Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Caversham

On the opposite bank of the Thames to Reading is Caversham, where there was in the medieval period a shrine with widespread appeal. This may have been due not only to the actual place of pilgrimage, a small chapel would lay outside the village to the east with its statue of the Virgin but also the patronage of the Lords of the manner, the families of the Marshals, Clares and Despensers.

Today the Shrine has been recreated in the Catholic parish church in an exceedingly effective manner, and is well worth visiting. At its centre is a fine historic Flemish statue of our Lady and the Christ Child. At the end of the last century funds were raised for a crown for the statue which was blessed at an audience  in St Peter’s Square by Pope John Paul II, before being formally used to crown Our Lady of Caversham.

My posts about the shrine can be accessed from Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Caversham

May Our Lady of Caversham pray for Pope Leo XIV

Ember Saturday at Caversham

Last Saturday I went with a friend to the Mass for the Saturday in the Ember Week at the Catholic church in Caversham. This is the present shrine church for devotion to Our Lady of Caversham, a revived and restored place of pilgrimage, which appears to have originated as such soon after the Norman Conquest.

I went in 2013 to this liturgy and it was a pleasure to be able to do so again. On this occasion the celebrant of the High Mass was Fr Anthony Conlon, assisted by Fr Ian Verrier FSSP as Deacon and Rev. Keith Crocker as Sub-Deacon.

Dr Joe Shaw's LMS Chairman blog has an illustrated account of the Mass at Pilgrimage to Caversham

The journey to and from Caversham as well as the Mass itself and the opportunity to pray at the Shrine of Our Lady madce this a most enjoyable way to spend part of Saturday.

The previous Wednesday I had been able to attend the Ember Day Mass at SS Gregory and Augustine in north Oxford.

There are online articles about the Ember Days and their historyfrom Wikipedia at Ember days
and from the Catholic Encyclopedia at Ember Days - New Advent


Such quarterly days of prayer and fasting, one for each of the seasons, and originating in the harvests of the Mediterranean world seem an eminently laudable practice.  The loss from the modern calendar of such ancient custom, a casualty of liturgical change, seems pointless. One might well ask why they were not retained as seasonal fasting days of prayer, and why they should not br reintroduced, rather than left to the EF Missal and groups such as the Ordinariate.

Forthcoming EF Masses in the Oxford area

I have received information from the Chairman of The Latin Mass Society about celebrations in the Traditional rite in the Oxford area.

In addition to these celebrations I would add that there are regular 8am Masses on Sunday at the Oxford Oratory, and at 6pm on Wednesdays and Fridays and also at 12.30 on first Thursdays at SS Gregory and Augustine.

The clergy of FSSP at St William of York in Reading offer a full pattern of services with a Sung High Mass every Sunday at 11am.

Our Lady of Caversham

Image:ourladyandstanne.org.uk

The main additional event coming up for the LMS is their annual Pilgrimage to Our Lady of Caversham, coinciding with the Ember Saturday of Lent, 28th February, at 11:30am. This impressive Mass with extra readings and chants is an ideal liturgical preparation for Lent and Easter. It will be accompanied by the Schola Abelis of Oxford with polyphony provided by Cantus Mangus of London. Caversham is in the outskirts of Reading, and is the Marian Shrine of the Birmingham Archdiocese. it is at 2 South View Avenue, Caversham, RG4 5AB. The LMS encourages peopel to support this event if you can. As i have opined before the Shrine is delightful and a wonderful example of restablishing devotion in aplace celebrate din the medieval period as a place of pilgrimage.

 The Shrine of Our Lady of Caversham

Image:ourladyandstanne.org.uk

This Sunday there is a Missa Cantata in SS Gregory and Augustine's in Oxford at 12 noon. This is part of their regular pattern of an EF Mass at noon on the third Sunday of each month.

On Ash Wednesday there will be Low Mass with ashes at 12.15pm at the Oxford Oratory and a Sung Mass with distribution of ashes in SS Gregory and Augustine's at 6pm.

There will be a Sung High Mass for the Annunciation at the Oxford Oratory on March 25th at 6pm.

