Eyre Mass update

There will be no Mass at the Eyre chantry chapel in Bath in either July or August. The next Mass to be celebrated there will be on Tuesday 3rd September at 12.30pm.

This summer

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Palma Vecchio

Here are the details of Latin Masses being celebrated in the diocese this summer. Regular Masses will continue as normal unless otherwise stated below - please see the sidebar for details.

Firstly, a reminder of the Masses for next Saturday, 29th June, which is the Feast of SS Peter and Paul:

8am - St Dominic's, Dursley

8am - SS Joseph and Teresa, Wells

8.15am - Prinknash Abbey, Cranham, Glos
9.30am - Our Lady of Lourdes, Weston-super-Mare

10am - Our Lady and St Kenelm, Stow-on-the-Wold

12pm - Our Lady and St Alphege, Bath

- On Tuesday 2nd July at 6pm there will be a Missa Cantata at St Mary's Church, Cricklade, Wilts, SN6 6AP for the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (please see previous post for more details).

- The first Saturday Masses at All Saints Chapel, Wardour will be celebrated on Saturday, 6th July, and on Saturday 3rd August at 11am. There will be an opportunity for confession before Mass.

- Please note that here will be NO Mass at the Eyre Chapel, Perrymead, Bath in July or August. The next Mass to be celebrated there will be on 3rd September at 12.30pm.

- Mass will be celebrated on Wednesday 3rd July and Wednesday 7th August at 6pm at St Gregory's, Cheltenham.

- Mass will be celebrated on Wednesday 3rd July and Wednesday 7th August at 6.30pm at Holy Cross, Bedminster.

- There will be NO fourth Sunday Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes, Weston-super-Mare on Sunday 28th July, nor on Thursday 1st August.

- On Sunday 4th August there will be a Solemn High Mass for the feast of St Dominic, at 5.30pm at St Dominic's Dursley, Glos.

- On Thursday 15th August, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Masses will be celebrated as follows:

8 am - St Dominic's Dursley

9.30am - Our Lady of Lourdes, Weston-super-Mare

12 noon - Our Lady and St Alphege, Bath

12.45pm - Holy Cross, Bedminster

6pm - The Immaculate Conception, Devizes.

- Looking ahead to September, there will be a Missa Cantata on Sunday 8th September at Our Lady of Glastonbury at 12.30pm, followed by Benediction and the opportunity to have a picnic lunch in the presbytery garden (if it's dry) or the church hall (if not). The Abbot of Downside will preach at this Mass.

- On Saturday 21st September there will be a Mass at the Holy Redeemer, Bishopdown, Salisbury, at 11.30am.

Do please come along and support these Masses. 

Fakes and forgeries

We have received an answer to the mystery of St Lelius. We are extremely grateful to Dr Giles Mercer, who was headmaster at Prior Park from 1996-2009, for finding this passage in J.S. Roche’s ‘A History of Prior Park College’ (1931), pp. 256-7:

The high altar, which was made in Rome of Italian marbles, was the gift of the Countess English. Its sepulchre for relics is seen through a beautiful pierced cross of statuary marble, and on the back of the altar is an inscription asking for prayers for the donor. There are no relics in the sepulchre, but as an explanation of this fact, two traditions exist: one that the marble chest, supposed to contain the relics, on its arrival at Prior Park from Rome, was found to be empty: the other that they were destroyed by a general order from Rome, as many spurious relics were about that time sent from the Eternal City by unauthorised individuals. The relics that were to have been inserted in the sepulchre were said to be those of St Laelius, the Boy Martyr, whose name appears on the back of the altar.

It is disappointing to discover that the chapel does not, after all, contain relics of a child martyr. It seems that Countess English – or at least her agents – may have fallen prey to merchants peddling fake relics in Rome. A lively trade in forgeries such as this has been in operation since the Middle Ages, as is well known. We do not know whether St Lelius even existed. Possibly his identity was part of the deception on the part of the sellers.

One thing is certain, however. There must be a relic present in the High Altar, or it could not have been consecrated.

‘We honour the martyrs' relics, so that thereby we give honour to Him Whose [witness] they are: we honour the servants, that the honour shown to them may reflect on their Master’.

St Jerome.

A boy martyr in Bath

In a previous blog post we saw an image of the High Altar of the chapel of Our Lady of the Snows at Prior Park College in Bath. Here it is again (above). This beautiful marble altar contains the complete relics of a child martyr named Lelius. Here is the inscription on the back of the altar. It reads ‘corpus S. Lelii pueri martyris’.

