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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Tomorrow is the fourth Sunday of Easter and we have Low Mass at St. Patrick's, Bradford at 1.00 p.m.
It is always gratifying to see new members of the congregation assisting at Mass.
Thanks to those of you who expressed concern over my lost mobile. I have now managed to use something called Cloud to repopulate data on my new phone and am able to use the old number. This means I shall now be able to download the Triduum photos.
Mass for Easter III on Sunday will be at St. Patrick's as usual at 1.00 p.m. I have been given to believe that one of the two Traditional Order seminarians from this diocese will be joining us from the ICKSP seminary near Florence. Our other seminarian is studying at Wigratzbad with the FSSP. I mention this because Sunday is Vocations Sunday.
A couple of us have been going to visit David Adolph regularly since he moved to his nursing home. Although he is very frail he does keep asking me about St. Patrick's and wishes God's blessing on everybody.
Unfortunately my lost phone has not turned up. This is not for want of trying. I even discovered that our local police station is not now open for public enquiries. I will have to find another way of getting the Triduum photos from my daughter's phone. What a faff!
Mass for the Second Sunday of Easter at St. Patrick's, Bradford will be at the usual time of 1.00 p.m.
Confessions at call.
I was very pleased to see the latest news from St. Patrick's, Bradford featured in a post on the Diocesan Website following Fr. Jones' first Mass at this church as a priest on the regular rota on Low Sunday. Here is the link:
New Priest for the St Patrick’s Mission Sunday Mass Rota! - Diocese of Leeds
I did have all the pictures of the Triduum on my mobile which I very annoyingly lost today. Visits to the supermarket, filling station and police station haven't been productive yet. Please don't ring me!
My friend Leo Darroch recently sent me an Easter poem he wrote some years ago. I very much enjoyed it and thought to share it. It is called A Traditional Easter Day.
A Traditional Easter Day.
Solemnitas Solemnitatis,
This is, for us, our Easter Day.
The great feast rings with age-old chant,
The Credo, Sanctus, Kyrie.
Where’ere a Catholic finds himself,
Throughout the Christian world,
The words are chanted in one voice,
From ev’ry tongue unfurled.
The mighty and the meek give praise,
In words that time has blessed,
In praise of Christ who from the tomb,
Has risen from His rest.
Through centuries to present day,
Our forebears - priest and lay,
All glory in a common tongue,
Their Mass and prayers to say.
The Word made flesh has risen again,
Our hope and God eternal,
We praise our Lord for evermore,
His majesty supernal.
Leo Darroch. May 2006.
Tomorrow is Low Sunday, also called Quasimodo Sunday, Missa in albis and Divine Mercy Sunday. The Gospel narrative tells of doubting Thomas' reaction when he sees the Risen Christ for the first time after the Resurrection.
Mass at 1.00 p.m. at St. Patrick's, Westgate.
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.
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.
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.
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.