Sunday Masses at the church of Holy Trinity, Hethe, near Bicester, continue at 12 noon; that on the 2nd Sunday of each month is Sung. Hethe also now has Low Masses at 12 noon on Saturdays in the church.

Holy Trinity, Hethe

Image:Wikimedia/Geograph

There is also another new venue for the Extraordinary Form at Holy Rood, in Abingdon Road, Oxford. Throughout Lent there will be Low Mass on Fridays at 12:30pm. This has been organised in conjunction with the Ordinariate who use this church.  The address is Folly Bridge, Oxford, OX1 4LD. 

For those who love and appreciate the usus antiquior there is somethimg of an embarassment of riches in this area, unlike some parts of the country, or indeed the world.

Embertide Pilgrimage to Caversham

Earlier today I went on the Latin Mass Society's Pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Caversham.  I am very fond of this beautiful shrine, and there is an article from the local historical journal Oxoniensia about its history in the middle ages by Christopher Haigh and David Loades which can be viewed here. 

 

Our Lady of Caversham
 

The present statue is late medieval Flemish, with a crown blessed by Pope John Paul II in 1996

Image: ourladyandstanne.org.uk

The present shrine chapel was added in 1958 in an extraordinarily skillful design to the church of Our Lady and St Anne, which itself dates from 1896. The new chapel really does feel as though it were twelfth century - although I imagine if it were it would have been more colourful with wall paintings in the style of the period. It is both splendid and restrained - noble simplicity perhaps? The screen in particular reminds me of the decoration of the King Edward I chantry in the Anglican Shrine at Walsingham. There is more about the church and shrine at the parish website which can be viewed here. If you get the chance to go to the shrine at Caversham do go, it is quite delightful.

 

The exterior of the Shrine chapel

Image:karenblakeman on Flickr

It was also my first opportunity to attend the Extraordinary Form Mass for this Ember Saturday. I had been asked to act as thurifer, so it was a fairly early start to get the bus with a friend from outside Christ Church and travel on a cold day with snow flakes blowing in the wind down to Caversham. We arrived in good time and were able to join a good number of parishioners in Eucharistic Adoration before setting up for the Mass.

This was a beautiful liturgy with its distinctive sequence of Old Testament prophetic readings, each of them sung by members of the schola in front of the altar. In his sermon the celebrant, Fr Daniel Lloyd, drew out the harvest imagery in respect of the tradition of holding ordinations at the Ember Days as a sign of the fruitfulness of the Church in producing vocations to ministry and the fruits of Grace. I must admit that my rheumatics were playing up rather as I genuflected (or attempted to) at the usual places as well as the repeated Flectamus genua during the prophecies - I must remember to dose myself more heavily with anti-inflamatories next time...

The music was provided by the Scholas Abelis from the Latin Mass Society and by the Newman Consort, and we concluded by singing the Ave Regina Caelorum at the Shrine. Afterwards there was the usual lighting of individual candles there and pilgrims seeking the intercession of Our Lady of Caversham as they have for centuries in the vicinity - the original shrine was in a chapel upwards of amile to the east. I think that the site has now been quarried away for gravel.

 

 

The Shrine Chapel

Image: ourladyandstanne.org.uk

I came back with the MC and the other friend I had travelled with by car, stopping in Wallingford for a late lunch, and made a mental note to myself to go back when the weather is less cold and explore further this very historic Thameside town - what I have seen of it on a previous visit makes me realise its interest. The site of what once was a very impressive castle, virtually all of it reduced to earthworks, and the similar remains of the town defences indicate how important it once was.

After that we came back to Oxford and went to join the Pro-Life Witness I posted about earlier in the week. Having now come back to the city centre I am starting this post before going off to the Ordinariate Mass to round off a cold but eminently Catholic day.

Update:
The Chairman of the Latin Mass Society has very kindly send me the link to his set of photographs of the Mass at Caversham - they can be viewed here  and if clicked upon will enlarge. I hesitate to point out that I feature in several of the photographs, but don't mind me, appreciate the liturgy.