Unfortunately St Lelius is not mentioned in the Roman martyrology. A plausible explanation for this is that he was one of a group of martyrs and therefore not mentioned individually.

How fitting for a school – and one that was for many years educating boys only – to have the relics of a boy martyr in its chapel. We can hope with confidence that St Lelius interceded for the teachers and pupils at Prior Park, and that he will continue to do so today.

The Christian Martyrs' last prayer by Jean-Leon Gerome

We will try and find out more about St Lelius and report any findings in a future post. In the meantime, if anyone has any information about St Lelius and the connection with Prior Park, do please let us know in the comments box below.

The Most Sacred Heart in Bath

Today we celebrate the great feast of the Most Sacred Heart. An extra Latin Mass was celebrated in the diocese, at the chapel of the Sacred Heart in Prior Park College chapel, Bath. It was celebrated by Fr Malcolm Smeaton, the chaplain of Prior Park, who kindly added an Extraordinary Form Mass to his schedule. This was arranged at short notice and so could not unfortunately be advertised.

Fr Smeaton learned to celebrate the Extraordinary Form last year at the LMS Priests’ and Servers’ training conference, and now celebrates a Latin Mass once a week.

Prior Park chapel was built in 1844 by the architect JJ Scoles. It is dedicated to Our Lady of the Snows, a dedication it shares with the great Roman basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. 

The sanctuary of the chapel. The wooden forward altar is conveniently easy to remove.

Pevsner described Prior Park chapel as ‘without any doubt the most impressive church interior of its date in the country.' The magnificent nave with its giant Corinthian columns and the beautiful sanctuary are indeed remarkable.

The impressive polychrome marble High Altar (above) was a bequest of Isabella Countess English. It contains the relics of a martyr: the inscription on the back states ‘corpus s. Lelii pueri martyris’.

Below is the marble side altar of St Edward the Confessor:

In the chapel of St Joseph there are stautes of Pope St Pius X and St Philomena.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

Mass listings for June and early July

The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus by Pompeo Batoni

Below are details of Latin Masses in June in 

the Diocese of Clifton

• The first Saturday Mass at All Saints Chapel, Wardour will be celebrated this coming Saturday, 1st June, at 11am. There will be an opportunity for confession before Mass and (Deo Volente) Exposition and Benediction afterwards.

• There will be a Requiem Mass for the Holy Souls at the Eyre Chapel, Perrymead, Bath, on Tuesday 4th June at 12.30pm.

• Mass will be celebrated on Wednesday 5th June at St Gregory's, Cheltenham at 6pm.

• There will also be Mass at 6.30pm at Holy Cross, Bedminster on Wednesday 5th June.

• On Friday 7th June, the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Mass will be celebrated at 8am at St Dominic's, Dursley and at 6pm at the Immaculate Conception, Devizes.

• The regular Sunday Masses will continue as normal in June, but please note that there will be NO Latin Mass on Sunday 9th June at the Immaculate Conception in Devizes.

SS Peter and Paul by El Greco

• For the feast of SS Peter and Paul, on Saturday 29th June, Masses will be celebrated as follows:

8am - St Dominic's, Dursely

8am - SS Joseph and Teresa, Wells

8.15am - Prinknash Abbey, Cranham, Glos

10am - Our Lady and St Kenelm, Stow-on-the-Wold

12pm - Our Lady and St Alphege, Bath

• On Tuesday 2nd July there will be a Missa Cantata at St Mary's Church, Cricklade, Wilts, SN6 6AP for the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

• Looking ahead a little, please note that there will be NO fourth Sunday Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes, Weston-super-Mare on Sunday 28th July, nor on Thursday 1st August.

Corpus Christi

The great feast of Corpus Christi is celebrated this Thursday. Here are the times and locations of Masses in the diocese:

8am - St Dominic's, Dursley

10am - Our Lady and St Kenelm, Stow-on-the-Wold

11am - Prinknash Abbey, Cranham

12 noon - Our Lady and St Alphege, Bath

7.30pm - Our Lady of Lourdes, Weston Super-Mare. This will be a Solemn High Mass.

One Weekend in April - part two

The LMS has issued a second short video, this time focussing on the Gregorian Chant weekend, which runs alongside the St Catherine's Trust family retreat. This takes place each year in Low Week.

The link is here: http://vimeo.com/66675498

The video gives a good idea of the course, which is open to beginners as well as to more advanced singers. Those participating in the course provided the music for the Masses celebrated during the retreat weekend.

