Bedford
February 14, 2018
Deo gratias for a seventh priest joining the FSSP’s UK apostolate. Fr Konrad Loewenstein is returning to St Mary’s Warrington today. He was born in England in 1958, of Bavarian descent. After A-levels, he studied at Oxford (Christ Church) and later taught in the USA. Fr Loewenstein joined the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter in 1997, studying at our motherhouse in Wigratzbad. After his priestly ordination in 2002, he taught at our seminary and later on started our apostolate in Venice, Italy, where he served for a decade.
In November 2017, Fr Loewenstein came to St Mary’s Warrington temporarily, and is now assigned there for six months. His brother is also a priest, in the English Dominican province, and his late father was a well-known supporter of the traditional Latin Mass. Brief biographies of the FSSP’s seven priests in the UK can be found here.
by Fr JM
February 13, 2018
Dear Rev Father,
Fraternal greetings, and may we wish you a happy Shrove Tuesday and a grace-filled Lent.
May we bring to your attention the following conferences, i.e. eight meditations recorded live during our latest clergy retreat at Douai Abbey, Berkshire (22-26 January 2018).
The theme was: Mary, Mother of Priests and Protectress of our Frailty.
We were 15 in total, mostly diocesan, from all over England and Scotland. We are grateful to the Benedictine Community of Douai for their warm welcome, and to the Marian Franciscans of Gosport who kindly make these talks available on their website. Lastly, we thank the various bishops who included this retreat in their Ad Clerum, as in previous years.
Below is a description of each conference.
Marian Clergy Retreat 01 Douai 2018 – She’s More Than Worth It
Spending five days in a monastery is arduous – but worth it, as an investment in our spiritual life. Life is about packing what we will need for an eternal ‘holy day’. So many great things have been written already about Our Lady and the Sacred Priesthood. But we need to make such truths ours, hence the time we take meditating on them. With knowledge comes responsibility. Our Lady will help us become saints, as our priesthood calls us to. The interior life of Our Lady is where it all begun. On her Annunciation, Our Lady knew all that She needed to know about the mission of the Messiah her Son, and about us, her spiritual posterity.
Marian Clergy Retreat 02 Douai 2018 – The Triple Eclipse
The Incarnation of the Logos in Our Lady’s virginal womb is explained as a triple eclipse. A mineral and cosmic eclipse of the sun by the moon. An organic and microcosmic eclipse of Our Lady’s eye (symbolising her soul) by the ovum. In between, a spiritual eclipse (or superimposition) of God’s loving will by Our Lady’s created will, humbly and joyfully responsive.
Marian Clergy Retreat 03 Douai 2018 – God’s First Child Is A Priest
Our Lady is the Mother of God, because her Son is divine as a Person. The human nature He assumed from Her belongs immediately to Him as Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity. Until Jesus, no child was ever conceived by a sinless mother; and that first Child of grace is a priest. Our Lady loves priests as formally sharing in the distinctive feature of her Son, His priesthood.
Marian Clergy Retreat 04 Douai 2018 – Her Son’s Fingers and Lips
Our Lady wishes to be a mother to all humans, in fulfilment of the Redemption wrought by her Son. Those marked with the sacramental characters of Holy Baptism and Confirmation bear a particular resemblance to her Son Jesus. But in priests only does She find embedded a permanent capacity for imparting divine life, even after some of them may have lost God’s grace. Our Lady watches all the more lovingly over them, until they reach heaven.
Marian Clergy Retreat 05 Douai 2018 – Cord Of Grace Or Bonds Of Death
The Visitation prolongs the Annunciation. Our Lady acts as heavenly midwife to St John the Baptist, the Precursor of the Sovereign High Priest. She forwards to him the Holy Ghost to graft him into the mystical Body of her Son, while carrying Jesus as the Head of the same Body. The devotion to ‘Mary Undoer of Knots’ illustrates this truth. All further members must be connected to their Head through Mary. Despising her spiritual motherhood binds one to the Father of Lies instead, as no middle path is offered.
Marian Clergy Retreat 06 Douai 2018 – Mary As The Potter’s Field
Judas is the type of the fallen priest. Our Lady invites him to come back to the divine Father. Any fallen priest must hope in her intercession, even when engrossed in ungodly business. She can reshape in him the priestly features of her Son even when distorted through betrayal. Filiation to Mary secures life, but filiation to the devil leads to death.
