26 March 2007

St Margaret Clitherow

Today is the memorial of St Margaret Clitherow, martyr, known as 'The Pearl of York'. Earlier this year St Margaret was adopted as one of the Latin Mass Society's two patron saints for her devotion to the Holy Mass and her active involvement in the Church.

09 March 2007

A Reminder

This coming Sunday 11th March, 6.30pm at St Mary's Church, Bishophill, York

1st Vespers of St Gregory the Great sung by The Schola Cantorum of the Rudgate Singers.

04 March 2007

Forthcoming Services

Rather than list each individual service one by one, I thought I'd provide the link to the Calendar on the website, so you can see for yourselves how busy we are!

http://pub3.bravenet.com/calendar/show.php?usernum=217070521

Worthy of note is next Sunday when we shall be singing First Vespers of St Gregory the Great.

I'll quote from the St Andrew Missal.

St Gregory, justly called the Great, is one of the most outstanding popes in the Church's history. The English owed their conversion to his sending a group of Roman monks to make "the Angles angels". .. He watched equally over the sanctification of the clergy and the maintenance of Church discipline.... The liturgy owes him some of its most beautiful prayers, and the very name of "Gregorian Chant" recalls his part in the development of church music. His commentaries on sacred Scripture and other writings excercised a great influence on Christian thought in the Middle Ages, and won him a place with St Ambrose, St Augustine and St Jerome as one of the four great Doctors of the Latin Church. He died on March 12, 604 and his body rests in St Peter's at Rome.

So you see the connection with Gregorian Chant, which is why it was too good an opportunity to miss :-) There may be the odd blemish, as Ben and I haven't sung Vespers for a while, and never together. We'll also have a new recruit singing with us who's never sung Vespers at all [Compline this Friday will be his first service] so I hope those of you who can make Sunday evening will forgive us if things go astray somewhat!

In addition to the Office at Bishophill, there are TWO Masses coming up, one just outside the Diocese, but well within reach for people in the York area. It's just over 30 minutes driving time away, and it can take almost that long, just to get from one side of the city to the other, so if you have transport, there's NO excuse for you not to go unless you have pressing needs that keep you in York. I'll quite happily provide directions upon request... [For everybody else who reads this, who doesn't come from the greater York area or who doesn't have transport , this obviously doesn't apply to you, so can safely ignore the above!]

OK. Mini-rant over ;-) the second Mass is actually in York itself on Palm Sunday. We're not so sure yet about the venue, but I'm sure when Paul is in a position to confirm it, he'll let us know!