The course is interesting and rewarding, and it is hoped that by training more singers in plainchant, the number of local scholas and parish choirs able to sing at Latin Masses around the country will increase.

If you are interested in finding out more about the Gregorian Chant course, please contact Mike Lord at the Latin Mass Society

11-13 Macklin Street

London

WC2B 5NH

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020 7404 7284

michael@lms.org.uk

www.lms.org.uk

Proof - if proof were needed

For the first time ever, thanks to the Latin Mass Society, we now have an accurate statistical picture of Catholic faith and life in this country both prior to, and following the Second Vatican Council.

Dr Joseph Shaw, Chairman of the LMS, working with the Rev Stephen Morgan and a team from the diocese of Portsmouth, has amassed the figures for Catholic Ordinations, Baptisms, Conversions and Marriages in England and Wales dating from the 1860s onwards.

The results (see below) point to a collapse in Catholic faith and life in this country during the late 1960s and the 1970s; a collapse which has not been reversed in the decades since. This is will not surprise anyone reading this blog. The importance of having statistics such as these is, in large part, to highlight the tragic decline in the Catholic Church in this country following Vatican II, a fact that cannot be denied or covered up with false optimism or propaganda.

This important research is covered on Rorate Caeli, the LMS Chairman's Blog, and in this week's Catholic Herald.

Newly released statistics show the decline of the Catholic Church in England and Wales in 1960s and 1970s.

Research by the Latin Mass Society has demonstrated the striking decline of a range of statistical indications of the health of the Catholic Church in England and Wales in the 1960s and 1970s.

To our knowledge this data has never been made available in collated form before: the number of ordinations year by year since 1860, the number of priests since 1890, and baptisms, marriages, and receptions, and estimates of the Catholic population, since 1913.

Among the findings are:

Marriages: The number of marriages collapsed by a third between 1968 and 1978 (from 47,417 to 31,534), and has continued a rapid decline since then, now standing at less than 10,000 a year, a quarter of the 1968 level in absolute terms, and even less in relation to the estimated Catholic population (from 12 per thousand in 1968) to 2½ per thousand in 2010).

Conversions fell off a cliff in the 1960s. From a peak of 15,794 in 1959, it fell to 5,117 in 1972; in relation the Catholic population, it fell by more than 70% between those two years. It has not recovered.

Baptisms halved between 1964 and 1977 (137,673 in 1964 to 68,351 in 1977), and are even lower today (oscillating around the 60,000 mark). This is not just the effect of the end of the ‘baby boom’: considered in relation to total live births for England and Wales (using data from the Office for National Statistics), the first half of the 20^th century saw steady growth, with Catholic baptisms peaking at nearly 16% of all live births in 1963. This was followed by a decline of a third between the mid 1960s and the mid 1970s. A more gentle decline has continued to the present: today fewer than 10% of babies born alive in England and Wales are being baptised in the Catholic Church. 

Ordinations fell by more than 56% between 1965 and 1977 (from 233 to 101), and the decline has continued. Even on the more optimistic figures supplied by the National Office of Vocations (compared to the Catholic Directory) for the current year, showing an increase on recent years, numbers are at scarcely 30% of their 1964 level. (Counting only ordinations to the diocesan clergy, there were 134 in 1964; the NOV predicts 41 this year.)

Dr Joseph Shaw, the Chairman of the Latin Mass Society, who led the research, comments:

‘Anyone with an interest in the future of the Catholic Church in England and Wales will find these figures illuminating. They show unambiguously that something went seriously wrong in the Church in England and Wales in the 1960s and 1970s. 

Catholics ceased quite suddenly to see the value of getting married, having large families, and having their children baptised. Non-Catholics no longer perceived the Church as the ark of salvation, and ceased to seek admission. Young men no longer offered themselves for the priesthood in the same numbers as before.

‘It is not fanciful to connect this catastrophe to the wrenching changes which were taking place in the Church at that time, when the Second Vatican Council was being prepared, discussed, and, often erronesouly, applied. As Pope Benedict wrote in the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum (2007):

in many places celebrations were not faithful to the prescriptions of the new Missal, but the latter actually was understood as authorizing or even requiring creativity, which frequently led to deformations of the liturgy which were hard to bear. I am speaking from experience, since I too lived through that period with all its hopes and its confusion. And I have seen how arbitrary deformations of the liturgy caused deep pain to individuals totally rooted in the faith of the Church.

‘The theological and liturgical fashions of that era were invariably justified by the hope of positive pastoral results, and these results manifestly failed to materialise.

