Juventutem London

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2012-02-26T00:16:00.003Z

Thanks to everyone for coming on Friday, and especially to the clergy, servers, schola and caterers! Our next Mass + Social will be the 23rd March - here is the facebook event.

We have revamped the facebook page - not only do we have a 'fan page' but we also have a 'person' - the 'person' is a lot more versatile in terms of inviting people to things, so if you want to be kept up to date with everything make friends with the person and like the fan page.

We also have twitter.

And here are some nice pictures from recent months:

Gueranger and the 'Practice of Lent'

2012-02-23T23:32:00.001Z

This is long but it's well worth reading bits of it over your Pretzel collations. This is with credit to the excellent Liturgia Latina Project.

After having spent the three weeks of Septuagesima in meditating upon our spiritual infirmities, and upon the wounds caused in us by sin, - we should be ready to enter upon the penitential season, which the Church has now begun. We have now a clearer knowledge of the justice and holiness of God, and of the dangers that await an impenitent soul; and, that our repentance might be earnest and lasting, we have bade farewell to the vain joys and baubles of the world. Our pride has been humbled by the prophecy, that these bodies would soon be like the ashes that wrote the memento of death upon our foreheads.

During these Forty Days of penance, which seem so long to our poor nature, we shall not be deprived of the company of our Jesus. He seemed to have withdrawn from us during those weeks of Septuagesima, when everything spoke to us of his maledictions upon sinful man;- but this absence has done us good. It has taught us how to tremble at the voice of God’s anger. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom [Ps. c x. 10.]; we have found it to be so;- the spirit of penance is now active within us, because we have feared.

And now, let us look at the divine object that is before us. It is our Emmanuel; the same Jesus, but not under the form of the sweet Babe whom we adored in his Crib. He is grown to the fulness of the age of man, and wears the semblance of a Sinner, trembling and humbling himself before the Sovereign Majesty of his Father, whom we have offended, and to whom he now offers himself as the Victim of propitiation. He loves us with a Brother’s love; and seeing that the season for our doing penance has begun, he comes to cheer us on by his presence and his own example. We are going to spend Forty Days in fasting and abstinence:- Jesus, who is innocence itself, goes through the same penance. We have separated ourselves, for a time, from the pleasures and vanities of the world:- Jesus withdraws from the company and sight of men. We intend to assist at the Divine Services more assiduously, and pray more fervently, than at other times: - Jesus spends forty days and forty nights in praying, like the humblest suppliant; and all this for us. We are going to think over our past sins, and bewail them in bitter grief :- Jesus suffers for them and weeps over them in the silence of the desert, as though He himself had committed them.

No sooner had he received Baptism from the hands of St. John, than the Holy Ghost led him to the Desert. The time had come for his showing himself to the world; he would begin by teaching us a lesson of immense importance. He leaves the saintly Precursor and the admiring multitude, that had seen the divine Spirit descend upon him, and heard the Father’s voice proclaiming him to be his Beloved Son; he leaves them, and goes into the Desert. Not far from the Jordan, there rises a rugged mountain, which has received, in after ages, the name of Quarantana. It commands a view of the fertile plain of Jericho, the Jordan, and the Dead Sea. It is within a cave of this wild rock that the Son of God now enters, his only companions being the dumb animals who have chosen this same for their own shelter. He has no food wherewith to satisfy the pangs of hunger; the barren rock can yield him no drink; his only bed must be of stone. Here he is to spend Forty Days; after which, he will permit the Angels to visit him and bring him food.

Thus does our Saviour go before us on the holy path of Lent. He has borne all its fatigues and hardships, that so we, when called upon to tread the narrow way of our Lenten Penance, might have His example wherewith to silence the excuses, and sophisms, and repugnances, of self-love and pride. The lesson is here too plainly given not to be understood; the law of doing penance for sin is here too clearly shown, and we cannot plead ignorance;- let us honestly accept the teaching and practise it. Jesus leaves the Desert where he had spent the Forty Days, and begins his preaching with these words, which he addresses to all men: Do penance, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand [St. Matth. iv. 17]. Let us not harden our hearts to this invitation, lest there be fulfilled in us the terrible threat contained in those other words of our Redeemer: Unless ye shall do penance, ye shall perish [St. Luke, xiii. 3].

Now, Penance consists in contrition of the soul, and in mortification of the body; these two parts are essential to it. The soul has willed the sin; the body has frequently co-operated in its commission. Moreover, man is composed of both Soul and Body; both, then, should pay homage to their Creator. The Body is to share with the Soul, either the delights of heaven, or the torments of hell; there cannot, therefore, be any thorough Christian life, or any earnest penance, where the Body does not take part, in both, with the Soul.

But it is the Soul which gives reality to Penance. The Gospel teaches this by the examples it holds out to us of the Prodigal Son, of Magdalene, of Zacheus, and of St. Peter. The Soul, then, must be resolved to give up every sin; she must heartily grieve over those she has committed; she must hate sin ; she must shun the occasions of sin. The Sacred Scriptures have a word for this inward disposition, which has been adopted by the Christian world, and admirably expresses the state of the Soul that has turned away from her sins: this word is, Conversion. The Christian should, therefore, during Lent, study to excite himself to this repentance of heart, and look upon it as the essential foundation of all his Lenten exercises. Nevertheless, he must remember that this spiritual penance would be a mere delusion, were he not to practise mortification of the Body. Let him study the example given him by his Saviour, who grieves, indeed, and weeps over our sins; but he also expiates them by his bodily sufferings. Hence it is, that the Church, - the infallible interpreter of her Divine Master’s will, - tells us, that the repentance of our heart will not be accepted by God, unless it be accompanied by fasting and abstinence.

How great, then, is the illusion of those Christians, who forget their past sins, or compare themselves with others whose lives they take to have been worse than their own; and thus satisfied with themselves, can see no harm or danger in the easy life they intend to pass for the rest of their days! They will tell you, that there can be no need of their thinking of their past sins, for they have made a good Confession! Is not the life they have led since that time a sufficient proof of their solid piety? And why should any one speak to them about God’s Justice and Mortification? - Accordingly, as soon as Lent approaches, they must get all manner of Dispensations. Abstinence is an inconvenience: Fasting has an effect upon their health, it would interfere with their occupations, it is such a change from their ordinary way of living: besides, there are so many people who are better than themselves, and yet who never fast or abstain:- and, as the idea never enters their minds of supplying for the penances prescribed by the Church with other penitential exercises, such persons as these, gradually and unsuspectingly, lose the Christian spirit.

The Church sees this frightful decay of supernatural energy; but she cherishes what is still left, by making her Lenten observances easier, year after year. With the hope of maintaining that little, and of seeing it strengthen for some better future, she leaves to the Justice of God her children who hearken not to her, when she teaches them how they might, even now, propitiate his anger. Alas! these her children, of whom we are speaking, are quite satisfied that things should be as they are, and never think of judging their own conduct by the examples of Jesus and his Saints, or by the undeviating rules of Christian penance.

It is true, there are exceptions; but how rare they are, especially in our large towns! Groundless prejudices, idle excuses, bad example, - all tend to lead men from the observance of Lent. Is it not sad to hear people giving such a reason as this for their not fasting or abstaining, - because they feel them ? Surely, they forget that the very aim of fasting and abstinence is to make these bodies of sin [Rom. vi. 6] suffer and feel. And what will they answer on the Day of Judgment, when our Saviour shall show them how the very Turks, who were the disciples of a gross and sensual religion, had the courage to practise, every year, the forty days’ austerities of their Ramadan?

But their own conduct will be their loudest accuser. These very persons, who persuade themselves that they have not strength enough to bear the abstinence and fasting of Lent, even in their present mitigated form, think nothing of going through incomparably greater fatigues for the sake of temporal gains or worldly enjoyments. Constitutions, which have broken down in the pursuit of pleasures, - which, to say the least, are frivolous, and always dangerous, - would have kept up all their vigour, had the laws of God and his Church, and not the desire to please the world, been the guide of their conduct. But such is the indifference, wherewith this non-observance of Lent is treated, that it never excites the slightest trouble or remorse of conscience; and they who are guilty of it will argue with you, that people who lived in the Middle Ages may perhaps have been able to keep Lent, but that now-a-days it is out of the question: and they can coolly say this in the face of all that the Church has done to adapt her Lenten discipline to the physical and moral weakness of the present generation! How comes it, that whilst these men have been trained in, or converted to, the Faith of their Fathers, they can forget that the observance of Lent is an essential mark of Catholicity; and that when the Protestants undertook to Reform her, in the 16th century, one of their chief grievances was that she insisted on her children mortifying themselves by Fasting and Abstinence!

But, it will be asked, - are there, then, no lawful Dispensations? - We answer, that there are; and that they are more needed now than in former ages, owing to the general weakness of our constitutions. Still, there is great danger of our deceiving ourselves. If we have strength to go through great fatigues, when our own self-love is gratified by them, - how is it we are too weak to observe Abstinence? If a slight inconvenience deter us from doing this penance, how shall we ever make expiation for our sins, for expiation is essentially painful to nature? The opinion of our physician, that Fasting will weaken us, may be false, or it may be correct; - but is not this mortification of the flesh the very object that the Church aims at, knowing that our soul will profit by the body being brought into subjection? But let us suppose the dispensation to be necessary: that our health would be impaired, and the duties of our state of life neglected, if we were to observe the law of Lent to the letter:- do we, in such case, endeavour, by other works of penance, to supply for those, which our health does not allow us to observe:- Are we grieved and humbled to find ourselves thus unable to join with the rest of the Faithful Children of the Church, in bearing the yoke of Lenten discipline? Do we ask of our Lord to grant us the grace, next year, of sharing in the merits of our fellow-Christians, and of observing those holy practices, which give the soul an assurance of mercy and pardon? If we do, the dispensation will not be detrimental to our spiritual interests; and when the Feast of Easter comes, inviting the Faithful to partake of its grand joys, we may confidently take our place side by side with those who have fasted; for though our bodily weakness has not permitted us to keep pace with them exteriorly, our heart has been faithful to the spirit of Lent.

How long a list of proofs we could still give of the negligence, into which the modern spirit of self-indulgence leads so many among us, in regard of Fasting and Abstinence! Thus, there are Catholics to be found in every part of the world who make their Easter Communion, and profess themselves to be Children of the Catholic Church, who yet have no idea of the obligations of Lent. Their very notion of Fasting and Abstinence is so vague, that they are not aware that these two practices are quite distinct one from the other; and that the dispensation from one does not, in any way, include a dispensation from the other. If they have, lawfully, or unlawfully, obtained exemption from Abstinence, it never so much as enters into their minds, that the obligation of fasting is still binding upon them, during the whole Forty Days; or if they have had granted to them a dispensation from Fasting, they conclude that they may eat any kind of food they wish. Such ignorance as this is the natural result of the indifference wherewith the commandments and traditions of the Church are treated.

So far, we have been speaking of the non-observance of Lent in its relation to individuals and Catholics; let us now say a few words upon the influence which that same non-observance has upon a whole people or nation. There are but few social questions which have not been ably and spiritedly treated of by the public writers of the age, who have devoted their talents to the study of what is called Political Economy; and it has often been a matter of surprise to us, that they should have overlooked a subject of such deep interest as this, - the results produced on society by the abolition of Lent, that is to say, of an institution, which, more than any other, keeps up in the public mind a keen sentiment of moral right and wrong, inasmuch as it imposes on a nation an annual expiation for sin. No shrewd penetration is needed to see the difference between two nations, one of which observes, each year, a forty-days’ penance in reparation of the violations committed against the Law of God, and another, whose very principles reject all such solemn reparation. And looking at the subject from another point of view, is it not to be feared that the excessive use of animal food tends to weaken, rather than to strengthen, the constitution? We are convinced of it, - the time will come, when a greater proportion of vegetable, and less of animal, diet, will be considered as an essential means for maintaining the strength of the human frame.

Let, then, the Children of the Church courageously observe the Lenten practices of penance. Peace of conscience is essential to Christian life; and yet it is promised to none but truly penitent souls. Lost innocence is to be regained by the humble confession of the sin, when it is accompanied by the absolution of the Priest; but let the Faithful be on their guard against the dangerous error, which would persuade them that they have nothing to do when once pardoned. Let them remember the solemn warning given them by the Holy Ghost in the sacred scriptures: Be not without fear about sin forgiven! [Ecclus. v. 5]. Our confidence of our having been forgiven should be in proportion to the change or conversion of our heart the greater our present detestation of our past sins, and the more earnest our desire to do penance for them for the rest of our lives, the better founded is our confidence that they have been pardoned. Man knoweth not, as the same holy Volume assures us, whether he be worthy of love or hatred [Eccles. ix. 1]; but he that keeps up within him the spirit of penance, has every reason to hope that God loves him.

But the courageous observance of the Church’s precept of Fasting and Abstaining during Lent must be accompanied by those two other eminently good works, to which God so frequently urges us in the Scripture: Prayer and Alms-deeds. Just as under the term Fasting the Church comprises all kinds of mortification; so under the word Prayer, she includes all those exercises of piety whereby the soul holds intercourse with her God. More frequent attendance at the services of the Church, assisting daily at Mass, spiritual reading, meditation upon eternal truths and the Passion, hearing sermons, and, above all, the approaching the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist, - these are the chief means whereby the Faithful should offer to God the homage of Prayer, during this holy Season.

Almsdeeds comprise all the works of mercy to our neighbour, and are unanimously recommended by the Holy Doctors of the Church, as being the necessary complement of Fasting and Prayer during Lent. God has made it a law, to which he has graciously bound himself, - that charity shown towards our fellow-creatures, with the intention of pleasing our Creator, shall be rewarded as though it were done to Himself. How vividly this brings before us the reality and sacredness of the tie, which he would have to exist between all men! Such, indeed, is its necessity, that our Heavenly Father will not accept the love of any heart that refuses to show mercy: but, on the other hand, he accepts, as genuine and as done to himself, the charity of every Christian, who, by a work of mercy shown to a fellow-man, is really acknowledging and honouring that sublime union, which makes all men to be one family, with God as its Father. Hence it is, that Alms-deeds, done with this intention, are not merely acts of human kindness, but are raised to the dignity of acts of religion, which have God for their direct object, and have the power of appeasing his Divine Justice.

Let us remember the counsel given by the Archangel Raphael to Tobias. He was on the point of taking leave of this holy family, and returning to heaven; and these were his words: Prayer is good with fasting and alms, more than to lay up treasures of gold: for alms delivereth from death, and the same is that which purgeth away sins, and maketh to find mercy and life everlasting [Tob. xii, 8, 9]. Equally strong is the recommendation given to this virtue by the Book of Ecclesiasticus: Water quencheth a flaming fire, and alms resisteth sins [Ecclus. iii. 33]. And again: Shut up alms in the heart the poor, and it shall obtain help for thee against all evil [Ibid. xxix. 15]. The Christian should keep these consoling promises ever before his mind, but more especially during the season of Lent. The rich man should show the poor. whose whole year is a fast, that there is a time when even he has his self-imposed privations. The faithful observance of Lent naturally produces a saving; let that saving be given to Lazarus. Nothing, surely, could be more opposed to the spirit of this holy Season, than the keeping up a table, as richly and delicately provided, as at other periods of the year, when God permits us to use all the comforts compatible with the means he has given us. But how thoroughly Christian is it, that during these days of penance and charity, the life of the poor man should be made more comfortable, in proportion as that of the rich shares in the hardships and privations of his suffering brethren throughout the world! Poor and rich would then present themselves, with all the beauty of fraternal love upon them, at the Divine Banquet of the Paschal Feast, to which our Risen Jesus will invite us after these forty days are over.

There is one means more whereby we are to secure to ourselves the grand graces of Lent; it is the spirit of retirement and separation from the world. Our ordinary life, that is, such as it is during the rest of the year, should all be made to pay tribute to the holy Season of penance; otherwise, the salutary impression produced on us by the holy ceremony of Ash Wednesday will soon be effaced. The Christian ought, therefore, to forbid himself, during Lent, all the vain amusements, entertainments, and parties, of the world he lives in. As regards Theatres and Balls, which are the World in the very height of its power to do harm, no one that calls himself a disciple of Christ should ever be present at them, unless necessity, or the position he holds in society, oblige him to it: but if, from his own free choice, he throw himself amidst such dangers during the present holy Season of penance and recollection, he offers an insult to his character, and must needs cease to believe that he has sins to atone for, and a God to propitiate. The world, (we mean that part of it which is Christian,) has thrown off all those external indications of mourning and penance, which we read of as being so religiously observed in the Ages of Faith; let that pass: but there is one thing which can never change: God’s Justice, and man’s obligation to appease that Justice. The world may rebel as much as it will against the sentence, but the sentence is irrevocable: Unless ye do penance, ye shall all perish [St. Luke, xiii. 3]. It is God’s own word. Say, if you will, that few now-a-days give ear to it; but, for that very reason many are lost. They, too, who hear this word, must not forget the warnings given them by our Divine Saviour himself, in the Gospel read to us on Sexagesima Sunday. He told us, how some of the Seed is trodden down by the passers-by, or eaten by the fowls of the air; how some falls on rocky soil, and gets parched; and how, again, some is choked by thorns. Let us be wise, and spare no pains to become that good ground, which not only receives the Divine Seed, but brings forth a hundred-fold for the Easter harvest which is at hand.

An unavoidable feeling will arise in the minds of some of our readers, as they peruse these pages, in which we have endeavoured to embody the spirit of the Church, such as it is expressed, not only in the Liturgy, but also in the decrees of Councils and in the writings of the holy Fathers. The feeling we allude to, is one of regret at not finding, during this period of the Liturgical Year, the touching and exquisite poetry, which gave such a charm to the forty days of our Christmas solemnity. First came Septuagesima, throwing its gloomy shade over those enchanting visions of the Mystery of Bethlehem; and now we have got into a desert land, with thorns at every step, and no springs of water to refresh us. Let us not complain, however; Holy Church knows our true wants, and is intent on supplying them. Neither must we he surprised at her insisting on a severer preparation for Easter, than for Christmas. At Christmas, we were to approach our Jesus as an Infant; all she put us through then, were the Advent exercises, for the Mysteries of our Redemption were but beginning.

And of those who went to Jesus’ crib, there were many who, like the poor Shepherds of Bethlehem, might be called simple, at least in this sense, - that they did not sufficiently realise, either the holiness of their Incarnate God, or the misery and guilt of their own conscience. But now that this Son of the Eternal God has entered the path of penance; now that we are about to see him a victim to every humiliation, and suffering even a death upon a Cross; - the Church does not spare us; she rouses us from our ignorance and our self-satisfaction. She bids us strike our breasts, have compunction in our souls, mortify our bodies, - because we are sinners. Our whole life ought to be one of penance; fervent souls are ever doing penance; could anything be more just or necessary, than that we should do some penance during these days, when our Jesus is fasting in the desert, and is to die on Calvary? There is a sentence of this our Redeemer, which he spoke to the daughters of Jerusalem, on the day of his Passion; let us apply it to ourselves: If in the green wood they do these things, what shall be done in the dry? [St. Luke, xxiii. 31]. Oh! what a revelation is here! and yet, by the mercy of the Jesus who speaks it, the dry wood may become the green, and so, not be burned.

