Sunday, March 31, 2024

Happy Easter!

 Many thanks to Fr. Frantisek CFR who undertook the task of offering the Sacred Triduum for us again this year. Things went very smoothly. At the Vigil this evening he said that at the Chrism Mass Bishop Stock had thanked him for his willingness to be the celebrant and that the bishop was very happy that we could again have the Triduum at St. Patrick's.

Thank you also to our team of servers who helped to ensure that everything went like clockwork.

Tomorrow we have the Easter Sunday Mass at St. Patrick's at 1.00 p.m. Fr Winn will be our celebrant. Next week (Low Sunday) we have a new celebrant joining the rota; Fr Darren Jones is the Parish Priest at the neighbouring parish of Our Lady of Lourdes and Saint William. A warm welcome to him.

Remember that the clocks go forward by one hour tonight.

I shall publish some photos of the Triduum as soon as I can. Thanks to our photographers for undertaking this task. I hope my eldest son will be instrumental in helping me to download the photographs from my mobile.


Saturday, March 30, 2024

The Easter Vigil


The Sacred Triduum will conclude tonight at St. Patrick's, Bradford at 7.00 p.m. with the Easter Vigil Mass and ceremonies. I hope that the traffic around the church will be less taxing as it was on Good Friday. (I am told that Bradford City won their match.)
 

Friday, March 29, 2024

Good Friday Liturgy of the Passion

 


Our Triduum continues at St. Patrick's, Bradford with the Liturgy of the Passion of our Blessed Lord at 3.00 p.m.


Thursday, March 28, 2024

Mass of the Lord's Supper


The Sacred Triduum begins today and Mass for the Lord's Supper will take place at St. Patrick's, Westgate, Bradford at 6.00 p.m. 

If anybody wishes to bring any flowers for the altar and sanctuary at Easter these will be very gratefully received in the sacristy at any of our Triduum celebrations.

 

Friday, March 22, 2024

Palm Sunday



Holy Thursday is just a week away. The Triduum is in sight. Sunday - Palm Sunday - marks the start of the holiest week in the Church's year.

On Sunday our Mass at St. Patrick's, Bradford at 1.00 p.m. marks the start of Holy Week and at the moment it looks as if the weather will again be favourable to us. We are hoping to have an outdoor procession as part of the observance of this feast. Last year cars slowed down to watch the procession and one elderly Muslim gentleman stopped and bowed his head as we walked round the block back to the church singing All glory praise and honour whilst bearing our palms.

Masses for Holy Week at St. Patrick's (BD2 1RU):

Holy Thursday - Mass of the Last Supper - 6.00 p.m.

Good Friday - Mass of the Presanctified - 3.00 p.m.

Holy Saturday - Easter Vigil Mass - 7.00 p.m.

Easter Sunday - Mass of the Resurrection of the Lord - 1.00 p.m.

Tonight I have spent an hour and a half watching the third of a series of videos produced in America about the Traditional Mass. It was on You Tube and was well worth the time spent watching it. Here is the link:

Mass of the Ages — GUARDIANS OF TRADITION - YouTube

I am mystified as to why there are subtitles in Russian!


Continuation of Bishop Wheeler's booklet, "Let's get this straight".

The Mass

it doesn't really matter weather the mass is in English or Latin. It is the mass itself that matters. This is primarily a sacrifice but also a sacred meal. You cannot begin to understand it unless you remember 3 great days: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. The mass is not only a meal: it is a sacrifice and death, and also a resurrection. It is the presence of all these things. Christ is present in the congregation. Christ is present in the Scriptures. Christ is present in the priesthood. And the climax and fullness of his bodily, physical presence is uniquely with us in the Blessed Sacrament. By Holy Communion his presence is deepened and strengthened in all his people. God is with us. This is the source and apex of the Christian life. The Mass is so great a mystery That it can never be entirely grasped. But to enable us to understand it's different aspects more fully, the church emphasises now 1 aspect and then another. Sometimes she stresses the sacrifice: Christ’s  self offering on Good Friday. At other times (as when the altar faces the people) she stresses the family meal which is also the Paschal Meal; The night of Maundy Thursday.

