Dates: 3rd-8th August 2020
Residential summer camp for girls aged 10 to 17. Based at Savio House, Ingersley Road, Bollington, Macclesfield
The Camp will involve scheduled activities including Holy Mass, prayer and catechetical talks, sports / hiking /games, quizzes, preparing and acting in a drama production and excursions by bus to local places of interest.
Full price £220. Subsidised: £100.
For more information and booking forms contact Fr Phipps: sphipps@fssp.org
Please pray for 12 young men from all over the UK discerning God’s calling while on recollection at St Mary’s Shrine in Warrington this weekend.
While low level of comfort makes healthy candidates and priests, please send us donations to convert our newly bought Priory building, so that these men and future guests might not need to sleep on mattresses in the photocopy room or in the parish hall, and that ideally our priests might not need to vacate their own rooms to fit several guests in them.
Your prayer for vocations is very important. Make it even more efficient through our international prayer network, the Confraternity of Saint Peter:
Regina Caeli UK Academy goes from strength to strength! Come and see for yourself what this hybrid homeschooling Academy can offer your child at the Open Day on Thursday 27th February. You’ll be able to see the children in action as they take part in a drama lesson, meet the staff and other parents, hear a presentation and ask any questions. Places are limited and need to be reserved: see https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/regina-caeli-uk-open-day-september-2020-tickets-88812718231. Come with your children and bring your friends!
The bell will be ringing again in the church hall at Christ the King on Sunday morning to announce the start of the 2020 catechism talks by Fr O’Donohue. There’s a talk for the under 8s at 10.30, followed by the under 16s at 11.00 and finally the adults at 11.30. Children’s choir will run as usual before the first talk.
For those who are new, we enjoy a cup of squash, tea or coffee and a biscuit in the main hall after Mass before moving over to the Patrick Donegan room next door for our talks.
We look forward to learning more about our Faith and its practice over the coming months.
We warmly recommend watching Terrence Malick’s latest film ‘A Hidden Life’ (UK release 17 January 2020) about unsung hero, Blessed Franz Jägerstätter, who refused to fight for the Nazis in World War II. When the Austrian peasant farmer is faced with the threat of execution for treason, it is his unwavering faith and his love for his wife Fani and children that keeps his spirit alive.
This deeply poetical, familial and (long) film raises many questions.
What would we have done? Is there no way one could swear alliegance to save one’s family and one’s life? While Nazi Germany is an easy – often stereotyped – incarnation of evil, asking the same questions about our modern world in 2020 is more challenging. Is it possible that we are compromising? When does prudence end, and when does resistance become necessary?
The villagers in the film ostracise Franz and his family because of their moral stance. Are we aware and fearful of a similar risk incurred if we stand up for truth and virtue? Precisely, are we standing up, or are we trying to lie low for as long as we can?
Dare we name the forces of oppression in 2020, even though they wear no swastikas up their sleeves?
One wishes that the film had explained the moral distinctions which make some official oaths permissible and others not.
For instance in the Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich signed on July 20, 1933 [Ratified 10 September 1933] stipulated: “Article 16: Before bishops take possession of their dioceses they are to take an oath of loyalty either to the Reich governor of the state (Land) concerned or to the President of the Reich respectively, according to the following formula:
“Before God and on the Holy Gospels I swear and promise, as becomes a bishop, loyalty to the German Reich and to the State (Land) of . . . I swear and promise to honour the legally constituted government and to cause the clergy of my diocese to honour it. With dutiful concern for the welfare and the interests of the German state, in the performance of the ecclesiastical office entrusted to me, I will endeavour to prevent everything injurious which might threaten it.”
The oath which Franz Jägerstätter refused to take as a soldier was the Wehrmacht Oath of Loyalty to Adolf Hitler, 2 August 1934:
“I swear to God this sacred oath that to the Leader of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, supreme commander of the armed forces, I shall render unconditional obedience and that as a brave soldier I shall at all times be prepared
to give my life for this oath.”
The Catholic faith of Franz is manifest in the film, but less explicit than was the case in his life. After a turbulent (and even sinful) youth, he started taking his faith more and more seriously. Family life made him an exemplary Catholic husband and father. He became the village sacristan. The film should have included at least one holy Mass (there are delightful scenes in his mountain village church). Still, what a pleasant surprise to see a Hollywood blockbuster film depicting the Catholic faith with such accuracy, respect and beauty (the Corpus Christi procession is a little jewel)!
On this eve of the feast of the Holy Family, the most precious gift offered us by Terrence Malick in ‘The Hidden Life’ is his depiction of a deeply Catholic home, where parents, grandmother and children are not spared hardship (working very hard in the fields indeed) but grow in moral stature through their trials embrassed in faith and relying on God’s grace. Aged 94, Fani attended the beatification ceremony of her husband in Rome in 2007, led by Pope Benedict XVI whose own home village was near St Radegund, across the border. No doubt this film can encourage modern families struggling with education, chastity, fidelity – and touch those among our contemporaries who as yet haven’t had the grace of experiencing Catholic family life. Holy Family of Nazareth, please inspire and protect all families!
Closing Title Card “…the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” -George Eliot, ‘Middlemarch’.
Further reading: https://www.firstthings.com/…/a-hidden-life-the-story-of-a-…
Correspondence between Franz and his wife : https://www.ncronline.org/…/collected-writings-franz-jagers….
Monday 6th January is the Feast of the Epiphany. This is a Holyday of Obligation in the Universal Church, but this year the Bishops of England and Wales have transferred the celebration of Epiphany back to Sunday 5th January. Following the Traditional calendar, however, the Mass for this Sunday will be that of the Most Holy Name of Jesus.
To mark Epiphany, there will be a Low Mass at Christ the King on Monday 6th January at 7.30 pm. Although it is not a Holyday of Obligation this year, it is a most important feast, and assisting at Holy Mass is the best way to observe it.
Low Mass will be at 8:30am on Christmas Day in Bedford.
Starting at 7pm in the Patrick Donegan Room at Christ the King Parish in Bedford. Finish at 9pm.
This month’s topic: The Just War Theory
St William of York Church, Reading, Saturday 14 December
Led by Fr Seth Phipps, FSSP
10:15am Holy Mass (Mass of Our Lady on Saturday in Advent, Rorate), followed by refreshments in the Annex
11:30am First conference: “God became man so that man might become God”
12:15pm Lunch (bring your own packed lunch)
1:30pm Second Conference: “God chose a mother”
2.30pm Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, with opportunities for confession. Concluding with Rosary and Benediction, finishing at 3.30pm.
