Praise for the Norbertines - and others

Fr Blake has an illustrated account on his blog of what was clearly a very successful Passiontide retreat at his parish in Brighton. He is full of praise for the two Norbertines who conducted it - Fr Stephen Morrison and Br Gregory Davies. 

I commented on his post that they are young men I know well - Fr Stephen was at Oriel, and Br Gregory assists at the Oratory in Oxford in term time whilst he studies at Blackfriars. I would agree that they are excellent men, and good indicators of the vitality of their community in Chelmsford.

I also added the point that St Mary Magdalen's Brighton is a splendid parish - and a splendid church too I should add - and, most importantly, that it has an equally splendid parish priest in Fr Blake himself. 

His post can be seen at Hope.

My own visits to both Brighton and Chelmsford have indeed filled me with hope for the pastoral and liturgical life of the Church, and I pray that both communities continue to be blessed by such faithful ministry.

New website for St Mary Magdalen Brighton

The excellent Fr Blake in Brighton and his parishioners have launched their new website for their parish as can be seen in Fr Ray's recent post St Mary Magdalen's New Website.

I have always enjoyed my visits to the church and the welcome one receives there from priest and congregation. I also appreciate the range of things it does and offers - it is a church well worth going to find it if you are visiting Brighton, or indeed, a good reason in itself for going to Brighton.

 

The patronage of St Mary Magdalen

 

Were today not a Sunday it would be the feast of St Mary Magdalen. For churches dedicated to her it is, of course, still their patronal feast, and gives me an opportunity to say my prayers for as well as sending my greetings to the splendid Fr Ray Blake and his people at St Mary Magdalen's in Brighton, a church which this year is celebrating its 150th anniversary, and about which I have posted beforehand.

 

 

 

St Mary Magdalen Brighton.

The phortograph was taken befiore the present restoration programme started

 

Image: Flickr.com

 

If St Mary Magdalen Brighton is one of my favourite Catholic churches of today then there are others from the middle ages of which I am also very fond. St Mary Magdalen was a popular medieval patron saint in England, particularly after the development of her great shrine at Vezeley in France during the twelfth century. Here are three of my favourite medieval churches dedicated to her:

 

Campsall church is a few miles from my home town and has some fine Norman work as well as later alterations, and a fine rood screen:

 

 

Campsall church

 

Image:geograph.org.uk

 

The parish church at Newark is justly famous, not only for its architecture - notably the tower and spire, which was copied for Salford cathedral in the nineteenth century - but also for its medieval glass, woodwork and brasses:

 

 

Newark parish church

 

Image: Flickr.com

 

Gedney church in south Lincolnshire stands out as exceptional even in an area rich in medieval churches as a result of the wealth of the area in the later middle ages. it sails like a great ship across the Fenland landscape:

 

 

Gedney church

Image:Genuki

All four churches are very well worth visiting if you are in the area - if you have not already done so, discover the joys of church crawling!

Celebrating 150 years of St Mary Magdalen's

Last night I was in Brighton for the Solemn High Mass of the Holy Spirit to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the opening of the completed church of St Mary Magdalen in 1862.

In February 1862 Pope Pius IX still exercised temporal rule over Rome and a reduced Papal State, Cardinal Wiseman was Archbishop of Westminster, Newman yet to write the Apologia, let alone get his Cardinal's hat, and the First Vatican Council had yet to be summoned. Queen Victoria was still in the immediate aftermath of the death of the Prince Consort the previous December, her Prime Minister was Lord Palmerston, whilst across the sea that laps the southern boundary of the parish Napoleon III ruled France and Bismarck had not yet been appointed Minister-President of Prussia.

As Fr Ray Blake pointed out in his notes in the service booklet the Catholics of Brighton showed great confidence in building a church that looked like a church and which was designed to promote an awareness of the Church by the beauty of the building and the worship offered within.

