who attracted a band of followers were to be very important in the West as founders of new branches within the Benedictine tradition in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

The legacy of early monasticism was more dynamic and powerful, as was the role of women founders and abbesses, than we might think if we only look at post 1066 developments in England. These were living, developing traditions, often looking back to the desert experience, rather than a rigid following of a specific rule. Equally, respect for foundational documents could be a spur to renewal and new foundations.

The Monastic World is not just however about the world of monks and nuns and the spirituality or organisation of communities: it is also about a time when the world itself had monasticism at its very heart. In tenth century England Benedictine monks led the reform of cathedrals and the wider ecclesial and lay community, and the Regularis Concordia of 964 bound monastics and realm together in a partnership that survived until the 1530s.

The book f irmly locates monasticism in that world and in so doing provides an understanding of the interaction of those who were enclosed and those who were outside.

Inevitably the mores of the world beyond the cloister invaded sacred space with factionalism and occasional violence, and not a few communities had strained relations with adjoining towns. The presence of the relics or patronage of an esteemed saint gave prestige and power to abbeys like St Albans and Bury St Edmunds.

Sir Mortimer Wheeler said that as an archaeologist he was not digging up things but people and Andrew Jotischky does the same as a historian making medieval monastics come alive for his readers. He makes the development of great transnational communities like Cluniac and the Cistercians understandable as both a response to and as an invitation extended to an expanding society with a burgeoning economy, highlighting the latest academic discussion about how those two monastic families came into being.

The one slight disappointment is that a publication from Yale, noted for its high production values, has only a few illustrations, all monochrome, and no maps to help locate early monasteries.

This is a book that deserves to have a wide readership. It is much more than just a digest of the latest ideas but one that offers a wide vision of what monasticism was and what it entailed. Easy to read and rich in stories, but rooted in scholarly rigour, it is suitable for the general reader as well as the academic, for the student wishing to extend their academic horizons, or, dare one suggest it, the potential postulant. ......

Andrew Jotischky is professor of medieval history at Royal Holloway, University of London. An expert in medieval religion and culture, he is the author of The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Medieval World, Crusading and the Crusader States, and The Carmelites and Antiquity.

The Monastic World, RRP £25, is available to Mass of Ages readers for £17.50 with free postage at yalebooks. co.uk. Enter discount code: MONAS. Offer ends 31 March.

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FEATURE

Learn Latin!

As the Government announces its decision to stop teaching Latin in state schools, Matthew Spencer offers an alternative, ‘curiosity based’ method of learning

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hen it comes to learning Latin, we need just two things: people who really want to learn and the resources to help them.

Resources, if they are good, can include anything from traditional grammar books, through videos to the most up-todate artificial intelligence app (AI).

Whatever works should be the rallying cry of the fledgling Latinist.

My own experience learning Latin has given me some insights and I don’t expect the route to Latin will change much, except in some foreseeable ways that it is important to take account of, for we live in an age of rapidly changing technology.

Imagine you are bored on a Saturday morning and you decide you would like to learn some Latin.

Do you pick up a book or do you go on the Internet to find the friendliest robot tutor money can buy? They are both reasonable options but there are others.

It is of course a rare and not necessarily a particularly inspired person who sits down to memorise all the known forms of an ancient language from a book. All those wordendings! Believe me, dear reader, I have sat on buses at 6am struggling with the syntax of the supine.

But learning on a bus is hardly ideal.

Which is why I suggest you think hard about how committed you are to the idea of learning enough to understand the Latin you hear at Mass.

As you are reading this magazine, I think it is safe to assume you will be highly motivated.

Great promises have been made in the past for all sorts of immersive and spoken-Latin based methods. I have even tried to teach using some of them myself, but the bottom line is that you still have to learn the rules – you have to learn, among other things, that word-endings in Latin, as

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Hi tech: ‘Whatever works should be the rallying cry of the fledgling Latinist’

in Greek and in English, Spanish or French do matter.

You need to know enough to navigate a page and to understand the Mass. For that, the trick is not to try to run before you can walk; instead, take it one page at a time.

On the Latin courses we run (which I’d say are still at the experimental stage, otherwise we’d be charging more!) you will, if you give us a try, access two important things that can help enormously: peer-to-peer fellowship and friendly, expert-guided support.

We’ll take it that these two things, hand in hand, are far better than trying to learn on your own or while sitting on a bus. We can’t promise that in 10 months you’ll have memorised all the word-endings. (Nor would you want to, and those that have tried, myself included, can’t remember them all.)

But we’ll give you something better, or we’ll try to: an awareness of the patterns of the typical Latin sentence — and what kinds of word mean what kinds of things, which is difficult to explain in an article such as this. Nevertheless, your native nous and undoubted language skills (you are reading this, after all!) will do the rest. And if it really takes off for you, I very much hope to see you in my Divine Office reading class – you will be in a small group of not more than four enthusiastic students.

How to get help with Latin: the simple guide Reading grammar books. A perfectly good approach, but best avoided at the outset unless you are able to judge the good from the bad. Top of my list of the good books are Gildersleeve and Lodge (hard to spot an outright error even after a couple of centuries). Granted, this book can be a hard slog to read, but it’s

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FEATURE extremely sensitive about the differences between classical and later — including Christian — Latin. But ideally you need a guide to a book like this. Don’t just sit down by the fire with it.

Artificial intelligence. Just as likely to have the same problems as traditional grammar books unless you have a guide.

Part of the knack with the intricacies of an ancient language is to understand the full range of possible uses of a particular form (such as a given case like the accusative). Taking two books about Greek published almost 50 years apart, but of a similar standard, my conclusion is: neither current AI nor either of these books nailed everything you, practically, need to know about, for example, the “genitive” case to read the Greek of the New Testament.

And the gaps, in both instances, were pretty sizeable – compared to what you need to know.

Our course: prayer-based videos.

We offer ‘Latin shots’, which are five-minute videos, followed by live Divine Office classes. We use the latest Internet-based lexicographical along with other “assists” to help you function as a competent reader of texts.

For if you can’t function like that, then what is the point of trying to read another language in the first place? You

St Jerome, patron saint of translators

by Francisco de Zurbarán, 1598-1664

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Hymnus in honorem Sancti Augustini

want to be able to sit by the fire making sense of Latin on your own. Fortunately, the modern world has resources that most of us spent a long time doing without and we will use these on our courses, without overbalancing the gentle experience of turning the page of a Latin breviary.

I can’t promise our courses will work for everyone. And that’s in part because our first cohort has not yet completed its initial run at the language, using all the methods I’ve developed over half a decade to meet their needs. That cohort has a few months to go.

It takes 10 months to go through our initial program, so it’s not for the fainthearted. But it is considerably cheaper than enrolling at a university.

Here is what one recent joiner has said about his experience: “You present with an air of authority, but humble and curious at the same time. It is a beautiful teaching style. I am smitten with this course.” (Deacon S. — Traditional Mass officiant (United States).

He is joined by Dr J., a retired palliative care specialist: “The big difference between my Latin skills at the beginning and end of the course is that I can now reason my way towards a solution rather than depending on parsing words individually.”

Our teaching methods are far quicker than the traditional university methods.

I will leave it to Deacon S. to summarise: “As mentioned, I am a permanent deacon assigned to a shrine that offers the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms

of the Mass. I had Latin in High School — but that was over 40 years ago. I have looked at several Latin courses online, but was dissatisfied with them because their pedagogy was still based mainly on the memorization of tables, endings, etc… I am not critical of this pedagogy, but for a student who is 60 years old, working, and with a full liturgical schedule your more ‘curiosity’ based method resonates with me. Thank you!” ......

Matthew Spencer is co-organising a colloquium on AI, to be held at the university of Oxford in February. He has taught Latin to enthusiastic adult learners since lockdown.

More information about the writer’s courses from: info@saint-of-the-day. com

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Information and ordering: https:// enrouteb o oksandmedia.com/ guestofnight/

13

WORLD NEWS

World News Paul Waddington reports on what’s happening around the Globe

T

he Priestly Fraternity of St Peter and the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ISKSP) are well known in England and Wales as Orders of Priests with the charism of offering the traditional Mass in Latin. Perhaps less well known to our readers is the Institute of the Good Shepherd, which is also a Society of Apostolic Life operating on an international scale and exclusively using the 1962 Missal.

Founded in 2006, it has its headquarters and seminary at Courtalain in Northern France. Currently it has 62 priests, four deacons and 44 seminarians. Ten young men of six different nationalities entered the first (or propaedeutic) year of their studies last autumn, bringing the number of nationalities represented in the Order to fifteen. The Institute has Apostolates in France, Italy, Poland, Uganda, Brazil, Columbia and the United States.

In December, it was announced that this Mass was to be suspended, “pending further discussion and until such time that we can come up with clear guidelines and regulations on these Masses”. The announcement was made in a letter written on behalf of the Archbishop of Cebu, Jose Palma, and signed by the Chancellor of the Archdiocese. The cessation of this regular Sunday Mass is one of the most devastating consequences of Traditiones Custodes, as there is no other Mass in the traditional rite that the faithful of Cebu can attend.

Spain Spain is another country where Latin Mass provision is poor. According to official statistics, there are around 30 million Catholics in Spain, which is roughly 66 percent of the overall population. The Traditional Latin Mass is offered on Sundays at 23 locations, with weekday Latin Masses at a further ten locations. This works out at approximately one location per million Catholics. In England and Wales, the traditional Mass is offered at about 23 locations for every million Catholics.

However, despite these unimpressive statistics, there is some good news coming out of Spain. The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter has recently established its first foundation in that country at the small town of Jerez de la Frontera in the south of Spain. The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest have been established in Spain for much longer, with their headquarters in Madrid. They offer Latin Masses at eight locations, although some are not every Sunday.

France Bishop Dominique Rey of the Diocese of Frejus-Toulon in southern France tendered his resignation in early January, reportedly at the request of the Holy Father. Since his appointment in the year 2000, Bishop Rey has ordained a large number of priests, and welcomed many religious Orders into his diocese, including many from outside the bounds of the diocese.

Some, but by no means all, of these incomers have shown traditional tendencies.

In 2022, the Vatican imposed a moratorium on ordinations in the diocese. A year later, the diocese was subject to an apostolic visitation, reportedly prompted by questions over financial management, and accusations that Rey had an authoritarian governing style.

Following the visitation, Pope Francis appointed Bishop François Touvet as coadjutor bishop with wide powers of govern an c e.

The veto on ordinations was subsequently lifted, enabling the backlog of ordinations to be dealt with. However, ordinations in the traditional rite that some had been expecting, continued to be banned.

The resignation of Bishop Rey followed the removal of Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler in Texas, who was also removed following an apostolic visitation. In both cases, the justification for the visitation concerned issues around the governance of the diocese.

Philippines With a Catholic population of over 85 million, representing more than 80 percent of the total population, the Philippines is one of the most Catholic countries in the world. In the whole of the Philippines, there are only nine locations where the Traditional Mass is offered on Sundays, with weekday Masses offered at a further four locations. For a country with such a big Catholic population, this is very poor provision.

The Archdiocese of Cebu is the largest diocese in the Philippines (and indeed in Asia) with an estimated five million faithful. Until recently, it had just one Latin Mass, which was offered in a monastery. It was reported that young people were flocking to this Mass in increasing numbers.

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Seminarians of the Institute of the Good Shepherd

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WINTER 2024

15

SPIRITUALITY

Many mansions Fr Thomas Crean on The Angelic Warfare Confraternity

J

esus Christ has told us that in His Father’s house, there are many mansions. We often interpret these words as referring to the different degrees of glory enjoyed by the saints in heaven, but we may also see them as a description of the Church on earth. As St Thomas Aquinas pointed out when commenting on this verse, “God’s house is twofold, the Church militant and triumphant.” In fact, one of the things that impressed St Augustine when he was still looking into the Church from outside was how various were the paths pursued by Catholics within the unity of a common faith: “I saw a full Church”, he remarked, “and one went this way and another went that” (Confessions 8.1).

One way in which this diversity manifests itself is by the existence of different confraternities and sodalities, when various of Christ’s faithful freely come together to pursue some common, spiritual end; for example, to foster devotion to the Sacred Heart or to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Each of these groups is like a chamber in the great house of the Church on earth.

One such association that ought to be better known is the Confraternity of the Angelic Warfare. Founded by a Dominican priest in Belgium in the 1600s, its purpose is to promote the virtue of chastity among its members, under the patronage of St Thomas Aquinas, commonly known as ‘the angelic doctor’. But what exactly is it, and how did it begin?

Its remote origins lie in a famous incident in St Thomas’s own early life.

His family, who were of the nobility, were unhappy with their son’s choice of vocation. They had destined him for the wealthy abbey of Monte Cassino, but he elected instead to enter the Order of Friars Preachers, or Dominicans. In accordance with the vigorous manners of the time, some of his brothers therefore seized young Fra Tomasso when he was on a journey and led him

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Thomas Aquinus: “two salient features of Aquinas’s holiness were purity and humility”

back to the family castle, there to keep him prisoner until he should learn wisdom. When both persuasion and threats failed to change his mind, the brothers tried a baser expedient.

All the early biographies of the saint describe how they introduced a beautiful young woman into the bedroom where their younger brother, then aged about

nineteen, was confined. As William of Tocco, who lived in the same priory as St Thomas for a while, explains: “They sent the loveliest girl they could find, adorned with the seductive arts of a courtesan, so she might lure him into her sin by her looks, caresses, and teasing gestures.” Whether she went there with some pretext to engage

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SPIRITUALITY him in conversation, and if so, quite how long it took the young religious to realise what was going on, are not clear. We are told, though, that when he did grasp the situation, he felt some momentary temptation, but then acted decisively. In perhaps the only violent act of his life, he took a burning log from the fireplace and used it to drive the unfortunate girl out of his cell. He then scorched the sign of the Cross into the wall and falling on his knees, prayed for the strength to preserve his virginity.

It may have been already late in the day, as the biographers say that he prolonged his prayer till he fell asleep.

What happened next could be called either a dream sent from God, or a vision. As he slept, he saw two angels come to him holding a cord, which they tied around his waist, and he heard them say: “Behold, we come from God to gird you, as you have asked, with a girdle of chastity which will not be broken by any combat. And what cannot be merited by human power is now granted to you as a gift from God’s bounty.”