The Church hopes, nay her whole energy is labouring, that this may be; therefore, she bids us bear the yoke; she gives us a Lent. Let us only courageously tread the way of penance, and the Light will gradually beam upon us. If we are now far off from our God by the sins that are upon us, this holy Season will be to us what the Saints call the Purgative Life, and will give us that purity, which will enable us to see our Lord in the glory of his victory over death. If, on the contrary, we are already living the Illuminative Life; if, during the three weeks of Septuagesima, we have bravely sounded the depth of our miseries, our Lent will give us a clearer view of Him who is our Light; and if we could acknowledge Him as our God when we saw him as the Babe of Bethlehem, our soul’s eye will not fail to recognize him in the divine Penitent of the Desert, or in the bleeding Victim of Calvary.

Purgatory

2012-02-23T18:40:00.001Z

"It is quite impossible for us to imagine the cruel torments endured by the souls in purgatory. The fathers of the Church tell us that they are terrible in the extreme. St. Augustine says that the fire which purifies the elect is of the same nature as that which torments the damned. This fire is fiercer than any we have seen, or can conjecture, on earth. If we had no other testimony than this to the terrible character of the purgatorial fire, it would suffice to make us believe in its awful agony, and tremble at the thought of it. St. Augustine proceeds to describe it further: 'Although this fire,' he says, 'is not eternal, it is marvellously intense, and inflicts worse pain than any ever suffered in this world. No physical suffering can equal it, not even the fearful tortures the martyrs endured.' Now if, after hearing this, we read in the lives of the saints of the cruel tortures they underwent, we may form some faint conception of the awful nature of the pains of purgatory.

"According to St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, it would be preferable to suffer all imaginable anguish [until] the end of time than to pass one day in purgatory. My God, how intolerable those pains must be if an unhappy soul suffers more in one day than a man could suffer from now until the day of judgment! St. Thomas of Aquin declares that a single spark from the flames of purgatory is worse than all the most dreadful tortures of this life. Terrible words, almost surpassing our powers of belief! Alas, what is to become of us, wretched sinners, if after our death we are plunged into those scorching flames? What intense suffering, my God, is in store for us then! And yet not the slightest doubt can be entertained that, unless we endure these torments, we cannot enter heaven; for we are not holy and perfect: far from it, we are full of evil desires, and are soiled with the stains of sin.

"Many more passages from the fathers might be quoted concerning the pains of purgatory, but we will content ourselves with the words of St Bernadine, who says: 'There is as much difference between our material fire and the fire of purgatory as between a painted fire and a real fire.' St. Magdalen of Pazzi, who several times had a vision of purgatory, and even descried her own brother there, said that a large fire on earth appeared like pleasure-grounds in comparison to the fires of purgatory. This forcible comparison is enough to give us some idea of the agony suffered in purgatory, and to urge us to make atonement for our sins now, that we may not have to expiate them hereafter in the torturing flames. It ought also to awaken within us heartfelt compassion for the holy souls who at the present time are enduring the terrible torture of that fiery prison, and on that account deserve our deepest commiseration.

"There are many different ways of helping the suffering souls and delivering them from purgatory; but none of these is so sure and so effectual as the holy sacrifice of the Mass".

An Explanation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (Fr Van Cochem)

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This is why we must have Masses said for the dead. But there is also another way. Indulgences. We can apply them to the Holy Souls in Purgatory. And we now find ourselves in Lent. The modern Enchirodon says:

8 §1. A plenary indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who:
...
2° in any Friday in the season of Lent piously recite the prayer En ego, o bone et dulcissime Iesu, before an image of the Crucified Jesus Christ after communion; ...

This is with the usual conditions (Holy Confession, Holy Communion, prayers for the Pope and freedom from any attachment to sin, even venial). Here, handily is the prayer - though it must be said after Holy Communion. You are also likely to find it in your missals.

En ego, o bone et dulcissime Iesu, ante conspectum tuum genibus me provolvo, ac maximo animi ardore te oro atque obtestor, ut meum in cor vividos fidei, spei et caritatis sensus, atque veram peccatorum meorum paenitentiam, eaque emendandi firmissimam voluntatem velis imprimere; dum magno animi affectu et dolore tua quinque vulnera mecum ipse considero, ac mente contemplor, illud prae oculis habens, quod iam in ore ponebat tuo David Propheta de te, o bone Iesu: «Foderunt manus meas et pedes meos; dinumeraverunt omnia ossa mea».

Source

(Behold, o good and most sweet Jesus, I fall upon my knees before Thee, and with most fervent desire beg and beseech Thee that Thou wouldst impress upon my heart a lively sense of faith, hope and charity, true repentance for my sins, and a firm resolve to make amends. And with deep affection and grief, I reflect upon Thy five wounds, having before my eyes that which Thy prophet David spoke about Thee, o good Jesus: "They have pierced my hands and feet, they have counted all my bones.")

Gueranger and the 'Mystery of Lent'

2012-02-22T19:47:00.001Z

This is with credit to the excellent Liturgia Latina Project.

We may be sure, that a season, so sacred as this of Lent, is rich in mysteries. The Church has made it a time of recollection and penance, in preparation for the greatest of all her Feasts; she would, therefore, bring into it everything that could excite the faith of her children, and encourage them to go through the arduous work of atonement for their sins. During Septuagesima, we had the number Seventy, which reminded us of those seventy years’ captivity in Babylon, after which, God’s chosen people, being purified from idolatry, was to return to Jerusalem and celebrate the Pasch. It is the number Forty that the Church now brings before us: - a number, as Saint Jerome observes, which denotes punishment and affliction [In Ezechiel, cap. xxix].

Let us remember the forty days and forty nights of the Deluge (Gen. vii. 12), sent by God in his anger, when he repented that he had made man, and destroyed the whole human race, with the exception of one family. Let us consider how the Hebrew people, in punishment for their ingratitude, wandered forty years in the desert, before they were permitted to enter the Promised Land [Num. xiv. 33]. Let us listen to our God commanding the Prophet Ezechiel to lie forty days on his right side, as a figure of the siege, which was to bring destruction on Jerusalem [Ezech. iv. 6].

There are two, in the Old Testament, who represent, in their own persons, the two manifestations of God: Moses, who typifies the Law; and Elias, who is the figure of the Prophets. Both of these are permitted to approach God, - the first on Sinai [Exod. xxiv. 18], the second on Horeb [3 Kings, xix. 8], - but both of them have to prepare for the great favour by an expiatory fast of forty days.

With these mysterious facts before us, we can understand why it was, that the Son of God, having become Man for our salvation, and wishing to subject himself to the pain of fasting, chose the number of Forty Days. The institution of Lent is thus brought before us with everything that can impress the mind with its solemn character, and with its power of appeasing God and purifying our souls. Let us, there fore, look beyond the little world which surrounds us, and see how the whole Christian universe is, at this very time, offering this Forty Days’ penance as a sacrifice of propitiation to the offended Majesty of God; and let us hope, that, as in the case of the Ninivites, he will mercifully accept this year’s offering of our atonement, and pardon us our sins.

The number of our days of Lent is, then, a holy mystery: let us, now, learn from the Liturgy, in what light the Church views her Children during these Forty Days. She considers them as an immense army, fighting, day and night, against their Spiritual enemies. We remember how, on Ash Wednesday, she calls Lent a Christian Warefare. Yes, - in order that we may have that newness of life, which will make us worthy to sing once more our Alleluia, - we must conquer our three enemies the devil, the flesh, and the world. We are fellow combatants with our Jesus, for He, too, submits to the triple temptation, suggested to him by Satan in person. Therefore, we must have on our armour, and watch unceasingly. And whereas it is of the utmost importance that our hearts be spirited and brave, - the Church gives us a war-song of heaven’s own making, which can fire even cowards with hope of victory and confidence in God’s help: it is the Ninetieth Psalm [Ps. Qui habitat in adjutorio, in the Office of Compline]. She inserts the whole of it in the Mass of the First Sunday of Lent, and, every day, introduces several of its verses in the Ferial Office.

She there tells us to rely on the protection, wherewith our Heavenly Father covers us, as with a shield [Scuto circumdabit to veritas ejus. Office of None.]; to hope under the shelter of his wings [Et sub pennis ejus sperabis. Sext.]; to have confidence in him, for that he will deliver us from the snare of the hunter [Ipse liberavit me de laqueo venantium. Tierce.], who had robbed us of the holy liberty of the children of God; to rely upon the succour of the Holy Angels, who are our Brothers, to whom our Lord hath given charge that they keep us in all our ways [Angelis suis mandavit de te, ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis. Lauds and Vespers.], and who, when our Jesus permitted Satan to tempt him, were the adoring witnesses of his combat, and approached him, after his victory, proffering to him their service and homage. Let us get well into us these sentiments wherewith the Church would have us be inspired; and, during our six weeks’ campaign, let us often repeat this admirable Canticle, which so fully describes what the Soldiers of Christ should be and feel in this season of the great spiritual warfare.

But the Church is not satisfied with thus animating us to the contest with our enemies; - she would also have our minds engrossed with thoughts of deepest import; and for this end, she puts before us three great subjects, which she will gradually unfold to us between this and the great Easter Solemnity. Let us be all attention to these soul-stirring and instructive lessons.

And firstly, there is the conspiracy of the Jews against our Redeemer. It will be brought before us in its whole history, from its first formation to its final consummation on the great Friday, when we shall behold the Son of God hanging on the Wood of the Cross. The infamous workings of the synagogue will be brought before us so regularly, that we shall be able to follow the plot in all its details. We shall be inflamed with love for the august Victim, whose meekness, wisdom, and dignity, bespeak a God. The divine drama, which began in the cave of Bethlehem, is to close on Calvary; we may assist at it, by meditating on the passages of the Gospel read to us, by the Church, during these days of Lent.

The second of the subjects offered to us, for our instruction, requires that we should remember how the Feast of Easter is to be the day of new birth for our Catechumens; and how, in the early ages of the Church, Lent was the immediate and solemn preparation given to the candidates for Baptism. The holy Liturgy of the present season retains much of the instruction she used to give to the Catechumens; and as we listen to her magnificent Lessons from both the Old and the New Testament, whereby she completed their initiation, we ought to think with gratitude on how we were not required to wait years before being made Children of God, but were mercifully admitted to Baptism, even in our Infancy. We shall be led to pray for those new Catechumens, who this very year, in far distant countries, are receiving instructions from their zealous Missioners, and are looking forward, as did the postulants of the primitive Church, to that grand Feast of our Saviour’s victory over Death, when they are to be cleansed in the Waters of Baptism and receive from the contact a flew being, - regeneration.

Thirdly, we must remember how, formerly, the public Penitents, who had been separated, on Ash Wednesday, from the assembly of the Faithful, were the object of the Church’s maternal solicitude during the whole Forty Days of Lent, and were to be admitted to Reconciliation on Maundy Thursday, if their repentance were such as to merit this public forgiveness. We shall have the admirable course of instructions, which were originally designed for these Penitents, and which the Liturgy, faithful as she ever is to such traditions, still retains for our sakes. As we read these sublime passages of the Scripture, we shall naturally think upon our own sins, and on what easy terms they were pardoned us; whereas, had we lived in other times, we should have probably been put through the ordeal of a public and severe penance. This will excite us to fervour, for we shall remember, that, whatever changes the indulgence of the Church may lead her to make in her discipline, the justice of our God is ever the same. We shall find in all this an additional motive for offering to his Divine Majesty the sacrifice of a contrite heart, and we shall go through our penances with that cheerful eagerness, which the conviction of our deserving much severer ones always brings with it.

In order to keep up the character of mournfulness and austerity which is so well-suited to Lent, the Church, for many centuries, admitted very few Feasts into this portion of her year, inasmuch as there is always joy, where there is even a spiritual Feast. In the 4th century, we have the Council of Laodicea forbidding, in its fifty-first canon, the keeping a Feast or commemoration of any Saint, during Lent, excepting on the Saturdays or Sundays [Labbe, Concil., tom. i.]. The Greek Church rigidly maintained this point of Lenten Discipline; nor was it till many centuries after the Council of Laodicea that she made an exception for the 25th of March, on which day she now keeps the Feast of our Lady’s Annunciation.

The Church of Rome maintained this same discipline, at least in principle; but she admitted the Feast of the Annunciation at a very early period, and somewhat later, the Feast of the Apostle St. Matthias, on the 24th of February. During the last few centuries, she has admitted several other Feasts into that portion of her general Calendar which coincides with Lent; still, she observes a certain restriction, out of respect for the ancient practice.

The reason of the Church of Rome being less severe on this point of excluding the Saints’ Feasts during Lent, is, that the Christians of the West have never looked upon the celebration of a Feast as incompatible with fasting; the Greeks, on the contrary, believe that the two are irreconcilable, and as a consequence of this principle, never observe Saturday as a fasting-day, because they always keep it as a Solemnity, though they make Holy Saturday an exception, and fast upon it. For the same reason, they do not fast upon the Annunciation.

This strange idea gave rise, in or about the 7th century, to a custom which is peculiar to the Greek Church. It is called the Mass of the Presanctified, that is to say, consecrated in a previous Sacrifice. On each Sunday of Lent, the Priest consecrates six Hosts, one of which he receives in that Mass; but the remaining five are reserved for a simple Communion, which is made on each of the five following days, without the Holy Sacrifice being offered. The Latin Church practises this rite only once in the year, that is, on Good Friday, and this in commemoration of a sublime mystery, which we will explain in its proper place.

This custom of the Greek Church was evidently suggested by the 49th Canon of the Council of Laodicea, which forbids the offering the Bread of sacrifice during Lent, excepting on the Saturdays and Sundays [Labbe, Concil., tom. i.]. The Greeks, some centuries later on, concluded from this Canon, that the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice was incompatible with fasting; and we learn from the Controversy they had, in the 9th century, with the Legate Humbert [Centra Nicetam., tom. iv.], that the Mass of the Presanctified, (which has no other authority to rest on save a Canon of the famous Council in Trullo [Can. 52. Labbe, Concil. tom. vi.] held in 692,) was justified by the Greeks on this absurd plea, - that the Communion of the Body and Blood of our Lord broke the Lenten Fast.

The Greeks celebrate this rite in the evening, after Vespers, and the Priest alone communicates, as is done now in the Roman Liturgy on Good Friday. But for many centuries, they have made an exception for the Annunciation; they interrupt the Lenten fast on this Feast, they celebrate Mass, and the Faithful are allowed to receive Holy Communion.

The Canon of the Council of Laodicea was probably never received in the Western Church. If the suspension of the Holy Sacrifice during Lent was ever practised in Rome, it was only on the Thursdays; and even that custom was abandoned in the 8th century, as we learn from Anastasius the Librarian, who tells us that Pope St. Gregory the Second, desiring to complete the Roman Sacramentary, added Masses for the Thursdays of the first five weeks of Lent [Anastas. In Gregorio II]. It is difficult to assign the reason of this interruption of the Mass on Thursdays in the Roman Church, or of the like custom observed by the Church of Milan on the Fridays of Lent. The explanations we have found in different authors are not satisfactory. As far as Milan is concerned, we are inclined to think, that not satisfied with the mere adoption of the Roman usage of not celebrating Mass on Good Friday, the Ambrosian Church extended the rite to all the Fridays of Lent.

After thus briefly alluding to these details, we must close our present Chapter by a few words on the holy rites, which are now observed, during Lent, in our Western Churches. We have explained several of these in our “Septuagesima.” [See their explanation in the volume for Septuagesima]. The suspension of the Alleluia; the purple vestments; the laying aside the deacon’s Dalmatic, and the subdeacon’s Tunic; the omission of the two joyful canticles, - the Gloria in excelsis, and the Te Deum; the substitution of the mournful Tract for the Alleluia verse in the Mass; the Benedicamus Domino instead of the Ite, Missa est; the additional Prayer said over the people after the Post-communion Collects on Ferial Days ; the saying the Vesper Office before mid-day, excepting on the Sundays; - all these are familiar to our readers. We have only now to mention, in addition, the genuflections prescribed for the conclusion of all the Hours of the Divine Office on Ferias, and the rubric which bids the Choir to kneel, on those same Days, during the Canon of the Mass.

There were other ceremonies peculiar to the season of Lent, which were observed in the Churches of the West, but which have now, for many centuries, fallen into general disuse; we say general, because they are still partially kept up in some places. Of these rites, the most imposing was that of putting up a large veil between the Choir and the Altar, so that neither clergy nor people could look upon the Holy Mysteries celebrated within the Sanctuary. This veil - which was called the Curtain, and, generally speaking, was of a purple colour - was a symbol of the penance to which the sinner ought to subject himself, in order to merit the sight of that Divine Majesty, before whose face he had committed so many outrages. It signified, moreover, the humiliations endured by our Redeemer, who was a stumbling-block to the proud Synagogue. But, as a veil that is suddenly drawn aside, these humiliations were to give way, and be changed into the glories of the Resurrection [Honorius of Autun. Gemma animae. Lib. iii. cap. lxvi.]. Among other places where this rite is still observed, we may mention the Metropolitan Church of Paris, Notre Dame.

It was the custom also, in many Churches, to veil the Crucifix and the Statues of the Saints as soon as Lent began; in order to excite the Faithful to a livelier sense of penance, they were deprived of the consolation which the sight of these holy Images always brings to the soul. But this custom, which is still retained in some places, was less general than the more expressive one used in the Roman Church, and which we will explain in our next volume, - we mean the veiling the Crucifix and Statues only in Passion Time.

We learn from the Ceremonials of the Middle Ages, that, during Lent, and particularly on the Wednesdays and Fridays, processions used frequently to be made from one Church to another. In Monasteries, these Processions were made in the Cloister, and barefooted [Martène. De antiquis Eccles ritibus. Tom. iii. cap. xviii.]. This custom was suggested by the practice of Rome, where there is a Station for every day of Lent, and which, for many centuries, began by a procession to the Stational Church.

Lastly, - the Church has always been in the habit of adding to her prayers during the Season of Lent. Her present discipline is, that, on Ferias, in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, (which are not exempted by a custom to the contrary,) the following additions are to be made to the Canonical Hours: on Mondays, the Office of the Dead; on Wednesday, the Gradual Psalms; and on Fridays, the Penitential Psalms. In some Churches, during the Middle-Ages, the whole Psaltery was added each week of Lent to the usual Office [Martène. De antiquis Eccles ritibus. Tom. iii. cap. xviii.].

Traditional Lenten Discipline

2012-02-20T16:22:00.000Z

Giving stuff up for Lent is a great discipline. But have you ever wondered how our grandparents and forefathers observed Lent?

All weekdays of Lent: Fasting and Partial Abstinence
Wednesdays and Fridays: Fasting and Full Abstinence (also for Ember Saturday)

Abstinence = no meat.
Partial abstinence = meat allowed once a day at principal meal.
Fasting = Only one full meal, and two snacks or 'collations' that don't equal the one large meal.

"Note that in following these disciplines designed to make one mindful of Christ's sacrifice, to put the world into perspective, and to discipline the body, true charity trumps every other law; Catholics are not Pharisees. In other words, if you are asked to a sit-down dinner at a Protestant's house on Friday, and the host, unaware of Catholic practices, has worked hard to prepare a huge roast beef, eat the beef and shut up (unless you believe this person, upon learning of the discipline, would, say, see your having eaten the meat as a sign of Catholic weakness or hypocrisy and it would cause scandal or something. In other words, weigh the situation and show the Love of Christ)." http://www.fisheaters.com/fasting.html

Thanks to Beati Mundo Corde who pointed out that we had originally put up the American disciplines - this has now been corrected.