It proved to be a splendid evening - liturgically, musically and parish bun-fightwise - and the church was packed. Being Fr Blake's parish there was a high blogger count in both sanctuary and nave. The reception was a good occasion to meet up with freinds and acquaintances from the parish, and to sample a fine selection of Lenten celebratory fare that bore witness to the diverse and generous nature of the parishioners. The occasion was also a good one to see that further progress had indeed been made in the restoration of the church interior, which is very gratifying to see.

The Solemn Mass at St Mary Magdalen

Image: Fr Ray Blake blog

Fr Blake's initial account is at Processing the 150th, and he has now followed that up with two more posts Our 150th Pictures and Tom Bennett's Tu Es Petrus

Fr Tim Finigan was Deacon and preacher and he has posted his sermon at The Holy Spirit, soul of the Church and another post about the Mass at Evangelisation at Brighton.

The choir blog from the church about the Mass is here, and Mulier Fortis gives her impressions and pictures in At St. Mary Magdalen's..., A Closer Look At The High Altar... and Just Back... I would endorse all their comments about what a good occasion the evening was, but it was more than just a historic commemoration, it was a spiritual and holy event.

St Mary Magdalen's is a really splendid church in all senses - architectural, liturgical, musical, but also in those intangibles which are what the Catholic faith is about - and to be commended to anyone at all interested.

There are details of the rich variety of events the parish is putting on to mark the anniversary by clicking on the image below:

Continuing renovation in Brighton

Fr Blake has a post about the latest progess he has made in the restoration of his church in Brighton which can be read at Renovations at St Mary Magdalen. This continuing cleaning and remnovation in the church is really very good news for that church and parish, and for the wider Church - Fr Blake and his parishioners have shown what can be done with faith, determination and fundraising. It is a project I commend to your pockets as well as your prayers, and should, of course, be viewed in situ, and when in use liturgically.

Ordinariate Liturgical Patrimony lecture on October 15th

From Fr Ray Blake's blog:

Mgr Andrew Burnham of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, the former Anglican Bishop of Ebbsfleet, is visiting this parish on 15th October and will celebrate a Solemn Mass at 12 noon.


This event is organised by the “Association for Latin Liturgy”. He will also speak on “The Liturgical Patrimony of the Ordinariate and the Reform of the Reform” at 2.15pm. Later he will celebrate First Vespers.

Supporting Fr Blake

Not everyone, it would appear, appreciates the splendid Fr Blake and his blog, as can be read, with an introduction through Fr Tim Finigan's blog, in Fr Ray Blake under fire.

I urge you to look at that, follow the link to Fr Blake's blog, and then express your support for him in the comments box, as I have done. He is an excellent and faithful priest, who runs a lively and civilised parish.

Newman Pilgrims from Brighton

Yesterday I spent a most agreeable day showing a group of pilgrims from St Mary Magdalen's Brighton around Newman's Oxford. They were led by my very good friend Andrew Wagstaff. They being a group of five meant that we could make our way in a leisurely and discursive way around the city, looking not only at places associated with Newman but at other places of Catholic interest.

So we took in the home of the first Anglican nun, Marion Hughes - who made her profession to Dr Pusey in 1841 with the support of Newman - before crossing the proposed site for Newman's Oratory in Oxford of the 1860s, which eventually became Wellington Square, on our way to visit the Oratory and showing them the restoration work that has been accomplished.

At Blackfriars, unexpectedly, we saw something of the Solemn Professions of Br Graham Hunt, a long-standing friend of mine and Br Gregory Pearson before looking at that wonderfully ironic tribute to the Oxford Movement, the Rev Charles Golightly' s Martyr's Memoral of 1841 and the site of the arrest of the Oxford Catholic Martyrs of 1589 on our way to Trinity College. After looking around Newman's undergraduate college we visited St Mary's where he was Vicar before looking at Oriel with it numerous reminders of his time as a Fellow there from 1822 to 1845.

making our way accross the city centre - never easy with the crowds on a Saturday - we had a very enjoyable lunch at an Italian restaurant, where the conversation flowed freely over theology, including the hypothetical state of the hypothetical souls of hypothetical aliens in outer space and its relationship to the Incarnation and how one ought to understand the Genesis Creation narratives in relation to faith, reason and scientific understanding, to our own conversion narratives, making humerous plans for the next career move of one of the party, and generally enjoying good fellowship.