Friar Thomas felt the angels bind him with the cord so tightly that he woke up crying aloud in pain; but when people came into the room to ask what was happening, he would not tell them. He kept the vision and the angelic words a secret until just before his death, when he related them to his socius and confessor, Reginald of Piperno. Reginald, who had been his confessor as well as socius, saw that the promise of the angels, that St Thomas ‘girdle of chastity’ would not be broken by any combat, had come true.

At the canonisation procedure, he affirmed on oath that, “he did not remember hearing even once in Thomas’s confession that he had consented to a single carnal thought”, and added that the saint “had very rarely experienced even the first stirrings of this passion”.

The cord that Aquinas had worn was given to the Master-General of his Order; it is now shown in the Dominican church in Chieri near Turin.

So much for the background.

For several hundred years, the story remained as an inspiration, but no more. Then in the 16th century, an Italian priest caused copies of the

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cord of St Thomas to be made and blessed, but for purely private use. The confraternity of the Angelic Warfare came into being about seventy years afterwards. On March 7 1649, Fr Francis Duerwerders OP received its first members, at the university of Louvain in Belgium. A papal bull published by Innocent X in 1654 already mentions the confraternity, and states that its purpose is, “to gain victory under St Thomas’s protection in the hard combat for chastity and against temptations, and to promote devotion to the holy doctor”. In 1727, Benedict XIII gave to all Dominican provinces the right to receive new members (see the Bullarium Romanum, volume 12 of Mainardi’s edition, p. 203). The confraternity has existed ever since: among its notable members are St Louis Gonzaga, and the 20th century Dominican tertiary, Pier Giorgio Frassati, who is due to be canonised this summer.

The obligations of membership are not onerous. Members undertake to recite two short prayers for chastity each day, one attributed to St Thomas, the other addressed to him. They also recite fifteen Hail Marys daily for the same intention. They wear a thin cord with fifteen knots around their waist day and night (Pius XI also gave the possibility of wearing the medal of the confraternity instead.) The number fifteen is no doubt in honour of our Lady of the Rosary, though sometimes each of the Hail Marys is prayed for a distinct intention, such as purification of the memory, of the conscience, of sight, and so on. Finally, members resolve to live chastely in accordance with the requirements of different states in life, whether as single, betrothed, married or widowed: but this is not a vow, and does not add anything to the obligation of any Christian to avoid whatever is contrary to purity.

Pope Pius XI, in the encyclical that he wrote in 1923 for the six hundredth anniversary of St Thomas’s canonisation, observed that two salient features of Aquinas’s holiness were purity and humility. Membership of the Angelic Warfare Confraternity is a way of imitating both these virtues: purity, as is obvious, but also humility, both because of the daily reminder to ask for God’s grace to keep the sixth and ninth commandments, and because of the simplicity of the means employed.

For if the sacraments have as one their purposes, as St Thomas himself argued, that of training us in humility by causing us to seek something spiritual, namely sanctifying grace, through the use of material things, the same must also be true of the sacramentals, through which it is actual graces that are sought.

The same pope draws our attention to the relation between purity and wisdom, both in general and in Aquinas’s life in particular. We read in Scripture that wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins (Wis. 1:4). While cleverness can co-exist with mortal sin, the gift of wisdom cannot. But without this gift, we soon fall into mistakes about the meaning and requirements of God’s word. So, having alluded to the trial to which Aquinas’s brothers submitted him in the family castle, the pope concludes: “If the purity of Thomas therefore had failed in the extreme peril into which it had fallen, it is very probable that the Church would never have had her Angelic Doctor.” He therefore asked the world’s bishops to propagate the confraternity, especially among their seminarians.

Yet while sexuality is at all times, as Mgr Ronald Knox once remarked, the stronghold of fallen nature, it is a commonplace that external temptations against chastity are more prevalent today than they have been at least since the overthrowing of paganism and quite possibly exceed Pope Pius XI’s worst nightmares. While the Confraternity of the Angelic Warfare is not the only response to this emergency, it is a particularly suitable and effective one.

It may just be a confraternity whose time has come.

......

I am grateful for the historical research done into this subject by the Fathers of the Fraternity of St Vincent Ferrer, which I have made use of in this short article. Readers wishing to learn more about the Confraternity of the Angelic Warfare may like to consult the site www.angelicwarfareconfraternity.org/ The cord or medal of St Thomas may be acquired from, among other places, the Rosary Shrine in north London or the Carmelite community of Lanherne in Cornwall.

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COMMENT

Sister Mary of St Peter Our Lord spoke in French to reach Russian ears, as Mary O’Regan explains

I

n France in the 1840s there was a young Carmelite nun with an urgent mission. Jesus afforded her intellectual visions so she might found a movement devoted to His Holy Face with precise instructions as to how to propagate it. Her name was Sr Mary of St Peter and her own face bore the blemish of flames, because when she was a baby, she had fallen into in a fire.

Sr Mary of St Peter met her mother superior and told her that the Lord wished for souls to do spiritually the pious office of Veronica who had caressed His Face with her veil as he carried His cross through the jeering mob. Souls could offer the prayers Our Lord had given Sr Mary of St Peter, so that atonement could be made for the sin of blasphemy where people insult Our Lord to His Face by taking His Name in vain.

At the very moment Sr Mary of St Peter spoke of the messages she’d received, a holy picture honouring the Holy Name tumbled out of a book she held. The astonished mother superior said that had she not known Sr Mary of St Peter’s true character, she’d have thought her a witch. But Sr Mary of St Peter was known to speak the unvarnished truth and was so serious about her salvation that her superior took it as a sign and gave her the necessary permission.

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In 1843, Our Lord gave Sr Mary of St Peter the Chaplet of the Holy Face wherein the verse from psalm 67 is repeated 33 times: “Arise, O Lord, and let Thy enemies be scattered and let all that hate Thee flee before Thy Face.” Our Lord willed that this be offered as a way of attending to His Face, that devotees to His Face may repair the damage done by blasphemy, otherwise “the malice of revolutionary men” was to be visited upon humanity.

Our Lord expressly warned Sr Mary of St Peter about the threat of Communism, more than six decades before the Red Army took control in Russia. Ever battle-ready, Sr Mary of St Peter said: “God has commanded me to cross swords with the Communists” and she explained that the Lord called them, “the sworn enemies of the Church”. Our Lord instructed Sr Mary of St Peter to make known that blasphemy and the profanation of Sunday are great sins that harm the Holy Face; her also urged the founding of confraternities devoted to the Holy Face.

‘St Therese of Lisieux was greatly moved by the message of Sr Mary of St Peter’ St Therese of Lisieux was greatly moved by th message of Sr Mary of St Peter. She and her family joined a fledgling confraternity, 140 years ago, in 1885, and later after St Therese had read the life of the feisty Breton Carmelite, did added “the Holy Face” to her name.

Through all this, we understand that the language Our Lord employed and in which the Sr Mary of St Peter’s pamphlets and prayers were first published was French. Sr Mary of St Peter only spoke her earthy Breton dialect with its Cornish roots, and French. When I’ve written about this sublime devotion and talked to others, they ask why Our Lord did not speak in Russia and in Russian?

Let’s remember this was the 1800s, when French was the language of the educated class in Russia. The empress of Russia, Catherine the Great had made it the official language of the Russian Court and from then any social climber worth their salt did their utmost to learn it. In Moscow there was a huge appetite for French publications of all sorts, and the middle classes competed among themselves as to who was the most knowledgeable in French affairs. During her lifetime, had the revelations of the power of making reparation to the Holy Face made a bigger noise in France, it would have resounded off the walls of many a Russian home.

French was said to be losing its grip on the Russian psyche, but not as quickly as some imagine. Around 20 years after Sr Mary of St Peter died, Dostoevsky finished The Idiot, a novel so filled with French it can sound like it was set in a suburb of Paris. Despite being from from a lower-middle class background even Dostoevsky used French such was the influence of French culture in Russia.

I believe that when Russia is converted, the country will pick up the thread from the 1800s and look to the key French influences in Catholicism of that time; we may yet live to see Sr Mary of St Peter become a saint based on miracles awarded modern Russians. .....

I’d like to thank the readers of Mass of Ages for their prayers over the many years it has taken me to write my book, Padre Pio and You. It is being published

by Sophia Press and will be available on 17 June.

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ARCHITECTURE

The Church of St Chad Paul Waddington takes a look at the Manchester Oratory

O

f all the English counties, Lancashire was perhaps the one where Catholicism persisted most strongly during the Penal Times that followed the English Reformation.

As was the case throughout England, influential Lancastrian families, usually wealthier landowning ones living in rural areas, played the leading role in maintaining the Catholic faith.

After the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 Catholic churches sprang up around the estates of many of these families. However, in the newly industrialised towns, it was generally left to the incoming working people to fund church building. The church of St Chad in Manchester is an example of such a church.

Manchester’s industrial base expanded very quickly due to its position on the navigable River Irwell, and later the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. With this expansion came a huge increase in the Catholic population, greatly boosted by immigration from Ireland. A large number of churches was required.

The first Catholic chapel to be built in Manchester opened in 1774, and was dedicated to St Chad. It was a very modest building hidden from view in a back street. Often referred to as the Rook Street Chapel, it was illegal at the time of building. Catholic chapels were banned until the passing of the Second Catholic Relief Act in 1791, and then permitted only if they had no steeples or bells. We can only presume that the authorities in Manchester took a relaxed view of this particular penal law.

Other chapels St Chad’s Chapel served a wide area including Bolton, Rochdale, Trafford, Glossop, Stockport and Macclesfield.

Several other chapels were built in and around Manchester in the following years to serve an ever-increasing Catholic population. These including St Mary’s in Mulberry Street. In 1835, the roof of the Mulberry Street chapel collapsed, and the 23-year-old Matthew Ellison Hadfield was engaged to design

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The Manchester Oratory from Cheetham Hill Road

the replacement church that was built on the same site. Hadfield produced a church that, although small, was considered so beautiful that it became known as the hidden gem, a name it retains to this day.

The Catholic population of Manchester increased spectacularly during the 1840s, and the need was felt for the city to have a larger and more imposing church that would act as the mother church for the city. It was decided to sell the old St Chad’s Chapel, and put the proceeds towards the building of the new church. A large plot of land at Cheetham Hill Road was purchased, and Matthew Hadfield, now working in partnership with John Grey Weightman and based in Sheffield, was appointed as the architect for the new St Chad’s Church.

Hadfield was heavily influenced

by Augustus Welby Pugin, and the new church, which opened in 1847,

closely followed Pugin’s True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture that had been published in 1841. Built in the perpendicular style from yellow sandstone under a slate roof, it has a six-bay nave with side aisles, and a chancel beneath a lower roofline. There is a substantial three-stage tower at the south-west corner with a crocketed spirelet covering the stairway at one of its corners. The tower includes a single bell.

Hammerbeam roof The church is approached via a neatly laid out and well-maintained garden at its south side. Internally, a striking feature of St Chad’s is the hammerbeam roof. This springs from corbels mounted between the paired clerestory windows. The six bays of arcading separating the nave from the north and south aisles stand on slender octagonal columns with unfussy capitals.

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ARCHITECTURE Another prominent feature of the interior is the bold chancel arch, beneath which hangs a large crucifix.

Hadfield provided a rood screen which regrettably was removed in the 1960s.

It seems that when the rood screen was removed, it was replaced by green and white marble altar rails with brass gates. Although the brass gates are fairly attractive, the communion rails have a twentieth century appearance which does not suit the church.

The original stone High Altar with its altar steps and reredos have been preserved, and feature a marble tabernacle with benediction throne above. Angels support the canopy of the benediction throne with their outstretched arms. Behind the High Altar is a five-light window with perpendicular tracery and original stained glass supplied by J Barnett and Sons of York. The glass depicts scenes from the life of St Chad. In the floor of the sanctuary is a well-executed Agnus Dei in mosaic.

The Lady Chapel is in the north aisle and is separated from the sanctuary by arcading. It has another fine stone altar with a reredos low enough to fit below a three-light window behind. The stained glass in this window depicts various titles ascribed to Our Lady, such as Seat of Wisdom and House of Gold. Less attractive is the modern treatment of the east wall which has been painted in rather bold primary colours, probably covering up earlier stencilling or wall paintings.

The interior of the Manchester Oratory

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The approach to the Manchester Oratory

Five-light window On the southern side of the church is a chapel that is now dedicated to St Philip Neri. This has an elaborately carved communion rail. Its carved stone altar has a particularly fine marble tabernacle, and a tall wooden reredos of unusual design. In this chapel there is highquality stained glass by William Wailes.

The west end of the church has a large five-light window similar to that at the east end, although in this case it has modern glass installed in 2020.

The glass is the work of Deborah Lowe and melds very well with other glass in the church.

One feature that deserves special mention is the pulpit. It is made from dark oak, and approached by a steep curving staircase. It is richly carved, and its canopy is exceptionally tall, terminating in a crocketed spirelet.

Attached to St Chad’s Church is a very fine presbytery. This is the home of Manchester Oratory Community, which took over responsibility for St Chad’s Church in 2013. The Fathers of the Manchester Oratory offer a traditional Low Mass in Latin every Sunday at 4.45pm.

Photos courtesy of Life in the Mouse House

The pulpit

21

WINE

Tripel Karmeliet A fine fermented drink has catechetical and devotional properties, as Sebastian Morello explains

F

or reasons with which I won’t bore you, over the past few years I’ve spent quite a lot of time in Belgium. Established as a modern monarchical state not two centuries ago, then comprising almost a solely Catholic population, it’s now the centre of aggressive, secular progressivism on the Old Continent. Nonetheless, symbols of the country’s historically Catholic identity can be seen everywhere.

Especially bound up with its Catholic history is Belgium’s beer culture, with many of its most treasured beers being brewed by monasteries—especially Trappist abbeys—to this day. But one of my favourites, and one which accompanied some of our festivities over Christmastide recently, is not exactly an abbey beer. Tripel Karmeliet has all the aesthetics and tastes of an old lowland monastic ale, but in fact its story is rather new.

