Masses in December and early Jan, including Christmas Day and Epiphany

The great feast of the Immaculate Conception, Saturday 8th December, will be celebrated with Low Masses at:

8am at St Dominic's Dursley, 
8.15am at Prinknash Abbey
10am at Our Lady and St Kenelm, Stow-on-the-Wold.

On 11th December there will be a Low Mass at the Eyre Chantry, Perrymead Cemetery in Bath, at 12.30pm.

On Christmas Day the following Latin Masses will be celebrated:

SS Joseph and Teresa, Wells – 8am Low Mass

St Dominic's Dursley – 8.30am Low Mass

Our Lady and St Kenelm, Stow on the Wold  – 11.30am Low Mass

Holy Cross, Bedminster  – 11.45am Low Mass

Our Lady and St Alphege, Bath – 12 noon Low Mass

Looking ahead to the feast of Epiphany, which falls on the first Sunday of 2013, Mass will be celebrated as follows:

St Benedict's Stratton on the Fosse - 11.15am Low Mass

Our Lady and St Alphege, Bath - 12 noon Missa Cantata

Prinknash Abbey - 3pm Low Mass

St Dominic's Dursley - 5.30pm Low Mass

Confirmations in the Traditional Rite in London

The Latin Mass Society held its annual ceremony of Confirmations in the Extraordinary Form on Saturday, 24 November. Bishop Alan Hopes, auxiliary in the Archdiocese of Westminster, conferred the Sacrament to 23 candidates at St James’s Church, Spanish Place, in central London. Assisting the bishop were Fr Rupert McHardy, Cong. Orat., Fr Tim Finigan and the parish priest of St James’s, Fr Christopher Colven. The Confirmations were followed by Pontifical Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

Afterwards, the confirmands, their sponsors, and families went for lunch in St James’s parish centre, where Bishop Hopes cut a celebratory cake.

LMS General Manager, Mike Lord, said: ‘We were delighted with the number of candidates we received for Traditional Confirmations in London this year, particularly as there had been, for the first time, two other Traditional Confirmation ceremonies this year in Wirral and Stoke-on-Trent. We would like to thank Bishop Hopes for agreeing to confer the Sacrament this year and look forward to another successful event in London next year. We would very much like to see other Confirmations in the Extraordinary Form across the whole country and would urge all bishops to consider offering this Sacrament in its traditional form in their dioceses as part of their pastoral care for the faithful.’

Change to time of Glastonbury Mass

The 3rd Sunday Mass at Our Lady of Glastonbury will henceforward be celebrated at 12.30pm instead of 12.15pm.
Please make a note of the new time, and pass on the news to anyone who might be interested.

Requiem Mass at the Eyre Chantry, Bath

On 13^th November Fr Alexander Redman celebrated a Low Requiem Mass at the Eyre Chantry in Perrymead Cemetery, Bath.

This miniature jewel of a chapel was built by Charles Francis Hansom in the 1860s for John Lewis Eyre, as a burial place and chantry for the Eyre family. Hansom designed an elaborate French Gothic chapel, with a beautiful altar in the form of a sepulchre containing an alabaster figure of Christ. In the crypt are buried members of the Eyre family, Recusants who came originally from Derbyshire.

Fr Redman preached on the vital importance of praying, and offering Mass for the suffering souls in Purgatory. There are countless examples of chantry chapels, tombs and crypts in churches around the country, now no longer in Catholic hands, which were built in the confident expectation that Mass would be celebrated in perpetuity. The souls of these faithful departed no longer receive the benefit of Masses or intercessionary prayers. Fr Redman encouraged us to pray for these departed souls whenever we visit a church – particularly a pre-Reformation church – where Mass is no longer celebrated.

The Mass today was offered for the souls of all the departed Eyre family – many of whom entered the religious life and the priesthood. One member of the family, Charles Eyre, became the first post-Reformation Bishop of Glasgow.

The chapel is otherwise unused, and is closed to the public for most of the year. It was a most moving and beautiful sight to witness the Mass being celebrated here again, in the rite and for the purpose for which it was intended. The cold, dusty building was transformed into a place of light and prayer, ready once more to receive the presence of Our Lord.

The hope is that a monthly requiem Mass will be offered here all year round. Please check this website for further details.

Solemn High Requiem Mass for All Souls at Holy Cross, Bedminster

On the feast of All Souls a Solemn High Requiem Mass was celebrated at Holy Cross church in Bedminster, Bristol. The celebrant was Fr Philip Thomas, the deacon was Fr Alexander Redman, and the sub-deacon was Fr Martin Queenan.

The St John’s Festival choir, led by Elizabeth Bates, sang the Missa de Profundis by Giovanni Anerio (1567-1630), a haunting early Baroque setting. Anerio was associated with the Oratory of St Philip Neri and became the maestro di cappella at the Basilica of St John Lateran.

The church of Holy Cross was built in 1922 in the Byzantine style. With its imposing High Altar and stately baldacchino, it was a fitting location for a most beautiful and moving Mass. We are extremely grateful to all the priests involved in celebrating the Mass, and to Fr Andrew Goodman for kindly hosting it. We also sincerely thank all the servers and the fantastic choir, who provided us with such outstanding music.

Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine.

A view of the church before the start of Mass: