Thursday 5 December 2013

No Mass this Christmas Lord?

An extraordinary infant surely
deserves an extraordinary Mass?

My thanks to the Latin Mass Society's General Manager, Mike Lord, for putting up a listing of Christmas Masses on the LMS website HERE.

But the "Lord" I refer to in my heading is, in fact, the good Lord (not to infer that Mike Lord is anything but good........ drat it, this is getting sticky).

And my query is really aimed at the Archdiocese of Westminster, capital of the Catholic Faith in England and Wales.

It is a small diocese, geographically, but massive in terms of population, number of priests and parishes.

Yet, between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day it only offers three Latin Masses and none of those are located in the Cathedral.
They are all, in fact, in Central London, not easy to get to if you have littlies in tow and have to travel some 30 miles or so.

The fact that a Latin Mass is not on offer at Westminster Cathedral is nothing short of scandalous.

If ever there is an occasion where the Extraordinary Form of Mass  is required rather than the Ordinary Form it is at Christmas and Easter.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols should be ashamed of his lack of leadership. The diocesan website carries a quote from His Grace as follows:-  

"To have eyes for the good things of the Lord is to live by Faith, to see life with the eyes of Faith"

That's almost as good as: "Who knows what's down the road"

BTW, my comments are distinctly my own and do not reflect the LMS position in any way.

While wild horses will not lead me to attend an OF Mass, small grandchildren will.

So I shall grit my teeth and just hope that there are no professional greeters on duty else I might resort to the Don Camillo option, a rather different form of the kiss of peace.

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting that clip. We sang that in school in the 1960's (Catholic school in the US).

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  2. Thank you dor stating the reality : the deartth of Traditional Mass provision in one ofbthe most frequented Catholic cathedrals in the worldmis nothing short of scandalous. Archb Nichols should be ashamed. Has the LMS (of which I'm a member) given up on this?

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  3. JimG, I cannot speak for the LMS but their m.o. is to pursue a campaign of dialogue with the Bishops.
    I believe that a more direct and lively approach would be more effective.

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  4. Why was the only Christmas Mass in Menevia cancelled with no notice whatsoever. Huge disappointment for my guests. Got to an O.F. Mass just in time where we were made to feel welcome. Not a good advert for the Traditional movement..

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  5. I am very sorry to hear that news. The Midnight Mass at Sandfields is not part of the Confraternity of the Holy Cross but, naturally, enough, we advertise as and when a Latin Mass is scheduled. We were not informed of any cancellation in this instance.
    In future, I propose dropping this church from our listings as it appears to be inconsistent but I will have to check first with my confreres for agreement. Pleased that you made it to Mass in the end.

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