In 1791, 39 years before the Kingdom of Belgium came into existence, the Flemish brewer Jean-Baptiste Bosteels founded the Bosteels Brewery—which continues to be run today under his descendants’ management.

This brewery makes one of my favourite beers, Kwak, known for its special ‘coachman’s glass’. (The Kwak glass is so highly prized that when a friend of mine ordered a Kwak in a pub, he had to give the barman his boot until he’d finished his beer and returned the glass.)

In 1993, Antoine Bosteels, who hadn’t long joined the business, came up with an idea for a ‘tripel’, which is the traditional lowland word for any strong pale ale—the origin of the term, no one knows. A few years later, he discovered a beer recipe dating from 1679 which was once used to brew beer by the Carmelites in Dendermonde. The beer that the friars had made from this recipe was almost identical to the 3-grain oat, barley, and wheat ale that he had been developing for his tripel. Hence, in honour of the beer’s heritage—of which he had hitherto known nothing—

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he called it Tripel Karmeliet. Since its launch, Tripel Karmeliet has won numerous gold medal awards; last year it was awarded yet another gold medal at the World Beer Awards.

It inspires inner recollection to think of the mystical theology for which the Carmelite Order is famous being incarnated and poured into the chalice as that gold elixir bubbles and froths into a thick white head of foam. Some commentators have characterised the Carmelite way of ‘nada’ as too Dionysian, in the Areopagite sense of the via negativa rather than the Nietzschean sense of the Hellenic wine god (remember, it’s beer we’re talking about in this issue).

Hence, Carmelite spirituality has been questioned as possibly too disconnected from the embodied experience of truly incarnational, Christian spirituality. But this characterisation may be mistaken.

As the great English Benedictine Abbess of Stanbrook Abbey, Dame Anselma Brennell (1891–1967), noted in her book entitled Mediæval Mystical Tradition and Saint John of the Cross, the Carmelite Order’s second father—for the Order’s members have traditionally claimed that their first father was Elijah the Prophet(!)—had a love for God’s presence in creation that rivalled even that of St Francis:

“St John of the Cross, poet and nature lover, who used to take his novices out to the lonely countryside and then bid them disperse and pray; who sings of the hills, the forest, the meadow-land spangled with blossoms, the wooded valleys and the streams … but although such admiration can lead to intense prayer this can only be provided the subject does not rest in the natural beauty, but rises forthwith from nature to the Creator.”

The goodness and the beauty of creation, then, should raise our minds and, more importantly, our hearts to the Creator, of whom creation is an emanation. God speaks to us through the glorious cosmos which He has made, and into which He has personally entered.

Perhaps that’s why monks and friars make wine and beer. Yes, such products support the upkeep of their monasteries and friaries, but a fine fermented drink also has catechetical and devotional properties. A glass of artisanal booze discloses the goodness of the Creator, and the interior restfulness that arises from pouring it into oneself is illustrative of the grace that comes from without to transform from within.

Tripel Karmeliet, with its beautifully sparkling colour of rich gold, is a small but precious intimation of that Living Flame of Love, the experience of which was so transformative that John of the Cross was unable to finish his description of it for fear he might make it seem less than it was.

The beer should be served cold, and yet its high alcohol volume is warming. (Its alcohol content is, oddly enough, the same as that of Belgium’s Mass-attending population: 8.4%).

Amid the silky texture that comes from the purity of its ingredients, hints of vanilla, citrus, honey, marmalade and spiced oranges rush to the fore as one swigs. It is the perfect accompaniment to spiritual reading and late-night meditation.

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FEATURE

Finding Faith Adult convert Joseph Jarvis tells the story of his journey to the Traditional Latin Mass “Jarvis! You’re a heathen and a heretic. You’re going to burn in hell!”

These were the exact words of my religious education teacher, a vicar, at Secondary school in the 1980s. I was born in Norfolk in the 1970s and raised without a faith. My parents and I had discussed Religious Education, and decided to withdraw me from lessons. Our family only attended church for baptisms, weddings and funerals and ‘celebrated’ Christmas, although not as I do now.

In 1999, I went up to Cambridge University. It was there that my landlady introduced me to the Anglican Communion. In 2006, after some time deliberating, I decided - or accepted - to be baptised. Shortly after, I became drawn to the Catholic Church of Our Lady and English Martyrs, Cambridge.

It was there I sensed a presence I had previously not encountered elsewhere, and a Catholic housemate accompanied me to occasional services.

After returning to Norfolk in 2010, and while still attending Anglican services, I encountered a Catholic couple who introduced me to their local parish church. After preparation with the priest, I was received into full communion in 2013.

At the same time a friend introduced me to the Traditional Latin Mass. I attended several Masses, although, on reflection, I didn’t see the appeal and struggled to engage. I couldn’t always hear what the priest was saying, nor did I understand Latin. Maybe I felt that God was distant and unapproachable.

I considered the TLM old-fashioned and even exclusive and continued to attend the Novus Ordo Mass. However, I began to sense something confusing and disorienting within the liturgy especially that the priest faced the

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people and the laity read lessons and gave out communion, which I received standing and in the hand.

When attending Mass was restricted during lockdown, I viewed live-streamed Masses from the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. During one weekend in June 2020, Mass was celebrated in the newer Chapel of Reconciliation. The following day, because of maintenance, Mass was celebrated in the older Slipper Chapel. I was immediately engaged in a new way.

The position of the altar meant the priest could only celebrate facing the altar. It was when the priest uttered “Sursum Corda,” that something clicked. I’ll never forget it.

I was motivated to research the Mass, as well as Church history and liturgy.

The more I engaged with the Traditional Latin Mass, the more I sensed a need for personal adjustment.

Perhaps I could best describe it as the awakening of an inner life. The deeper my involvement, the more I questioned my engagement with the Novus Ordo Mass, as well as my preconceptions of the TLM being out-dated.

At around this time my work became more difficult and I was diagnosed with autism. Family and relationship difficulties became difficult and this became one of the most challenging periods in my life.

What sustained me through these storms was the Mass, and especially the Traditional Latin Mass. The beauty, music and mystery of the Latin Mass, the obvious sense of orientation, redressed the disorientation in day-to-day life. The order, calm, focus, and stillness of the Traditional Latin Mass has led to an increasingly close, personal, and intimate relationship with God. Attending the Traditional Latin Mass also inspired an appreciation of Traditional prayers and practices. I now prioritise prayer. I was introduced to the Missal in Latin and English, and also the Breviary. Along with these came books on the spiritual life by Saints and Doctors of the Church.

Praying the Holy Rosary has become a daily practice too.

I’ve taken part in TLM pilgrimages and have met and formed good relationships with other Catholics – from a diversity of backgrounds – both locally and from across the world.

I pray for the protection and promotion of the Mass of the Ages.

Deo gratias.

.....

If you are a convert, recent or otherwise, and would like to tell your story, do send it to us. Around 700 words and with a hi-res jpg photograph if possible. Send your story to tom.quinn@lms.org.uk

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FEATURE

Pontifical High Mass of All Saints A Pontifical High Mass on All Saints Day was celebrated at Dorchester Abbey on 1 November 2024. The celebrant was the Rt Rev Hugh Allan, OPraem. It took place within the context of the annual St Birinus Festival of early church music Photographs by John Aron

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FEATURE

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Fr Martin Mary FSSR takes issue with the Mass of Ages report on the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer community in Christchurch New Zealand.

There are Religious Orders in New Zealand with their members in jail for abuse; others whose members would be in jail if they were still alive. The recently concluded Royal Commission uncovered shocking historical abuse. Yet none of those Orders has had their communities dismantled and every member exiled.

None of them have even had an Apostolic Visitation.

In this light the events surrounding our monastery in Christchurch, New Zealand, are somewhat perplexing. You may have seen reports concerning the Sons in the secular media — unspecified insinuations of unauthorized exorcisms and spiritual abuse. In response, the local bishop requested an Apostolic Visitation of our community from Rome. You have probably heard that as a result he has removed the faculties of our priests and issued precepts of expulsion from the diocese — and effectively the country — for every member of our community. You might be surprised to know, therefore, that not a single criminal accusation has been made against us, either by the

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local bishop, the Apostolic Visitation, Rome, or civil authorities. It sounds implausible, I know; there must be something, right? Let me assure you: no substantial accusations have been made – only vague and nebulous claims lacking any meat or bone, sensationalised by an eager press.

The report of the Apostolic Visitation states that “[t]he Bishop of Christchurch has put a stop to all unauthorized exorcisms (sic).

Some exorcisms performed by FSSR priests in the past may have been approved but others seem not to have been.” May have…seem not to have… Every exorcism performed by our priests was done with full written authorisation of the diocesan Ordinary.

This can be easily verified by requesting the paperwork in our possession, which the diocese presumably also holds in its archives. Yet not one question was put to any of our members regarding any kind of accusation.

Given the absence of any crime, you may perhaps be wondering what reason the bishop has cited for his penal action?

He has, in fact, given two different explanations. From every pulpit in the diocese he let it be known that these unheard-of punishments were the result

of the Apostolic Visitation. Since he initiated the Visitation following the typically sensational, manipulative and untrue television reports, the impression given to the world is that Rome has found us guilty of the things suggested in the media. In the meantime, he informed us that he wished to replace the Latin Mass Chaplaincy staff and no longer needed our services, ordering us to leave the diocese — an extraordinarily severe punishment for a staffing change (and yes, it is illegal). He has never once spoken to us about any of this. Neither before nor after the Visitation has he raised any complaint with us, or asked us for any explanation. It seems reasonably clear that the motive for our punishment may lie in the name of this publication.

So much more could be written, but space does not permit. I invite you to visit expulsiondecrees.blogspot.com, where our experiences are recorded in greater detail.

The last years have been amongst the most difficult of our lives, and the situation does not seem likely to improve.

We would very much appreciate your prayers.

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EDUCATION

Safety valve James Preece on why there is no need for a home education register

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s some readers may already be aware, the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill has had its second reading in Parliament and is now at the committee stage, when Members of Parliament review the legislation and propose amendments in advance of the final reading in the House of Commons. By the time you read this, that third reading may be imminent or it may be months away.

The bill appears well intentioned; after all, who could be against the wellbeing of children? But, of course, the devil is in the detail and in some ways, this looks more like a power grab by the government than an earnest effort to help children.

A key area of concern for traditional Catholics are the proposed changes around Home Education. The bill proposes a mandatory register of children not in school including a requirement to provide, “the names and addresses of any individuals and organisations involved in providing that education,” meaning that as currently worded, you would be legally required to tell the government if your home educated child attends classes for sacramental preparation. I’m sure they will say that’s not the intention but the letter of the law is the law.

Since the Children’s Act (2004) the government is required to carry out a Serious Case Review whenever a child has died or come to serious harm and abuse or neglect is suspected. So far not a single one of those reviews has identified Home Education as a deciding factor in preventing abuse.

These unfortunate children are sometimes home educated, but they are always known via some other means. The theoretical “hidden” or “ghost” child case has never happened.

To take the recently reported case of Sara Sharif. Yes, her parents took her out of school to home educate and weeks later she was dead. But less widely reported is the fact that she was under a care order from birth; she had told social workers about repeated abuse, her teachers had raised

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‘Please write to your MP about this bill’ concerns. She died in August during the summer holidays when she would have been at home for the summer holidays anyway. Are we to suppose that a home education register would have made any difference to her?

This is not the story of a girl who “fell through the gaps” but of one who was let down repeatedly by the authorities. How convenient to pin the blame on home education and avoid the difficult questions.

Far from being a safeguarding issue, it is my experience that home education often acts as a safety valve that allows parents to protect their children from a school system that is failing them. In 2024 more than 40 percent of children failed to get a pass mark in GCSE Maths and English - a number that dwarfs the number of children being educated at home - but there are worse things than failing your GCSEs. Children in school are victims of bullying, violence and sexual harassment in person and online. If they have special education needs, especially where they are on a waiting list for diagnosis - help is often non-existent.

Home Education allows parents in these difficult situations to get their children out of there. But what if Mum and Dad are not good at maths and the prospect of good GCSEs looks slim? Shall we assess the education as

lacking and force the child back into an environment where they were already struggling? There has to be a way to offer support and assistance without the demand for 100 percent control.

The demand for a home education register represents a fundamental shift in our understanding of who is ultimately responsible for a child's education and wellbeing. The Church teaches that parents are the first and primary educators of their children and that governments are to assist parents, but do not have primacy. The government is supposed to monitor schools as a service to parents, not monitor parents as a service to the local authority. This isn’t merely a Catholic view. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that: “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.”

It’s the age-old story of, “give us more power so we can protect you” and, “it’s worth it if it helps only one child.” As we have seen - there is no evidence of a single child this register would have helped and plenty of evidence of children for whom home education is a vital respite from “the system”.

But James, they are not coming for “good” home educators like you - only the bad ones. If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about.

That isn’t how the law works and for good reason. Would you be happy if the police were allowed to search all homes on an annual basis, because some people steal and we need to know what people have in their attics? No - so why support compulsory registration of parents who simply wish to teach their own children?

Ultimately, the proposed changes are another step in the direction of radical individualism where family relationships are secondary to the rights of the state to govern the individual. It is not a good thing and I urge you to do your own reading, “educate” yourself and then please write to your MP about this bill.

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ART AND DEVOTION

The True Cross Caroline Farey on Biblical typology for children

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hildren deserve, and have sufficient curiosity, to enjoy the richness of Biblical typology at a young age. Like the medieval illuminists of historiated capitals, Roseanne Sharpe, the young contemporary artist who created the artwork reproduced in this article, keeps her figures simple and clear for the children, but packs her imagery with meaning.

The pu r p ose of h i s to r i ated capitals (capital letters with a picture painted within them) was to provide an image that mirrored the text on the page. The painting here is a single page from an entire illustrated creed published for children ages nine and upwards. Again, like illuminated manuscripts, which have been extensively researched by Roseanne Sharpe, the painting follows the text closely and always in accord with the Scriptures both literally and typologically.

