This Saturday is the feast of the Douai Martyrs. There will be a High Mass at St Joseph`s, Gateshead at 12 noon. This feast has an added poignancy this year given the uncertainty over the future of Ushaw college, the northern successor of Douai. The celebrant will be Fr Simon Leworthy FSSP. The Mass has been organised by The Group Of Priests Of Hexham And Newcastle Who Meet For Lunch Once A Month Who Like The Extraordinary Form (aka TGOPOHANWMFLOAMWLTEF) and the local LMS.
Preceding the Mass there will be a morning of recollection for lay people given by Fr Leworthy. This will start at 10am and will include time for confessions. It is open to anyone who would like to come. Other parts of the country have days of recollection organised by the LMS but this is the first time we have attempted this in the North East. If you are coming you may like to bring a packed lunch for after the Mass. Many thanks to Fr Adrian Dixon, the parish priest of St Joseph`s for letting us use his church for this event.
St Joseph`s, Gateshead is very easy to reach by public transport: it is immediately opposite Gateshead Metro station.
19 comments:
TGOPOHANWMFLOAMWLTEF sounds like that railway station in North Wales but probably slightly easier to pronounce.
What a wonderful occasion to have a Solemn High Mass for the Douai Martyrs, and in a form they would have readily recognised (if I may make a point).
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
What’s difficult about that? Here’s how to pronounce it:
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2103733
“Llanfair”, of course, means “the Church of St Mary” and “tysilio” refers to St Tysilio”.
The full translation is:
St Mary's Church, in the hollow of the white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St Tysilio by the red cave
I must disagree with Pendant on this. This poor imitation is not at all easy, nay, it is impossible to pronounce whereas the Welsh Llanfairpwllgwyngyll
gogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (more properly Llanfairpwll) is easy: Llan-vire-pooll-guin-gill-go-ger-u-queern-drob-ooll-llandus-illo-gogo-goch. It is especially easy after a couple of pints of Jarrow Rapper (advert). The priests group (who obviously have nowt better to do than try to invent ridiculous acronyms) should try again. In Latin.
Regarding High Mass on the feast of the Douai Martyrs; does anyone know how often any of them actually celebrated High Mass during their labours in England? Given the circumstances I suspect I know the answer; surely a Low Mass was much more likely!
Sceptical, not many of them may have celebrated High Mass in England but I`m sure they would have wanted to!
Sceptical. I'm sure 'Pedant' (not Pendant) means that a Solemn High Mass gives more (earthly) glory to the martyrs already in glory in Heaven. Fr Michael is no doubt also right that they would have been ecstatic to be given the opportunity to celebrate High Mass when they were lucky to be able to celebrate Low Mass. Doesn't it seem strange that even in Penal Times composers such as Byrd et al were still composing polyphonic masses. When were they sung?
Actually, I was standing on that very station just two months ago and have a photo with the sign to prove it. I also passed the test of pronunciation in the local shop. I just didn't want to brag. I knew it would bring forth responses from people more learned than me.
Sceptical believer - if you are trying to give everyone a phonetic pronunciation you would not start with Llan-vire.. but Clan-vire..
I think also that you are not thinking clearly. It is very probable (certain) that they did not celebrate a Solemn High Mass during their labours in England but I did not say that. I said that they would have readily recognised this form of Mass, which they would have done. Before they arrived in England they had spent a few years in the seminary and I am sure they celebrated High Masses there. Is Douai not French? We are celebrating the fact that these young men from the British Isles were trained in a foreign country (France) and came back to serve the people in this country. Nothing is too good to honour their memory.
Gentllemen! You must be aware that contributions to this blog are not censored and therefore that typing errors can slip through. Or are you?
Congratulations Pedant (not Pendant) on your ability to say the name in question. A most useful accomplisment, indeed. However, I must say that when in school (and that was not yesterday) we were taught that Ll in Welsh was always to be pronounced Cl. But, it to be written Ll. And that was in a Tyneside school.
Furthermore, Gentlemen and Your Reverence, you would have observed, taking only a modicum of care in your reading, that I simply asked a question; I did not make a statement about the relative merits (or the amount of glory one might provide over another) of High and Low Masses. Your Reverence may well be right but the martyrs probably had other things to think about as well and would certainly have been anxious not to draw any unnecessary attention to their activities while on the run.
It has taken quite a while, but I am glad that surrealism has recovered its rightful place in the Murmuring Forest. Our old friend the Sceptical Believer has managed to introduce the Jarrow Rapper into the debate. Is he a member of the Latin Mass Jarrow Schola that performs regularly at Gateshead, Forest Hall and Longbenton, although their debut gig at Dilston was somewhat retarded?