True Devotion to Our Lady

2012-02-19T20:37:00.001Z

St Louis de Montfort - he seems to be saying, 'Who do you think you are?!'

From Fr Erlenbush:

"In a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, the Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary (according to the method of St. Louis de Montfort) begins this year on Ash Wednesday (February 22nd) and concludes with the act of consecration on the Feast of the Annunciation (March 26th this year, moved because of the 5th Sunday of Lent).

"This year, the Total Consecration lines up perfectly with the season of Lent! This has only happened three times since de Montfort's death (1716), and it will not happen again until 2164.

"The spirituality of the Total Consecration fits well with Lent: It is the perfect renewal of our baptismal promises, which is precisely what the season of Lent is all about."

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Juventutem London - Traditional Mass before the HGPI Pro-Life Prayer Vigil

2012-02-15T22:54:00.000Z

Though we'll be in Lent, it will be the commemoration of the Forty Holy Martyrs

Because the mission of Juventutem is the sanctification of youth through the traditional Roman forms of the Sacraments, we will be going to the 8.00am traditional Latin Mass/extraordinary form at the Brompton Oratory before the vigil.

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WHAT:

We are going to the traditional Latin Mass at the Brompton Oratory before joining HGPIs at the new BPAS abortion facility in East London. It has recently been opened on the ground floor of a residential block of homes. East London has the worse abortion rate in the UK. This means an effective and prayerful pro-life presence is urgently needed.This vigil is an important and vital part of of all our pro-life efforts. So, please come and invite your friends.

WHERE:

Brompton Oratory (South Kensington Tube Station) - Abortion Facility in East London

WHEN: Saturday 10 March 2012, 8am

PROGRAMME

8.00am: Holy Mass at St Joseph's Altar, Brompton Oratory:

(We are going to the traditional Latin Mass at the Brompton Oratory before joining the rest of the party at the vigil.)

9.30: Prayerful and peaceful procession to the abortion facility, processing with image of our Lady of Guadalupe, rosary & hymns with full police co-operation (from St Francis Catholic Church (Grove Crescent Rd E15 1NS)
11.45pm: Return procession with prayers and hymns & Benediction
12.15pm Break for tea & get together. Please bring packed lunch

DIRECTIONS

Holy Mass - St Joseph's Altar, Brompton Oratory, (South Kensington Tube Station) (St Joseph's Altar). We will go over to the facility together after hearing Holy Mass.

Procession - Maryland Rail Stn. – National Rail (Richmond/Clapham Junction and Willesden Junction/ Gospel Oak). Stratford Stn. - Underground served by Central & Jubilee Lines: Docklands Light Railway: Buses – 25; 69; 86; 158; 241; 257.

Gueranger and the 'Mystery of Septuagesima'

2012-02-09T20:33:00.002Z

This is with credit to the excellent Liturgia Latina Project
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CHAPTER THE SECOND
THE MYSTERY OF SEPTUAGESIMAThe Season, upon which we are now entering, is expressive of several profound mysteries. But these mysteries belong not only to the three weeks, which are preparatory to Lent; they continue throughout the whole period of time, which separates us from the great Feast of Easter.

The number seven is the basis of all these mysteries. We have already seen how the Holy Church came to introduce the season of Septuagesima into her Calendar. Let us now meditate on the doctrine hid under the symbols of her Liturgy. And first, let us listen to St. Augustine, who thus gives us the clue to the whole of our Season’s mysteries. “There are two times,” says the Holy Doctor: “one which is now, and is spent in the temptations and tribulations of this life; the other which shall be then, and shall be spent in eternal security and joy. In figure of these, we celebrate two periods: the time ‘before Easter’ and the time ‘after Easter.’ That which is ‘before Easter,’ signifies the sorrow of this present life; that which is ‘after Easter,’ the blessedness of our future state. * * Hence it is, that we spend the first in fasting and prayer; and in the second, we give up our fasting, and give ourselves to praise.” [Enarrations; Psalm clviii.]

The Church, the interpreter of the Sacred Scriptures, often speaks to us of two places, which correspond with these two times of St. Augustine. These two places are Babylon and Jerusalem. Babylon is the image of this world of sin, in the midst whereof the Christian has to spend his years of probation; Jerusalem is the heavenly country, where he is to repose after all his trials. The people of Israel, whose whole history is but one great type of the human race, was banished from Jerusalem and kept in bondage in Babylon.

Now, this captivity, which kept the Israelites exiles from Sion, lasted seventy years; and it is to express this mystery, as Alcuin, Amalarius, Ivo of Chartres, and all the great Liturgists tell us, that the Church fixed the number of Seventy for the days of expiation. It is true, there are but sixty-three days between Septuagesima and Easter; but the Church, according to the style so continually used in the Sacred Scriptures, uses the round number instead of the literal and precise one.

The duration of the world itself, according to the ancient Christian tradition, is divided into seven ages. The human race must pass through seven Ages before the dawning of the Day of eternal life. The first Age included the time from the creation of Adam to Noah; the second begins with Noah and the renovation of the earth by the Deluge, and ends with the vocation of Abraham; the third opens with this first formation of God’s chosen people, and continues as far as Moses, through whom God gave the Law; the fourth consists of the period between Moses and David, in whom the house of Juda received the kingly power; the fifth is formed of the years, which passed between David’s reign and the captivity of Babylon, inclusively; the sixth dates from the return of the Jews to Jerusalem, and takes us on as far as the Birth of our Saviour. Then, finally, comes the seventh Age; it starts with the rising of this merciful Redeemer, the Sun of Justice, and is to continue till the dread coining of the Judge of the living and the dead. These are the Seven great divisions of Time; after which, Eternity.

In order to console us in the midst of the combats, which so thickly beset our path, the Church, - like a beacon shining amidst the darkness of this our earthly abode, - shows us another Seven, which is to succeed the one we are now preparing to pass through. After the Septuagesima of mourning, we shall have the bright Easter with its Seven weeks of gladness, foreshadowing the happiness and bliss of Heaven. After having fasted with our Jesus, and suffered with him, the day will come when we shall rise together with him, and our hearts shall follow him to the highest heavens, and then after a brief interval, we shall feel descending upon us the Holy Ghost, with his Seven Gifts. The celebration of all these wondrous joys will take us Seven weeks, as the great Liturgists observe in their interpretation of the Rites of the Church:- the seven joyous weeks from Easter to Pentecost will not be too long for the future glad Mysteries, which, after all, will be but figures of a still gladder future, the future of eternity.

Having heard these sweet whisperings of hope, let us now bravely face the realities brought before us by our dear Mother the Church. We are sojourners upon this earth; we are exiles and captives in Babylon, that city which plots our ruin. If we love our country, - if we long to return to it, - we must be proof against the lying allurements of this strange land, and refuse the cup she proffers us, and with which she maddens so many of our fellow captives. She invites us to join in her feasts and her songs; but we must unstring our harps, and hang them on the willows that grow on her river’s bank, till the signal be given for our return to Jerusalem [Ps. cxxv]. She will ask us to sing to her the melodies of our dear Sion: but, how shall we, who are so far from home, have heart to sing the Song of the Lord in a strange Land? [Ps. cxxxvi]. No, - there must be no sign that we are content to be in bondage, or we shall deserve to be slaves for ever.

These are the sentiments wherewith the Church would inspire us, during the penitential Season, which we are now beginning. She wishes us to reflect on the dangers that beset us, - dangers which arise from our own selves, and from creatures. During the rest of the year, she loves to hear us chant the song of heaven, the sweet Alleluia! - but now, she bids us close our lips to this word of joy, because we are in Babylon. We are pilgrims absent from Our Lord [II Cor. v. 6]; - let us keep our glad hymn for the day of his return. We are sinners, and have but too often held fellowship with the world of God’s enemies; let us become purified by repentance, for it is written, that Praise is unseemly in the mouth of a sinner [Ecclus. xv. 9].

The leading feature, then, of Septuagesima is the total suspension of the Alleluia, which is not to be again heard upon the earth, until the arrival of that happy day, when, having suffered death with our Jesus, and having been buried together with him, we shall rise again with him to a new life [Coloss. ii. 12].

The sweet Hymn of the Angels, Gloria in excelsis Deo, which we have sung every Sunday since the Birth of our Saviour in Bethlehem, is also taken from us; it is only on the Feasts of the Saints, which may be kept during the week, that we shall be allowed to repeat it. The night Office of the Sunday is to lose, also, from now till Easter, its magnificent Ambrosian Hymn, the Te Deum; and at the end of the Holy Sacrifice, the Deacon will no longer dismiss the Faithful with his solemn Ite, Missa est, but will simply invite them to continue their prayers in silence, and bless the Lord, the God of mercy, who bears with us, notwithstanding all our sins.

After the Gradual of the Mass, instead of the thrice repeated Alleluia, which prepared our hearts to listen to the voice of God in the Holy Gospel, we shall hear but a mournful and protracted chant, called, on that account, the Tract.

That the eye, too, may teach us, that the Season we are entering on, is one of mourning, the Church will vest her Ministers, (both on Sundays and the days during the week, which are not Feasts of Saints,) in the sombre Purple. Until Ash Wednesday, however, she permits the Deacon to wear his dalmatic, and the Subdeacon his tunic; but from that day forward, they must lay aside these vestments of joy, for Lent will then have begun, and our holy Mother will inspire us with the deep spirit of penance, by suppressing everything of that glad pomp, which she loves, at other seasons, to bring into the Sanctuary of her God.

February Monthly Mass & Social

2012-02-09T20:00:00.001Z

Fr Simon Henry of Offerimus Tibi Domine will be offering Mass for us at St Mary Moorfields' on 24th February at 6.30pm. We hope to have confessions being heard from 6.00pm. After the Mass we will be having a social downstairs.

We are now in Septuagesima. Time to be revving up for Lent.

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Rosary at Tyburn for the conversion of Europe, Wednesday 15 February

2012-01-31T16:35:00.001Z

"There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot solve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary we will save ourselves. We will sanctify ourselves. We will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls."
~ Sister Lucia of Fatima

Join Juventutem London on Wednesday 15 February as we pray the Rosary for the conversion of Europe at Tyburn, a site where at least one hundred and five martyrs gave their lives in witness to the truths of the Holy Catholic Church.

We will meet at 6.30pm in The Relic Chapel at the Tyburn Convent, 8-9 Hyde Park Place, London W2 2LJ

Father Marcus Holden will preach beforehand and lead the Rosary. During the fifth mystery of the Rosary we will walk to the site of the Tyburn Tree and conclude the Rosary there with a blessing from Father Holden.

All our welcome to come and join us in the Rosary.

Afterwards there will be a social at The Carpenters Arms pub for those aged 18-35, with an exception for priests and religious. The Carpenters Arms itself has a wonderful connection to the martyrs:

"The gallows itself subsequently consisted of two uprights and a cross-beam, erected on the morning of execution across the Edgware Road, opposite the house at the corner of Upper Bryanston Street and the Edgware Road, wherein the gallows was deposited after being used; this house had curious iron balconies to the windows of the first and second floors, where the sheriffs sat to witness the executions. After the place of execution was changed to Newgate, in 1783, the gallows was bought by a carpenter, and made into stands for beer-butts in the cellars of the 'Carpenters' Arms' public-house, hard by."

reference: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45231

Join us as we unite our prayers with Our Lady and the English Martyrs for the conversion of Europe.

"I pray God that my blood may increase the Catholic faith in England."
~ Blessed George Haydock, executed at Tyburn, 12 February 1584.

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IMPORTANT APPEAL from Fr de MALLERAY

2012-01-21T22:16:00.004Z

Dear Friend,
You will surely agree with me on the necessity of promoting the family as an institution, so badly attacked in our modern world. This implies a renewed understanding of the sacrament of matrimony, upon which the family is grounded. Whether you are married or not, or were married or do intend to remain celibate: reflecting with us on the riches of this sacrament will enable you to appreciate it better, for your own benefit if you are married, or simply to support spouses or prospective spouses among your relatives, friends and colleagues in their beautiful calling. For this reason, I would be very glad if you could attend our session (many different options to participate below).


I assure you of my prayer. Fr de Malleray, FSSP





Please book for your Session at Douai Abbey on 24-26 February on the theme: ‘The beautiful sacrament of Matrimony’.


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Ø  MATRIMONY SESSION: 24-26 February 2012, by Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP





Ø  Theme: ‘The beautiful sacrament of matrimony’. Formarried and single lay persons alike.


We will explore the perspective set by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI in his Address on 27 January 2007: “the expression "truth of the marriage" loses its existential importance in a cultural context that is marked by relativism and juridical positivism, which regard marriage as a mere social formalization of emotional ties. Consequently, not only is it becoming incidental, as human sentiments can be, but it is also presented as a legal superstructure of the human will that can be arbitrarily manipulated and even deprived of its heterosexual character.


This crisis of the meaning of marriage is also influencing the attitude of many of the faithful. The practical effects of what I have called "the hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture" with regard to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, is felt especially acutely in the sphere of marriage and the family.


Indeed, it seems to some that the conciliar teaching on marriage, and in particular, the description of this institution as "intima communitas vitae et amoris" [the intimate partnership of life and love] (Gaudium et Spes, n. 48), must lead to a denial of the existence of an indissoluble conjugal bond because this would be a question of an "ideal" to which "normal Christians" cannot be "constrained". [... On the contrary,] marriage has a truth of its own - that is, the human knowledge, illumined by the Word of God, of the sexually different reality of the man and of the woman with their profound needs for complementarity, definitive self-giving and exclusivity - to whose discovery and deepening reason and faith harmoniously contribute.”


Ø  Starts Friday 24^th February 5pm (arrival from 4pm) – ends Sunday 26^th February 2012 (departure from 4pm).Please note: depending on your working hours and means of transportation, later arrival or earlier departure times should not prevent you from attending. Led by Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP.


Ø  Location: Douai Abbey, Upper Woolhampton, Reading, Berkshire, RG7 5TQ, England. Abbey website:www.douaiabbey.org.uk. Nearest train station (1.2 mile): Midgham (between Reading and Newbury). Taxi, or lift by Guestmaster possible: Tel : 0118 971 5399.


Ø  Schedule: Spiritual conferences, Eucharistic adoration. Meals with music or with table readings. Possibility of attending Holy Mass in the EF each of the three days (i.e. Friday 6pm, Saturday and Sunday). Retreatants not used to silence will have times and areas to talk if they wish. Parents wishing to bring children, please contact us.


Ø  Cost: Substantial discounts granted by Abbey: please contact us if money is an obstacle. Or: £150/person for single room or £120 for shared room, full board, including VAT.


Ø  Booking: please send us a £30 deposit, by cheque made payable to FSSP ENGLAND. You do not need to pay anything further until we meet at the retreat.

January Mass & Social + Hilary Term Card 2012

2012-01-03T16:18:00.001Z

St John Chrysostom

We have now put together this terms basic events - though we will have more stuff going on through the term, these are the regular monthly Masses and socials. We will be meeting at St Mary Moorfields for the feast of St John Chrysostom (27th January) at 6.30pm - the facebook event is
here.

St Hilary

Hilary Term is, of course, named after St Hilary of Poitiers, whose feast falls in January. The term card is
here.

Juventutem London wins LOTH New Years Honour!

2012-01-01T14:25:00.000Z

Thanks to Baron Collins of Linen on the Hedgerow for recognising what we're doing with the 'Hope for the Future'. Much appreciated!

Schola News

2011-12-31T22:47:00.002Z

Our Schola, ably led by Matthew Schellhorn, has recently been affiliated with the Gregorian Chant Network. We also have a blog, that is linked in the sidebar and underneath our ever-pertinent appeal for money, which I include below.

Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of right spikenard, of great price, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, he that was about to betray him, said: Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor? Now he said this not because he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, having the purse, carried the things that were put therein. Jesus therefore said: Let her alone, that she may keep it against the day of my burial. For the poor you have always with you: but me you have not always.

John 12.3-8

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We will be able to find some of the money from the collections, but a sizeable proportion of Juventutem London are penniless students. And the three of us who organise this, we're just a few guys with no resources except for time and love.

If you thought that this was a prelude to asking for money, you were right. So:

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Please Help Juventutem London Glorify God Through Sacred Music!

Youngsters being attracted by the sacred beauty of the Traditional Latin Mass

Cantus Magnus singing at the September 2011 Solemn Mass

What is Juventuem London?

Juventutem London is a very exciting initiative taking place in, unsurprisingly, London. It is a part of the International Juventutem Federation, which is dedicated to the sanctification of the youth using the traditional forms of the sacraments - most obviously, the Traditional Latin Mass (also known as the 'Extraordinary Form' or the usus antiquior). There are no charges and no registration procedures for 'members' ('members' being anyone who comes along). We are in good standing with the archdiocese of Westminster, and are on good terms with Bishop Alan Hopes, with whom we have discussed our aims and objectives.

What Does It Do?

We are rapidly approaching our first anniversary: we were founded on a train on the way back from the Young Catholic Adults retreat at Douai Abbey (this year happening 9-11th September), and our first meeting was in November. Since our inception, we have grown so much in size that we have had to move to a larger church, with hospitality facilities. Our Masses are, of course, open to all - but our socials are reserved for those aged 18-35.

Pro-Life

We have very close ties with the Good Counsel Network, a crisis pregnancy service. All of our Masses are offered for their intentions.

Attracting Loads of Young People to the Old Rite

Many of our young members had never experienced the Traditional Latin Mass before coming to Juventutem London. Juventutem London has helped many young people to see the beauty of the traditional rite of Mass. We attract many, many young people of all ranges of experience of the old Mass, and still now people contact us to tell us that they will be coming along for the first time, wanting to know what to expect.

Why You Should Your Spend Money on Sacred Music

Our choir is made up of professional musicians, and is mandated to provide us with plainchant propers and a polyphonic ordinary. It is imperative that we have music of the highest standard at the Masses we organise for three reasons: 1) As a matter of justice, God deserves the best we can give him. 2) Our Lord makes clear in the Gospels that the service done to him by St Mary Magdalene was of more value than Judas Iscariot's suggestion of giving it to the poor. Elsewhere, Our Lord says to Mary's sister: "Martha, Martha, you are careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her" (Luke 10.41-42). Nothing sowed in the Sacred Liturgy will be wasted. 3) Beauty has an attractive power, that reveals the beauty of God to the young Catholics in the pews.

Only Regular High Mass in London

Currently, we are the only group who offer a regular Solemn High Mass in the archdiocese. Our intention had been to have this arranged for every month, but our financial situation is such that we cannot afford to arrange the music for more than one High Mass every two months. We really want to have a High Mass, which lest we forget is the normative form of the Mass, offered at least monthly in the capital city.

We Have Nothing to Offer You in Return

We can offer you nothing in return except our thanks, our prayers, and the knowledge that you have contributed to the greater glory of God through the use of beautiful sacred music. This is the perfect way to put Matthew 6.4 and Luke 14.14 into practice.

If you wish to donate, please do so using this button, and leave a note saying: 'Juventutem Choir Fund'.

Thanks!

2011-12-24T09:34:00.000Z

Last night we had our monthly Solemn High Mass. It was a ferial Mass of the Fourth Sunday of Advent (Rorate).

After Mass we had a social and supper in the church's social area downstairs, where we had mulled wine and sung a few carols, which Fr Finigan in particular seemed to enjoy! After that we went to the pub. Our next Mass and Social will be 27th January for the feast of St John Chrysostom.