The first striking element here is that the crucifixion is shown taking place both on the hill at Calvary and also in the temple, depicted by the tall columns and the great red curtain of the Holy of Holies. The sky behind is black because, as we know, ‘from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour’ (Mt 27:45) and then, ‘the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom’ (Mt 27:51). The author of the letter to the Hebrews tells us that this curtain is Jesus’ own flesh (Heb 10:20) which was also torn, from his head by the crown of thorns, to his feet by the nails that pierced them.

St Longinus, the Roman soldier and spear bearer, is the first gentile to be converted by Christ on the cross. You can see his open hand depicting his words, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God’ (Mk 15:39).

Jesus Christ gives up his Spirit (Lk 23:46) and the Father’s hand is there to receive it. In a stylised form commonly found in 5th century mosaics, the hand of God comes down from a cloud with a fan of gold rays.

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Together these symbolise the cloud and fire of the guiding and protecting presence of God when the Israelites traversed the desert on their way to the promised land.

It was also while the Israelites were in the desert that God gave Moses ‘the pattern of the sanctuary’ (Ex 25:9). This was, firstly, the ‘tent of meeting’, followed by the temple of King Solomon. The tent and the temple were to house the Ark of the Covenant. This was made of acacia wood covered with gold, with two angels sitting on either side of the lid, which was called the mercy seat.

‘The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another, (Ex 25:20).

To plea for God’s mercy, the Israelites were to sprinkle the blood from sacrificed animals onto the mercy seat (Lev 16:14-16). The cross is the new mercy seat onto which the blood of Christ was sprinkled.

Our altars represent the mercy seat (hence the two angels) of the cross which is also the place of Christ’s sacrifice, hence the altar in the picture has a chalice waiting there for the sacrificial offering of the blood which flows directly from the wounds of Christ.

You can see that the altar has its white altar cloth, symbolising the swaddling bands when the, ‘Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us’ (Jn 1:9), but also the swaddling bands or shroud in which Christ was wrapped for burial.

Jesus ‘was buried’ and here he lies in the cave belonging to Joseph of Arimathea covered in the shroud. It is surprising how often in medieval times, Christ’s tomb was not painted as a cave but as a carved stone tomb, partly because pilgrims to the Holy Land would visit the Holy Sepulchre and see the great stone on which Jesus is said to have been laid. At one point a marble covering was placed over the original stone to protect it. This had three holes in it (oculi) through

which people could look to see the original inside. These three portholes then became a feature of the medieval iconography of the scene.

Throughout this illustrated creed, the artist has chosen trees mentioned in the Bible, all typologically linked to the cross. In this picture, the kneeling child is by a hyssop bush. The soldiers, ‘put a sponge full of vinegar on hyssop and held it to [Christ’s] mouth” (John 19:29)’. In the explanatory text for the readers, the book explains more widely the significance of Hyssop, that a ‘branch of hyssop was used, on the night of the Passover in Egypt, for brushing the blood of the lamb on the doorposts to save the Hebrew people from death.’

A cypress tree has been painted beside St Longinus. The cypress is mentioned many times in the Bible but perhaps the most significant is in Isaiah’s prophecy concerning the word that goes forth from the mouth of God which ‘shall not return to me empty but it shall accomplish that which I purpose … and the trees of the field shall clap their hands, instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress... and it shall be… an everlasting sign’ (Is 55:11-13).

The thorns which the cursed ground produced for Adam after the fall, are replaced now by the cypress because the word made flesh has accomplished God’s salvific purpose on the cross.

For the children to emulate, the baptised child, or Christian soul, with his light of faith lit, kneels at the tomb and the altar and the cross of Christ, following the guidance of the acolyte angel present there. .....

Image taken, with permission, from I Believe, We Believe: An Illustrated Journey through the Apostles’ Creed, written by Caroline Farey and illustrated by Roseanne Sharpe, published by Bethlehem Books. Available from CTS Books 020 7640 0042 ctsbooks.org

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ART AND DEVOTION

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THEOLOGY

God is Who He Is In his second article on the Creed, Fr Aidan Nichols explains that whatever the universe contains, from a galaxy to a gnat, it only does so through created participation in God’s unique, incomparable, ‘act’ of being

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he opening words of the Creed can only end by naming God. The absolute self-commitment implied in the Latin phrase credo in would be totally misplaced if it had a creature for its object. In the Latin language, to say, ‘I believe in’ – and mean it – is to entrust oneself unconditionally to whatever or whoever is going to conclude that very short sentence. In such a confession of faith, substituting a creature for God would mean for the speaker spiritual death.

Unfortunately, many people who ought to understand the force of the Creed’s introductory phrase turn out in practice to have a distinctly truncated idea of God, undermining the entire enterprise of reciting the Creed from the outset. A God – really, I should write that as ‘God’ – who is simply a very important personage in the cosmos is just not big enough to fill the space the Creed’s first words open to us. People who would be horrified at the accusation of idolatry – the suggestion that they were inclined to worship, say, totem poles or the simulacra of a fertility goddess – may still be what we might call conceptual idolaters. That is why St John Damascene, speaking for the Eastern Fathers, and St Thomas, speaking for those of the West, are agreed that the primary Name of God was revealed in God’s self-description to Moses: ‘I Am Who Am’: God is ‘He Who Is’. (Compare the account of Moses at the Burnish Bush in the Book of Genesis 3:14.) It is God’s nature to be. Not just to exist, as in the case of that Very Important Personage just mentioned, but to be the Fount of being, in such a way that whatever the universe contains,

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from a galaxy to a gnat, it only does so through created participation in God’s unique, incomparable, ‘act’ of being. All possible perfections are actual in this ‘Being One’, which is how that divine Name appears in Greek (‘Ho Ôn’) on Byzantine icons.

All goodness, truth, and beauty are pre-contained in God’s unsurpassable fulness.

That is why, of course, there can only be one God. The exclusive oneness of God is a truth of reason as well as of faith. To suggest there might be two, three, or half a dozen gods, or even a crowd of them, as on Mount Olympus in classical mythology, is to show we have never grasped the idea of God in the first place. The Nicene Creed rubs this in by making explicit what is only implied in the Apostles’ Creed. Credo in unum Deum, I believe in the God who is one.

And while on the topic of misunderstandings, I might add that another slip concerns God’s gender, or, better, the gendered language in which we speak of God. As the fulness of being, God surpasses all distinctions among his creatures, the gender distinction among them. That said, a great deal turns on whether the gendered language in which we speak of God is primarily masculine or feminine. The language, including the symbolic imagery, for God in biblical revelation is primarily masculine. That is for reasons intimately bound up with the way Scripture sees the relation between God and the world. If God’s relation with the world were one of seamless continuity, then the predominant language for the divine Fount of being would be female and maternal.

Our metaphysical relation to God would be like the umbilical cord that attaches – literally! – the baby to its birth-mother. But revelation shows that is not how things stand.

Our relation of dependence on God is that of creation – where God makes things to exist by bringing them from nothing, in a fashion that is discontinuous, unexpected, and, indeed, concealed. That is what makes male and paternal language best suited to God. There would be no suits of contested paternity if the biological father were as obvious to everyone as the biological mother.

But once, with the Bible, we grasp this crucial point, then we can – again, with Sacred Scripture – confess how ‘motherly’, in the sense of caring, tender, and compassionate – the Father is.

‘The Father’, for that is the next affirmation of the Creed. Here, though, the makers of the Creed have more in mind than just how the universe stands in relation to its Source. For the New Testament revelation (here the Old Testament can only furnish the odd clue), God is named ‘Father’ inasmuch as he is the Generator of the Beloved, the Only-begotten, the Son. From before all worlds, which is as much as to say, prescinding from any notion whatsoever of a universe, the one God enjoyed his plenary being by communicating his divinity to Another. That took place – takes place, for the act concerned is eternal, still going on now – in a movement of superabundant generosity so exquisite that the only name we have for it is ‘love’. Unlike the cosmos, which is made, the Son is loved into being, proceeding from

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THEOLOGY

The angels exist in perfect integrity of being, with minds and wills thoroughly ‘oned’ with God

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THEOLOGY

‘Creation, redemption, and the consummated union: these are the wonderful works in which the divine might is displayed, and all of them, if their archetype is the FatherSon relation, must be works of love’

the Father in the Holy Spirit. That is why, in his commentary on the Pater, St Maximus the Confessor can remark that in the opening words of the Lord’s Prayer – namely, ‘Our Father’ – the entire Trinity is confessed.

The Son’s procession is the primordial revelation of who God is, and of what God is like. The fruitful generativity of the Father, already indicated in his distinctive or ‘proper’ name, signals in advance the style of all God’s creative and redemptive action.

The Fatherly One not only pours out being in creating the world but seeks to give rational creatures the dignity of sons and daughters. The Oratorian theologian Louis Bouyer explains the connection, in the light of the drama of revelation as the Church knows it.

‘In eternally begetting his Son, the Father was already conceiving us all in him. Better still, in begetting him, in projecting himself fully in his Son as the name in which he gives and reveals himself, he made the Son, by the same token, the Word which expresses us all with him, in him – expresses us as destined to be adopted in him, united to him and in him, in order to be, in return, adopted and united in his Father and our Father, as the Son himself is in the Father.’1 This signature-tune of divinely fruitful self-giving is the recommended perspective for understanding the Father’s ‘almightiness’ – for omnipotence is the next claim the Creed will make on God’s behalf. ‘I believe in God, the Father almighty. ’ Creation, redemption, and the consummated union: these are the wonderful works in which the divine might is displayed, and all of them, if their archetype is the Father-Son relation, must be works of love.

But precisely that is what makes the problem of evil so seemingly intractable. When Austin Farrer, sometime Warden of Keble College, Oxford, wrote a book on ‘theodicy’ – the defence of the goodness of God in the face of the horrors found in nature and history – he gave it the admirable title, Love Almighty and Ills Unlimited. 2 On the macro-scale every earthquake or tsunami, and

on the micro-scale every death of an innocent, whether by accident or, worse still, out of malice, plunges us once again into this quagmire for Christian apologetics.

Here above all we must be canny.

Though bereaved or traumatised people are not the best listeners, we do indeed have arguments that soften the blow. The world is not a puppet-theatre where the Creator can be constantly interfering to manipulate his marionettes. There can be no development of virtue in its full range unless hard demands that call for fortitude come our way. But we must be careful not to over-egg the pudding.

Were argumentative extenuations of those ‘ills unlimited’ ever to succeed totally, demonstrating to universal satisfaction that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, the need for the Christian religion would, quite simply, evaporate.

Only because all is not ‘for the best’ – far from it – is a religion of transformative redemption the recipe the world is looking for without being aware of the fact. Only an Incarnation that promises universal repair – the regeneration of wills enmeshed in moral evil, the harmonisation of nature with happiness by the abolition of physical evil – can serve our turn. If Scripture opens with genesis, it ends in apocalypse. Only when, at the End of the ages, the Spirit and the Bride say ‘Come’ to the Lamb who was slain, 3 does heaven descend to earth – which can also be described with equal justice as the entry of earth into heaven.

For the Father, as the Nicene Symbol now asserts, is ‘Maker of heaven and earth’, of ‘all things visible and invisible’. The Church Fathers take ‘the heavens’ to mean the realm of the angels, another dimension to a universe already (even for the ancients and medievals) mindblowingly vast. The angels exist in perfect integrity of being, with minds and wills thoroughly ‘oned’ with God. The wedding of heaven and earth will be the entry of the visible world into those angelic conditions of creaturely wholeness and Godly union.

1. Louis Bouyer, Cosmos. The World and the Glory of God (Petersham, MA: St Bede’s Press. 1988), p. 188. Translation slightly adapted.

2. Austin Farrer, Love Almighty and Ills Unlimited. An Essay on Providence and Evil (London: Collins, 1962).

3. Compare the Book of Revelation 22:17; 13:8.

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REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY

DIOCESAN DIGEST Mass of Ages quarterly round-up Arundel & Brighton Emma-Louise Jay arundel@lms.org.uk At Our Lady of Ransom, Eastbourne we bade a sad farewell to our Tuesday (7.30am) and Friday (6.30pm) Latin masses when Fr Bruno Witchalls left the parish early last September. These Masses were well-attended, and the congregation was growing. The final very dignified Mass saw the gift of many heavy tears fall into the paten and we thank Fr Bruno for all he did to protect not only the old Mass but also his faithful catechesis during a time of immense change across the diocese. For many of us those Masses and his homilies had been a crucial anchor in our spiritual life, and his ministry is deeply missed.

Fr Richard Biggerstaff offers a TLM 10am at St Barnabas in East Molesey on Saturdays (also 8am on Christmas day and Easter Sundays). I have yet to attend his Masses but hope to offer you better descriptions in the coming months.

I understand from Fr Tristan Cranfield that although there is currently no regular TLM at his parish of Horsham he will continue standing in occasionally for Fr Bruno at the monthly TLMs scheduled at the shrine of Our Lady of Consolation, West Grinstead, most of which will be sung (see the LMS Mass Listings).

Please consult the shrine’s website where TLMs are listed under ‘Events’ (3pm tbc).

At St Pancras in Lewes, Fr Jonathan Martin offers the old Mass after Confessions on Saturday mornings (10am) and on Sundays (12:30pm). He also offered one on Christmas day (11am). He is most fortunate in Deacon Ben Louis Williams (ordained in July) as a reverent server and the duo are an excellent synergy. This unusual church - with interior painted decoration hinting at the medieval era - has lights which come on gradually and subtly before Mass as a bell sounds to galvanize the congregation. I would like to encourage prayers and attendance at Adoration on Thursday nights here with the intention of supporting vocations to the priesthood (6pm with Benediction at 7pm) which is offered accompanied by a thurifer.

Birmingham (City & Black Country) Louis Maciel birmingham@lms.org.uk 0739 223 2225 birmingham-lms-rep.blogspot.co.uk During Advent, Rorate Masses were celebrated each Saturday at our two local churches, with three Masses celebrated on Christmas day itself. Both churches celebrated High Mass on 6 January for the Epiphany, with the Oratory celebrating the Feast of the Holy Family on Sunday 5 January, and its patronal Feast of the Immaculate Conception on Sunday as per the 1962 Missal. Candlemas also fell on a Sunday this year and therefore was offered as part of the usual Sunday Mass schedule. As usual, there was an additional High Mass on the Octave Day of Christmas at 12 noon.