Marian Clergy Retreat 07 Douai 2018 – Espoused to Christ’s Church
As the New Eve, Our Lady is also the Virginal Bride of Christ, the New Adam. She appears at Cana and on Golgotha as ‘The Woman’. With and through Her, the divine Bridegroom fosters a spiritual progeny. Guided by St Joseph, priests may prudently enter into this sponsal companionship. Priestly celibacy is a treasure for the world, as a striking sign of the power of divine grace working through ordinary men. Priests sacrifice to God the great good of biological fatherhood. This makes them even more apt to protect unborn children, images of the Saviour in the earliest stage of His redemptive Incarnation.
Marian Clergy Retreat 08 Douai 2018 – Him Whom My Soul Loveth
As the Word became flesh, Christ was ordained a priest. Marked indelibly with the priestly character of her Son, priests are ontologically entitled to Our Lady’s assistance. Hence, priests have a greater duty to bear fruit of grace. Non-priests can be more holy though, if they love more. Mary was granted priestly powers once, but priests have them at their constant disposal. Mary will seek her Son’s priests, not resting until She sees them secure in grace, forever in heaven. Priests respond to her zeal by becoming her sons.
Ordinations:
We ask for your prayers for 23 of our seminarians who were ordained to the minor orders and subdiaconate last Saturday, including Gwilym, from Wales.
See all the pictures here.
We would be delighted if any of you were available to attend the priestly ordination (in the Extraordinary Form) of Deacon Seth Phipps, FSSP, here at St Mary’s Warrington, on Saturday 9 June 2018, 11am, by our local Ordinary, Archbishop Malcom McMahon OP.
See pictures of last year’s ordination here.
LiveMass:
Daily (EF) Mass with homily on our FSSP channel: http://www.livemass.org/.
Thank you for your interest.
(If your inbox is already full of similar information, feel very welcome to unsubscribe from this circular emailing list. Alternatively, you may like to take a look at our new revamped website for the UK & Ireland, with interactive options: http://fssp.co.uk/.)
Fraternally,
Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP (Rector of St Mary’s Shrine, Warrington, Liverpool Archdiocese) |
|
|
by Fr AM
Catholic Young Adults, aged 18 – 35, are invited to a social evening this Saturday 17 February in Bedford. This will be the first time the FSSP are hosting such an evening in the area, so we are flexible with the programme, depending on the preferences of those who attend.
Fr James Mawdsley, FSSP will be glad to welcome you from 5 pm at the church hall of Christ the King Church, Harrowden Road, Bedford, MK42 0SP. There is parking available in the church car park. After introductions there, we will likely go to a nearby place to eat in Bedford town centre (so best to arrive at the church hall not too late after 5 pm).
Do contact Fr Mawdsley if you have questions or suggestions or just to let him know you hope to attend. Here is the link: http://fssp.co.uk/young-adults-group-18-35-starting-in-bedford-this-saturday-17-feb/ which also gives a map.
by fsspuk
Catholic Young Adults, aged 18 – 35, are invited to a social evening this Saturday 17 Feb in Bedford. This will be the first time the FSSP are hosting such an evening in the area, so we are flexible with the programme, depending on the preferences of those who attend.
Fr James Mawdsley, FSSP will be glad to welcome you from 5pm at the church hall of Christ the King Church, Harrowden Road, Bedford, MK42 0SP. There is parking available in the church car park. After introductions there, we will likely go to a nearby place to eat in Bedford town centre (so best to arrive at the church hall not too late after 5pm).
Do contact Fr Mawdsley if you have questions or suggestions or just to let him know you hope to attend.
by Fr JM
February 12, 2018
With Lent almost upon us now, here are some suggestions which Fr Goddard gave in his homily last Sunday as to how we might use this holy time of grace.
Prayer
· Try to get to Mass more often during Lent
· Try to get to Confession regularly during Lent.
· If you are not already saying a daily Rosary then Lent would be a good time to start. If you do already, then why not take a second Rosary during Lent for the needs of others.
· The Stations of the Cross is a popular devotion which focusses us on the direction Lent leads us, namely salvation won for us through Christ’s Passion and Death.