The Priesthood

The mass is an act of Christ, of Christ the great High Priest: It is also the act of the priest who, by the Sacrament of Holy Order, shares in a special way in the high Priesthood of Christ. That is why we should venerate and love the priesthood. For this is the office of men chosen by God and set apart to perform with him the sacrifice. In a way that is unique, Christ the Priest is Christ the Shepherd. The priesthood is a loving service because it is an identification with the Good Shepherd who gave his life for the sheep. It is necessarily therefore a life of sacrifice, coupled with the joy which comes from the resurrection. Priestly service is the call to be as Christ: all things to all men. It gives a new dimension to all earthly forms of service, which in the priesthood our sacramentalised and exercised on a plane that is different from all else. Priestly joy and priestly identity may be found only in that happy sacrifice which is shared with Christ the great High Priest of all the human race.

Participation

The Mass is also the act of God's people: for each and everyone by Baptism shares in this priesthood too. All Christians are called to offer this sacrifice. We should participate to the full and so the Church in our time helps us to do this, perhaps with full understanding in the language of our day. We should make full use of new approaches but never despise or underrate those who have gone before us and participated according to the insights of their times in full measure. Never delude yourself in this life that you have understood the Mass to the full. Christ is in his people, but the Mass is more than the congregation: Christ is in the word, boot the Mass is worship as well as edification: Christ is in the priest, but the priest will have his imperfections: Christ, after the consecration. Is present substantially and completely in the species off bread and wine: present as he is now in Heaven, risen, ascended, glorified.

Reverence

If the Church has simplified the ceremonies of the mass, those things are done two leaders to the fundamentals, to render the scriptural events before our eyes in starkness and reality. We would fail the Church’s purpose If our reverence decreased. As our understanding grows, our attitudes must deepen. We must become a holier people.

 The community

Another insight about the Mass comes from the awareness of community sense. Together we are the people of God. The community sense must deepen our faith, deepen our hope, deepen our love: make us aware of our obligations to all men in Christ. But we are individuals of infinite worth as well. Each is made different. Each is known and loved by God. No man can therefore afford to neglect his own communing with God. As well as being part of the Christian community, we must enter, as the gGspel tells us, into our rooms secretly and pray to God: a man who thinks that prayer is solely a community exercise performs a disservice to the community itself and imperils his own soul. We must become a holy people to bring Christ to the world of our time. We cannot become a holy community without realising, each one, his individual responsibility of prayer.

Original sin

We should delude ourselves if we minimised sin. We have all sinned and fallen short of God's glory. First there is original sin which all men inherit, accept the Blessed Virgin, Who by her Immaculate Conception and through the merits of her Son was preserved from ever incurring it. In us it is destroyed by baptism, which is a death to sin and a putting on of Christ.

Actual sin

Secondly there our own sins actually committed. Saint John in his first Epistle English distinguishes sin which is mortal from that which is not Saint Paul tells us we must not go to Holy Communion if we are in a state of grave sin. Such a man eats and drinks, he says, damnation to himself.

Forgiveness

Our Lord is ever waiting to forgive us when we are sorry for our sins. He does this whenever we make an act of perfect contrition, which includes the desire to go to confession. In the sacrament of penance, when we have acknowledged our sins with true sorrow, with real purpose of amendment and readiness to make satisfaction, he forgives our sins in the words of absolution spoken by his priest, to whom in the Gospels and in the Sacrament of Order, he gives this power.

Next time: indulgences, frequent confession and conscience.






Friday, March 15, 2024

Passion Sunday

From Sunday we notice two differences. First, the Mass is pruned of the Judica me, psalm 42 and the recital of the Gloria Patris which punctuate the Mass and second, the crucifix and statues are covered in purple veils. The Church is preparing us for the week which marks the passion and death of our Lord.

Mass at St. Patrick's, Bradford at 1.00 p.m.

Confession at call.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Laetare Sunday


Tomorrow is the fourth Sunday of Lent and (like the third Sunday of Advent) the vestments are rose,  and so permit us a little lightening of the mood before we commemorate the passion and death of our Lord.

The 1.00 p.m. Mass at St. Patrick's will be a missa cantata. Confessions available before Mass.

Sunday, March 3, 2024

Lent III

 Mass for the third Sunday of Lent. 1.00p.m. at St. Patrick's, Westgate, Bradford. 

I was dismayed to hear about the events surrounding the celebration of the Triduum this year in Westminster.

In years gone by, it was usually the case that, thanks to Bishop Wheeler and his legacy, that Leeds was one of the very few places in the country where the fist Masses of Christmas and Easter were regularly offered.