Birmingham (Oxford) Joseph Shaw oxford@lms.org.uk Regular Masses continue as usual: please see the Mass listings and email me to join the local email mailing list.

Two dates for readers' diaries.

First, this autumn our annual Oxford Pilgrimage, in honour of the city's Catholic martyrs, will take place a week earlier than has been customary, to whit on Saturday 11th October, as usual in Oxford's Blackfriars. Mass is at 11am; we also have a procession followed by Benediction.

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Second, Oxford will have the privilege, for the first time, of hosting the Society's Annual Requiem, also in Blackfriars, on Saturday 8th November (at 11am). With the gracious permission of Archbishop Bernard Longley, this will be celebrated for us by a visiting Swiss bishop, Bishop Marian Eleganti. Other events around that time are still being confirmed.

BIRMINGHAM (Worcestershire) Alastair J Tocher malvern@lms.org.uk 01684 893332 extraordinarymalvern.uk Facebook: Extraordinary Malvern Traditional Masses continue as previously across Worcestershire: Low Masses at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Redditch on first Fridays and at Immaculate Conception & St Egwin, Evesham on Tuesday evenings at 6.30 pm; and Sung Masses at St Ambrose, Kidderminster on first Sundays at 6:00 p.m. Always best to check locally however for the latest information if planning to attend any of these Masses.

Please remember in your prayers our local priests – Fr Douglas Lamb, Fr Jason Mahoney, and Fr Christopher Draycott – who celebrate Traditional Latin Masses for us and who support us in many other ways; also Dom Thomas Regan OSB who has recently been appointed parish priest at St Wulstan’s, Little Malvern; and last but not least Archbishop Bernard Longley who has generously granted permission for all these Masses to continue.

Brentwood (London) Mark Johnson brentwood@lms.org.uk The annual Sung Requiem Mass took place in November at St Patrick's Cemetery Chapel, Leytonstone and was followed by the blessing of graves.

For the first time we had Midnight Mass at St Margaret's Convent Chapel, Bethel Avenue, Canning Town ("St Margaret's Convent Chapel"), starting at 11.30pm. The attendance was good and we hope to build on this positive development in the future.

Professional music was provided by Charles Finch.

Members should note that from Sunday 2nd February the Sunday Mass at St Margaret's Convent Chapel will start at 5.00pm.

Please notify friends and family of this change of time.

I am delighted to advise members that the Triduum Sacrum will take place again this year at St Margaret's Convent Chapel. Please see the Mass listings for confirmation of the times and advertise as widely as possible.

My thanks go to all the clergy that offer the Traditional Mass in Brentwood as well as all those that sing, serve or help in any way.

Cardiff-Menevia (Herefordshire) Alastair J Tocher malvern@lms.org.uk 01684 893332 extraordinarymalvern.uk Facebook: Extraordinary Malvern Regular Sunday Low Masses at Most Holy Trinity, Ledbury – the only weekly Sunday Traditional Masses in the three counties of Herefordshire, Worcestershire, and Gloucestershire – continue as normal. That said please do contact us in advance to confirm local Mass times if you intend visiting the area.

Further to last quarter’s report I am pleased to report that a second young man, the younger brother of the one mentioned last

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REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY quarter, has now joined the server team. Both serve diligently and enthusiastically and are making good progress towards serving alone. It is hoped that they will be welcomed to the Society of St Tarcisius as Junior Acolytes in the not-too-distant future.

As always, please remember in your prayers our parish priest, Fr Adrain Wiltshire. Please also remember the Most Rev. Mark O’Toole, Archbishop of Cardiff-Menevia, together with all those attending Most Holy Trinity, and not forgetting Dom Jonathan Rollinson OSB and Dom Joseph Parkinson OSB who, prior to Traditionis custodes, also celebrated public Latin Masses at Belmont Abbey near Hereford.

Cardiff Menevia (Menevia) Tom and Elaine Sharpling menevia@lms.org.uk 07702 230983 An update from the diocese to begin our report: – due to a move around of priests we are sad to have say farewell to Father Liam Bradley who offered Holy Mass on the 4th Sunday of the month.

Father Liam is moving to Aberystwyth to take up his position of parish priest and therefore will not be able to travel to Swansea for the foreseeable future. We are grateful for his support to the Latin Mass congregation both in Haverfordwest and Sacred Heart, Swansea and of course we offer many prayers for his work in his new parish. For us the move comes with a particular poignancy as the vestments bought for Father Liam in remembrance of our son Corey, will be invisible from us for the time being.

This does place an increased responsibility on Canon Jason Jones and we are mindful of that position. We are delighted that Father Rod who is working with Canon Jones in the parish of the Sacred Heart is able to offer the Mass and we are hopeful that he can take up the 4th Sunday as a new responsibility.

We were also delighted that we were able to have Mass on Christmas Eve and for the Feast of the Epiphany on its rightful day (accompanied by the blessing of Epiphany chalk for homes).

Thank you to Canon Jones for that provision as it was very much appreciated. We have also had two baptisms in the traditional rite which is always a joy to behold.

Our Facebook page has a growing number of followers, and if you would like to connect with us in this way then please contact: StabatMaterMenevia, or give us a call.

We are also grateful to those people who travel long distances to the Holy Mass – you can always be assured of a warm welcome and we are delighted to see new faces.

However, before travelling, check the Facebook page or get in touch so that we can let you know of any changes.

East Anglia (West) Alisa and Gregor Dick cambridge@lms.org.uk 01954 780912 Sunday Masses at Blackfriars continue as normal. Dates of sung Masses until Easter will have been posted on the noticeboard in the cloister by the time this edition of Mass of Ages goes to print.

We would like to thank those who have offered to learn to serve; further volunteers are always welcome.

East Anglia (Withermarsh Green) Sarah Ward withermarshgreen.@lms.org.uk 07522289449 Daily Mass continues at St Edmunds and Our Lady Immaculate, Withermarsh Green with two Masses on a Sunday at 9.15 am and 11 am. There is a Sung Mass on the last Sunday of the month (11am) and you are warmly invited to stay for Coffee after 11am Sunday Masses.

There were two dawn Rorarte Masses during Advent and these were well attended. Christmas Masses were also very well attended, particularly Midnight Mass, which was notable for the lovely carols and motets sung by the Withermarsh Schola, directed

by Daniel Wright. Huge thanks to Fr Henry Whisenant, to all the servers and all those who helped to clean and decorate the Chapel for Christmas.

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On 20th November we celebrated our first patronal feast, the feast of St Edmund King and Martyr. The occasion was marked with a beautiful High Mass, during which Fr Whisenant was assisted by Monsignor Gordon Read and Fr Simon Leworthy. The celebrations continued afterwards in the Presbytery, with a St Edmund's themed "bake off" and a story competition. Baked entries ranged from a steak and ale pie, suitably decorated in crowns and arrows, to a decapitated St Edmund gingerbread man and a plethora of other cakes and bakes. Our second patronal feast followed shortly after on 8th December, the Immaculate Conceptio of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This feast was celebrated with a Sung Mass and "bring and share" refreshments afterwards.

On Saturday 11th January, the Withermarsh Tolkien Fellowship successfully took back the winning title from last year's victors in the "Great Withermarsh Tolkien Quiz". Thanks especially to Dominic Auty, who set the questions and acted as Quiz Master and Appeals Adjudicator. If you think you could muster a team to challenge the Withermarsh Tolkien Fellowship then do get in touch!

Hexham and Newcastle Keith McAllister hexham@lms.org.uk 01325 308968/07966 235329 Our TLM program continues as before with Sunday Masses at St Joseph’s Gateshead and at Sacred Heart, Thornley; with weekday Masses in these churches as well as at St Joseph’s, Coxhoe, and St Mary Immaculate, Whittingham – details available on parish bulletins, LMS listings and email distribution.

A sung requiem was celebrated by Canon Michael Brown at Ryhope this New Year for the funeral of Sheila Webster a sadly missed member of our community, and talented chorister from the earliest years of traditional revival in Tyne & Wear.

Lancaster John Rogan lancaster@lms.org.uk latinmasslancaster.blogspot.com Masses continue as normal in the north of the Diocese, now in its centenary year; in Carlisle, Workington and the term-time Masses at Lancaster University, which are open to the public.

Workington has a new altar in the south transept dedicated to the Cumbrian Martyrs, which is awaiting a visit from the Bishop, so there may be some pictures of that to look forward to in the summer. Workington also had a Rorate Caeli Mass on the Saturday before Christmas with over 20 attending.

To the south, Preston is always a busy place!

Advent was a busy time at St Walburge's, beginning with the Novena and Feast of the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. In week two there was a carol concert at a local care home, another concert with the participation of nine local schools, seven First Holy Communions, and two adult Receptions, one of which was a 92-year-old lady in one of the care homes that the Canons serve! On the Saturday at the end of this week was held the Rorate Caeli candlelight Mass at 6.30am. Also, during Advent we had visits from Canon Louis Valadier ICKSP, Provincial of France and Mother Madeleine-Marie, Superior of the Sisters Adorers, and Abbé Jakob Kreutzer, a fourth year Seminarian arrived to spend a year with us.

Christmas in Preston was, as always, a joyous time. As many people travel considerable distances to come to St Walburge's, the Canons made the decision to move the Christmas Vigil Mass to the earlier time of 10.30pm with carols at 9.45pm, and they were delighted to see so many people there, including a large number of new visitors. Adoration from 10.00pm on New Year's Eve, concluding with a Te Deum and Benediction at midnight, was also well-attended, and many people joined the Canons for refreshments in the presbytery afterwards.

The renovation of St Walburge's will continue with the next stage of the roof replacement being scheduled for March/April.

On a smaller scale, the statue of St Walburge has been away for restoration by Lewis & Lewis of Liverpool, who have worked on other statues in the church, and was returned to her usual place by

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REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY the Lady Chapel at the beginning of January. She is now beautifully painted in Benedictine colours.

Canon Poucin has been holding classes for those interested in learning/improving Gregorian Chant and these have been very successful; originally intended to be held in the presbytery, they had to be moved to St Benedict's Cultural Centre after the first class due to the large numbers of attendees!

Please always check the website icksp.org.uk/preston before travelling to Mass at St Walburge's, particularly on weekdays when there may often be only one scheduled Mass.

Liverpool (Warrington) Alan Frost warrington@lms.org.uk The Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter (FSSP), Fr John Berg, joined the Warrington Shrine regulars for Mass on Gaudete Sunday and chatted to them afterwards. Additional early weekday Masses, at 7 am, have been introduced at announced times. A great honour and privilege has been bestowed upon St Mary’s – it is one of six 2005 Jubilee Year pilgrimage churches chosen for the Archdiocese of Liverpool.

People going to Mass have been advised to ‘sharpen up’ their practices in church during Sung and High Masses, particularly with regard to certain times to kneel or to stand. A former chorister and Master of Ceremonies at Masses, whose parents are regular worshippers, now based in Rome, has an informative and insightful blog: ‘Per Mariam: Mater Dolorosa’.

Prayers have been asked for two young local men discerning vocations: Matt Lukacs who has recently been accepted as a postulant at the Benedictine Monastery in Norcia, Italy. Also, for Conor Jones as he discerns for priesthood with the Diocese of Shrewsbury.

Rector Fr Goddard expressed his thanks to all who contributed to an Advent almsgiving project in support of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, raising nearly £1,000.

Another seasonal fund-raising project raised nearly £300 for Aid to the Church in Need.

Fr Miklos Homolya FSSP was ordained to the Sacred Priesthood in Germany on 15 June. He served a lengthy placement at St Mary’s in 2021 before returning to his seminary. He will be returning to the Shrine to celebrate a Solemn First Mass on Sunday, 4 August, and taking up his new appointment here as assistant priest on that day.

On the day he was ordained there was a baptism in St Mary’s - that of Beatrix Mackenzie, daughter of Alasdair and Virginia.

Earlier in the month the Corpus Christi Procession took place (2nd), and on the 9th, Archbishop Malcolm MacMahon administered the Sacrament of Confirmation to some 16 confirmandi before celebrating Pontifical Benediction. On 20-21 June four boys of the Kahn family, regular attenders at Shrine events, remarkably climbed the Three Peaks in 24 hours to raise money for Priory Court. This important complex for providing education, meeting rooms, bookshop and events’ spaces, is suddenly in a difficult position financially due to the company that has been doing so much work being taken over.

At the end of June, Juventutem group members joined the LMS National Pilgrimage to the Shrine of St John Henry Newman at the Birmingham Oratory, the day after numbers of the St Mary’s faithful walked behind the Shrine banner in the annual Warrington Walking Day (a procession of religious groups through the town, going back many years). On 6 July a Sports Day was organized by parents, and more involvement for younger persons occurred in the summer camps in Macclesfield on 4 and 17 August.

St Mary’s will be losing the services of Fr Gwilym Evans FSSP, an outstanding cantor and friend of the LMS, taking part in various events such as the annual Walsingham Walk. The LMS supported him in his seminary days in Wiegratzbad, where he was ordained on 15 June 2022. The FSSP has decided to send Fr Evans for further studies to Jerusalem. It is no exaggeration to say Warrington’s loss is Jerusalem’s gain. He celebrated his ‘Farewell’ Solemn Mass on Sunday 11 August.

In September, Fr Gerard Quirke, who came to the Priory Shrine in January 2022, departed St Mary’s for the USA where he will

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continue his work and formation with the FSSP. He was most grateful for all the efforts put in by the community at the Priory Shrine for his farewell. Visiting Priest Fr Andrew Jolly, who has been assisting at St Mary’s for several years, also expressed his gratitude for the contribution made by regulars for the celebration of his Silver Jubilee as a priest. Joining the priests at St Mary’s is Seminarian Peter Uhel FSSP, who will help with catechism and altar service training during his pastoral stage over the next year. Peter is from Hungary and studies at the FSSP seminary in Bavaria. In September the Very Rev Fr Andrzej Komorowski, the FSSP Superior General, attended the annual gathering of 11 FSSP priests in England, Scotland and Ireland, taking place this time in Stonyhurst. Fr Komorowski stayed in Warrington afterward.