We'd like to thank Fr Newby for the use of his church and function room - and also Dom Andrew Southwell for offering the Mass, Fr Timothy Finigan and Fr Simon Leworthy FSSP for Deaconing and Subdeaconing, and to Fr Leon Pereira OP for hearing confessions. Thanks also extended to Mr Dimon and all the servers and Mr Kang the usher. We'd also like to thank the Oke family for the benfactious benefactions of food for the evening, and Miss Nevard and Miss Cox for helping out further with food. And of course, as always, Mr Schellhorn, our long-suffering music director!

Juventutem London wishes all our benefactors and members a peaceful and happy Christmas!

December Mass & Social

2011-12-14T12:27:00.001Z

It will be taking place at St Mary Moorfields, Eldon Street at 6.30pm on 23rd December. Facebook here.

Rosary at Tyburn for the conversion of Europe

2011-11-30T18:12:00.003Z

"Go out and convince the world that it must be dedicated to the Blessed Virgin if it will find peace" ~ Pope Pius XII

Inspired by a homily of Dom Andrew Southwell OSB Juventutem London are beginning a Rosary for the conversion of Europe on Tuesday 13th December, 6.30pm near the site of the Tyburn Tree. The site of the Tyburn Tree is at the southern end of the Edgware Road on the traffic island opposite the Odeon cinema. The closest tube station is Marble Arch. *UPDATE* We will meet at the Speakers Corner coffee hut in Hyde Park, opposite the site of the Tyburn Tree and begin our prayers in the park. We'll walk to Tyburn during the final decade and conclude there with a blessing from Fr Redman.

The Rosary will be led by Father Alexander Redman and will include a reflection on the English Martyrs and the power of the Rosary. Brown Scapulars will be available and it will possible to enrol after the Rosary.

Afterwards we'll go somewhere nearby for a social, albeit probably with an earlier finish for most of us than our Friday evening gatherings.

As ever, all our welcome, to join us in prayer, but the social afterwards is only for those aged 18-35, with an exception made for priests and religious.

Juventutem London pray at the site of the Tyburn Tree after the vigil with Pope Benedict XVI in Hyde Park, 2010

In the early part of the thirteenth century Saint Dominic, Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Angelus the Carmelite, met one day on a street corner in Rome (a chapel still stands at the spot to commemorate this event). Saint Dominic then uttered a famous prophecy:

"To my Order, the Blessed Virgin will entrust a devotion to be known as the Rosary and to your Order, Angelus, She will entrust a devotion to be known as the Scapular. One day through the Rosary and the Scapular, She will save the world."

www.freebrownscapular.com

Match Report

2011-11-26T19:01:00.001Z

Thank you to Fr Finigan for offering Holy Mass for us last night at St Mary Moorfield's, Liverpool St/Moorgate. Thank you also to Fr Newby (the Parish Priest) for the use of his church and facilities at the last minute! We would also like to extend thanks to Mr Schellhorn and Cantus Magnus, Mr Dimon the MC and the servers, and to everyone who came.

After the Requiem we descended into the hospitality facilities of St Mary Moorfield's, where we had a convivial glass of wine and crisps until the pizza arrived. After this we cleared up and went to the pub.

We are not entirely sure when our next Mass is - please watch this space!

NEWSFLASH: Change of Venue for Friday's Mass

2011-11-23T18:26:00.001Z

NEWSFLASH

This month's Mass & Social will not be taking place at St Pat's, Soho. It will instead be taking place at St Mary Moorfields, the address is below. Thanks to Fr Sherbrooke at St Pat's where we usually have Mass, and also to Fr Newby at St Mary Moorfields for welcoming us at short notice.

St Mary Moorfields,
4-5 Eldon Street,
London
EC2M 7LS

Nearest stations are Liverpool Street and Moorgate.

Requiem Mass for the Dead

Missa Cantata

St Patrick's, Soho

6.30pm, 25th November

Celebrant: Fr Timothy Finigan

Music: Cantus Magnus

Unfortunately we will not be having confessions.

As ever, we will have a social after for those aged 18-35. This is our first anniversary as a group

Facebook

November Mass & Social

2011-11-16T11:14:00.001Z

Chagne of Venue:

St Mary Moorfields,
4-5 Eldon Street,
London,
EC2M 7LS
United Kingdom

Requiem Mass for the Dead
Missa Cantata
St Patrick's, Soho
6.30pm, 25th November

Celebrant: Fr Timothy Finigan

Music: Cantus Magnus

Unfortunately we will not be having confessions.

As ever, we will be going for supper after Mass. This is our first anniversary as a group

Facebook

A Relative

2011-11-14T23:03:00.001Z

Christ the Eternal High Priest Catholic Church, Gidea Park - where my relative and I were as children (full of lovely people, I should add. There's something really important about being in a good parish, which this is, in spite of architecture) [www.historyfiles.co.uk]

The Methodist church that we saw everytime we walked to Mass

This evening I was out with a couple of relatives, and I mentioned to them about the LMS Requiem that is taking place at Westminster Cathedral on Saturday (watch this space for the Juventutem chapter), and prompted by the Westminster Cathedral/Abbey geographical oddity, one of my relatives - who hasn't been going to Mass for a while, and is not involved with any of this stuff - made the following observation:

"We all know that all the nice old churches that are owned by the Church of England, we know we're not getting them back. So why is it that the Catholics insist on building temporary churches? They should give up, we're not getting the nice ones back. Why can't they build nice ones that look like old ones, rather than ones that look like portakabins?"

This phenomenon of ugly churches has come out of the cult of ugliness, the iconoclastic idea that there is something beautiful about ugliness that Dr Shaw talks about here. It is Protestant really - although perhaps that's unfair to people like Christopher Wren. It is puritanical, hence the picture of the non-conformist church from my old town above. The issue that my relative was talking about is exactly the same as that we face in the liturgy, as Dr Shaw illustrates in that post. It goes right along with what ++Bugnini, the architect of the liturgical reform, said in L'Ossevatore Romana (March 19, 1965):

"We must strip from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren, that is, for the Protestants."

Brompton Oratory (by TheFella)

Romanian Orthodox church - RoWatcher

Recently featured on NLM

I just found it very interesting that it was this relative making this observation. He is a young guy who, even if he believes in God, does not feel the need to go to Mass on a Sunday etc. Yet he comes out with something like this. If it is so that the Bishops' Conference wants to re-evanglise this country and fish back the 5,000,000 or so lapsed Catholics (an effort we commend and wish to contribute to through this apostolate), I hope they factor concerns for beauty into the equation. Because ugly churches based on the hippy ideologies just make the Church look like a sad artefact of a hasbeen generation.

First Anniversary

2011-11-12T22:01:00.001Z

We took a little snap at the first Juventutem London meeting, last year.

Today (12th November 2011) is the first anniversary of Juventutem London. There are three ways we could have dated that. We could have said 'Second Friday of November' (11th November 2011), or we could have said 'Whenever we meet in November' - or we could say today. Let's go with today.

We have grown quite a bit over the last year!

To those happy few who were there at the start - we salute you!

To those who have come along since - we salute you!

To those who will come in the future - we salute you!

Please say a prayer for this apostolate that, that if it be the will of God, it flourishes and contributes to the sanctification of the youth through the traditional Roman forms of the sacraments and liturgy.

Upcoming Events

2011-11-08T10:32:00.001Z

The Priestly Fraternity of St Peter have got two events coming up in the near future. It just so happens that these two events are for men, but this is not always the case. Also to our female readers, if you have brothers/cousins/friends etc that can be bullied into going, please do! The Fraternity's place, St John Fisher House, is a great place to spend a weekend.

Vocation discernment weekend, at St John Fisher House in Reading on 16-17-18 December 2011:

For Catholic men between 18 and 35 years of age (under 18 please contact us).

Starts on Friday 16^th December 2011 at 6pm – ends on Sunday 18^th December 2011 mid-afternoon. Led by Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP.

Location: St John Fisher House is the residence of the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter in England & Wales.

Address: 17, Eastern Avenue, Reading, RG1 5RU, England.

Access: 27mn from London Paddington by direct trains up to every 10mn, and from London Waterloo. Direct trains from Oxford, Bournemouth, Bristol, Newcastle, York, Birmingham, Gatwick Airport, Southampton Airport, etc. Direct ‘RailAir’ buses from Heathrow to Reading train station every 20mn. Motorway: M4.

Limited overnight accommodation: please book now.

Programme: Spiritual conferences, socials, Holy Mass each of the three days (Extraordinary Form of the Roman rite) including polyphonic Sunday Mass, silent prayer, private talk with Fr de Malleray, FSSP. Fr de Malleray will explain what a vocation is in general and to the priesthood in particular. Read here the Holy Father’s recent Letter to seminarians. Extract: “The proper celebration of the Eucharist involves knowing, understanding and loving the Church’s liturgy in its concrete form. In the liturgy we pray with the faithful of every age – the past, the present and the future are joined in one great chorus of prayer. As I can state from personal experience, it is inspiring to learn how it all developed, what a great experience of faith is reflected in the structure of the Mass, and how it has been shaped by the prayer of many generations.”

Cost: no set price for students or unemployed – any donation welcome; others: £50 suggested.

New: our special Vocations flyer and videos on www.fssp.org.uk/england/pages/vocations.

Altar servers’ weekend (residential): at St John Fisher House in Reading on 18-19-20 November 2011:

For single Catholic men between 18 and 35 years of age (under 18 please contact us).

Starts on Friday 18^th November 2011 at 6pm – ends on Sunday 20^th November 2011 mid-afternoon. Led by Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP.

In a convivial atmosphere, come and learn (or improve) how to set the vestments and sacred items before Mass and to serve Low Mass and Benediction. EF Mass on the Friday evening, Saturday morning and Sunday morning. Fr de Malleray will give explanations on the liturgy.

Limited overnight accommodation: please book now. Non residential participants welcome.

Sky-Fairy Myth Believing Cretins

2011-11-07T09:59:00.000Z

I don't normally advertise blogs for the sake of advertising them. But Bones has pulled out a corker now. It needs some backstory first.

First he got annoyed that Richard Dawkins referred to our most blessed Lord as a 'great moral teacher' - and wrote an article debunking this specious idea. A few days later, there was an Aquinas post. After that, he wrote a great article (despite its dangerous suggestion that the existence of God might not be able to be reached through the natural light of reason, cf Vatican I) about God's Silence and the implications thereof.

Then came a traditional Bones Flight of Fancy post, a hilarious imaginative sketch of a bizarre situation (cf Catholic's Guide to Gay Pride, That Was Not my Mass etc). This one was about 'proving' love.

Once you've taken a glance at them you'll be able to put this new blog in context. I'm loving it, checking it a few times every day. The Patrons down the side are almost as good as the cretins!

Fr Hunwicke said in his 'After-Dinner Speech' about the importance of satire, and the Emperor's New Clothes. It seems that Bones is doing a valuable service here.

Sky-Fairy Myth Believing Cretins Blog

"PEREIRA DELENDUS EST"

2011-10-30T17:40:00.001Z

That, at least, will be the cries of his enemies after this intervention.

Fr Pereira takin' names at 40 Days for Life with Juventutem London

Someone get this man a blog! Fr Leon Pereira OP, a great friend of Juventutem, has demonstrated titanic quantities of masculinity and courage in speaking out against Blackfriars Oxford's invitation of Dr John Cruddas MP to the Las Casas institute. This is all the more impressive because Fr Pereira has dared to raise his voice against those he must love the most, his own Dominican brethren. We all know how hard it is to confront friends and family about issues - we are always tempted to remain silent, to let things go and to keep the peace. Please pray for Fr Pereira, who will undoubtedly receive a lot of flack for this article he provided for Catholics: Called to be Faithful, Not to Compromise and Smeaton's Corner.

I urge the friars and students of Blackfriars to read and consider the words of this brave man. Here he is:

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Dr Cruddas’ voting record as an MP on abortion and same sex unions is not in keeping with the teaching or mind of the Catholic Church. This matters all the more because I am given to understand that Dr Cruddas describes himself as a ‘practising Catholic’ - a designation at odds with his actions as an MP. His actions appropriate the dimension of scandal precisely because he is a public figure. Therefore what he says and does in public which is contrary to Catholic faith and morals, all the while describing himself as a ‘practising Catholic’, are a scandal to the Faithful and prone to reinforce the assumption that perhaps these things (abortion, same sex unions, etc) do not matter, and that Catholics may reasonably conform their mind to that of the age, and still somehow (mysteriously!) remain fully Catholic without incurring any penalties whatsoever. That is a grave wrong wrought against God and His Church.

Is the Church then unable to dialogue with institutions or individuals who hold certain beliefs contrary to our Faith? Not at all. From the beginning we prayed for the very same emperors and authorities who persecuted and killed us. We appealled to them, to their reason, for tolerance and for the truth (the sole truth that comes from God which they can still perceive by the use of their reason, and not necessarily faith) which enables genuine justice and peace in society.

Notice how in her history the Church has not hesitated to negotiate with authorities, no matter how evil their deeds. We hold out the hope for their conversion and salvation, beginning with the cessation of their evil deeds, but also we do not see anything or anyone as beyond hope whilst they are still in via, still alive.
So in our desire to spread the Gospel, we should never be reluctant to dialogue with anyone, whatever their beliefs, so long as they are genuinely open to dialogue. You cannot dialogue with soliloquists, but we can still pray for them. I see the invitation extended to Dr Cruddas as a great opportunity for the friars at Blackfriars, Oxford, to ascertain where exactly his faith has gone wrong, and how his conscience has come to be so deformed. I am not too surprised that he has ended up like this, because the Church in our country has for too long been filled with compromise on essentials, and tolerated error - error which has poisoned the minds of too many Catholics who take secular assumptions as their yardstick in morals, and not Christ and His authoritative teaching, expressed by His Church.

But when Blackfriars opens its doors to the public to hear Dr Cruddas, this becomes a different matter. The invitation, although not an awards ceremony, nevertheless takes on the air of an accolade. Out of politeness it is unlikely that Dr Cruddas will be asked serious (however awkward) questions. Instead it is most likely he will leave Blackfriars with a sense of vindication, confirmed in his erroneous position by our silence and misplaced courtesy. Is it inconceivable that he or his supporters may say that he was honoured by an invitation to Blackfriars, where he set forth his positions in a well-received and unchallenged lecture, etc? The false impression given then is that Dr Cruddas truly is what he calls himself: a ‘practising Catholic’. And it is the Catholic in the pew who will suffer - either by being misled into error, or by the scandal this will cause.

At the heart of this, I wonder why Dr Cruddas in particular was invited by the Las Casas Institute? There are many MPs to invite, so the reason is unlikely to be his membership of the Commons. I hazard that it is his Catholicism and perhaps his affiliation to the Labour Party. But, as I have said above, his distorted understanding of the Catholic Faith is a scandal because he is a public figure. There seems to be an assumption in this country that to be Catholic is to be Labour. This naivete reached a nadir in the fawning displayed by our Church over that most reprehensible couple Tony and Cherie Blair. In Mr Blair’s case, I cannot understand how he could be received into the Church without a public abjuration of his erroneous beliefs and practices - for example, his own voting record on abortion. These were errors he committed before he became a Catholic, but they were in the public sphere, and his reception as a Catholic without any recantation is a continuing scandal.

The Church must remember that her one Lord and Spouse is Jesus Christ, and not hurry to jump into bed blithely and blindly with any political party or establishment. It is such ‘promiscuity’ which infects us, infects our faith, and makes the Church weak, sick and compromised.

The assumption that the Church’s social teaching is more naturally alligned to the political Left is a false one. The great irony is that Dr Cruddas (who has woefully failed to stand up for the Catholic teaching on abortion by his voting) has been invited by an institute committed to ‘justice and peace’ (our normal shorthand for Catholic Social Doctrine) when the single greatest justice and peace issue in our country is abortion! Is that like inviting the BNP to speak on ethnic minorities?

Justice and peace has, in the U.K., often been interpreted as ‘soft’ issues, that the middle classes can protest safely, for example, nuclear weapons and their disarmament, or ecological issues. I call them ‘soft’ because they do not impact our daily lives, even though we live in the shadow of nuclear destruction and environmental pollution (I am suspicious of ‘Climate Change’ being treated as a pseudo-religion, one which supplants the Gospel in the minds of too many Catholics and Christians; the only unforgiveable sin for them seems to be one’s ‘carbon footprint’). The things which do impact our daily lives are abortion, employment, just wages, euthanasia, the poison of contraception, and the erosion of both marriage and the family.

Perhaps the ‘Cruddas Affair’ is a wake up call to Catholics. Why is the Church so sycophantically snuggling up to the Left? Why do we tolerate errors on this scale? Why are Catholic public figures not brought to task for the scandal they cause? Justice and peace must be at the heart of the Church’s faith and morals, and I mean true justice and peace, and not simply those ‘easy’ or ‘soft’ issues which the wider society will not object too much to, and which does not require individual Catholics to convert to the Gospel.

We sign agreements to make our parishes ‘Fair Trade friendly’. That requires a conversion of sorts, although I understand that Fair Trade as it now stands could be improved and made fairer. But why do we not make a covenant with all our families (remember, they are the ‘domestic Church’ according to Vatican II!) to be ‘Humanae Vitae friendly’? Is it a good use of our energies to chain ourselves to the gates of Faslane, when hundreds of thousands of children are slaughtered in our cities every year? Probably not, but it is easier isn't it? It's easier to moan about carbon footprints than to form our consciences according to the mind of Holy Mother Church. But then the Gospel isn't about what's easier.

Yours,

Fr Leon Pereira, O.P.

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Hat tip to Rev Fr Philip Endean SJ for grammatical clarifications.

Juventutem London: October

2011-10-29T13:59:00.000+01:00

We have just had our October meeting - a Solemn High Mass at St Patrick's Soho offered by Father Simon Leworthy FSSP, with Dom Andrew Southwell OSB and Fr Leon Pereira OP as Deacon and Subdeacon. Thank you to the sacred ministers, and also to Mgr John Armitage who kindly offered at the last-minute to come and hear confessions. Juventutem London would also like to extend thanks to Mr Gordon Read (MC) and the servers, and to Mr Schellhorn for leading the Juventutem chant group, Schola Maria Magdalena, on their maiden voyage. Thanks also to Dr Shaw for taking photographs (which will surface soon I am sure) and to the congregation. Last but not least, thanks to Fr Alexander Sherbrooke and St Patrick's Soho for hosting us.

We'll put some pictures up and announce the details of the next event shortly.

Juventutem London are going to Oxford

2011-10-17T05:20:00.001+01:00

Shamelessly taken from the excellent Juventutem Oxford blog...

~

This is the big event of the year for the Latin Mass Society locally, and involves not only a a really splendid Mass with beautiful singing, but a procession through the streets of Oxford from the place where some of the Catholic Martyrs were held, before their execution, to the place of execution itself. The priests who died in 1589 were dragged to their execution on hurdles; it seems right that we should retrace that route on foot, in thanksgiving for their witness to the faith, and in doing so make an act of witness ourselves.

This Pilgrimage has been instrumental in getting Oxford's two sites of martyrdom publicly recognised. This year we are going to the place where two priests and two laymen were hanged in 1589; there is a slate plaque marking the site at the end of Holywell Street (on number 100) which was blessed at the Oxford Pilgrimage by an auxiliary bishop of the Birmingham diocese, Bishop William Kenne, in 2008. Last year Archbishop Longely himself blessed another plaque, marking the site of the martyrdom of Bl George Napier, in the Castle, during the Oxford Pilgrimage. So look out for these plaques! They are not just tourist attractions, but sites of special spiritual significance. In these places the Catholic Faith was confirmed by the blood of martyrs.

