If you think that 40 days should be 40 days and not 43...

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Feast of the Ascension

A happy and holy feast day everyone!

Archbishop Nichols - Installation on 21 May

The Installation of the Archbishop is tomorrow morning. Have a look here at the Installation Blog. There are some great pictures of the vestments in production. The music looks to be a rare treat!

Coverage is on EWTN and BBC2, and at the Catholic Herald .


My 2ps worth:
I'm a firm believer that if something important is happening, from great celebrations in the family such as Baptisms and First Holy Communions, up to the Installations of Archbishops, you take time and trouble to make it as special as you possibly can. These things aren't everyday occurences, they are special events in life, and need to be made the most of and not apologised for. It's quite usual to have new clothes for weddings, baptisms, funerals and birthday parties. Being a bit girly, I know that the cost of some handbags requires a second mortgage (and no, I haven't got one that did!). People spend a fortune on wedding dresses that are worn once without regretting it.
It's also quite usual to have special music and a damned good party afterwards.
I don't see why anyone would expect an Archbishop to have less.

So I'm really looking forward to seeing the Installation tomorrow, and I hope it's every bit as magnificent as it should be!

Feast of Ascension Update

Damien has let me know that there is an additional Low Mass at 7.00pm on Ascension Day at St Mary Magdalen Church, Upper North Street, Brighton.

This coming weekend at Our Lady of Consolation

On Saturday 23 May there is a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Consolation, West Grinstead beginning at 1.45 with a talk by the Abbot of Farnborough Abbey. This will be followed by Pontifical High Mass and Benediction at 2.30pm. Let's hope the weather's better than last weekend!




There is also a missa cantata on Sunday at West Grinstead.

Ascension Day Masses

Countrywide Masses for the Feast of the Ascension on Thursday 21 May can be found here. Nothing as yet in A&B, but if you are in the far east of the diocese, there is a Low Mass at 6.45pm, St Simon, Brookfield Road, Ashford South, TN23 4EU.
If anyone knows of any other Masses I have missed, please do let me know so I can put them up on the blog.

Wow. Just wow.

Fr Blake has some photos of his Jubilee Mass on his blog, which I was compelled to pinch and put up here, as you can't have too much of a good thing like this! I was very sad we couldn't make it, and it looks a brilliant celebration.



More servers than you can shake a stick at...



...and beautiful vestments from the Cathedral. Fr Ray had a great post on his blog about vestments, in it, he said this:

'Of course vestments are work clothes, the equivalent of overalls or dungarees. Their whole purpose is to act as "disguise", a way of covering up the priest's personality, they are there to remind the priest that he is not really that important, that he fills a role that could be filled by any other priest. Old vestments like these remind him that he is just doing the same thing as any other priest down the ages all those heroic saints and weak sinners.'

Wonderful work clothes for wonderful work.




Fr Ray with Fathers Finigan and Finnegan






I'm sure there are some more great pics to come, and once again, congratulations to Fr Ray.

Congratulations...

...to Father Ray Blake of St Mary Magdalene's, Brighton who celebrates his Silver Jubilee today!

The Holy Father in the Holy Land

I find it very hard to pick out short quotes from the Holy Father -he always says so much I'd end up cutting and pasting everything- so I'm not going to! Instead, do have a look at the transcripts, and the amazingly busy schedule he is following if you haven't already.


EWTN has complete coverage of the visit, as does The Catholic Herald.

Transcripts of the Holy Father's visit can also be found here on the Vatican site. The link for photos is also there, but not active yet.

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday: We had a great time at West Grinstead, where Father Alexander Lucie-Smith said Mass and gave a very uplifting sermon, thank you Father! The weather was just beautiful, and there was plenty to chat about over a cuppa and a biscuit outside afterwards, not least, silver jubilees and first masses.

Today: We had a powercut for six hours. Although extremely peeved (we were the only house in the road who hadn't received a notification letter, lol!), it did make me think about how lucky I am to usually not have to worry about whether there'll be power to make tonight's dinner, or do the washing, how totally silent it is without the fridge buzzing, how moody I am without a cup of tea, and also how much of my correspondence is done entirely in the ether of the internet: all of it, actually. I found that out this morning, when I had a list of things to do, and all of them needed the internet. The power loss also took our phone out, and I yearned temporarily for the Victorian postal service, which I understand was very good indeed but probably still not as good as a phone call, and my very own wind turbine (it's always breezy where I live).

Missa Cantata at OLOC Update

This Sunday at West Grinstead there will be a Low Mass. The Missa Cantata will be on May 24th. Come along if you can, and have a chat over a cuppa afterwards.

Bank Holiday Weekend and Before

As it was a bank holiday, we managed to get over to St Peter's, Fr Finnegan's parish at Shoreham for the midday Mass. We'd never been to Shoreham before except to skirt round it on our way to other places, so it was interesting to see how exactly the one way system worked. It was an everyday Low Mass, but as I continue to find with the EF, the everyday is always rather special. I particularly love the way the EF 'gets on with it', there is no interruption to concentration and prayer, it flows so beautifully. Anyway, enough of that.