A very welcome achievement at this time was the restoration of the Live Mass transmission for the Sunday and midweek Masses (livemass.net). Thanking for their messages the remote LiveMass parishioners scattered all over the world, Rector Fr de Malleray also conveyed heartfelt thanks on behalf of the shrine to Jeff Hall, Tim Wright and D.D. the discreet US operator who spent many, many hours trying to identify and fix a complex software issue with LiveMass.

Using ‘issue’ in another sense, the latest Dowry (Autumn) which Fr de Malleray edits, was published. In it he considers why priests use fiction to promote the Faith, himself being a recent example with his novel Vermeer’s Angel (available at lms.org.uk). There are reports on Juventutem events attended by young people from St. Mary’s, as well as news of the blessing by the Bishop of Waterford of the first FSSP House in Ireland under Fr Patrick O’Donohue, among the varied articles.

Five weddings took place at St Mary’s last summer, and two more families relocated near St Mary’s to enjoy daily access to the shrine. The completion of the shrine hall at Priory Court is a top priority at St Mary’s, and should hopefully occur within months.

The building continues to be used for pastoral purposes, as has been the case since its purchase three years ago (fssp.org.uk/ warrington/priory-campaign). Thus, at the end of September, the weekly Converts’ Classes resumed with seven booked in, open to any men and women interested in learning about the one true Faith. The monthly Men’s Group started again with 20 laymen attending, and the monthly Ladies’ Group with 32 ladies. The monthly Juventutem Warrington group has also resumed. Coffee after the Sunday High Mass attracts many parishioners, and other activities take place in the premises. A new and engaging event was the organising of a football game between St Mary’s Shrine XI and the ICKSP shrine church in Preston. The Priory Shrine was also represented in London at the March for Life and the Rosary Crusade of Reparation. Other related events included the funeral of Jim Pennington in Prescot with Requiem Mass at St Mary’s on 5 October. Jim was the LMS Rep. for Liverpool for many years, a lovely and devout man. Also in Liverpool, and promoted by the Priory Shrine, a 40 Day Autumn Pro-Life Prayer Vigil began on 27 September. Based on the September/October Sunday Mass counts, the congregation at St Mary’s is stable with 250 visitors, plus another 250 on weekdays – hence about 500 visits every week.

There are around 71 penitents heard in confession every week on the average.

It was also announced that Fr Armand de Malleray would be assigned in Bedford as of 29 October, serving also Chesham Bois.

Fr de Malleray will have spent eight years in Warrington since the FSSP took over in November 2015. He will continue to oversee the English Apostolate of the FSSP, to edit the quarterly magazine Dowry, promote vocations, be Chaplain to Juventutem London and occasionally preach retreats. Fr Matthew Goddard, FSSP will replace him as Rector in Warrington, assisted by Fr Gwilym Evans, FSSP. Prayers are requested for the two other Warrington FSSP priests: Fr Alex Stewart has suffered from chronic fatigue for four years and is presently in residence rather than in ministry, to help him regain his health; while Fr Ian Verrier is slowly recovering from Long Covid that manifested itself in December 2022. Fr de Malleray will be leading a pre-Advent Retreat for all at Stonyhurst on 24-26 November.

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REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY

© Elvira Jephcott

Northampton (South) Barbara Kay bedford@lms.org.uk 07399 078959 In November we welcomed FSSP seminarian Luke Mazurek from St Peter’s International Seminary in Wigratzbad. Luke will be part of the clergy chaplaincy at Bedford, on pastoral placement until Easter, with server training being his chief involvement. Later that month we also welcomed newly ordained Fr Miklos Homolya FSSP, who is based at Warrington, for a Solemn High “First” Mass at both Bedford and Chesham Bois followed by First Blessings and refreshments.

During Advent we held several Rorate Masses which proved very popular. A total of 326 people attended our three Christmas Masses: Night, Dawn and Day. Even though it was not a Holy day of Obligation this year, our Epiphany Mass was well attended too.

Our Men’s Group continues to meet monthly on Wednesday evenings and our Ladies’ Group monthly on Saturday afternoons.

We have recently started a Bucks & Beds Young Adults’ Trek (for any non-married adult aged 18 - 35); this is a walk in the country followed by a pub lunch. Woburn Park was their first destination and Ivinghoe Beacon a more recent one with 15 people attending each walk.

For the younger members of our congregation, First Holy Communion and Confirmation classes have started with the celebration of these sacraments taking place in June and October respectively.

On 25 January Fr Armand de Malleray FSSP gave a talk for all adults at Chesham Bois entitled: On cloistered men and women.

What is their place in the Church today?

In the same vein, Fr de Malleray is leading our annual Vocation Discernment weekend at Buckden Towers, PE19 5TA, on 28 February - 2 March 2025 for single Catholic men aged 18 – 30.

We are looking forward to the Easter ceremonies and meanwhile Sunday and weekday Masses continue at the normal times and locations. Please see fssp.org.uk/bedford/ for details of all events.

Nottingham Jeremy Boot nottingham@lms.org.uk 07462 018386 We continue as before with sung Masses at the Good Shepherd, Arnold, Nottingham (4.30pm on the Saturday before the 2nd Sunday); at Our Lady and St Patrick, Meadows, Nottingham (3rd Sundays at 3pm), and Cathedral, Nottingham, 6.15 3rd Wednesdays - low Mass).

Each Wednesday at 6.30pm at St Mary of the Annunciation, Loughborough, there are low Masses. In addition, since the last report, we have had sung Masses Sung Mass at Loughborough. at St Mary’s for the Guardian The Celebrant (pp), Fr Paul Angels, on the Eve of All Saints, Gillham IC. and to start the new year, a votive Mass for the Holy Name.

Our sincere thanks to our priests, and to organists, singers and servers to whom we owe so much, Nottingham South (Leicestershire and Rutland) Paul Beardsmore northampton@lms.org.uk 01858 434037 Canon Cahill continues to celebrate Mass each Saturday and Sunday in Leicester, on Saturdays at St Peter’s, Hinckley Road, and on Sundays at Blessed Sacrament, Braunstone. Numbers are creditable at both Masses. Fr Benedict Jonak, OP, has kindly

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supplied in Canon Cahill’s absence. Sung Masses were offered on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, on Christmas morning and on the feast of the Epiphany.

Canon Dye celebrates Mass every Friday evening at St Thomas of Canterbury, Exton Hall.

On New Year’s Day Mass was celebrated at St Mary, Husbands Bosworth, by Fr Robert Belwood, IC. Thanks are due to Fr Pittam, OLW, for arranging this.

Portsmouth Carol Turner portsmouth@lms.org.uk carolphelanturner@gmail.com 023 8027 3585 Apologies for the lack of reporting since the death of our former representative, Peter Cullinane RIP, whose second anniversary will be approaching in February 2025. May Our Blessed Lord grant him eternal rest. I felt compelled to take on the role after Peter’s passing. Coincidentally, St Joseph’s Church, Copnor which is home to the Marian Franciscan friars has been closed for the last two years due to a partial collapse of the church roof. Extensive work has been undertaken to reopen the Church and by God’s grace, Masses resumed here just in time for Christmas; both midnight Mass on Christmas Eve and 11.15am on Christmas Day. There was also an 8.00am Mass at St Agatha’s Church on Christmas Day. During the past two years, Masses were held at St Colman’s, Cosham and we thank Fr Andrew Wagstaff for his warm welcome and generosity during this time.

First Friday devotions continue at St Joseph's Church, Copnor with Mass at 6.30pm followed by the Men’s Group (which includes Rosary, Benediction followed by a shared meal in the hall). New members are always welcome!

A Sung Mass is offered at St Joseph’s, Copnor every Sunday at 11.15am with a Low Mass offered at 7.00am Monday to Saturday.

An 8.00am Low Mass is offered at St Agatha’s Church, Portsmouth each Sunday. The last Sunday of the month is a Sung Mass.

Holy Family Church, Redbridge, Southampton continues to have a Sung Mass each Sunday at 9.00am with Low Mass at 7.30pm on Thursday evening (Sung if it’s a Holy Day or feast day).

Confessions are usually available before both Masses.

A Sung Mass at St Thomas More, Bournemouth is offered every Sunday at 12.30pm.

Portsmouth (Isle of Wight) Peter Clarke iow@lms.org.uk Extraordinary Form Masses have been offered on the Isle of Wight at various churches since 1988. They are offered fortnightly on Thursdays at St Thomas’s, Cowes at 12 noon by Fr Jonathan Redvers Harris. There is Exposition and Confessions beforehand from 11.15am.

St Thomas’s, built in 1797, is (arguably) one of the oldest PostReformation Catholic churches in England; and (probably) one of the oldest parish churches, where the Extraordinary Form Mass is regularly offered.

I will have completed 25 years in March as the Island’s LMS Rep. As one might expect, I have seen all the ups and downs that go with this role. Often, it’s two steps forward in terms of provision and then one step back, but the faithful here have shown great perseverance. I would like to thank all the priests who have offered the Extraordinary Form Mass for us; in some instances, travelling from far afield.

Please ring for confirmation of our Masses if you are coming from the mainland. 01983 566740 or 07790892592 Plymouth (Cornwall) Stefano Mazzeo cornwall@lms.org.uk Mass attendance continues to grow at Lanherne in Cornwall.

There are two Masses on a Sunday: a Sung Mass at 8 am and a Low Mass at 11 am. Over the next few months, there will be masses to celebrate special feast days. On 5th March, there are Ash Wednesday Masses at 8 am and 6:15 pm; on Palm Sunday, there is

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REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY one Mass at 9:30 with the blessing of Palms and procession. For Holy Week, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, please contact the apostolate directly for information: Canon Scott Smith, Chaplain, (07366 321039). Easter Sunday Masses are at 8 am and 11 am. And on 28th April, St George's Day Mass is at 8 am. The sisters of Lanherne are a young and growing contemplative order of Carmelites. If you want to support the convent, you can contribute to Lanherne Convent, St Mawgan, Newquay, TR8 4ER. Or contact the Chaplain.

Plymouth (Dorset) Maurice Quinn dorset@lms.org.uk 07555 536579 After such a long absence from the pages of Mass of Ages it is a pleasure to appear once again in Diocesan Digest.

Unfortunately, there are no regular Traditional Latin Masses in Dorset due to there being no priest available to help out.

However, if any priest-reader could help reverse this situation please contact me in the first instance.

The yearly Latin Mass Pilgrimage to Chideock last September in honour of the Chideock Martyrs was well attended, and, as in previous years, we have to thank canons of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (Canon Scott Tanner and Abbé Sargaard came from Torbay, and Canon Scott Smith travelled up from St Mawgan in Cornwall) for celebrating a Solemn High Mass for us in the beautiful shrine church of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs & St Ignatius, and for giving those present an opportunity to venerate the relics of martyrs kept in the church. After lunch there was a tour of the ‘secret’ Mass chamber in the loft of what used to be an old barn with a short talk on the church itself and the Weld family that built it, and an opportunity to view the historic and unique Weld family mausoleum situated further down the lane. Many thanks also for the support received from members of the Weld family, the parish priest of Bridport, and to Mr Andrew Proctor and the choir for singing the Mass as in previous years.

Preparations are already going ahead for the September 2025 event, so keep a look out for details nearer the time. If you have any questions regarding any of the above, please feel free to contact me.

Mass at Chideock

Salford Alison F. Kudlowski salford@lms.org.uk The Traditional Latin Mass at 4.45 pm on Sundays continues to be celebrated by the Oratorian Community at St Chad, Cheetham Hill Road, Manchester. Before this Mass, Vespers and Benediction take place at 4pm.

For additional events please pick up a newsletter at the entrance to St Chad’s.

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Shrewsbury (Cathedral and St Winefride’s) Victoria Keens shrewsbury@lms.org.uk Mass is offered daily at St Winefride’s Church in Shrewsbury

by Canon Wiener, a priest of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. Our choir, led by Oliver Hayes, provides music for Sung Masses on all Sundays and special feast days. On other days there are Low Masses. On Tuesdays and Thursdays there is a Holy Hour with Confessions and Benediction, starting at 5.30pm, before the 6.30 pm Mass. All are invited to refreshments after Mass on Sundays. Enquiries about access to the various sacraments may be made to Canon Wiener.

Besides the above, we also have First Saturdays, enrolment in the Brown Scapular, Stations of the Cross on Fridays during Lent, First Communions, as well as special talks and other events. For information about events and any variations in the schedule of Masses, please see our web pages and weekly newsletter at: icksp.org.uk/shrewsbury.

Our address is St Winefride’s Church, 187 Crowmere Rd, Shrewsbury SY2 5RA. The priest is Canon Wiener, Prior of the House of Saint Chad, the Shrewsbury apostolate: email canon. wiener@institute-christ-king.org (07311 443323).

Please also refer to the ICKSP website at icksp.org.uk/ shrewsbury.

First Mass in Shrewsbury by Canon Andrew Morrow, who was, previous to his ordination based in Shrewsbury, was celebrated on January 12 this year.

Shrewsbury (Wirral) Kevin Jones wirral@lms.org.uk Canon Post arrived more or less just after my last report was submitted and whilst it must be a challenge to minister at New Brighton in addition to fulfilling his duties as Principal of St Benedicts Cultural Centre in Preston, the Canon seems to have adapted well, and no doubt now has a good working knowledge of train times on the Preston to Liverpool line!

Abbé de Penguern spent the closing months of 2024 at New Brighton. Abbé is a seminarian from Gricigliano and hails from Northern France. His pleasant disposition made him a pleasure to speak with and learn from. Abbé returned to Italy immediately following the Christmas period where he will now continue his studies whilst he progresses toward conferment of the diaconate.

The work of the Institute is carried out under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception, to whom The Institute is consecrated annually on the eve of the great Marian feast on 7 December. In the week leading up to the consecration, a novena is preached by the Canons.

All Christmas Masses took place as planned with a very well attended Midnight Mass.

Winter arrived without doubt on the weekend of the 4th and 5th January with heavy snowfalls across the region preventing some of the faithful from travelling. A post Mass social took place on the Sunday and hopefully those who were able to travel enjoyed ‘Little Christmas’.