So come along to Mass in Blackfriars at 11am on Saturday 22nd, Sat of 2nd Week, for a Solemn Mass in the ancient Dominican Rite celebrated by the Dominicans. The procession starts from outside St Michael at the North Gate, the Saxon church in Cornmarket which stood next to the Bocardo Prison in the 16th Century, at 2pm. We will walk down Broad Street and Holywell Street singing the Litany of the Saints, the Te Deum, and English hymns, and back again to Blackfriars for Benediction.

If anyone would like to be a marshall, or would like to volunteer to carry the LMS banner or the very exciting new processional statue which will be used for the first time on this procession, please email us!

(Photos: Archbishop Bernard Longley leading the procession in 2010; Solemn Mass in Blackfriars on the same occasion.)

Juventutem London will find our way to a local inn or restaurant at the conclusion of the pilgrimage. We've got a Facebook event page. Please feel free to use it to invite all your friends.

Pilgrimage of Grace

2011-10-13T23:49:00.000+01:00

Today is the anniversary of the Pilgrimage of Grace. This article below is not in about the Pilgrimage of Grace but it is about a similar occurrence that took place in West Country, a place very close to this writer's heart (source). Enjoy.

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ExcerptsFrom

LITURGICALREVOLUTION

Cranmer'sGodly Order

byMichael Davies

"GodlyOrder" or "Christmas Game"?

THEREACTION to the new liturgy has already been touched upon in Chapter VIII. Itwas shown that most of the clergy tended to make use of the ambiguities in thenew communion service in an attempt to interpret it in an orthodox manner. Thisreaction will be examined in detail in the next two chapters. The ordinaryfaithful did not possess the theological skill to put an orthodoxinterpretation upon a radical break with the traditions of their forefathers. Ifthe Reformers had no intention of altering the traditional doctrine of the Massthen why had they changed the traditional liturgy? As is so often the case, theintuition of the simple faithful proved to be the most accurate and the mosthonest. Scholars like Gardiner who tried to show that the new service wascompatible with the Catholic doctrine on the Mass could certainly have had noillusions about the beliefs and intentions of Cranmer and his associates. Asthe Anglican historian J. T. Tomlinson expresses it: " . . . the FirstPrayer Book was regarded at that time as merely provisional until theEnglish Reformers could give full effect to their own predilections." ^l

Thechanges in religious policy made during the reign of Henry VIII had passed overthe heads of the mass of the English people. The suppression of chantries in1547 and the removal of images had brought the nature of Protestantism home toevery parish. The imposition of the new communion service proved to be the laststraw in some cases, and it provoked a number of armed risings.

Like allreformers, those who had devised and imposed the new liturgy were confidentthat they knew what was best for the people . . . The services must beunderstood by the people and made congregational, the people must be turnedfrom spectators intent upon their private devotions into activeparticipants." ² The new service became mandatory on 9th June, 1549,Whit-Sunday. However the congregational activity which it evoked was notexactly of the kind which Cranmer had intended. The parishioners of SampfordCourtenay-----a beautiful granite churchon the edge of Dartmoor-----"heard it read and did not like it, and on thefollowing day they compelled their parish priest to return to the old ritual.They likened the new service to 'a Christmas game' and would have no changesuntil the king was of full age." ³ A contemporary Protestant historian complained thatthe parish priest "yielded to their wills and forthwith raversheth himselfin his old popish attire and sayeth mass and all such services as in times pastaccustomed." ⁴

Localjustices of the peace came to remonstrate with the peasants-----but it was of no avail. Onewas so tactless that a farmer named Letherbridge struck him with his billhookand others "fell upon him and slew him . . ." ⁵ The west country men werein no mood for argument, in fact they were not really competent to argue. Theywere making a stand for something which deep within them they knew was right;it involved their roots and their eternal destiny. Scholars could, and would,belittle them. Cranmer could, and would, sneer at them-----but it is not always those who are able to put thebest reasons for their cause who are in the right.

Thenews spread "as a cloud carried with a violent wind and as a thunder clapsounding through the whole country and the common people so well allowed andliked thereof that they clapped their hands for joy." ⁶

TheMass was restored in neighbouring parishes. A force was gathered and gainingstrength as it marched, went to Crediton where it joined a Cornish force which

hadrisen independently a few days earlier. The rebels were soon in effectivecontrol of the west country and could have reached London with competentleadership. But they were not organized revolutionaries with an objective and astrategy-----they were humble men whohad risen spontaneously to defend the Faith of their fathers.

TheProtestant historian, Professor W. G. Hoskins, is unable to conceal hisadmiration when describing their march on Exeter. "With the sacred bannerof the Five Wounds of Christ floating before them, and the pyx borne under arich canopy, with crosses, banners, candlesticks, swinging censers, and holybread and water 'to defend them from devils and the adverse power,' theprocession of Devon and Cornish farmers and labourers, led by a few of thegentry, ignorantly pitting themselves against the whole power of the State,marched on to Exeter behind their robed priests, singing as they advanced; apathetic, futile, and gallant rebellion." ⁷ Futile? In worldly terms perhaps-----but sub specieaeternitatis . . . ?

"Wedo not know how many conservative and stubborn West countrymen marched in thathopeless rebellion: a few thousands probably. They spoke and fought for tens ofthousands, no doubt, who disliked and detested the changes. But in mostparishes the parson and his people accepted the orders from above and conformedoutwardly." ⁸

Evenin Exeter the majority, including the mayor and chief citizens, disliked thereforms, but as was the case with Catholics throughout all the persecutions andpenal times, they faced an agonizing choice between the dictates of religionand an obligation, which in itself they regarded to be religious, of obedienceto the crown. The Protestant historian Hooker concedes that the party "ofthe old stamp and of the Romish religion" was larger than the Protestantgroup in Exeter but that "the magistrates and chieftains of the city albeitthey were not fully resolved and satisfied in religion yet they not respectingthat but chiefly their dutifulness to the king and commonwealth, nothing likedthe rebellion . . ." ⁹

So widespread was popular feeling in support of therebels that even those who lacked the courage to join them were not willing tofight against them. Lord Russell, the Lord Privy Seal and an experiencedsoldier, had been sent to crush the rebellion. He found it almost impossible toraise local levies to combat the men of Devon and Cornwall, not simply in thosecounties but in Dorset, Wiltshire, and Somerset. The strong Catholic sympathiesof the people of Somerset are made clear by a letter from the King's Council toLord Russell suggesting a method of overcoming their reluctance: " . . .Where ye declare that thoccasyon of being able to levie so few in Somersetshireis the evil inclynation of the people, and that there are amongs them that donot styck openly to speak such traterous words agaynst the kyng and in favourof the traytrous rebells. Ye shall hang two or three of them, and cause them tobe executed lyke traytors. And that wilbe the only and best staye of all those

talks." ¹⁰

Even Protestant historians concede that the WesternRebellion was genuinely religious. ¹¹ The rebels wereattacked by a propaganda campaign as well as with military forces. Thegovernment propagandists warned the West country men that they were deceived bytheir priests "whelps of the Romish litter". ¹² It had, in fact,been the laity who had forced or shamed their priests into making a stand forthe Faith. Nicholas Udall, a Protestant scholar who had gained the favour ofEdward VI through the patronage of Catherine Parr, derided the rebels for theirpronouncements against heresy which, he claimed, they did not understand. Thechanges were, he insisted, based on the "most godly council . . . withlong study and travail of the best learned bishops and doctors of therealm." ¹³ Had the rebels had the learning or debating skill ofSt. Thomas More they could have pointed out that the traditional religion hadthe support of a numberless host of the best learned bishops and doctors,stretching back in time to the Apostles themselves.

The religious nature of the rebellion is made clear bythe demands of the rebels. "Fyrst we wyll have the general counsall andthe holy decrees of our forefathers observed, kept and performed and who soever shal agayne saye them, we hold them as Heretikes . . . we will have themasse in Latten, as before . . . we will have the Sacrament hange over thehyeyhe aulter, and there to be worshypped as it was wount to be, and theywhiche will not thereto consent, we wyl have them dye lyke heretykes againstthe Holy Catholyque fayth . . . we wyl have palmes and asshes at the tymesaccustomed, Images to be set up again in every church, and all other auncientolde Ceremonyes used heretofore, by our mother the holy church . . . we wil notreceyve the newe servye because it is like a Christmas game, but we wyll havefoure old service of Mattens, masse, Evensong and procession in Latten not inEnglish, as it was before." ¹⁴ [How manyof us more learned Catholics of just a generation ago had enough true faith andcourage to insist on this? Especially when we feared no actual slaughter asbefell the English laity? To ask the question is to answer it.-------The Web Master.]

Like Nicholas Udall, Cranmer took great delight inridiculing the rebels for their ignorance . "When I first read yourrequest, O ignorant men of Devonshire and Cornwall, straightways came to mymind a request, which James and John made unto Christ; to whom Christ answered:'You ask you wot not what.' Even so thought I of you, as soon as ever Iheard your articles, that you were deceived by some crafty priest, whichdevised those articles for you, to make you ask you wist not what." ¹⁵

In his very lengthy reply to the fifteen demands ofthe rebels he shows himself to be as outraged by the manner in which thedemands are phrased as by the demands themselves. "Is this the fashion ofsubject to speak unto their prince, 'We will have'? Was this manner of speechat any time used of subjects to their prince since the beginning of the world?Have not all true subjects ever used to their sovereign lord this form ofspeaking, 'Most humbly beseecheth your faithful and obedient subject?' Althoughthe papists have abused your ignorance in propounding such articles, which youunderstand not, yet you should not have suffered yourselves to be led by thenose and bridled by them, that you should clearly forget your duty ofallegiance unto your sovereign lord, saying unto him, 'This we will have', andthat saying with armour upon your backs and swords in your hands."

Cranmer considered the plea for the return of Latinparticularly ridiculous. "For the whole that is done should be the act ofthe people and pertain to the people, as well as to the priest. ¹⁶ And standeth itwith reason, that the priest should speak for you, and in your name, and youanswer him again in your own person; yet you understand never a word, neitherwhat he saith, nor what you say yourselves? . . . Had you rather be like piesor parrots, that be taught to speak, and yet understand not one word what theysay, than be true Christian men, that pray unto God in heart and infaith?"

Cardinal Gasquet points out how mistaken is the notionthat the Latin service is a closed book to the uneducated in Catholiccountries. "The Latin words become not infrequently so familiar that theysuggest themselves to the uneducated even in the occurrences of ordinary dailylife. Therefore in considering the sudden substitution of English for Latin inall the public services of the Church it must be borne in mind that to a verygreat number this measure, so far from affording any gratification to theirreligious feelings, was one to which they had to be reconciled." ¹⁷ The Cardinal alsoquotes the opinion of an unprejudiced Anglican scholar whose travels inCatholic countries had convinced him that the ordinary faithful could followthe audible parts of the Mass "quite as well as the English generallyfollow the prayer book." ¹⁸

The Western rebels had demanded that those who refusedtheir demands should "dye lyke heretykes against the holy Catholyquefayth." In the event, of course, it was the rebels who died when therebellion was eventually crushed with the help of foreign mercenaries commandedby Lord Russell and Lord Grey de Wilton who had joined him after putting downanother religious rising in Oxfordshire. The only reliable troops were themercenaries, Italians, Spaniards, and Germans. When they eventually discoveredthe religious nature of the campaign in which they had fought, many of them soughtabsolution. ¹⁹ "There was a fierce battle at Clyst St. Mary andanother at Clyst Heath, where the rebels died by hundreds; and after the battlea massacre of the prisoners. And then in the night of August 4th and 5th therebels withdrew from Exeter." ²⁰ Lord Grey hadnever fought against Englishmen before and marvelled at "such stoutness .. . never in all the wars did he know the like". ²¹

The rebellion was far from over, however, and thefinal battle took place at Sampford Courtenay where the rebellion had begun.Groups of rebels still kept up the fight, retreating into Somerset and at least4,000 west country men died at the hands of the royal army. Thomas Cranmer'sPrayer Book had had its baptism of blood. "By the end of August it was allover," writes Professor Bindoff, " . . . some thousands of peasanthouseholds mourned their menfolk slaughtered on the battlefield, some hundredsthose who expiated their treasons on the gallows of a dozen counties." ²²

Cardinal Gasquet writes: " . . .the imposition ofthe book of the new service was only effected through the slaughter of manythousands of Englishmen by the English government helped by their foreignmercenaries. The old dread days of the Pilgrimage of Grace were renewed, thesame deceitful methods were employed to win success, the same ruthlessbloodshed was allowed in the punishment of the vanquished. Terror waseverywhere struck into the minds of the people by the sight of the executions,fixed for the market days, of priests dangling from the steeples of theirparish churches, and of the heads of laymen set up in the high places of thetowns." ²³ The parish priest of the church of St. Thomas(Exeter) was hanged on a gallows erected on his church tower in his Massvestments, with "a holy water bucket, a sprinkler, a sacring bell, a pairof beads and such other like popish trash hanged about him." ²⁴ "The lastact in the western tragedy was the execution of the leaders at Tyburn on 7thJanuary, 1550. The very objective Venetian envoy reported that: "had theCountry people only a leader, although they had been grievously chastised theywould rise again." ²⁵ Thus were the peasants of the West induced to accept"the very godly order set forth by order of Parliament for common prayerin the mother tongue."

1. The Prayer Book, Articles, and Homilies(London, 1897), p. 19.

2. TR, p. 118.

3. DEV, p. 233.

4. TUD, p. 50.

5. Op. cit., Note 3.

6. RIE, vol. II, p. 165.

7. Op. cit. Note 3.

8. Ibid., p. 234.

9. TUD, p. 53.

10. Ibid., p. 141.

11. Ibid., p. 57. "The Edwardian Councilalways regarded the Western Rebellion as primarily religious in purpose. On11th June, Somerset spoke of an attempt, instigated by 'seditious priests, toseke restitucion of the olde bluddy lawes'. The chroniclers unanimous emphasison the religious motivation of the rebels is confirmed by their articles,"a manifesto for a return to catholicism."

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid., p. 58.

14. Ibid., p. 135.

15. CW, vol. II, pp. 163-187.

16. It is interesting to note that in 1947 Pope PiusXII found it necessary to condemn the proposition that the whole of theeucharistic liturgy is, as Cranmer phrased it, "the act of thepeople". The essence of the Catholic Mass is that: "The unbloodyimmolation by which, after the words of consecration have been pronounced,Christ is rendered present on the altar in the state of a victim, is performedby the priest alone, and by the priest in so far as he acts in the name ofChrist, not in so far as he represents the faithful." Mediator Dei,C.T.S. edition, para. 96. As was made clear in Chapter XIII, there is all thedifference in the world between a priest who possesses powers different notonly in degree but in essence from those of the laity, and who offers sacrificein the person of Christ, and of a minister simply acting as the representativeof the faithful by whom he is appointed to preside over their assembly.

17. EBCP, p. 238.

18. Ibid.

19. RIE, vol. II, p. 169.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid.

22. TE, p. 157.

23. EBCP, p. 254.

24. TUD, p. 55.

25. EBCP, p. 246.

Aylesford Pilgrimage

2011-10-12T16:17:00.000+01:00

We are taking a Juventutem London chapter to Aylesford on Saturday - facebook page here. If you would like to get the bus from London you need to ring the LMS on the number in the poster.

Juventutem London pray to end abortion

2011-10-01T16:39:00.005+01:00

This morning Juventutem London went to pray at the 40 Days for Life London vigil.

We began with 8am Mass at the Brompton Oratory.

Then we caught the Picadilly Line to Leicester Square and walked from there.

When you pray outside an abortuary, as Monsignor Reilly told the London pro-life community in May, the primary reason for being there is the saving of souls. This is even more important than the saving of the lives of unborn children, although of course it is a great blessing and cause for great joy that lives are saved when women choose not to go through with an abortion.

Juventutem London praying outside the bpas abortuary in Bedford Square

It can be very upsetting to watch people go into these chambers of death with the intent of having their children killed. But, as Monsignor Reilly says, unborn children shouldn't die alone. Moreover those involved with abortion shouldn't be without witnesses to the truth. They too are children of God with an eternal soul to save or lose and as Christians we are called to proclaim the Gospel to all.*

It was a lovely surprise to be joined by Father Leon Perreira O.P., who had decided to come to the vigil having been inspired by the great pro-life witness of Father Michael Williams, a young pro-life priest who died last week. Requiescat in pace.

No doubt the great pro-life witness of Father Michael Williams will inspire more and more clergy to stand on the front-lines of the pro-life movement. Thank you Father Leon for joining us today!

Fr Leon leads the young pro-lifers in prayer

Afterwards we went for a light lunch in nearby Russell Square and enjoyed the continued occupation of Autumn by Summer.

*Anybody affected by abortion should know that there are people who can help.

~ Originally posted at Smeaton's Corner

Good Counsel Network Ball

2011-09-28T13:26:00.001+01:00

Good Counsel Network Fundraising Ball

Date: Saturday November 19th, 2011

Time: 6.30 PM

Location: 55 Exhibition Road, London, SW7 2PN. (nearest tube station is South Kensington)

This will be a fun evening with a delicious 3 course dinner,

live music and great dancing.

Price: £70 per person

Special Offer: £630 for table of 10.

Dress: Ladies Evening Dress, Gentlemen Black Tie

Further details are here.

We are putting together a Juventutem London table. If you would like to come, please send me an email.

Impromptu Mass + Social

2011-09-27T21:25:00.004+01:00

1830hrs Monday 3rd October

Missa Cantata of St Teresa of the Child Jesus (St Therese of Lisieux) at Corpus Christi Catholic Church, Maiden Lane, London, WC2E 7NB. Closest station is Charing Cross. Embankment, Covent Garden and Leicester Square are all also within walking distance. Map

Followed by Social at Cecil Court Piazza, 92-93 St. Martin's Lane, WC2N 4AP. Map

Facebook

Join Juventutem London as we pray to end abortion with 40 Days for Life London

2011-09-27T17:33:00.002+01:00

I've posted (on my blog, Smeaton's Corner) before about London being the geo-political epicentre of the culture of death. But it is important to remember that it is also a place with an incredibly rich Catholic history and where in a few places the faith still burns brightly.

In England there are more than five hundred and seventy abortions every day and there are more in London than anywhere else in the country. One abortion is a tragedy. The tragedy of today is difficult to comprehend.

It is important to remember that we also have at least one hundred and five Catholic martyrs in London, at Tyburn alone. How many cities can boast that? That's not including Saint Thomas More and Saint John Fisher who departed this vale of tears on Tower Hill.

I say at least one hundred and five because no doubt the exact records are open to question in the tumultuous period of the so called Reformation. I've heard people say that there are almost certainly more.

Many of the Tyburn martyrs were included in the Forty English Martyrs canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1970. One of the Tyburn martyrs is Saint John Houghton. Richard Marsden has written an excellent account of Saint John's final moments.

St John Houghton is the protomartyr of the English Reformation. He was the first faithful Catholic in a long line to the gallows. The description of his execution is particularly excruciating to read. He was cut down whilst suspended in the air by his neck, agonisingly choking. He was cut down whilst still alive and after a brief moment to recover his senses, his body was ripped apart. The executioner had difficulty ripping out his heart, digging about in Fr Houghton’s body. When finding it (still beating), the executioner tore it from his body and held it in the air. The almost dead John gasped: “Sweet Jesus, what will you do with my heart?”