This we continued with a visit to the Eagle and Child (The Bird and Baby) , famous as the Oxford pub frequented by C.S.Lewis, J.R.R.Tolkien and the Inklings, and where Andrew and I and other friends used to meet up regularly in our days at Pusey House.

We had hoped to show the visitors the Ordinariate in action at Holy Rood but time did not allow as they had a three hour journey back to Brighton. Nonetheless it was a thoroughly enjoyable visit, and with a real sense of making new friends.

The Assumption in Brighton

Having celebrated the Assumption on its transferred date on Sunday I took myself off to see my friends at St Mary Magdalen Brighton for their Extraordinary Form celebration with a low Mass yesterday evening.

Difficulties on the way with transport, credit cards and hotels began to look like a diabolical assault, but I managed to attend the Mass, celebrated by Fr Blake, and ending with the singing of the Salve Regina before a candle bedecked Lady Chapel altar.

The Lady Chapel
Photo from St Mary Magdalen Brighton parish website

The reredos of the altar is in mid-fourteenth century style and was, I am given to understand, painted by a previous parish priest to create the impression of what was the medieval practice in such matters. Although some of his colour scheme is not perhaps that close to the middle ages - for example the Christ Child in salmon pink is perhaps a little unlikely for a medieval colour scheme - but it is a reminder of the lavish use of colour in the fourteenth century. The overall effect is nevertheless rather charming.

Mass was followed by celebratory drinks and several of us went off for an excellent Italian meal. So, despite the difficulties encountered en route, it proved to be a very enjoyable evening with friends and a genuine celebration of Our Lady's entrance into eternal bliss.

Celebrating St Mary Magdalen

On Friday I travelled down to Brighton for an overnight visit having been invited to the patronal feast of St Mary Magdalen parish and which was celebrated in the evening with a usus antiquior Missa Cantata.

The church from the northwest, with the parish hall in the foreground and the presbytery beyond

Image from Wikipedia

This was quite a festival of bloggers with Fr Ray Blake as celebrant, The Noise of the Crusade as MC and That The Bones You Have Crushed May Thrill as thurifer. Following the Mass we were able to venerate the relic of St Mary Magdalen which had been on display in front of her splendidly attired statue.

The church is a fine building by the architect Gilbert Blount and it was a delight to see how the restoration of the interior of the church is progressing. Since I was there almost a year ago there has been the installation of the new lighting (featured a while back on Fr Ray's blog) and the great progress made in stripping the battleship grey paint off the limestone of the interior details and the walls, revealing the remains of the original scheme. There has also been the cleaning of the panels of the ceilings of the sanctuary and the Lady Chapel.

The interior of the church before the present programme of restoration commenced.

Image: seadipper's photostream on Flickr

Although there is still a lot of the grey paint to be removed the sense of a huge improvement was strong, and I look forward to seeinging further progress on future visits.

Following the Mass there was a drinks reception in the presbytery, after which some of us went off for a meal before returning for what was in effect a dessert in the presbytery kitchen. The atmosphere was lively and convivial, mixing serious discussion with banter and humour.

This is a parish with a real concern for the beauty of holiness, with active social concern - notably its 365 day a year soup run to the homeless - and a genuinely friendly and welcoming approach.

Ash Wednesday images

In my post Ash Wednesday I wrote about serving the Mass at SS Gregory and Augustine, and I have now found a set of photographs of the liturgy:

They were taken by the Chairman of the Latin Mass Society, Dr Joseph Shaw, and can be viewed by following the link from his report, which is here.