Finally, on Saturday 11th January, the Rt Rev Mark Davies, the Bishop of Shrewsbury visited the Shrine Church and sat in choir during a First Solemn High Mass of Canon Andrew Morrow who was ordained last year. Canon Morrow is Assistant Priest at the Institute’s house at Maria Engelport in Germany. Bishop Davies preached the homily. Canon Cristofoli was subdeacon and Canon Post was deacon. Canon Morrow imparted the blessing of a newly ordained priest after the Mass.

Southwark (Kent) Marygold Turner We have continued with our weekly Masses at Tenterden (always at 12noon). Fr Richard Whinder, a very good friend, didn’t come to celebrate Mass on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, as it fell on a Sunday. However, he and Fr Marcus

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REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY Holden came for lunch soon after and Fr Whinder has offered to celebrate Mass for us on 23 February, which will be very welcome and I will invite a few priests and friends for lunch.

Fr Van Den Bergh of the London Oratory came down on the Feast of the Epiphany to give us a Missa Cantata. He came with James Benton by train which was badly delayed. They nearly gave up the struggle but at last a train arrived and we had a most beautiful Mass with Fr Edmund the celebrant and Fr Stephen Morrison and Fr Gabriel Diaz singing with Fr Stephen playing the organ as well. Fr Edward gave a most poetic sermon – in all, a very lovely Mass. We followed that with lunch.

We hope to have holy Mass for major feasts as the year goes on.

Southwark (St Bede’s Clapham Park) Thomas Windsor claphampark@lms.org.uk Here in Southwark, we have a special Indult granted

by Pope Leo XIII on the 1st October 1895, to celebrate the feast of the Dedication of our Cathedral on the 3rd Sunday of October. Once again, we celebrated with Polyphonic Propers, the Introit and Communion by Isaac, and the Gradual by Bruckner.

Our next major event was Christ the King when the choir sang the Worcester Antiphonal AD 1230 setting of the Christus Vincit. We also sang a setting of the Domine Salvum fac by John Francis Wade from a manuscript AD 1740, this also contains the earliest edition of the Adeste Fideles. The choir then sang the Lotti setting of the Salve Regina. For the usual sung Masses for the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls, the choir sang chant settings. On the following Sunday, after Mass we had our Traditional All Saints party with the children dressing up and giving short talks about their chosen saint. This year we used the school hall rather than our parish rooms, due to the everincreasing numbers of children taking part.

On Remembrance Sunday the choir sang Missa Pro defunctis a 4 by Victoria. The XXVI Sunday after Pentecost was also the feast of St Hugh of Lincoln and the choir sang a setting of the Salve Festa Dies in honour of the saint. For the last Sunday after Pentecost the choir sang the usual Polyphonic Propers, Introit Dicit Dominus, Alleluia De profundis, and Communion Amen dico vobis by Heinrich Isaac and the Offertory De profundis by Palestrina.

For the Feast of the Immaculate Conception the choir sang the Missa super Dixit Maria, and motet by Hassler, and the Alma Redemptoris, Guerrero. For the 3rd Sunday of Advent we had a Solemn high Mass, using the now complete (thanks to our chapter of the Guild of St Clare) Rose High Mass vestments, Tabernacle Veil and Altar frontal.

Christmas was once again very busy, but with fewer sung Masses than usual due to so many choir members being away. At Christmas Midnight Mass we had the Byrd 3-part Mass the Alma Redemptoris by Palestrina. On Christmas Day the choir sang chant settings.

On St Stephen’s Day we had our usual party for the growing numbers of boys serving our Masses, Masses followed for the feasts of St John and the Holy Innocents. On the Sunday we had a Solemn High Mass for the Feast of St Thomas, with Palestrina's Missa O Quam Gloriosum and motet, the hymn Adsis Thoma and the Alma Redemptoris Palestrina. The following day we had our usual Solemn High Mass for the secular clergy of our diocese.

We had our usual Benediction and Sung Midnight Mass to welcome in the New Year. This quarter ended with the Feast of the Epiphany and the usual blessing of large amounts of Water, Chalk and Salt.

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We are still looking for new choir members interested in singing polyphony, to join our depleted choir, and new members for the Guild of St Clare. Our catechetical programmes continue on Friday nights, beginning with Low Mass at 6.45pm; we also have First Holy Communion and Confirmation classes for children and a programme for adults. Please check our website / newsletter stbedesclaphampark.org.uk for all our Mass times, catechetical programmes, talks and activities.

Southwark (Thanet) Christopher Serpell thanet@lms.org.uk The traditional liturgical life continues alive and well in Ramsgate. In particular we have been blessed with a very healthy number of servers who we have been working to get well trained. It was a particular pleasure to be able to hold enrolments and promotions for the Society of St Tarcisius at the Shrine of St Augustine on St Stephen's Day. The season has also been enriched by a beautiful Advent carol service with benediction, and Midnight Mass in the traditional form. Weekby-week, we've been very happy to welcome many visitors to Ramsgate on Saturdays who make the mid-day traditional Latin Mass the centre of their day out, while in the background there seems to be an endless supply of vestment jobs for the Guild of St Clare to apply themselves to.

Southwark (Wandsworth) Julia Ashenden wandsworth@lms.org.uk We have had a very fruitful Advent and Christmas at St Mary Magdalen’s with the regular Sung Mass on Sundays at 11am and various others during the week. Some highlights stand out - notably on St Cecilia’s Feast-day the Southwell Consort, under the direction of Dominic Bevan, sang the Mass and also brought Renaissance musical accompaniments of sackbuts and cornets. It was a very special occasion.

Christmas itself was celebrated with the usual joy and Midnight Mass, sung by David Guest’s Choir, was Charpentier’s Messe de Minuit pour Noël, with motets by Adam, Gruber and Berlioz. There was also a Latin Low Mass early on Christmas morning.

The Friday evening 7pm Mass is a fixture and on the third Friday of the month it is said by Father de Malleray (FFSP) for Juventutem. The Mass is open to everyone although the meeting afterwards is for Juventutem members only.

First Saturday Masses are also a fixture and begin at 10.30 am although it is advisable to arrive a bit before.

On Feast-days that fall during the week Mass is usually at 7pm but there is now a parish website where the Newsletters are displayed and times can be checked: - stmarymagdalens. co.uk Our usual great thanks to Canon Martin Edwards who makes all this possible.

Westminster Cathedral Edward Kendall westminster@lms.org.uk Now that the works in the Cathedral’s Blessed Sacrament Chapel have been completed (bringing to life once again the fabulous mosaics by the celebrated Boris Anrep), the monthly First Saturday Low Mass has now been able to return there. As ever, many thanks go to the tireless efforts of Fr John Scott who celebrates the Traditional Mass here at the Cathedral on a regular basis and also elsewhere.

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FEATURE

Appeasing the world?

How will the Synod on Synodality affect the Church, asks Dr F. Andrew Wolf “...a new vision that overturns established practices.” – Synod on Synodality

T

he words above may well come back to haunt the Church. This past October in Rome the Vatican concluded years of gatherings by bishops, clergy and laity initiated by Pope Francis.

The hierarchy within the Catholic Church called it a “process” – more specifically, the Synod on Synodality. This multi-year series of meetings (2021-2024) aimed to reconfigure how the Church operates by utilizing the model of a synod – one in which clergy and laity alike engage in open dialogue.

Synods have long served as consultative bodies of bishops, clergy, and laity assembled to consider significant concerns of Church discipline. However (and this is critical to understand) synods are not democratic, deliberative bodies that decide doctrine or discipline by ballot or any other means; they are purely advisory in their function. Synodality, itself, is merely the principle of collegiality and communion in the Church.

The leadership of this particular synod largely consisted of figures known for their progressive positions. Both spiritual directors of the synod, Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe and Sister Maria Ignazia Angelini, articulate more progressive views.

One wonders if this synod and the results of its deliberations are tied to Pope Francis’s more liberal vision for the church – an orientation which at times seems beyond the limitations imposed by the promulgations of Vatican II. Its goal, as put forward by the pontiff himself, was to make the Church more effective at evangelization by making it more participatory and inclusive.

Does “synodality” allude to the possibility of the Magisterium (at some future point) being open to novel interpretations as a result of synodal consensus? Does the current pontiff believe the function of the church should be that of appeasing the world of secular modernity – surrendering beliefs and traditions that were instrumental in building Western civilization and which allowed the church itself to be sustained amidst two thousand years of struggle and conflict?

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At this juncture in the process, it is a fait accompli – a document was produced in October 2024, and the pontiff (curiously enough) adopted it without “apostolic exhortation” – meaning no further comment or alterations in the text were deemed necessary. The document emphasizes the church's “mission, with a concrete proposal of a new vision that overturns established practices”.

But after three years of work, it turns out there was much deliberation but little declaration. The language employed was novel, but broad and general. While it declared a “greater role for women in the church,” it did not specify how. Moreover, it sought “greater lay participation” in decision-making, but was nonspecific as to the means of effecting it.

It would appear the more controversial issues discussed in the deliberations will remain such for the balance of this pope’s pontificate.

Precedent There exists today a way to fashion the significance of this synod and get a better understanding of what can happen to the universal church by considering what has already happened to the church (in a specific context) at the micro level.

A similar synodal process to that just discussed has been underway for some time in Germany – the Synodaler Weg (Synodal Way).

Over the preceding five years, it is no secret that pressure from the latter was exerted on the synod in Rome to influence some of the church’s most difficult issues: the role of women, concerns regarding sexuality, priestly celibacy and decentralizing church authority through collegial forums (like synods). Since then, the Synodal Way has deemed it appropriate to approve advocacy for same-sex union blessings, women in the priesthood and marriage of the clergy.

The circumstance in Germany provides a provocative illustration of what occurs when the church relents to cultural trends and begins to see its purpose as accommodation to others rather than sanctification of the faithful.

German Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck, a central participant in the Synodal Way, acknowledged the near collapse of the priesthood in his diocese. He reported that in just 14 years the latter lost (through death) 300 priests while ordaining 15.

Meanwhile, the church in Germany overall has witnessed an enormous flight in membership, with almost three quarters of a million-faithful leaving in recent years.

As the German church seeks to adapt itself to the progressive cultural trends of a secular society, it risks losing what defines its character and thus the meaning and purpose it brings to the world. In trying to make itself more “inclusive,” the church in Germany appears to be experiencing a crisis of meaning and purpose.

With its precipitous falloff in clergy and faithful, the church in Germany must (at the very least) give us pause. As it seeks to appease the expectations of secular culture and yet continues to decline, its relevance in German society is brought into question.

If the Catholic Church is to remain relevant in the face of modern critique, it must seek an informed response. But it must respond with reason – not react with emotion – to the winds of critique. It must remain open to dialogue and hear new voices, but it must do so while it refines (not changes) its teaching to make it and its traditions more comprehensible to the modern world.

The Tridentine Mass, priestly celibacy, papal infallibility, the Marian Dogmas and more – all must be maintained in the face of the secular winds of change. And above all, it must never lose sight of its core identity and purpose which comes from Mathew 16:18 and the ecumenical councils which followed.

To do otherwise is to cease to be the Church of, “the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6).

Dr F. Andrew Wolf, is director of The Fulcrum Institute and holds graduate degrees in philosophy and theology. His books include Discovering the Essay, Our Sense of Relatedness and a forthcoming text this year, Logic for God's Existence.

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FEATURE

Do not lose heart Edward Dundon on Our Lady of the Warning

I

t is human nature to avoid thinking about our own death. Our Blessed Lady, however, would never leave us unprepared for such an important event.

So, we should not be afraid. Depictions of Our Lady have evolved over the centuries, reflecting diverse artistic, cultural and theological influences, from early Christian iconography to late Renaissance art.

In the late seventeenth century, in the small Portuguese village of Serapicos, a chapel was dedicated to Our Lady of the Warning. The exact date the chapel was first constructed is unknown. The chapel's sanctuary features a large statue of Our Lady of the Warning, which is the first appearance of her in the form we recognise today.

Our Lady is wearing a long pink dress with an outer blue mantle. Rosary beads hang from the fingers of her right hand, while a golden chain hangs from her left wrist. On her head is a crown around which are twelve stars.

In 1726, records show that the chapel was maintained by a group of devoted lay people who were enriched with many indulgences. For many years, the villagers of Serapicos have prayed to Our Lady to thank her for saving a distressed man, who, when returning home on a winter's day in an oxcart, was attacked by a pack of wolves. So overwhelmed by his anguish, he begged Our Lady to help him fend off the wolves. Almost immediately, the wolves retreated.

Several devotees of the statue asked to borrow it for a visit to their home, but none was successful. The following accounts describe the statue resisting being moved. In 1840, a group of people wanted to borrow it for the funeral of a Mrs Pimparela. They hired a group of men to carry it to her home. The statue was so heavy that they only made it 300 metres from the chapel before they had to turn back. Another account indicates that the people of Sanceriz, a neighboring village, were authorised to bring the statue to their local church.

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Our Lady of the Warning: calmness descends

But a group of men could not dislodge it because of its weight and the attempt was abandoned.

In 1890, the chapel had developed serious structural defects and as a result, a new and larger one was constructed in the same location it stands today.

People worldwide who carry the medal of Our Lady of the Warning and pray to her fervently believe that she will warn them of their death. Many devotees of Our Lady of the Warning have obtained a tremendous number of graces, including a deaf child whose

hearing was restored. However, the most frequently reported grace was that of people being warned of their impending demise.

A priest from the region has described two reports, which occurred in the 1980s.

In March 1986, Mrs Rufina Baptista, an 84-year-old devotee of the medal, became ill. She notified her children living in France to return so that they could be with her before she passed away. When they arrived, she said: ‘I was waiting for you. Now I can go. I’ll go tomorrow as Our Lady told me.’ She passed away on March 18 of that year.

The other report concerned a woman who had been on a pilgrimage to the chapel in 1988. Three days before her husband's passing, her husband asked her to fetch a priest to administer the Last Rites, as he was certain he was about to die, she said. He always wore the medal and three days later he died.

Shortly after, the fifteen-year-old son of this woman became seriously ill.

Despite his severe condition, his mother remained confident he would recover.

One day, he called her and said: ‘Mama, please fetch the priest. Our Lady has advised me that I’ll die in three days.’