Saint John Houghton

The Site of the Tyburn Tree is located at the southern end of the Edgware Road, just north of Hyde Park and west of Oxford Street. For those who don't know London, that's pretty much plonk in the middle of the West End. That's less than two miles from the 40 Days for Life London vigil in Bedford Square. These Saints who made the ultimate sacrifice of love are our patrons and defenders. What shall we fear?

The Forty English Martryrs

Tyburn as it looks today, in the middle of a busy traffic island. It's about the size of two or three regular paving stones.

London is my family home. Regular readers of this blog will know that, having lived there for three years, I also have something of a soft spot for Australia and Sydney in particular. Naturally, I often think of the differences between both life generally and between the Church in England and in Australia. One of the differences is that Australia is home to a single canonised Saint - Saint Mary of the Cross.

In a country with only a single canonised Saint I have seen remarkable things happen and experienced moments of life changing grace. The Church in Australia experiences many of the same problems as we are experiencing throughout the Western world, but in a few places the faith is inspiringly strong. One such place is the regular Helpers of God's Precious Infants vigil outside the biggest abortuary in Sydney. For the past two years the Sydney Helpers have organised a 40 Days for Life campaign of their own, which has provided a great boost to their regular vigils.

Bishop Julian Porteus attends the final hour of the 2011 Sydney 40 Days for Life vigil. Fr Wong FSSP holds a relic of the True Cross, as young Australians pray outside the biggest abortuary in Sydney.

So if Australia can manage that - how much can we manage in England with the assistance of the London martryrs?

You might say that there is no obvious correlation between the number of Saints and the vitality of the Church in a particular area. I would say that there jolly well should be! Certainly the witness of the sixteenth and seventeenth century Saints is not sufficient for the making of Saints today. Those of us who by the grace of God have been called into His Church need to cooperate with His will. We are called to follow the heroic example of the English martyrs and burn with the faith of our fathers. In London we cannot complain of a lack of examples of how to do this.

While the evil faced by my generation may appear vast and terrifying, what we can be certain of is that the incomprehensible situation we find ourselves in today is nothing compared to the infinite love of God. Jesus Christ, King and Redeemer, the abyss of virtue, has conquered the world with love. In these times we are called, as all men have been called, to turn to Him. The first and most important challenge for us is that we assist Him in conquering us. Turning our vices into virtue, allowing Him to comfort us in our sufferings and beseeching Him to inspire us to be heralds of His kingdom.

One way to do all those things is to support the 40 Days for Life campaign which begins in London today. The launch event is at 7pm outside the bpas abortion facility in Bedford Square, WC1B 3HP. What follows is forty days of prayer, fasting and continuous witness outside of a London abortion facility. 40 Days for Life joins in solidarity with our unborn brothers and sisters and offers women, men and all those involved with the abortion procedure genuine hope, and a better choice than abortion.

Remember that Monsignor Philip Reilly, the man responsible for beginning prayerful witness and counselling outside abortion facilities, told the London pro-life community in May that the primary purpose of these vigils is not to save lives, but to save souls. The most important way you can assist the 40 Days for Life campaign is to pray and fast for the conversion of abortionists, for those considering aborting their children, for those who have already done and for those who will do so.

To make the campaign work there need to be people prepared to give up their time and pray outside the abortuary in Bedford Square. Juventutem London will be doing this as a group on Saturday.

We will be attending the 8am Traditional Latin Mass at the Brompton Oratory and then catching the tube to Bedford Square to pray with the 40 Days for Life campaign. We will stay at the vigil until 12.30pm and then go for lunch nearby. Weather permitting we'll be grabbing (or packing) sandwiches and heading to Russell Square. Individuals may stay longer at the vigil if they wish.

If you can't make it to the Oratory by 8am you are still very welcome to join us at Bedford Square.

Priests and religious would be particularly welcome to join us at the vigil!

8am Mass is early and you probably don't live near the Oratory, but remember that your sacrifices contribute to the salvation of souls.

Oh and if the London martyrs aren't enough to inspire you to come along then remember that when you take the hand of Our Lady and pray the Rosary, as is done throughout the forty day vigil, the entire celestial court of Heaven intercedes for you.

~ Originally posted on Smeaton's Corner

Meeting of the Superiors of the FSSPX

2011-09-24T17:34:00.002+01:00

Following the meeting in Rome between Bishop Fellay and Cardinal Levada, Bishop Fellay has called a meeting of the superiors of the Society to discuss the Doctrinal Preamble given to them by Rome on October 7-8th in Italy. More details here. They should be assured that Juventutem London are praying that the holy and immaculate will of God is made manifest to them, and that they are given the fortitude to follow it - whatever it transpires to be.

Juventutem on EWTN

2011-09-24T16:46:00.001+01:00

Not Juventutem London, I'm afraid. Though Fr de Malleray, FSSP, has a telephone interview on there.

Juventutem London September 2011 Match Report

2011-09-24T09:59:00.000+01:00

This September Mass went very well indeed. Juventutem London would like to thank the sacred ministers, Fr de Malleray, FSSP, Fr Irwin and Fr Foster. We would also like to thank Fr Pereira OP for hearing confessions and Fr Sherbrooke for the use of his church.

Thanks are also extended to Mr Dimon and all the servers, and to Cantus Magnus for providing the music. If you appreciated the music, please consider contributing to our music fund.

After the Mass, and convoluted route (which, on reflection, could not have been my fault as everyone had maps and iPhones!) we had our usual social.

The next Juventutem London event is a slot we are taking in the 40 Days For Life vigil. We're going to the 8am Mass at the London Oratory before going over to the abortuary. Here is the facebook. Our next 'main' event is a Solemn Mass of Ss Simon & Jude, 6.30pm 28th October at St Patrick's, Soho.

Details for September Mass & Social

2011-09-19T22:19:00.002+01:00

Juventutem London

Solemn High Mass

Ember Friday in September

1830hrs Friday 23rd September

St Patrick's Church, Soho

Followed by Social (for ages 18-35)

Sacred Ministers:

Celebrant: Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP

Deacon: Fr David Irwin

Subdeacon: Fr Stewart Foster

MC: Mr Gordon Dimon

Confessions

Confessions will be heard through Mass from 1800hrs by Fr Leon Pereira, OP. Absolution will be given using the traditional Latin form.

Music

Polyphony and chant provided by Cantus Magnus:

Orlande de Lassus Missa secundi toni (K, S, A)

Orlande de Lassus Benedic anima mea

Antonio Lotti Salve Regina

Due to a lack of responses to auditions for our own Juventutem Schola, October's Mass will be a Low Mass unless more men come forward to audition. Auditions will possibly be after Mass. If you are interested you MUST email this address.

Servers
Men who are serving should be at the sacristy by 1800hrs with their own cassocks and cottas.

Social
Please assemble outside the Church after making your post-Mass thanksgiving. Please note that though the Mass is open (and welcomes) those of any age, the social is strictly for those aged 18-35 (clergy and religious excepted).

If you are attending the social, it would be very helpful indeed if you registered as 'attending' on this facebook page (or emailed us)

Is Eating Meat on a Friday a Mortal Sin?

2011-09-16T10:35:00.000+01:00

Nice juicy steak - save it for Saturday

And I'm only talking about for those who are baptised here (though of course, baptism itself is a grave obligation).

Today, Friday 16th September 2011, is the day appointed by the bishop's conference for the reintroduction of the traditional Friday abstinence from meat. This is great news, as it marks a return to aspects of life that for centuries defined the Catholic Faith given to us by Our Lord. It gives us a chance to unite a meagre sacrifice to his Holy and Exalted Cross, in a gesture of sorrow and reparation for our innumerable sins, offences and negligences. Juventutem London thanks the Bishops for this restoration (and encourages the restoration of the Holy Days of Obligation).

But is it now a sin to eat meat on Fridays? And if it is, isn't it totally arbitrary to say that something that was licit last week is now a sin - even a mortal sin, requiring sacramental confession? But certainly in the past, it would have been understood to be a mortal sin. Fr Heribert Jone in Moral Theology writes:

The laws of fasting and abstinence [much, much stricter at his time of writing - JL] in themselves oblige gravely.

Ever reasonable, Fr Jone also says that "slight violations of them are only venial sins" - and then talks about very small quantities of meat/food over and above the prescribed amount.

Q&A Document from Fr Stock

Unfortunately, the Q&A document released by Fr Stock, the general secretary of the episcopal conference, is a little confusing. The last sentence in this document on this topic reads:

Failure to abstain from meat on a particular Friday then would not constitute a sin.

But, the footnote to Q11 contains, in tiny print, this:

The "substantial observance" of the penitential discipline of Fridays and Ash Wednesday, Pope Paul VI wrote, "binds gravely." Interpreting this statement authoritatively, the Sacred Congregation of the Council (now the Congregation for the Clergy) decreed that this grave obligation does not refer to the individual days of penance, but to "the whole complexus of penitential days to be observed... that is, one sins gravely against the law, who, without an excusable cause, omits a notable part, quantative or qualitative, of the penitential observance which is prescribed as a whole.

Claims that are floating about that this means that one may have a few Fridays off are ludicrous. This obligation binds gravely on every baptised person, as it is an obligation to 'substantially' (and that does not mean 'partially' or 'mostly') observe the whole annual cycle of penance. This hopefully illustrates the point that doing penance on Fridays was always a grave obligation, though what constituted as fitting penance was left up to the individual (having been given a range of options). Now, the Bishops of England and Wales have decided to define what that penance should be. This is the same obligation to do penance and obey our pastors. The only difference is now they have a more restrictive definition of what penance we are to do.

If one is not bound by mortal sin to abstain from meat on Friday, that means that the law does not bind gravely. If the law does not bind gravely, in what way does it bind? How many Fridays can we get away with eating meat on? These are not questions that Catholics should be asking, but this ambiguity really does beg the question.

Obedience to Lawful Authorities

If this document is saying that it is not a sin to eat meat on a Friday because one has (in good conscience) forgotten the obligation, then this is old news. Sin requires knowledge and consent. If this document is saying that a grave reason may justify eating meat on a Friday - sickness, grave obligation in terms of work, pregnancy - then clearly it would displace the obligation. Nothing new there either. If it is saying that the consumption of meat on a Friday is not, of itself, an intrinsic evil, there's nothing new there either.

But the grave obligation, binding by sin, not to eat meat on a Friday arises not from the intrinsic evil of the act itself, but the obligation of obedience that we owe to the hierarchy in matters such as this. Each bishop has jurisdiction over all of the baptised in his diocese, and Canon 1251 gives the authority to all of the bishops in a geographical area to agree to implement a certain interpretation of the law in their dioceses. We are not their slaves, but in matters such as this obedience must be given.

This is because our obligation to obey our Bishop in a matter such as this is rooted in our obligation to obey Peter, to whom Our Lord gave the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever he shall bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever he shall loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven (Matthew 16.19). And Our Lord says to those who he has called and sent, "He that hears you hears me: and he that despises you despises me: and he that despises me despises him that sent me" (Luke 10.16)

Tradition

Also never forget the binding force of tradition. Let's not fall into pharisaism* and legal positivism where, in the absence of an explicit instruction from a bishop, we feign ignorance of how this has been understood from time immemorial.

Conclusion and a Pun

I hope that I have illustrated that there is more at stake hear than the morally neutral act of eating a nice little bit of steak on a day which happens to be a Friday. The sin here is not eating meat on a Friday (though that would be the best way to formulate the accusation in Confession), it is a matter of 'grave' disobedience to Almighty God (Pope Paul's word!) and a despising of that authority that he himself gave and 'delegated' firstly to Blessed Peter and his successors, and then apostles, and their successors. So, I'm coming down on the side of 'yes it is a mortal sin'.

So just don't do it.

If you disagree and have a reasoned argument, please, let's talk in the combox!

*And yes, I suppose I'd better counter the inevitable accusation of pharisaism. This is not about righteousness. The argument is not that abstaining from meat justifies us, or makes us righteous or holy. Of itself it is a tainted sacrifice to God, as it comes from finite humans. That said, through his grace Our Lord does deign to give value to our works. But the issue here is obedience to God via the Pope, via the Bishop of our diocese, via the Bishops' Conference (in that order). And, of course, it's no good to abstain from meat whilst depriving the worker of his pay and despising the widow and the orphan etc. This, Isaias 58, is the goal.

Patron Saint

2011-09-15T21:30:00.003+01:00

St Alban Psalter, University of Aberdeen

We are putting Juventutem London under the patronage of St Mary Magdalene. At some point in the future, this may be done formally.

Our reason for doing this is that we feel that St Mary epitomises everything that we are trying to do with Juventutem London. This passage from the Holy Gospel of St John may illustrate this:

Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of right spikenard, of great price, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, he that was about to betray him, said: Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor? Now he said this not because he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, having the purse, carried the things that were put therein. Jesus therefore said: Let her alone, that she may keep it against the day of my burial. For the poor you have always with you: but me you have not always.

John 12.3-8

Juventutem London, however inadequately, attempts to emulate the service of love and adoration this great woman rendered to Our Lord. Of course, the intrinsic value of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, however it is offered, is infinite. We can do nothing to augment that. The Holy Mass is none other than an un-bloody re-presentation of the sacrifice of Calvary - through his human instrument, the same divine Priest offers the same divine Victim.

Nonetheless, the extrinsic value of the Holy Mass is something finite and contingent. United to his once-and-for-all sacrifice, Our Lord deigns to give value to our meagre sacrifices, our latest struggles, and our feeble attempts to raise the beauty of the finite 'Accidents' of the Holy Mass to that of its infinite 'Substance'. Like the poor of the past - sneered at now by modern men for building beautiful churches at great cost - we too are pursuing something beautiful, to be shared by all.

Under the patronage of St Mary, may we be drawn into that 'one thing necessary', that 'better part' chosen by St Mary, in the contemplation of Almighty God in the Mass. May we ensure that, like St Mary's extravagant gesture in the passage above, we give Our Lord the best and most magnificent service we can.

In the eyes of the World, the silent contemplation of the faithful at the Traditional Latin Mass is foolish. In the eyes of the World, the use of beauty and fine things in the Liturgy is scandalously wasteful.

But though our poor efforts to love our Lord may never reach the dizzying heights of our holy patroness, we can give it a go.

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If you would like to help with this:

Choir auditions

Donations for Music

Ely-Walsingham 2011 Sermon in a Saloon

2011-09-13T22:33:00.001+01:00

We all greatly miss the jolly good ~~bishop~~ chaplain, Fr Bede Rowe. Come back soon!

Video from Smeaton's Corner!

Novena IX

2011-09-13T22:17:00.001+01:00

THIS IS THE LAST DAY OF THE NOVENA

TOMORROW IS THE FEAST OF THE EXALTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS

TOMORROW BISHOP FELLAY ET AL MEET CARDINAL LEVADA IN ROME

PRAY! PRAY! PRAY!

You may or may not be aware of this.

On 14th September - the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross - Bishop Fellay, FSSPX, and a bunch of others are being received by Cardinal Levada of the CDF. Anything could happen - it could be good news, it could be bad news.

I propose a novena for a propitious and peaceful outcome to this meeting, one that will benefit the whole Church. I also propose that we take on some sort of extra penance for this intention, starting tomorrow.

This will be the novena, in Latin with English below it. The Latin takes a little over 2 minutes. The English takes a little over 1 minute 30 seconds. Not a big deal.

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Latin

To Pope St Pius X

Deus, qui ad tuendam catholicam fidem, et universa in Christo instauranda sanctum Pium, Summum Pontificem, caelesti sapientia et apostolica fortitudine replevisti; concede proitius; ut, ejus instituta et exempla sectantes, praemia consequamur aeterna. Per eumdem Dominum nostrum.

In Honour of the Holy Cross

Deus, qui unigeniti Filii tui pretioso sanguine, vivificare Crucis vexillum sanctificare voluisti: concede, quaesumus; eos, qui ejusdem sanctae Crucis gaudent honore, tua quoque ubique protectione gaudere. Per eumdem Dominum.

For Peace

Deus, a quo sancta desideria, recta consilia, et justa sunt opera: da servis tuis illam, quam mundus dare non potest, pacem; ut et corda nostra mandatis tuis dedita, et hostium sublata formidine, tempora sint tua protectione tranquilla. Per Dominum nostrum.

For people in authority and those under their charge

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui facis mirabilia magna solus: praetende super famulos tuos, et super congregationes illis commissas, spiritum gratiae salutaris; et ut in veritate tibi complaceant, perpetuum eis rorem tuae benedictionis infunde. Per Dominum.

Memorare

Memorare, O piisima Virgo Maria, non esse auditum a saecula, quemquam ad tua currentem praesidia, tua implorantem auxilia, tua petentem suffragia, esse derelictum. Ego tali animatus confidentia, ad te, Virgo Virginum, Mater, curro, ad te venio, coram te gemens peccator assisto. Noli, Mater Verbi, verba mea despicere; sed audi propitia et exaudi. Amen.

Through thy cross and passion - deliver us, O Lord.

Immaculate heart of Mary - pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X - pray for us.

Saints Benedict and Joseph - pray for us.

Saint William - pray for us.

Saints Marcel, and Anthony of Padua - pray for us.

Saints Bernard, Richard and Alphonsus - pray for us.

All ye holy Angels and Archangels, all ye holy order of blessed Spirits - pray for us.

Fidelium animae per misericordiam Dei, requiescant in pace.

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English:

To St Pius X

O God, who for the defence of the Catholic faith and to restore all things in Christ, filled saint Pius, the supreme Pontiff, with heavenly wisdom and apostolic strength; mercifully grant that following his teaching and example we may attain to our eternal reward. Through our same Lord.

In Honour of the Holy Cross

O God, who by the precious blood of thine only-begotten Son wast pleased to hallow the standard of the life-giving Cross: grant, we beseech thee, that those who rejoice in honouring that same holy Cross may likewise rejoice in thy protection, wheresoever they may be. Through the same Lord.

For Peace

O God, from whom all holy desires, all right counsels and all just works do proceed; give to thy servants that peace which the world cannot give; that our hearts may be disposed to obey thy commandments, and the fear of enemies being removed, our times, by thy protection, may be peaceful. Through our Lord.

For people in authority and those under their charge

Almighty and everlasting God, who alone workest great wonders, pour down upon thy servants and upon the flocks committed to their charge the spirit of thy saving grace, and that they may truly please thee, pour down upon them the continual dew of thy blessing. Through our Lord.

Memorare

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it know that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother. To thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.

Through thy cross and passion - deliver us, O Lord.

Immaculate heart of Mary - pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X - pray for us.

Saints Benedict and Joseph - pray for us.

Saint William - pray for us.

Saints Marcel, and Anthony of Padua - pray for us.

Saints Bernard, Richard and Alphonsus - pray for us.

All ye holy Angels and Archangels, all ye holy order of blessed Spirits - pray for us.

May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Juventutem London Schola: singers needed

2011-09-10T22:37:00.003+01:00

Juventutem London are assembling an all-male Schola to sing the Gregorian chant at our monthly High Mass at St Patrick's, Soho Square. The Schola will rehearse only once a month, before the Mass (generally, the fourth Friday of the month), so we are looking for men who have at least either some experience in singing chant or who have experience as singers and an aptitude for learning how to read neumes.

Members will have the pleasure of making a significant contribution to the Sacred Liturgy. They will be entitled to a discounted meal after Mass, and other benefits. At several Masses throughout the year, we shall be joined by Cantus Magnus, a professional choir who will sing a polyphonic Ordinary.