· Why not take up a particular prayer intention for Lent:
o This could be personal or for others in your life.
o For our children’s education and the end to immoral secular agendas being imposed in the classroom.
o For the clear and unambiguous reaffirmation of Church teaching around marriage.
· Lent would be a good time to make an effort in spiritual reading: You might like to consider volume 2 of Benedict XVI’s book: Jesus of Nazareth: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection.
Fasting
· Only take on things which you think you can manage for 40 days – don’t overstretch yourself.
· Don’t choose something that will make you “crabby”, thus leading you and those around you into sin.
· Don’t give up if you slip up in your resolve, but keep starting again for the 40 days.
· If charity towards a challenging person in your life is particularly difficult, refraining from a lack of charity and trying to get on with that person can be a greater penance and mortification than, for example, chocolate or television.
Almsgiving
· Home – Consider supporting a pro-life charity, such as SPUC or The Good Counsel Network.
· Abroad – Consider supporting a charity which supports persecuted Christians, such as Aid to the Church in Need.
by fsspuk
“…they have filled this place with the blood of innocents, and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it come into my mind”
Jeremiah 19
The most powerful reason against abortion is God’s Sovereign ownership of every immortal spirit, of every human soul, of every creature. There is just one week remaining to add your voice defending the unborn in the consultation on ‘buffer zones’ opened up by the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, MP.
Click on the image below to give your views online. The deadline is 19 February.
To read Bishop John Sherrington’s homily on the 50th anniversary of the Abortion Act, given with depth and clarity, click here. Below is an important letter from Clare McCullough of the Good Counsel Network to the Home Secretary outlining what is at stake.
“They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with blood.”
Psalm 105
by Fr JM
“Do you wish your prayer to fly toward God?
Give it two wings: fasting and almsgiving.”
–St Augustine
Please read Bishop Peter Doyle’s thoughtful pastoral letter for Lent, exhorting: “Between now and Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, let each of us plan what we can do to pray, to fast, and to give alms.”
Yesterday the faithful in Chesham Bois responded generously to an appeal on behalf of the victims of human trafficking, giving alms through the Medaille Trust. After the Mass, Tony Burton explained more about the Trust’s work (pictured below).
by Fr JM
February 7, 2018
Today the FSSP UK priests’ meeting included a visit to Lancaster.
Image (above): close to the spot in Lancaster Castle where St Edmund Arrowsmith was held before being martyred in 1628.
Image (above): A memorial stone marking the location of several martyrdoms in Lancaster. Among those whose intercession we invoked was Bl James Bell, born in Warrington, and martyred in Lancaster in 1584 under Bloody Queen Bess.
Downhill from where the martyrs died is the plot on which in 1859 the Catholic Cathedral of St Peter was built. The cathedral’s fine windows tell of St Peter’s life and death in Christ. Above:
- St Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost
- St Peter at the Council of Jerusalem
- St Peter delivered from prison by an angel
And below:
- St Peter’s restoreth Tabitha to life
- Lord, where goest Thou
- St Peter is crucified at Rome
St Peter, pray for us.
by Fr JM
Every priest is appointed to offer sacrifice (cf Heb 5:1).
FSSP UK priest meeting at St Mary’s Shrine.
by Fr JM
February 6, 2018
As well as the Sung Mass on 4 February described under a separate article, Saturday 3 February saw the first of five Family Catechism Days with Fatima Devotions at Christ the King. The day started with a Rosary, followed by 15 minutes of meditation, during which time Confessions were available. Mass was at 11 am, celebrated by Fr James Mawdsley, FSSP, who gave a very stirring homily on the widespread effects of abortion. Then, having refreshed souls, it was time to refresh bodies, and we had lunch. In the afternoon, Catechism was offered for the under 8s and the under 16s respectively, where the Holy Trinity was explained at a level appropriate for the participants’ ages. There were some 15 participants in each age group. It was lovely to see how much about the Faith they already knew. It was the adults’ turn after this and our talk was on the Holy Eucharist.
Practice for the Sung Mass, both for singers and altar servers, rounded off a very successful day. People came and went as they were able and it was well attended by about 60 adults and children. Our grateful thanks are due to Fr Mawdsley for arranging this day and we look forward to the next one on Saturday 3 March.
by fsspuk