I visisted the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Bayeux recently on a school trip, and while marshalling a load of kids, managed to take some photos.









I love visiting cathedrals that still feel like churches and not pay-to-enter museum spaces, and Bayeux felt very like a church.

Ushaw and Beyond

Ushaw hosted a residential training conference at the end of April at which priests could learn how to say the EF. For a full report, see here

The LMS is organising a further training conference for priests at All Saints’ Pastoral Centre, London Colney, St Albans, Herts (the Archdiocese of Westminster’s premier conference centre) from Monday 24 to Friday 28 August. Details are available from the LMS office, contact John Medlin or James Murphy, on 020 7404 7284 or email the office at thelatinmasssociety@snmail.co.uk for further details.

Our Lady, Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May

Bring flowers of the fairest
Bring flowers of the rarest
From garden and woodland
And hillside and vale
Our full hearts are swelling
Our glad voices telling
The praise of the loveliest
Rose of the vale

O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today
Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May
O Mary, we crown thee with blossoms today
Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May

Our voices ascending
In harmony blending
O thus may our hearts turn dear
Mother to Thee
Oh thus shall we prove thee
How truly we love thee
How dark without Mary life's
journey would be

Fabulous photos from Mary in Monmouth

Thought I'd let you know about a fab blog that has really excellent photos of ancient churches. The most recent post is of a 13th century church rebuilt and reconstructed using original materials at St Fagans Museum of Welsh Life. It can be found here.

Sunday at West Grinstead

Fr Agley celebrated a Low Mass for the Second Sunday of Easter, grateful thanks to Father.


It was such a beautiful afternoon we had tea outside following Mass, where Peter Cullinane spoke of the challenges facing the LMS following the MP/SP.

Chatting with people afterwards brought up a load of questions relating to how to square the EF and the ordinary rite. Not just to mantilla or not to mantilla, but how do you receive Holy Communion, do you genuflect, cross yourself, or bow, and what about Extraordinary Ministers. Some really interesting questions.


The next Mass at OLOC will be a 3.00 pm Missa Cantata, so if you've never been to one, or have never been to an EF Mass at all and you can make West Grinstead, give it a try, the more the merrier!

FSSP Newsletters

Now available online, and an extremely good read, Dowry, the FSSP newsletter.

Dates for the Diary

23rd May

Guild of St Gregory and Ramsgate parish Pilgrimage and Pontifical High Mass at W Grinstead at 2.30 pm. The pilgrimage will be led by the Abbot of Farnborough. If you would like to go, please contact Mr. Franklin-Rye on 01843 852232.

20th June

LMS AGM at the RHS Conference Centre, Greycoat Street, London SW1P 2QD

Pontifical High Mass at 2.00pm at Westminster Cathedral, celebrated by Bishop John Arnold.

21st June


Father Matthew Goddard FSSP will be saying Mass at 3.30 pm at W Grinstead on 21st June.

2nd to 9th August

St Catherine's Trust Summer School (ages 11-18) at Ardingly School, W Sussex

Sunday 26th April at West Grinstead

As Peter Cullinane said in his newsletter, there will be a get together after the 3 pm Mass at OLOC tomorrow.

Of blogs and blogging, a personal view.

There's been a good deal of chit chat about the efficacy of blogs and even the motives of those who undertake them. I could go on for ages, so here's my very brief take on why they are invaluable, why they are necessary, and why they're often perceived as an itch you just can't scratch.

Just as time and tide and buttered eggs wait for no man, so it is in the wide world of blogging, news and information move really rather fast, at least on the blogs I read.
Essentially I'm a blog reader, not a blog writer. I really like to read what other people think. I particularly like Catholic blogs (see blog roll) because they aren't mediated by the press and they don't for one thing have to be cringe-makingly PC before they are ready for a readership. There's already a common understanding. You can learn an awful lot from blogs, and can be reassured by them, as well as challenged.

While I knew intellectually there were people like me who loved the EF (the LMS proved that), I learned from blogs that I wasn't actually weirdly eccentric or alone as I thought in liking the EF - and having an affection for it can certainly and quite wrongly make you feel alone. I also learned that I am not retro, yearning for the romanticized days of the 1940s and 50s, of perms, pinnies, and Bing Crosby, of which I know absolutely nothing at all about, beyond watching 'The Bells of St Mary' on a wet weekend. I was reassured again that what I had been longing for was something legitimate, a true pearl beyond price. Blogs I think, can be invaluable resources in telling people about the EF.


Blogs put ideas -and facts- to the widest possible web audience which is part of the reason they are also an itch that can't be scratched, they are under no editorial pressure except that of upholding the Catholic faith so they allow what might by some be perceived as a dissenting view: The MP was all over the blogosphere when it was mentioned nowhere else. It's such an invaluable means of communication which isn't possible in any other medium, it's instantaneous and personal, and like buttered eggs, it's good.

PS, The Vatican has its own youtube channel well worth having a look at.