I have found two other sets of photographs of Ash Wednesday liturgies last week in the usus antiquior online. Fr Blake has pictures on his blog of the Mass he celebrated at St Mary Magdalen Brighton and they can be seen here.

For something really rather more grand than either Oxford or Brighton could do, the New Liturgical Movement has a set of pictures of Cardinal Burke celebrating a pontifical Mass at St Brigid's church, Marrickville, Sydney and they can be seen here.

Catching out Pevsner

Following my visit on Sunday to St Mary Magdalen's Brighton I thought I would see what Pevsner, and his revisers and editors, say about the building. A trip to the bookshelves to look at Sussex revealed that they had little to say - in fact they have nothing at all to say. I did not have time to look at the new, additional, volume in the series specifically on Brighton and Hove to see if that included the church.

Now I know that not all nineteenth century churches of all denominations make it to the pages of Pevsner - a fact which betrays a prejudice of the era which initially produced The Buildings of England, but one which ought now to be being rectified. However St Mary Magdalen's is a fine building by a decent architect, and omitting it seems rather silly in looking at a city one of whose principal architectural interests is its collection of nineteenth century churches. Pevsner certainly got to the end of Upper North Street as he includes the ancient parish church of St Nicholas, less than five minutes walk away. Without falling into Catholic paranoia I suspect that had it been an Anglican church it would have made the list. So, to make up, here is the Wikipedia entry on the church. Bit rum that Wikipedia is better than Pevsner in these matters when you think about it.

Beside the seaside

Yesterday I treated myself to a pre-birthday excursion to Brighton (and before you even think it, no, I was NOT going to the Brighton Pride event).

What I did do was set off from Oxford early to travel via London so as to arrive at St Mary Magdalen's for Mass at 10.30. I knew the church through Fr Blake's excellent St Mary Magdalen, Brighton blog - a daily piece of required reading on my part - and visited it for the first time last year. I went again this year and was delighted again by what I found there. Fr Blake offers a dignified liturgy for a lively, varied and sizeable congregation in a handsome and charming building. It was good to see that the restoration project there has made significant progress in the last year. The parish website is here, and I have added it to the blogroll. It is definitely a church to both visit and at which to worship.

St Mary Magdalen Church, Upper North Street, Brighton

After Mass I had an opportunity to meet Fr Blake again and to talk to him, and also to meet Laurence England whose That The Bones You Have Crushed May Thrill blog offers an informed and critical view of social conditions in Brighton and Hove from a Catholic standpoint - well worth reading. I was also introduced to the blog The Noise of the Crusade, also well worth looking at, combining erudition and forcefulness.

After that it was time to adjourn to the public house across the road and have lunch with Andrew Wagstaff, a good and valued friend from Oxford, and who acted as my sponsor at my reception into the Church. He now is now a barrister based in Brighton and serves at St Mary Magdalen.

As in days of yore in the Eagle and Child in Oxford we spent the afternoon putting the Church and the world to rights as well as sharing ''human interest stories" (gossip) over a few drinks. He then had to go and prepare a case whilst I made my way back to the station and so home.

The day was warm and sunny, the company good, as was the worship, and the food and drink, and the parish welcoming. Add to all that the great pleasure of spending time with a long-standing friend - well, what more could one ask for on a day by the sea?

St Mary Magdalen

I realise as I reflect on this feast of St Mary Magdalen that over the years several churches dedicated to her have marked my historical as well as my spiritual path.

