Corpus Christi

As Corpus Christi is no longer a Holy Day of Obligation in this country but is transferred to the next Sunday and is observed as an external solemnity, so this Sunday's Mass at 1.00 p.m. at St. Patrick's will commemorate this beautiful feast.

Confession at call.

Of your charity

Of your charity please pray for the repose of the soul of David Adolph who died this afternoon in Shipley and fortified by the Rites of Holy Mother Church,

Many will remember David who was a regular at our Masses for many years. Decidedly eccentric and always with an impeccable manner, David would often pop up at events all over the country - due partly to his love of railways. Last year when his flat was cleared there were over four hundred used train tickets on his desk categorized and grouped together with elastic bands - displaying a large range of destinations far and near.

A mutual friend told me that when David walked the Paris-Chartres pilgrimage many years ago, he did so with his umbrella, briefcase and a red dressing gown which he carried over his arm for the entire route. In over thirty five years I only ever saw him once without his raincoat on.

David received Extreme Unction on Saturday and the Parish Priest went again to see him again this afternoon. David died very peacefully five minutes later.

Thanks to Canon Walker for attending so speedily on Saturday and for going again today. Thanks also to Dr Dorothy Spencer for regularly visiting him since his move to the nursing home. By taking the parish weekly bulletin and praying with him,  her visits brightened his existence confined to bed. 

Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.

May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.

Funeral arrangements will follow.

Trinity Sunday

This Sunday is the feast of the Blessed Trinity. Mass at St. Patrick's, Westgate at 1.00 p.m. will be a Low Mass. After this Sunday we return to green vestments and the salve Regina is the Marian Antiphon until Advent.

Pentecost

 

Sunday is Pentecost. It is the feast of the birthday of the Church.

The 1.00 p.m. Mass at St. Patrick's, Bradford will be a missa cantata.

Confessions at call.

Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension

This Sunday's Mass for the Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension at St. Patrick's, Westgate, Bradford will be at the usual time of 1.00 p.m.

Confessions before Mass.

Request

I have just requested that my MP sign the amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill which would reduce the abortion limit to 24 weeks for babies with Down's Syndrome from its current 40 weeks. 24 weeks is certainly dreadful but 40 weeks is profoundly obscene. 

Please would you email your MP by following the link below?

Ask your MP to vote to stop abortion up to birth for babies with Down’s syndrome (dontscreenusout.org)

The Ascension

Thursday is a Holy Day of Obligation. Mass at St. Patrick's, Bradford is at 7.00 p.m.

 

Easter V and the Ascension

 

This Sunday's Mass at St. Patrick's, Bradford at 1.00 p.m. is a missa cantata. 

We offer special remembrance to our Blessed Lady in this month of May. 

Sunday is also the feast of Pope St. Pius V  whom we thank for codifying the foundations of the missal we use today and the accompanying Quo Primum.  

Confessions at call.

Thursday is a holy day of obligation for the feast of the Ascension of our Lord. 

At Mass we see the extinguishing of the Pascal Candle after the Gospel to simply and visually dramatize the historic events we have just had read to us.

Mass at St. Patrick's is at the relatively new time of 7.00 p.m. 

Confessions at call.

In your prayers would you please remember the family of a friend of my daughter's whose adult son was found dead in bed earlier this week?

I have only just recently been told that Professor Bernard Richards of Salford Diocese has died.

Bernard was Professor of Medical Informatics at UMIST when I was at Manchester Victoria in the mid 1980s. I got to know him when serving the strictly restricted old Rite Masses under his leadership when the formidable Kevin Cave was the LMS rep. Many years after Kevin's death Bernard himself became the LMS rep and regular server at the  Sunday Masses at Holy Name and St. Chad's, as well as his home parish of English Martyrs, Whalley Range, Manchester.    

When Bishop Rifan came to England it was Bernard who acted as MC at the Pontifical Mass at Immaculate Heart, Leeds. 

What was not public was that Rita, his wife and their daughter has both died within a day of each other that same week. He wouldn't be dissuaded from  fulfilling a commitment he had made.

May he rest in peace. 

An ex-patriot now living in Germany, who always came to the Mass at St. Joseph's when he was over here visiting his family, has contacted me through a friend to request that I look at livestreaming Mass from St. Patrick's.

I am  seeing what might be done. 

When I was in my teens I remember only ever being able to hear the old Mass on LPs (The Mass from Downham Market and Requiem from Westminster Cathedral). Then came cassettes and then CDs, DVD's, MP3s and then downloading. 

Now we have livestreaming. In these days when some seek to severely re-restrict the Mass of Pius V, I still marvel that technology gives us the opportunity to share the treasures of the Liturgy in so called real time.