The Schola is open to men between the ages of 18 and 35, and entry will be by audition only. We will be holding auditions in Central London at St Mary Moorfields, 4-5 Eldon Street, London, EC2M 7LS (nearest tubes: Moorfields and Liverpool Street) on Saturday 17 September 2011 at 11am. For further details and to register an interest please write as soon as possible to juventutemlondonschola@gmail.com

There is a facebook event.

Video

2011-09-06T11:21:00.002+01:00

Hat tip.

Good Counsel Network's Day of Prayer & Fasting

2011-09-06T10:44:00.000+01:00

This week is becoming awfully penitential.

In addition to the prayer and penance for the doctrinal talks between Rome and the FSSPX, there is also this.

Our friends at the Good Counsel Network have called a national day of prayer and fasting, to take place today or tomorrow when the debate about these amendments take place. It's important to note that according to the moral philosophy wing of SPUC (Dorries-Field, Mensch), the pro-life cause stands to gain almost nothing from these supposedly pro-life ammendments. In fact, they could cause some serious problems.

This is possibly why - in a similar vein to our novena for the FSSPX - GCN's intention for the prayer and fasting is simply "God's will will be done and that the bill and any amendments to it, will do nothing to hinder the pro-life movement and that it will also not lead to an increase in the number of abortions". Both these issues are so complex that it's not possible to offer an intention like 'That X will succeed/fail'.

All we can do is pray and do penance, and humbly trust in the brutally beneficent hand of divine Providence.

Ely-Walsingham 2011: Day 4

2011-09-05T03:00:00.000+01:00

Advance-book your place on the epic penitential adventure of the LMS ELY-WALSINGHAM PILGRIMAGE 2012!

Do it now and the prices will remain as those of 2011!

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS!

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Day 4

Readers would be justified in wondering, "Why is this guy still writing? What a windbag. He just likes the sound of his own fingers tapping a keyboard, and thinks that bad jokes like that contained in the earlier clause of this very sentence are clever and funny". Nonetheless, this day was an important part of the pilgrimage as it illustrated the value of undertaking such an adventure. So, I shall begin.

I awoke to the sound of Bones and Smeaton the Grey whispering. I was half asleep, and unaware that they had been being quiet for my sake. I groaned, with an early-morning voice about an octave deeper than usual, "Guys, why are we whispering?" I never got an answer, but I didn't need one because I soon worked it out. I lay in bed trying to work out what was going on. I told the other two that what we really needed was a nice greasy fry-up. Someone suggested that we begin the day with a decade of the Rosary, which prompted Smeaton the Grey to stagger to the kitchen like some sort of ape-thing to fetch a statue of Our Lady of Fatima.

Smeaton the Elder and Mrs Smeaton returned from Mass and wished us a good morning. Smeaton the Elder informed us that he was going to cook us breakfast. This was great news. It was about 1000hrs, and I realised that I should probably get out of bed.

I ventured into the kitchen of Minas Smeaton and poked around for some coffee. I was under the impression, given the last time I had visited the fortress, that the Smeatons didn't drink coffee. I was bracing myself for the chemical monstrosity that is instant coffee. To my surprise and joy, Smeaton the Elder produced a cafetiere and some proper coffee. "This place is great", I thought.

We brewed and fried and drank and ate and discussed the current state of play of the siege against the forces of evil. One would hope that our pilgrimage to Walsingham may have achieved something for our poor country, harried by the scourges that afflict her. We discussed how no-one, least of all those who should, knew "what was down the road". Mrs Smeaton embarrassed me by asking me about Lenny the Lion.

Ronan and I were about to part company, so I asked him politely and he made me temporary custodian of the relic of the True Cross. Smeaton the Grey had vanished, and so Bones and I venerated it - what an incredible blessing it was to have that with us on the pilgrimage.

Somehow, Smeaton the Grey bullied Eve into piercing and squeezing his blisters. He had always led me to believe that he disapproved of male piercings. I have video footage and photographs - but this is a family-orientated blog, and the board of governors and myself agreed that posting this disgusting footage would be inappropriate. On the plus side, the grit Eve showed under such strenuous circumstances clearly merited her to join the illustrious Mrs Shaw in the Hall of Mulier Fortis Fame.

Smeaton the Grey took me to the station and sent me on my way. As I reached the platform, I realised he'd taken my ubiquitous man-bag with him. He obviously realised that at the same point, as I saw him running back to return it to me. He probably didn't want to be seen out with such a gauche accessory.

When I got onto the platform and found that I now had my huge rucksack, manbag, my head was screwed on and I was remembering to inhale after each exhalation, I was shocked. I was not back in the real world. I looked around. There was a gang of youths looking threatening. There was a very strangely-dressed lady. I realised that I'd forgotten all this stuff happened in the real world.

The train pulled into Euston, and I wandered about waiting for my brother to come pick me up. I saw some seedy billboards. "Oh", I thought. "I'd forgotten that that happens". Walking on the pilgrimage in that twilight world had restored some sort of degree of innocence. I'd forgotten all about so many horrible things, that at times I was genuinely shocked by what I saw (obviously don't want to go into too much detail!).

So what does this mean? Don't go on pilgrimage, because if you do you'll become naive about the state of the world we live in? Don't go on pilgrimage, because you'll be scandalised by what you find when you return?

No!

Go on pilgrimage. When you leave, you're covered in the grime and filth of the world to such a degree that you don't even notice it.

Go on pilgrimage. While you walk, the holy immaculate Mother of God will offer each of your blisters, cuts, aching joints and pained but persevering steps to her divine Son, who will not despise them but will instead use them to open your eyes, to show you yourself - not to mention these sufferings being used in the conversion of England and the liberation of the Holy Souls. He will use these sufferings and the holy sacrament of Penance to purge you of the muck you have accumulated in your long sojourn amongst the inhabitants of Cedar. He will pour oil and wine in your wounds, and restore your sight by anointing your eyes with his spittle.

Go on pilgrimage. When you return, you will have been, even if only a little, purged. You will be surprised, but you will see injustice, sin and evil where and for what they really are. How can you scour the Shire if you think that dirty great mills and chimneys are good things?

Go on pilgrimage. Your body will be weary and ache, perhaps for a while after - but, it will strengthen you, and as a noble and wise Deacon said to me this very week: "Satan hates pilgrims".

Concludes.
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Ely-Walsingham 2011: Day 3 (Aftermath)

2011-09-04T15:28:00.000+01:00

Advance-book your place on the epic penitential adventure of the LMS ELY-WALSINGHAM PILGRIMAGE 2012!

Do it now and the prices will remain as those of 2011!

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS!

Day 3 (Aftermath)

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Day 3 (Aftermath)

Our duties paid to Our Lord and his holy Mother, we pilgrims found ourselves in an ontologically different state. We were no longer pilgrims. We sat down on the grass and gazed at the serene monument of an England that was lost, but that may one day return. The two Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate wandered amongst some of the ex-pilgrims, handing them books. "Oh goody," I thought. "Presents". They spoke to more and more, and I pretended not to notice, waiting for them to come over to me and Bones (who, I think, was pursuing a similar tactic). They got closer... and then they left. Crestfallen, and no longer needing to pretend that I hadn't noticed, I asked the Catholic Youth (who was next to us) what they'd given her. It was a book on vocation. Bones and I both sighed with relief. We hadn't been given books on vocation. Obviously these holy friars were able to read souls and could see that we weren't worthy of a book because we didn't have vocations. We high-fived agreeing that we could marry with impunity. When we mentioned this to the Lady Who Wasn't From Liverpool, we had to clarify that no, we didn't mean that we could marry each other with impunity.

We milled about a bit. There were a whole load of people there, some of whom I knew, but I was still living in a bit of a parallel dimension to all these people who hadn't been walking that I just kind of sat quietly and spoke to my fellow pilgrims. I was a bit anti-social, but I couldn't really handle dealing with anyone who hadn't been to the Lonely Mountain with us. Here are some other people having fun.

The ancient priory was about to close, it being late on a Sunday afternoon. I certainly couldn't face walking back to the Slipper Chapel. Neither could anyone else really, except for the noble few who took one for the team and went back to get the bus. As Dr Shawrin Oakenshield, King of the Trads, was carried past in his 8-seater Sedia Gestatoria, we saluted him, "Ave, Rex Tradeorum". For some reason, one of the Company yelled that they wanted some money (not me this time) - to which we heard the yell, fading into the distance, "No chaaaaaaaance!!!!" I'm not really certain what that was about.

There were about 30 pilgrims hanging around on the street, waiting for Lord Tennond Halfelven to return in the minibus, so we decided to take some promo shots for the LMS. As a lot of them were in cassock and cotta, it rapidly turned into a 'Boys of the LMS' calendar-style photo shoot. I'm quite happy to allow the LMS to take that idea and run it alongside the liturgical wall calendar. Here are some of the pictures:

Messrs January & February

Mr February with Messrs March and April

We also found some teddy bears in need of rescue:

And the Girl Who Wasn't From Liverpool tried dressing up as me:

We stood and we waited and kept our eyes on the skies, watching for the advent of the minibus and Lord Tennond. And lo, upon the horizon came forth what seemed to our sight to be a chariot of the greyest white, the sort of colour that large white vehicles inevitably turn unless they are cleaned daily. But it wasn't the St Bede's minibus. To our horror, it advanced upon Eldest Homeschooled Girl and Younger Homeschooled Girl, and the driver was laughing manically. But he didn't run them down: turns out he knew them. There were two more kids in the bus, and as she had told us that her family got around in such a vehicle, Bones and I asked Eldest Homeschooled Girl if this was her family's bus. She laughed and said that it belonged to a friend of their families. And at that, she and her sister ran off down the street with the other two kids from the bus.

Ronan got out the penitential peanuts and passed them around. The grass grew. Some paint dried. Tumbleweed blew past. Then, with a roll of thunder, Lord Tennond rolled down the street and all of us piled into the bus. Just as we were leaving, the Homeschooled Girls returned and demanded that we open up the bus and let them take their bags out. Begrudgingly, we acquiesced. We shook hands, and bid each other adieu.

We were driven back to the Slipper Chapel, where we paid an emotional tribute and farewell to Fr Rowe. He gave me a blessing, then he blessed some Holy Cards, and the whole Company. We then sang him a lovely song:

"For he's a jolly good ~~fellow~~ bishop, for he's &c &c".

We said 'Cheerio' to the fellow pilgrims, including Chap Who Bought The Haribo Because the Queue Was Long And I Had the Exact Money and the Family Who Weren't From Liverpool. I've just worked out where they were from by the way. It's Wirral. That is lucky for them.

Now. We hadn't really had lunch. I and Bones had had that Cream Tea. But we'd not eaten. Now Nonso, he had an iPhone and had the McDonalds' App, and he used this to get us totally lost and to make Feras miss his train. Lord Tennond was starting to get a bit irritated, so we kicked Nonso and Feras overboard, and Lord Tennond zoomed us into London, whipping the horses like Christopher Lee in a Hammer Dracula film. We could hear the fell voices of wolves howling on the wind. Hunger was taking hold, and we were all terrified; the sun was falling on the horizon, painting the sky an ominous crimson. Bones was crying and I was so famished that I fell asleep.

When I awoke, we were in the car park of a McDonalds drive-thru. We got out of the bus to walk into the restaurant, but it was about 2300hrs on a Sunday night, so they were closed. Instead we had to order from the drive-thru. Because there were so many of us and we had to pay individually, we lined up on foot in the freezing cold to order. Bones wandered off to buy some chocolate, leaving me in charge of buying his meal and mine (he paid - cheers bro). Lord Tennond got a bit confused in his order, not used to this food eaten by mortal men. My teeth were chattering, and so the obvious choice of beverage was an ice-cold milkshake. Good one!

One of the pilgrims had donated some money for drinks, but in his ineffable wisdom, Smeaton the Grey had decided that we needed to buy a massive bag of chips instead. We sat in the bus munching away. Food had never tasted so good. Well, it had tasted a lot better on the pilgrimage when Mrs Shaw had been involved, but unfortunately all good things come to an end.

I had been intending on returning home that evening, but as the night had advanced so quickly, I very unsubtly got Smeaton the Grey to invite me round. Bones wound up staying as well, along with the two Australians. We were very near his home, Minas Smeaton, which is a type of watch-tower/fortress located in the heart of the geo-political epicentre of the Culture of Death. We were received into this ancient and besieged stronghold by Smeaton the Elder.

Smeaton the Elder

The heavy weight of his daily struggle with the forces of evil and the Culture of Death showed no sign of having wearied him, as he jovially gave us all a cup of tea and discussed the weekend's adventures. After his father retired, Smeaton the Grey ordered me to make him (the Grey) a bed out of sofa cushions and a sheet. "It better be good," he snarled. "Or else". Seeing as he was giving me hospitality, and I was getting the sofa bed, I didn't feel too inclined to argue. We bid goodnight to the Australians, and I lay down and slept the best night's sleep in days.

Nearly finished! Continues with Day 4

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Music Funds

2011-09-03T18:37:00.002+01:00

Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of right spikenard, of great price, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, he that was about to betray him, said: Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor? Now he said this not because he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, having the purse, carried the things that were put therein. Jesus therefore said: Let her alone, that she may keep it against the day of my burial. For the poor you have always with you: but me you have not always.

John 12.3-8

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We have recently been given a very large amount of financial sponsorship to provide us with music for the monthly Masses. The deal is that, not including any 'unofficial' Masses for Holy Days, we have a monthly Mass 10 months out of 12. This funding covers 2/3rds of budget for half a years worth of High Masses. So, in simple terms, 2/3rds of 5 Masses. It is up to us to find the remaining 1/3rd for the year. At present the plan looks like we will have alternate Low/High Mass.

We will be able to find some of the money from the collections, but we also will be giving half of the collections to the priest of St Patrick's, seeing as how we have an obligation to support our pastors. And even then, a sizeable proportion of Juventutem London are penniless students. And the pair of us who organise this, we're just a couple of guys with no resources except for time and love.

If you thought that this was a prelude to asking for money, you were right. So:

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Please Help Juventutem London Glorify God Through Sacred Music!

Youngsters being attracted by the sacred beauty of the Traditional Latin Mass

Cantus Magnus singing at the September 2011 Solemn Mass

What is Juventuem London?
Juventutem London is a very exciting initiative taking place in, unsurprisingly, London. It is a part of the International Juventutem Federation, which is dedicated to the sanctification of the youth using the traditional forms of the sacraments - most obviously, the Traditional Latin Mass (also known as the 'Extraordinary Form' or the usus antiquior). There are no charges and no registration procedures for 'members' ('members' being anyone who comes along). We are in good standing with the archdiocese of Westminster, and are on good terms with Bishop Alan Hopes, with whom we have discussed our aims and objectives.

What Does It Do?
We have now reached our first anniversary - we were founded on a train on the way back from the Young Catholic Adults retreat at Douai Abbey in September 2011, and our first meeting was in November 2011. Since our inception, we have grown so much in size that we have had to move to a larger church, with hospitality facilities. Our Masses are, of course, open to all - but our socials are reserved for those aged 18-35.

Pro-Life
We have very close ties with the Good Counsel Network, a crisis pregnancy service. All of our Masses are offered for their intentions.

Attracting Loads of Young People to the Old Rite
Many of our young members had never experienced the Traditional Latin Mass before coming to Juventutem London. Juventutem London has helped many young people to see the beauty of the traditional rite of Mass. We attract many, many young people of all ranges of experience of the old Mass, and still now people contact us to tell us that they will be coming along for the first time, wanting to know what to expect.

Why You Should Your Spend Money on Sacred Music
Our choir is made up of professional musicians, and is mandated to provide us with plainchant propers and a polyphonic ordinary. It is imperative that we have music of the highest standard at the Masses we organise for three reasons: 1) As a matter of justice, God deserves the best we can give him. 2) Our Lord makes clear in the Gospels that the service done to him by St Mary Magdalene was of more value than Judas Iscariot's suggestion of giving it to the poor. Elsewhere, Our Lord says to Mary's sister: "Martha, Martha, you are careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her" (Luke 10.41-42). Nothing sowed in the Sacred Liturgy will be wasted. 3) Beauty has an attractive power, that reveals the beauty of God to the young Catholics in the pews.

Only Regular High Mass in London
Currently, we are the only group who offer a regular Solemn High Mass in the archdiocese. Our intention was to have polyphony and chant every month, but our financial situation is such that we cannot afford to arrange this for more than once every two months. We also struggle to find the money for a chant Mass every month. However, our rule is to have a High Mass, which lest we forget is the normative form of the Mass, offered at least monthly in the capital city.

We Have Nothing to Offer You in Return
We can offer you nothing in return except our thanks, our prayers, and the knowledge that you have contributed to the greater glory of God through the use of beautiful sacred music. This is the perfect way to put Matthew 6.4 and Luke 14.14 into practice.

If you wish to donate, please do so using this button, and leave a note saying: 'Juventutem Choir Fund'.

Ely-Walsingham: Day 3

2011-09-03T03:00:00.000+01:00

Advance-book your place on the epic penitential adventure of the LMS ELY-WALSINGHAM PILGRIMAGE 2012!

Do it now and the prices will remain as those of 2011!

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS!

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Day 3

I awoke to the sound of a cockerel doing his thing. "This is badass", I thought. Smeaton the Grey broke the idyllic thing by yelling, "Morning Hobbits, time to get up", and shaking everyone's tents. Bones was doing an impersonation of a dead dog, so I packed up all my stuff together and got dressed. I tried again and again to wake the wretched fellow up, but no joy. So, I told him that I was going to go and grab breakfast and would come back to help him take the tent down once he was up.

Wringing my hands with glee, I got to work on making a big pot of coffee. Once I'd set that going, I went to go and have a shave in the bathroom, which made me feel like a human. The coffee made me feel super-human, and I gather it made some other people feel pretty good too. I had some breakfast, and then went outside to see if Bones had got up. Unfortunately, he had already put the whole tent down on his own, which made me feel a bit bad. By now my shoes had dried out, pretty much, and we dumped all our stuff on the bus and got ready to go.

The walk was a lot shorter today, but Fr Rowe became incapacitated by failing to take his own advice on Day 2:

Don't overdo it. It's more important that you walk tomorrow than today, don't be afraid to get the support vehicle.

The ghostly Father lagged behind for a while before being scooped up in the minibus and escorted to safety. And so we walked for our requisite set of miles before reaching a village green. Smeaton the Grey informed us that we could take a quick break for fifteen minutes. I was angling for the bathroom, and though it was about 0800hrs on a Sunday morning, there seemed to be activity in the posh pub on the other end of the green. Bones and I went to investigate, and it turned out to be a hotel-type place that was open for breakfast. Bones kindly ordered a round of coffees for himself, Smeaton the Grey and me. Very soon, the rest of the Company followed our lead and we were all in there having a nice cup of coffee.

Fr Rowe recovering.