One is the very fine historic parish church at Campsall in my native Yorkshire. Situated in that area dotted with fine churches alongside the Great North Road between Pontefract and Doncaster. It shows two phases of two phases of Norman work, the later work of extremely high quality, later medieval improvements, including what may have been a priest's room to enable him to be there for an early celebration of Mass, and amongst the furnishings a handsome fifteenth century rood-screen (a rare survival in the area) with an English inscription on it worthy of Eamon Duffy's interest I think - but more of that is another post, and an altar from Pugin's now destroyed Jesus Chapel at Ackworth - and again more on that to come in another post. Opposite the church the vicarage includes substantial medieval remains - again a rarety.

As a boy I remember being fascinated by reading accounts of the discovery in 1853 (I think) of the considerable remains in Doncaster Market Place of the church of St Mary Magdalen. Abandoned at the reformation it had been absorbed by houses and shops and was only revealed when they were being demolished to make way for the new market hall. it too, alas, was destroyed though a pillar was, I believe, preserved. It still shocks me to think of that destruction of such a fine historic survival - there are engravings of the remains of a very fine building.

To the west are the remains of Monk Bretton Priory, again dedicate dto teh magdalen, and founded as a daughter of the Cluniac Priory in Pontefract, but which in the thirteenth century declared,and secured, its independence from Pontefract, continuing until 1538 as Benedictine priory. It is not very well known, and situated on the edge of Barnsley, but well worth visiting - it is administered by English Heritage.

It was with fellow pilgrims from, amongst other parishes, St Mary Magdalen Altofts, a few miles west of Pontefract that I first went as an Anglican on pilgrimage to Walsingham. The church at Altofts was built in the late nineteenth century by Mrs Meynell-Ingram, sister to the great Lord Halifax of Church Union fame. Though not comparable to her great church at Hoar Cross in Staffordshire it is still a fine building.

It was in Magdalen College here in Oxford that I first discussed with a Oxford academic, Gerald Harriss, the possibilities of my coming to Oxford to study late-medieval history as a graduate student, and that discussion took place in what must be virtually the holy of holies to late medievalists - K.B.Macfarlane's library.

Once established in Oxford, like so many Anglo-Catholics over the years, I used to go to "Mary Mags". In those days the church could still be described to one as being " the highest in the Church of England" - not I think true at the time, but the remains of Colin Stephenson's work - again see a forthcoming post - were still visible in the outward forms of the liturgy. Over the years, as I found other Anglo-Catholic churches to which I gave my allegiance, I seemed to see the heritage of "Mary Mags" being whittled away, as Solemn Evensong and Benediction every Sunday was replaced by a said service in the Lady Chapel and then scrapped, the creeping influence of 'Affirming Catholicism' took its toll, and now, I gather, women clergy assisting. Very sad to see in my opinion.

Finally there is St Mary Magdalen's Brighton, now well known through Fr Blake's blog. I visited the church last year and it really is splendid. I gather from the blog that the restoration work is progressing in the church, and its parochial life seems very impressive. It is a real and positive example of what can be achieved in this day and age by a priest and a parish working to live out in its fullness the Catholic truth and vision. Long may it continue on that path.

So these various churches have marked my journey in faith and also provided me with much enjoyment as an historian. I am grateful for all that, and realise how lucky I am to have experienced so much of the Christian heritage of the country.

May St Mary Magdalen continue to pray for us, and for the churches entrusted to her patronage.

Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest

For those of you who have not read them there have been some characteristically forthright, trenchant and insightful comments posted by the splendid Fr Ray Blake on his blog from St Mary Magdalen Brighton - in particular I would urge you to to read two of his posts. The more recent are his comments, and the attached articles, about the Pope and Fr Maciel the founder of the Legionaries of Christ , which shows how the Pope is now, as he was before his election, determined to deal with abuse, of all kinds, within the Church.

I would also highly recommend Fr Blake's reflection on Good Friday which has an impact that will give you something to reflect upon long after Easter.
In one sense it is political Christianity, in the proper sense, that is that it raises the question as to how we, as the Body of Christ and as the Church, make choices about our own lives, about the life of the Church and of the society within which we live. So not just an Easter reflection, but also an Election one.