‘The effect of dissent from the Church’s teaching is particularly manifest in relation to contraception, which has had a direct consequence on the Catholic birth rate, as reflected in the number of baptisms, compared to the national birth rate.

‘The Church in England and Wales today has fewer than half the ordinations each year than it had in the 1860s, but more than double the number of priests. A large proportion of those priests, however, will die or have to stop work over the next decade. In this respect we are still living on our capital, and this capital is about to run out.

‘The Extraordinary Form has not lost its power to attract young men to the priesthood, and the communities which have grown up around it today provide disproportionate numbers of vocations, marriages, and baptisms. Thirteen young men from England and Wales are currently studying for the priesthood in the different religious orders committed to the Extraordinary Form; three more should join them in September; these are numbers which many dioceses would envy.

‘We believe that the Extraordinary Form (the Traditional Mass) has an important role to play in resolving the crisis in the Church.’

Notes on the statistics.

Unless otherwise indicated, the statistics are taken from the Catholic Directory. Statistics for ordinations can be recovered only by manually counting the lists of men ordained each year; some of this work was done by the Rev. Stephen Morgan and a team at the Diocese of Portsmouth. The Latin Mass Society has filled in the gaps in Rev. Morgan’s figures and extended the range of dates covered in both directions. In addition, the LMS has added the total number of clergy, and the numbers given in the Directory’s ‘Recapitulation of Statistics’ since 1913, which include Baptisms, Marriages, Adult Conversions (renamed ‘Receptions’ in 1976), and estimates of the Catholic population.

We are very grateful to the Rev. Stephen Morgan for letting us use the fruits of his research, to the Fathers of the London Oratory for giving us access to their library, and to a number of Latin Mass Society volunteers for their time.

The full press release on the LMS website:

http://www.lms.org.uk/resources/statistics-from-the-catholic-directory

A downloadable spreadsheet showing all the figures with 13 graphs:

http://www.lms.org.uk/resources/catholic-directory-statistics

JPEGs of all the graphs on a Flickr set:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55776120@N08/sets/72157633478538615/

Free use of all the above, with attribution to the LMS.

For further information contact either: Mike Lord, General Manager, on 020 7404 7284 or michael@lms.org.uk

FSSP Year of Faith Retreat

The Priestly Fraternity of St Peter (FSSP) is holding a retreat for the Year of Faith, on 31st May to 2nd June. The title is 'You shall be my witnesses'. The retreat will explore how to bear more fruitful witness to our faith in our everyday lives. 

Traditional retreats in the UK are extremely rare, and for those without regular access to the sacraments offered in the Extraordinary Form, this is a wonderful opportunity to spend time with like-minded people and to attend Holy Mass on Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday. There will also be the chance of Confession or a private talk with Fr Armand de Malleray FSSP or Fr Matthew Goddard FSSP. 

There are still some places left, so book now! Details of prices and booking information can be found below.

Year of Faith retreat for all:

31 May-2 June 2013

'You shall be My witnesses' (Acts 1:8):

In the prayerful and relaxing setting of Douai Abbey, come and reflect with us on how to bear a more fruitful witness to Our Blessed Lord Jesus in our everyday lives.

Upper Woolhampton, Reading, West Berks. RG7 5TQ.

Starts Friday 5pm, ends Sunday 3pm.

Led by Fr Armand de Malleray FSSP, assisted by Fr Matthew Goddard FSSP.

(Picture: The Calling of Apostles, by Domenico Ghirlandaio)

Spiritual conferences and direction, Holy Masses, Eucharistic adoration.

Cost full board 2 days including VAT: £140 single room with ensuite bathroom, £110 shared room with ensuite bathroom or £90 without. 

Low income/Unwaged: contact us for significant discounts. 

Bookings/info: FSSP, 17 Eastern Avenue, Reading RG1 5RU, Berks. malleray@fssp.org. www.fssp.org.uk/england

Booking : please send us your £20 deposit (per person), made payable to FSSP ENGLAND. Remainder to be paid at the Abbey during the retreat.

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Read online the latest edition of our quarterly magazine Dowry N°17 (Winter 2013).

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Please pray for our 7 English seminarians and for 3 more applying for next autumn.

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To contact us:

Priestly Fraternity of St Peter in England, 17 Eastern Avenue, Reading RG1 5RU, Berkshire, England

Telephone: 0118 966 5284;

Fr de Malleray: malleray@fssp.org;

Fr Goddard: goddard@fssp.org

Community: www.fssp.org.uk/england

One Weekend in April - a new video from the LMS

The LMS has produced a short, informative video about the annual St Catherine's Trust family retreat.