The Bloody Baron of Winslow, Antonio, found a nice bit of reading for himself:

And we sat around and had a convivial break:

However, we took a while about it... I was dreading the wrath of Smeaton the Grey, but as we didn't have so far, he seemed to be a bit more relaxed. We got walking again, singing more of the Rosary, and I was honoured to be able to wear a luminous jacket:

We stopped again on the roadside, and Fr Rowe heard confessions. Before I joined the queue, Br Pietro of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate picked up my staff and chucked it into the bushes. I didn't really know why he did that, and when Bones asked him about it later, he seemed to have forgotten about it himself. Very peculiar. A priest hearing confessions on the side of an A Road (or whatever it was) was a strange but inspiring sight. I wonder what the drivers thought? I got my last confession of the pilgrimage in, and was given further exhortation, encouragement and eventually absolution. Fr Rowe's a great confessor, by the way. I was the last one, and as I returned to pick up by luggage and walk, I was met with the sight of Smeaton the Grey wearing my ridiculous hat, scarf and carrying the ubiquitous man-bag, chanting "Everybody look at me, I'm Seán Wright". He didn't do the Essex accent as well as the Boy Who Wasn't From Liverpool.

Here we are, wearily singing the Rosary:

Eventually we sang the Walsingham Hymn. It's a bit like the Lourdes hymn, only longer and more about Walsingham. It was great fun, we all took it in turns to sing verses. I got a bit excited when it came to the bit about how dreadful Henry VIII was and made a bit of a fool of myself in the Vincent Price-esque way I 'sang' it. Very embarrassing, I got exiled to the back of the Company to think about what a prat I was. Bones has got a video of it, which I'm sure will surface eventually and cause me to blush. After the end of that, we arrived at a sign saying this:

Nearly there!

On the way down, we got closer and closer to the Slipper Chapel, our destination. I decided that I should probably read the excellent pilgrimage primer, which had details about the shrine. It held information about the apparition and its history as a site of pilgrimage, and I think it said that Our Lady said that no-one who came to Walsingham went away empty-handed. This forced me to stop and think. Yes, we were walking for the conversion of England. But why was I walking? I had already realised that the walk was a walk of penance, a chance to make some sort of reparation for the many sins which Our Lord had already forgiven me. But it seemed like Our Lady wanted to give us all something. But I didn't even know what I wanted or needed. So I had a thought, and it became clear what I had to petition Our Lady of Walsingham, the 'Seat of Wisdom' for.

We were basically there. Doug was handed a processional cross, and we sang that beautiful hymn from the Palm Sunday liturgy, 'Gloria, laus, et honor tibi sit, Rex Christe Redemptor'. We processed into Walsingham, singing the Latin chants that, as far as I know, made up our patrimony for centuries - that chant seems to date to the 9th century. Also going on at Walsingham was the Youth 2000 festival, and there were some big tents. As we entered, singing with jubilation, I saw two kids run up to the Shrine's steward and yell,

"Scyooz me! Are dey Christians?"

I assume that they were asking that because they'd never heard Latin sung in a Christian context before, which I thought was interesting and sad.

Tired, weary, dirty and smelly, our procession pulled up to the Slipper Chapel before which we kneeled and gave thanks for safely completing our pilgrimage. I didn't think that this fat, stupid hobbit would make it, and I'm sure other pilgrims doubted that they would too. But Almighty God had guided and brought us to his holy hill and his tabernacle, and soon we would go in unto the Altar of God, to God who was giving joy to our youth.

But that wouldn't happen for about 90 minutes, so I once again demonstrated how much of an unmortified modernist I was. I had seen a sign for the cafe, and what it offered, and so I grabbed Bones and said, "Laurence - there's cream tea". We trolled over to the cafe got the delicious scones, tea, clotted cream and jam that we had dreamt of throughout the pilgrimage. I was still wearing the safety luminous jacket thing, which made me a bit of a wasp magnet. That wasn't cool.

We sat around waiting for Mass, Doug took an opportunity to get a cigarette in:

Mass, a Votive of Our Lady, took place in the rather ugly Chapel of Reconciliation. I don't like those churches that are wider than they are long. But, the church was packed (300-500?) and Fr Rowe delivered another juggernaut of a sermon straight from his head through his mouth into our ears. I was so exhausted throughout the Mass that I kept having to stop myself from falling asleep. But in spite of my fatigue and the ghastly decor, it was very beautiful.

Coolest MC ever

The Holy Mile beckoned. It was time to take off our shoes. I tried to stow them in the bus, but it was locked. I wasn't sure what to do - but then I saw the procession approaching me. I had no choice but to carry them behind the procession. Fr Rowe, coped up and topped off with his biretta, led us in the Glorious Mysteries of the Holy Rosary as we hobbled and winced our way towards the location of the Holy House. Finally with a sense of purpose for my pilgrimage, each step brought each of us closer to our prizes, and to the location of the ancient site. About 100 people joined the Company, which made up about 130 people. We sang our way through the old archway, into the green where the remains of the ruined abbey stood. It was horrifying. It was so sad, to see such a beautiful structure wrecked and ruined by philistines. I can't find a photograph that does its noble, ruined beauty justice. Go there, see it for yourself. We processed to where the tabernacle would have stood, then veered around to the suspected location of the original Holy House.

And, with the final blessing, the pilgrimage was done. We breathed a sigh of relief - and a sigh of sorrow that our blessed time together was nearly over, and that soon we little Hobbits, who had been through such an adventure, would have to return to reclaim and scour the Shire.

But we few, we happy few, we band of brothers - we who had shed blood and sweat together over the previous days, we shall be brothers, be we ne'er so vile. For this moment mortified our condition, and those who had spent the weekend at ease shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks, that walked with us to Walsingham!

Non nobis, non nobis, Domine - sed nomini tuo da gloriam.

Continues with Day 3 (Aftermath)

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The Latin Mass Society

2011-09-02T16:25:00.000+01:00

Bones has written that he has just joined the Latin Mass Society and explains his reasons why. I too had just joined, for similar reasons. Just received my new members pack in the post today, it was very jolly.

What I want to know, however, is when there will be an LMS members' tie?

And is that begging the question, when there will be a Juventutem London tie?

Ely-Walsingham: Day 2

2011-09-02T15:12:00.000+01:00

Advance-book your place on the epic penitential adventure of the LMS ELY-WALSINGHAM PILGRIMAGE 2012!

Do it now and the prices will remain as those of 2011!

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS!

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Day 2

This morning began with the luxurious lie-in granted us by Smeaton the Grey - we got up at 0545hrs rather than 0515hrs. And I'm not exaggerating when I call this a luxury. I mentioned in my post for Day I that Bones and I could not be bothered to put up a tent, and that this proved to be fortuitous. I shall now tell you why. As I lay in my cocoon, listening to the irritated sounds of male pilgrims dismantling their tents, a number of ideas presented themselves to my mind:

I don't have a tent to dismantle.
All these guys have tents to dismantle.
The shower is probably free.

Rather than demonstrating some fraternal charity (as I now realise I should have done), I allowed my cocoon to spew me forth, and I hurled myself into the shower. This meant that I was able to begin the day clean - something one expects at home, but unspeakably brilliant when on pilgrimage. Having exhibited my gratuitous selfishness, we proved our modernist credentials by failing to fast from midnight, and got to work on eating breakfast and making coffee. No teapots were available, so I was only able to make a very gritty cuppa. Still, needs must. Some point around now or last night, I discovered that my feet - which had been in a state for at least a year - seemed to be miraculously cured. After packing away, we assembled outside and prepared to set off to Oxburgh Hall for Mass.

We set off singing the Great Litany, the Litany of the Saints, in the language it was intended to be sung in. The sun was rising, the sky was clear(ing, -ish), and so Bones decided to furnish me with the most memorable part of the pilgrimage by sidling up to me, and singing the first four lines of this in my face:

Awful - just awful. Also, copyright won't let it play on this blog.

On our way, I remarked to Bones that as Oxburgh Hall was a National Trust property, we might be able to get a cream tea there. It was quite something to be walking in the early morning, I love the shadows in this picture:

Speaking of that picture, perhaps I should explain my outfit, and attempt to justify the fact that I look like the stupidest person in the world. That ghastly hat dates from the period in which I was the biggest prat in Exeter, in early 2008. I haven't really worn it since, and I'm only wearing it on this pilgrimage because buying a new hat would have been a bit frivolous. The sunglasses worn in rain or shine, day or night, admittedly have no justification - in that respect, I am just a prat. The Syrian scarf seen elsewhere was a gift from a friend who spent the second year of his degree in Syria. I'm on strict instructions not to wear it in London. It's very good for keeping you warm in the cold, and keeping you cool in the heat. And also, anything that will prevent my translucent skin from turning into ash has got to be good.

We arrived at Oxburgh Hall. I was wearing shorts, and as I learnt from this guy on Bones' blog, this made me a dud. Also, shorts at Mass are not cool. Luckily I had my dad's waterproof trousers to hand, so I popped them on. We stood around admiring Oxburgh Hall for a while, it was a pretty nice house - but not as big as mine (cough).

Holy Mass, offered again by Fr Rowe, was stunning.

However, something very unpleasant happened during Mass. Just after the Gospel, I put my hands into the pocket of my raincoat, and felt something cold, wet and slimy in the left pocket. I drew my hand out in horror. 'A slug', I thought. I tested it by putting two fingers on it from the outside of the jacket, and to see if it moved. I thought that it did. My skin was crawling. As this was happening, Fr Rowe was preaching. Poignantly, he observed that it was the second day of the pilgrimage, and we were walking without the spring in our step that we had yesterday. He preached on powerfully on the need to know ourselves, to see ourselves as we were before Almighty God. He told us that we should not think about how our feet were sore etc. However, I had a slug in my pocket. Even when Fr Rowe struck threatening poses like the one below, I found it very hard to forget the fact that I HAD A SLUG IN MY POCKET.

"If you don't stop thinking about the slug in your pocket, I shall squeeze your head like this."

Luckily during the Canon and the distribution of Holy Communion I was able to put my unwanted pocket-hitcher out of my mind, though at the end of Mass I turned around and whispered to Bones: "Laurence. I have a slug in my pocket." Bones looked surprised and disgusted. We made our thanksgiving and retreated from the holy chapel (and what a chapel! Set to be January on the LMS calendar again this year?). Outside I turned on my mobile phone, and used the torch to peer inside the crevices of my pocket at the infernal and molluscous nemesis that had been plaguing my recollection throughout Mass.

The 'slug' was actually a Haribo left over from yesterday (I told you I would regret it).

Yesterday, after I had finished the packet, Bones had asked for one. I told him I had finished them. When I told him today what it was, he said "That's mine you know, seeing as you finished them off yesterday". It was covered in pocket grit and was gross, so I told him he was welcome to it, I handed it to him and ran off to climb out of the waterproof trousers. The Bloody Baron of Winslow greeted me and informed me that my walking staff was a bit like a Bishop's crozier, and that I could be a certain Bishop of the SSPX. I thanked him but politely declined the honour. I went in search of cream tea, but found that the cafe wouldn't open until 11am (it was 1030hrs or something). However, Mr and Mrs Beddingfield (the Lord and Lady of the manor?) very kindly invited us all into a private part of the house for tea, instant coffee (thank you, I'll have tea please), ginger cake and biscuits. It was splendid, just the ticket.

Bones looking happy there.

After this we were escorted up to the Oxburgh Priest-Hole. Here I am therein:

And here's Fr Rowe, where he belongs:

It's quite special really, seeing a priest in a priest-hole. That indelible sacramental character on his soul is the very same that was on his brother priests that once sought refuge there. I'm sure he had a very profound experience being there, one that we laity can only imagine.

Lucy (The Girl Who Wasn't From Liverpool) pinched my stick and hid it around the corner from where I left it, which caused about 20 seconds of panic and could have resulted in a dangerous strop if John, (The Boy Who Wasn't From Liverpool), hadn't shown me where she'd hidden it. Once I had my stick, and Eve's attempt at kidnapping Baby Margaret had been foiled, we were off and back on the road. However, two dark pillars of smoke were rising from Smeaton the Grey's ears: we were about 30 minutes behind schedule. This delay would come back to haunt us down the road...

We plodded along down the road, singing our Rosaries and sweet hymns to the Holy and Immaculate Mother of God and her Divine Son. The sky was intermittently smiling and flobbing at us, and at some point we saw a rainbow. I'm afraid that my memories of this stretch of the journey are sketchy. Smeaton the Grey had decided that, because we had spent longer at Oxburgh, we didn't deserve a morning break. However - he neglected to inform us of that. Trailing along at the back, I eventually caught up with the rest of the Company, where there was a mutinous exchange:

"When are we stopping for lunch?"
"Half an hour," said Smeaton the Grey. The Company erupted.
"Half an hour?!" The younger members of the Company looked very distressed.

I was also distressed, because along this stretch - whilst discussing Archbishop Peter Smith's 'greatest achievement', Smeaton the Grey informed me that the little patch by the road that we had just passed was where he'd intended us to have our break. He proved himself to be a cruel man when he ordered me to lag behind and to take the wretched Vatican flag, or whatever it was, and to wait for the others to catch up. He very kindly took my staff - an amazing thing, tall, sturdy and light that Bones had found for me (in one of the pictures above) - and on the way he cast it onto the road. Apparently that was for me to pick up if I still wanted it when I reached it. But how on earth would I be able to understand that that was what he was saying when he was shouting it from about a mile ahead?! We entered a forest road, and we trudged and we trudged, and we failed to bear our crosses graciously. "This mustn't happen next year". "No, never again". I understood the words of my nick-namesake:

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet.

After 10 miles from Oxburgh Hall, at around 1400hrs or 1500hrs (or perhaps even later), we emerged from the forest road into a small town, and finally took our rest and luncheon. We were seated on a little verge by the bus-stop. Though fuming with anger against that wretched man Smeaton, all was forgiven when I saw, in the middle of the circle of seated pilgrims, like some ancient idol, a crate of Fosters and Carlsberg. This was, as they say, "Just what the doctor ordered".

Over my, frankly incredible, lunch of an all-day-breakfast sandwich and a can of Fosters, I had a pleasant conversation with a friend from my old university and two young homeschooled ladies from Oxford. I hear that one was having a particularly hard time with the walk, but I don't think she got any of the support vehicles at all - respect. Fr Bede blessed my lunch for me (I arrived late) but apparently made a mental reservation such that my beer wasn't blessed. I was distressed to find that I'd bought pickled onion Monster Munch rather than Flamin' Hot, but food is food. If there's one thing I've learnt on the pilgrimage (and quickly forgotten), it's that food is food.

Smeaton and Bones at the ruined priory, preparing to intercede for the Holy Souls.

Waking up the sleeping Nonso, we set off again, this time heading to the site of a pre-Reformation priory where lots of dead religious would be buried. There we sang the Dies Irae and said prayers for their souls, and for the souls of all of the faithful departed. From the Priory we trudged along and I decided to take Smeaton the Grey's advice and go to Confession again. Fr Rowe also agreed, that daily confession on pilgrimage or retreat was a good idea. I'm sold on the idea, I went again on Day 3 and will continue that practice next time I'm on something like this. Fr Rowe's theme throughout was knowledge of self, and in this sort of environment it's very hard not to be confronted with a shocking, and often quite ugly, realisation of who we are and what we can do without grace. Rebuked, exhorted, encouraged and absolved in my sacramental encounter with Our Lord through my ghoostly Father, I picked myself up again and got on with the business of walking.

We found ourselves in some remarkably idyllic little villages, like Little Massingham (or something). Here, the village greens were very green. The inhabitants were twitching their net curtains and a couple were out, peering at us and probably thinking what a set of, as my Irish grandmother would say, 'queerhawks' we all were. Through this stretch, Bones and I got talking to the eldest of the homeschooled ladies mentioned earlier, and we got a fascinating insight into the life of the large, homeschooled traddie families. These days, the pew taken up by a single home-schooled family who arrive in a mini-bus is an iconic sight in certain parts of the Catholic world, and getting the 'inside' look at it helped me understand and appreciate with greater clarity what this was all about. However, our erudite and interesting conversation was interrupted when we saw this sign, and had to get a picture with it:

The Catholic Youth joined us, and the four of us passed a pair of dolled-up couples, evidently on their way out for a fun Saturday night. You noticed odd things when this happens on pilgrimage, like the fact that they were wearing perfume and cologne. These were normal people, living in the normal world. They received post that morning. For a time, for the brief time that we were on pilgrimage, we were in a different world: a twilight world that yet was more real than the one that we had left and to which we must, however painful it would be, return. The four of us trailed along behind the rest of the company o'er moor and fen, and crag and torrent 'til Smeaton the Grey gave us another break. Here he is with the King of the (UK) Traddies.

I think Smeaton is angling for the position as 'heir apparent', especially when considered in light of the similarities with other historical photos:

I took a seat in the mini-bus to let my legs relax, and Fr Rowe furnished me with 2 or 3 energy tablets. After another, harrowing stretch, we emerged singing a droned Orbis Factor to the town of [unknown] where we were camping for the night. We were staying at a town hall: we were all eating inside, and then the lads were camping outside with the girls inside. The Bloody Baron, equality-minded as ever, was unimpressed with this arrangement - but I think he slept in the Tower of Winslow anyway. I took off my boots to be greeted again by the pair of old squid. Eve was disgusted, both by the sight and the smell, and so I was sent to the little boys room to clean them up. Still, my feet weren't as bad as Eldest Homeschooled Girl, who I spotted having to have one of the Company pierce her blisters. Her family should be very proud of her and her sister for making it all the way! I was ~~shamed~~ inspired: if a pair of young girls could keep going without moaning too much, couldn't a big man like me? I needed to man up!

Supper was delicious - some nice ladies had cooked us Shepherd's Pie. Mrs Shaw scored a hat-trick by proving her mulier fortis credentials for a third time, having made ravioli for the vegetarians. Unfortunately, I'm not a vegetarian and hadn't requested it, so I didn't see any of it.

I wanted a coffee, so I went poking around in the kitchen to see if I could find a teapot for some make-shift realcoffee. To my joy, I found a filter machine! I couldn't believe my eyes. It was in a bit of a state, so I cleaned it up, set it going and made this joyous news known to those I knew would appreciate it. We made a load of fine-tasting coffee and we all felt great for it.

However, 20 miles is quite far, and as the Company was made up mainly of big grown men and hungry hobbits, we were still hungry after supper. Smeaton the Grey hobbled over to the pub opposite and arranged for a vittleor top-up. He announced the news, and so we proceeded to wash up. Fr Rowe announced that, as we had not completed our Rosary that day, that we would set up the hall in such a way that we could pray the last set of mysteries before the Relic of the True Cross that had found its way onto the pilgrimage. Following the mysteries, we had a chance to venerate the wood of the Cross, on which hung the Saviour of the world. I think quite a few tears were shed.

Second supper took the welcome form of fish and chips. Ian, the pub manager, was very gracious. Things rapidly dissolved after this. The more sensible members of the Company departed, leaving only us stupid idiots behind. This turned into a sing-song: Bones got his guitar and performed a whole bunch of songs (including one of his own), and others sang unaccompanied. I performed a rendition of Bonnie Tyler's 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'. Here is one of the Company singing:

More and more of the Company fell in battle, eventually leaving only myself, Bones, Smeaton the Grey and Doug. After the final round of nightcaps of Brandy (no Port available) it became clear to all of us that we needed to turn in. We'd been making a lot of noise, and Mrs Ian the Pub Manager was concerned we'd wake her kids up. We retired to our tents, and as I lay dozing off, knowing that the majority of the pilgrimage was complete, I felt a peace and a happiness in my soul that had been blossoming throughout the pilgrimage. It was hard, there was no doubt about that, but walking for Our Lady and her August Son was an honour, a privilege and a blessing. The peace that Our Lord was giving us through walking was not a peace recognised or understood by the world, but rather a peace and unity agreeable to his will.

Continues with Day 3

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