7
May 2013
Saturday Shoppers in York Watch Pilgrimage With Respectful Curiosity
The Latin Mass Society’s third pilgrimage in honour of St
Margaret Clitherow, one of its co-patrons, took place in York on Saturday 4th
May, the feast day of the English Martyrs. Solemn Mass was celebrated in the
Church of St Wilfrid by Canon Amaury Montjean of the Institute of Christ the
King, with Fr Michael Hall as deacon and Fr John Cahill as subdeacon.
After Mass, there was a procession carrying a statue of St
Margaret Clitherow through the streets of York and passing through The
Shambles, where St Margaret lived, and over Ouse Bridge, the place of her
execution. The procession ended at the
Church of the English Martyrs, where there Benediction was offered by Fr
Stephen Brown.
York was full of tourists during the Bank Holiday weekend,
who watched the procession pass through the crowded streets with a respectful
curiosity.
One lady who was visiting from Perth in Australia, and
happened to enter St Wilfrid’s Church, just as the Gospel was about to be sung,
was amazed at the sight of a Traditional Mass, saying that nothing like that
ever took place in her home diocese.
The musical setting of the Mass was Thomas Luis de
Victoria’s Missa Simile est Regnum,
sung by the Rudgate Singers who also sang Gregorio Allegri’s Adoremus
in Aeternum at Benediction. The day
ended with the congregation singing Fr Faber’s Faith of our Fathers!
Pilgrimage organiser Paul Waddington said: ‘We were very
pleased with the turnout for this year’s pilgrimage which showed an increase on
last year’s event. The sight of pilgrims processing through the busy streets of
York past Saturday shoppers always draws people’s attention and is an important
public witness to the Catholic Faith.’
St Margaret Clitherow was arrested in 1586 for the crime
of harbouring Catholic priests. She refused to enter a plea to prevent a trial
that would involve her children being made to testify, and therefore being
subjected to torture. The standard punishment for refusing to enter a plea was
being crushed to death and this was carried out to the horror of many local
people on 25 March 1586.
Photo: The statue of St Margaret Clitherow is carried through The Shambles in York, close to where the martyr lived.
Photo credit: Leo
Darroch
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further information, please contact Mike Lord, General Manager,
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