...just off London's Leicester Square, is something of a hidden gem. It has a most beautiful image of Our Lady, as a young bride in white dress and veil, in a springtime garden, in the sanctuary. The church was full on Tuesday evening for the Graduation Mass for the latest batch of students from the St Patrick's School of Evangelisation...the Mass had to be held here because St P's is currently a building-site, undergoing massive renovations beginning with excavations of the crypt and basement area.
It was good to be at the Mass - I was with the students at various points during the year, giving them talks and leading them on history walks around London. Bishop Alan Hopes celebrated Mass, and gave the students their diplomas, and then afterwards there was a buffet and much talk.
When Catholics get together in large numbers, topics that come up: a good deal of strong feeling about the Pope's visit: when and where do we get to see him, cheer him, hear him?; continued - and actually increasing - strong feeling about the abolition of our Holy Days, especially in this season when we've missed Ascension Thursday and Corpus Christi. NOTE TO OUR BISHOPS: WE WANT OUR HOLY DAYS BACK, PLEASE!!!! No one is convinced that there has been any merit in moving the Holy Days to the nearest Sunday: members of new groups such as the charismatic renewal feel especially strongly about this, as part of the whole message opf the New Evangelisation is that BEING A CATHOLIC ISN'T JUST FOR SUNDAYS!
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4 comments:
As long as people are prepared to take those days as annual leave days, that's fine. The workplace is no place for religious favours these days.
It isn't necessary to take the day off work!! All that we want is for the Church to celebrate the day as a feast-day - ie have Mass, and urge us all to attend.That's all - we can then have our own celebrations, at church, at home, and so on - of course we go to work as usual, and in fact part of the fun is that you drop in to Mass at lunchtime or whenever...giving a brightness to an ordinary day.
Auntie J.
I couldn't agree more! We are fortunate to live in one of the few dioceses (Boston) here in the States that observes the Holy Days when they should be observed.
I was so disappointed when visiting a parish in Florida to be told the Holy Day was being celebrated on the nearest Sunday. Moving the observance is like an acknowledgment that worship takes second place to the mundane.
Your last words should be printed and displayed in every church in the world!!!
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