When asked how he was so advised, he said: ‘I cannot say how, as it is a secret.

But I was advised.’ He, like his father, was dead within three days.

The annals of devotion to Our Lady do not report anyone panicking or becoming desperate after being forewarned about their death. Instead, an amazing sense of calmness descends on them as well as a conformity to God’s will, which is the emblem of Our Lady.

Although death may be a lonely and painful experience, in fact it isn’t. Our Lady will be with us when we die and will ease us into it. We must trust that God, the embodiment of wisdom, has determined the appropriate time for us to give an account of ourselves to Him. As Our Lady says, ‘Do not lose heart, I will never forsake you.’

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FEATURE

Master of Camelot Charles A. Coulombe remembers Arthurian historian Geoffrey Ashe

F

rom his own apparent time in the 500s AD, no single character has occupied as great a place in the British – indeed, the European – imagination, as King Arthur. Of all those who tried to make sense of the various versions of the Arthurian legend, few achieved as much acceptance of their theories and personal renown doing so as Geoffrey Ashe (1923-2022). Unlike most of the great figures I’ve had the pleasure of describing in these pages, I actually met Mr Ashe, and the manner of that meeting will serve as a fine introduction to the man himself as not only an historian but a Catholic writer.

In May of 2020, an article of mine appeared in the Catholic Herald entitled Past and Present. It was a brief summary of Glastonbury’s spiritual history, from the old legends of St. Joseph of Arimathea, the Holy Grail, and King Arthur, to the Medieval Abbey and its suppression, Glastonbury’s long post-Protestant sleep, and then its revival as a religious centre in the late 19th and early 20th centuries thanks to the proto-New Age Avalonians. I concluded with the return of the Benedictines, who at the time had recently taken charge of the Catholic Shrine in the centre of the town, and were offering the Tridentine Mass. I pointed out that despite the Avalonians’ many differences from one another, this eclectic collection of mystics, occultists, and visionaries were responsible for lifting the town from obscurity and placing it in its current position. In the number of this tribe I placed Geoffrey Ashe, not least because his biography inevitably mentioned he lived at the foot of Glastonbury Tor. He responded to the article in a letter published by the Herald the following October: “Congratulations to Charles Coulombe on his fine article on Glastonbury, and especially for his

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Geoffrey Ashe: ‘Among other activities, he studied the Shroud of Turin’ update on recent developments such as the new Benedictine community.

My first book, King Arthur’s Avalon, concluded with a quote from Austin Ringwode, the last surviving monk of Glastonbury Abbey: ‘The Abbey will one day be restored and rebuilt for the like worship which has ceased, and peace and plenty will for a long time abound.’ I believe that the new community is beginning to fulfil this prophecy.

“I am glad Mr Coulombe included a few words about the neo-mystics, who have caused confusion over the years.

But I must make a humble protest at being included among them myself.

“I never was. My Avalonian writings have been before the public for a long time. The original inspiration came from a passage in the works of GK Chesterton, a very great Catholic. I was, and remain, within the fold.”

My letter in response expressed my glee at being so very wrong about his state. It elicited an invitation to visit him and his wife, which the exigencies of Covid prevented me from accepting for two years. By the time I arrived there on a visit, the Benedictines had been driven out.

This was a terrible blow to the elderly writer and his American wife, Patricia.

We commiserated on this loss, and on the liturgical state of the Church in general. But we spoke about much more in history and literature, and the original single hour scheduled passed quickly into two. I took my leave, with assurances from the couple that I was welcome back any time. Alas, Geoffrey died a few months later, and Patricia left a couple months after that for her native land. But those two hours fixed forever in my mind the picture of a deep and thoroughly Catholic thinker.

This was not an obvious future for the young child born on 29 March 1923 in London to Arthur William and Thelma Ashe. Arthur was general manager of Poly Tours, and took his family with him frequently to Europe and around the British Isles visiting hotels used by the agency. Geoffrey was educated at St Paul’s School in London, G.K. Chesterton’s alma mater. Attending years after GKC, Ashe then knew nothing about him, but noticed his name on a plaque in the entrance hall, listing famous alumni. His mother introduced him to Gilbert and Sullivan’s Operettas, the Sherlock Holmes stories, and finally Chesterton’s Father Brown series – and revealed that she had once seen the author himself in a restaurant.

When he was 16, Geoffrey’s parents took him to Canada. He graduated with a degree in English and Classics at the University of British Columbia in 1943. He returned to England in 1946 with his Canadian wife, Dorothy

SPRING 2025

FEATURE Train, and went on to attain a Tripos in English at Cambridge in 1948 - during this period converting to Catholicism.

Dorothy would bear him two sons in Great Britain. They returned to Canada where Geoffrey took up a job as administrative assistant at Ford of Canada.

In a Toronto Library he picked up a copy of GKC’s Short History of England, whose brief account of Glastonbury and Arthur captured Ashe’s imagination. He went on to read Chesterton’s friend Christopher Hollis’ Glastonbury and England. As early as 1949, he began writing for the Catholic press, but his Catholicism was not just academic; in 1954 he became a tertiary of the Carmelite priory at Aylesford in Kent, after the family returned to Great Britain. Two years later, in the Jesuit journal, The Month, he contributed his first article to the literature of Arthuriana; his continued work in the area appeared in 1957 as King Arthur's Avalon: The Story of Glastonbury. His first book was a great success, and so was followed up in 1960 with From Caesar to Arthur.

At this point, Ashe’s thesis was rather revolutionary; that while the Arthurian Legend as we have received it in its late Medieval version is not historically accurate, any long-lived body of legend has to have some sort of authentic historical background. To the best of his estimation, the “authentic” Arthur would have been a post-Roman leader of the Britons against their various seaborne enemies. Ashe’s scholarly acumen, gripping style, and open-mindedness combined with a strong critical sense attracted a large audience who appreciated neither curt dismissal of Arthuriana nor fiction presented as fact.

This led him to the attention of many serious Arthurian researchers and archaeologists, with whom he teamed up to form the Camelot Research Committee. Relying on local legends that identified Somerset’s Cadbury Castle with Camelot, for eight years, starting in 1960, Dr Ralegh Radford directed the excavations there.

What they found was astonishing: a well-fortified settlement unlike any other known at the time, which had been built for some great chief at the time period legend assigned to Arthur.

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Was this definitely King Arthur’s Camelot? Geoffrey could only admit it seemed like it – and so recommended it as the location for the famous city when the makers of the film, Camelot, asked him where it had been. He would boast that the site seen briefly on a map in the film was his “sole contribution to Hollywood”.

In 1962 he wrote a book using the same methodology on St Brendan’s storied visit to America. Indeed, only a third or so of his 35 published works deal with King Arthur, although that is certainly what he is best known for. He met a great many luminaries, including J.R.R. Tolkien. In the 1970s, although not possessing a doctorate, he had several visiting professorships at American universities. Although this was not originally his intention, he and his wife would move to Glastonbury in 1974, and she herself entered the Faith at last. Ashe continued to explore a wide variety of topics, including miracles. Among other activities, he studied the Shroud of Turin; convinced of its authenticity after making several experiments, he joined the International Sindonological Committee.

In 1991, Dorothy died. Geoffrey continued his teaching and touring, in the course of which he met Patricia Chandler, a professor of English at the University of North Alabama. In 1998, they married and settled down at Glastonbury. Six years later, Ashe became an Oblate of Downside Abbey, sealing his love of the Benedictines which his years of study of the Abbey had spurred. The discovery of a fifth century settlement at Tintagel – legendary birthplace of Arthur – certainly affirmed his methodology.

In 2012, he was honoured by HM The Queen with an MBE “For Services to Heritage”. Three years later Ashe was unanimously named an Honorary Freeman of Glastonbury by the Glastonbury Town Council “in recognition of his eminent services to the place as an author and cultural historian.” In 2019, he was overjoyed by the erection of the Benedictine Community of Our Lady of Glastonbury, which, as mentioned, took charge of the Catholic Shrine. For the while they offered it, Geoffrey and his wife were constant attendees at the

Tridentine Mass offered thereat. As he wrote to the Catholic Herald, he felt that it might well be the beginning of the fulfilment of the ancient prophecy (prophecy in general being a topic about which he had also written two books).

Alas, Traditionis Custodes dropped like nuclear fallout from the Heavens.

In July of 2021 the Mass at Glastonbury shut down. The two monks left for the friendlier clime of Chavagnes, France, where they serve as chaplains to the students of the Catholic school there, and continue the Mass. We all hope they may return one day.

Geoffrey died peacefully in his sleep on January 30, 2022. It was perhaps a fitting date – both Charles I and Bonnie Prince Charlie had died on that day. Arthur remained a figure central to Stuart propaganda. Stuart iconography celebrated the habits and beliefs of the ancient Britons. In particular, the Royal Oak, still a central symbol of the dynasty, was closely related to ideas about Celtic fertility ritual, and the King's power as an agent of renewal: ‘The oak, the largest and strongest tree in the North, was venerated by the Celts as a symbol of the supreme power.’ It was thus fitting that an oak should protect Charles II from the Cromwellian troops who wished to strip the sacred new Arthur of his status. This was precisely the sort of confluence between history and folklore that Geoffrey loved.

Geoffrey’s Requiem was held at the Shrine of Our Lady of Glastonbury and offered by Canon Alan Finley and Bishop Crispian Hollis. Following the Mass, a procession wound up Magdalene Street and the High Street, culminating in a reception at Glastonbury Town Hall. The following day, he was cremated. His widow brought his remains with her back to America, where on October 7, 2023, they were entombed at the Columbarium of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Bernard, in Cullman, Alabama. We must pray that at some future time the Benedictines and the Traditional worship of the Church will be restored to the currently ruined Abbey at Glastonbury.

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LITURGICAL CALENDAR

CALENDARIVM F EBRUARY 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri

Feria Feria Feria Feria St Peter’s Chair Sexagesima Sunday St Matthias Ap Feria Feria St Gabriel of OL of Sorrows C Feria

MARCH

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1

Sat

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon

St David B C (OL on Saturday outside Wales) Quinquagesima Sunday Feria St Cassimir of Lithuania C Ash Wednesday SS Perpetua & Felicity MM St Thomas Aquinas C D Feria in Lent 1st Sunday in Lent Feria in Lent Feria in Lent Ember Wednesday Feria in Lent Ember Friday Ember Saturday 2nd Sunday in Lent Feria in Lent Feria in Lent St Joseph Spouse of OL C Feria in Lent St Benedict Ab Feria in Lent 3rd Sunday in Lent St Gabriel Archangel Annunciation of OL (Ladymas) Feria in Lent Feria in Lent Feria in Lent Feria in Lent 4th Sunday in Lent (Laetare Sunday) Feria in Lent

A PR I L 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon

29 Tue 30 Wed

Feria in Lent Feria in Lent Feria in Lent Feria in Lent Feria in Lent Passion Sunday Feria in Lent Feria in Lent Feria in Lent Feria in Lent St Leo the Great P C D Feria in Lent Palm Sunday Monday of Holy Week Tuesday of Holy Week Wednesday of Holy Week Wednesday of Holy Week Good Friday Holy Saturday EASTER DAY Easter Monday Easter Tuesday Easter Wednesday Easter Thursday Easter Friday (Rogation Day) Easter Saturday Low Sunday St George M (St Paul of the Cross C outside England) St Peter of Verona M St Catherine of Sienna V D

M AY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri

St Joseph the Worker, Spouse of OL C St Athanasius B C D OL on Saturday 2nd Sunday after Easter St Pius V P C Feria St Stanislaus B Feria St Gregory Nazianzen B C D

SPRING 2025

CROSSWORD Clues Across 1 Meetings of people round a table trying to communicate with the spirits of the dead (7) 5 War during the 17thc. Interregnum (5) 8 ‘Linden ---', English folk song set to music by Vaughan Williams (3) 9 Cromwell supporter in the Civil War (9) 10 Orthodox Community of this Mount in Greece (5) 11 Old or New (9) 14 Flower of the field or syrup in the medicine cabinet! (9) 18 One of three Fast Days following, e.g., the First Sunday in Lent (5) 21 Seasonal sweetmeat or painted actual one for the great Feast (6,3) 22 Its motto is ‘per ardua ad astra’ (1.1.1.)

23 Formal headwear for a Bishop or higher-ranking cleric (5) 24 Great sin against the Holy Ghost (7)

Alan Frost: Dec 2024

ANSWERS TO WINTER 2024 CROSSWORD Across: 1 Strewed 5 Nulli 8 UVC 9 Night-time 10 Lippi 11 Paralysis 14 Panegyric 18 Haiku 21 Theorists 22 Nod 23 Missa 24 Muscles Down: 1 Skullcap 2 Recaps 3 Winnipeg 4 Dagger 5 Nota 6 Lairds 7 Ibex 12 Lachesis 13 Secundus 15 Nereus 16 Ransom 17 Simnel 19 Stem 20 Ursa

Clues Down 1 Dish of cream curdled with wine (8) 2 & 3: Author giving nickname to famous Papal Indult of 1971 (6,8) 3 See 2 Down 4 They are found in an ossuary (6) 5 Early monk and Bishop in Northumbria, whose brother is the dedicatee of Birmingham Cathedral (4) 6 La, reference to Our Lady and a Massenet work about her life (6) 7 Queen of Sparta whom Zeus seduced in the form of a swan (4) 12 Pre-High Mass sprinkling (8) 13 Altar server assisting at Mass with a censer (8) 15 James, French 19thc. Realist and early Impressionist artist of biblical and life of Christ works (6) 16 Latin poem by Virgil about a Trojan after the associated War (6) 17 Collection of countries in Europe forming a Peninsula (6) 19 ‘Te ----‘, early hymn to God particularly associated with Ambrosian Order (4) 20 Early monk author of Ecclesiastical History of the English People (4)

The winner of the Winter 2024 crossword competition is Rosaline Matthews of Upton Park, who received copies of The Curé of Ars

by Fr Bartholomew O’Brien and A Cardinal Newman Prayer Book, both available from the LMS online shop: lms.org.uk/shop.

Entries for the Spring 2025 competition should be sent to the Latin Mass Society office or emailed to info@lms.org.uk by 31 March 2025.

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SPRING 2025