Here is the link: http://vimeo.com/65679307

Do have a look at the video, and if you have not been on the retreat before, book your place for 2014!

For more details, go to The St Catherine's Trust Website

Masses in May

The month of May, Our Lady's month, is nearly here, and there are many Latin Masses being celebrated in the diocese. Below is a list of the most notable dates. Please note that this does not include all the parish Latin Masses that take place regularly each month: these can be seen in the sidebar on the right.

Wednesday 1st May - 6pm Mass at St Gregory's, Cheltenham for the feast of St Joseph the Worker.

Wednesday 1st May - 6.30pm Missa Cantata followed by a social for 18-30s at Holy Cross, Bedminster.

Saturday 4th May - 11am Solemn High Mass at Downside Abbey, for the feast of the Holy Martyrs of England and Wales.

Sunday 5th May - 5.30pm Missa Cantata at St Dominic's Dursley, followed by refreshments in the church hall.

Tuesday 7th May - 12.30pm Requiem Mass at the Eyre Chantry chapel, Perrymead Cemetery, Bath.

Thursday 9th May - 12 noon Low Mass for the feast of the Ascension at Our Lady and St Alphege, Bath.

Thursday 9th May - 7.30pm Missa Cantata for the feast of the Ascension at SS Joseph and Teresa, Wells.

Sunday 19th May - Pentecost:

12 noon at Our Lady and St Alphege, Bath

12.30pm at Holy Cross, Bedminster

12.30pm at Our Lady of Glastonbury

Thursday 30th May - Corpus Christi

8 am at St Dominic's, Dursley

10 am at Our Lady and St Kenelm, Stow-on-the-Wold

11 am at Prinknash Abbey, Cranham, Glos

12 noon at Our Lady and St Alphege, Bath

7.30pm Solemn High Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes, Weston-super-Mare

LMS training conference - report

PRESS RELEASE FROM THE LATIN MASS SOCIETY

Students ‘blown away’ by spirituality and symbolism of Traditional  Latin Mass as Bishop opens Latin Mass Society’s latest training conference

Students attending the Latin Mass Society’s ninth training conference in the Extraordinary Form for priests and servers, have said they were ‘blown away’ by the depth and richness of the Traditional Latin Mass. About 60 people attended for all or part of the week-long course, which took place at Ratcliffe College in Leicestershire during Low Week.

Above: Bishop Malcolm McMahon celebrates Pontifical High Mass to open the 

LMS training conference

Rt Rev Malcolm McMahon, Bishop of Nottingham, opened the conference with a Pontifical Mass of the Annunciation. Afterwards, Bishop McMahon addressed all the participants, putting forward some suggestions of ways to heal the rift that exists between enthusiasts for the older form of the Mass and some of those who oppose its widespread use.  This led to a lively discussion.

As in recent LMS conferences, tuition was given to both priests and servers in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. There were also optional Latin classes.

There was a Sung Mass (either chant or polyphonic) each day, as well as Lauds, Vespers, Benediction and Compline.  Together with private Masses, these services gave ample opportunity for participants to put into practice much of what they had learned.  The musical settings were provided by the Rudgate Singers, with Christian Spence as organist.

LMS Chairman, Dr Joseph Shaw, said: 'The LMS training conferences continue to show their value in giving priests and servers hands-on experience and expert tuition, including the more complex liturgical roles; this year's conference attracted priests from Scotland, Poland, and South Africa, from the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. We also welcomed two seminarians: a Dominican, and a transitory Deacon studying at Oscott for the Diocese of East Anglia. The Leicester conference was also a very convivial occasion and a rare opportunity for like-minded priests, servers, and singers to spend time together.'

Above: A priest goes through a dry (practice) Mass at the conference

One of the tutors teaching servers said: ‘Two of the young married men who were in my group and hailed from Glasgow confessed to being "blown away" by the content of some of my talks on the spirituality and symbolism of the simple Low Mass.  The eldest participant was similarly impressed with reading The Mass in Slow Motion by Mgr Knox at his own pace to place the Mass back in context for him.

‘I am unused to suddenly having my photograph taken whilst standing in front of some of my Power Point projections as I work, but this week has been something else. Another young man who had only ever encountered the old Mass once whilst on holiday last summer with his family was similarly moved by his experience of seeing the Mass close up. I was extremely privileged this morning to attend a "private" Mass served near perfectly by this lad.’