There is a dispute between Mike, Sceptical and Pendant (is he hanging around this blog?) about the pronounciation of some obscure North Wales railway station, then David brings us down to earth with a bit of sense - concerning Byrd's Masses being sung in England during Penal Times.
William Byrd, 1542 - 1623, was a typical example of a "Church Papist", in other words a conforming Catholic. He was promoted through the ranks of the Established Church, eventually becoming Organist to the Chapel Royal. Actually, his Mass settings were used by the Church of England in the Book of Common Prayer services (1559 version), in collegiate and cathedral churches, although not in everyday parish use, up to the present day.
According to that fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia, Byrd was well known as "a performer on the virginals."
I will leave the last statement to the Murmuring Bloggers to mull over.
S B's comments about what the Douai martyr priests would be familiar with set me thinking (a dangerous occupation on this blog). It most probably was a Low Mass but it was also most likely celebrated in some remote attic or on an even more remote moor with people on watch for the local Justices.
So, for next year in the interests of authenticity, and to recreate what the martyrs would be familiar with, I propose that we hold the Mass in the middle of Kielder Forest at midnight on a Wednesday and everyone attending be given a health and safety notice that if they are caught they forfeit their lives. That should sort out the men from the boys. I, for one, would not be hanging about.
Pendant is, of course, qute correct when he says: 'thinking (is) a dangerous occupation on this blog'. But, people will do it! Of course I have given some thought to his suggestion for a midnight Mass in Keilder Forest but in view of his warning of Health and Safety interventions I feel it would be a non-starter (like one or two other EF Masses in the diocese - which I hardly need name).There is also the question 'is it permissable to say Mass at Midnight, apart from Christmas and Easter?' There used to be some rubric (or rule or something) which laid down the hours between which Mass was allowed. Is it still in force? I'm just askin', I don't need to know if the rule (or whatever) is adhered to. Like many things in the church today it is probably ignored. 1569 Rising (surely contributors to this fantasy world of the Forest People deserve their full title?) is not quite correct. Llanfairpwllgwyngyll
gogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is quite well know to all those living within a five miles radius of the station which, in the outback of Wales is quite an area.
Boy, do I wish that everyone would simply use their names. Mum & Dad went to a great deal of trouble giving (at least) one. I know our friend '1569 Rising' & even recognise 'all_4_gesus' but 'Pedant' (or Pendant) & 'Sceptical Believer' are totally unknown quantities.
Surely using a pseudonym is part of the fun; everyone then plays a guessing game. You can disagree with your best friend, and even insult him/her, without the need to hide down a back alley if you see them coming.
And what if you do not like the name that 'mum and dad' gave you; Peaches and Trixie Belle come to mind? Most people would think they were pseudonyms, would they not?
And there was I, trying to raise the tone of this quite splendid blog with my erudite murmurings about Byrd and his music, only to be accused of sheltering behind a pseudonym. Sceptical Believer (so that's not a pseudonym?) wants me to spell out my name for all of the great unwashed to see. OK, I give in, my name is Fifteensixtynine Rising.
He also seems to accuse me of not knowing about the Welsh railway station. I am at this moment looking at my copy of Bradshaw (1923), and I find that the official name of the station, according to the London & North Western Railway (and they should know, it's their station) is LLANFAIR. None of this pullygully wolly rubbish.
Bangor 2.41pm
Menai Bridge 2.45
Llanfair 2.52
Gaerwen (arr) 2.58
(dep) 3.02
Bodorgan 3.12
Ty Croes 3.20
Rhosneigr 3.26
Valley 3.36
Holyhead 3.45
5 trains per day in each direction.
Anyway, it's in Anglesey (Ynys Mon in Welsh).
Peccavi reminds me of an incident in one of the numerous Afghan/Punjab wars against recalcitrant tribesmen during those glorious days of the British Empire. A British Colonel (I forget who) won a famous battle, and captured the Northern city of Sind. His telegram reporting the victory was simple one word...
PECCAVI.
I know, I should get out more, but I feel I have a duty to raise the tone of this blog and abolish silliness from its electric pages.
Just as I knew that 'not' mentioning the name of that railway station in North Wales would bring out the experts to explain all, I knew that calling myself Peccavi would also bring an explanation for the Masses.
The chappie who is famous for this one word telegram was General Charles Napier. In this age where everyone appears to leave school with A*Plus A Levels I wonder how many would have understood Peccavi - or, indeed, how many priests.
Finally: how is it on this blog that the comments very rarely bear any relationship to the original subject matter? All these exchanges may have some entertainment value but the important thing is that St. Joseph's is packed on Saturday to remember, if only for an hour or so, the brave priests who gave their lives so that the faith would live on in the Dowry of Mary.
Thanks Peccavi/Pedant for reminding us about the original post. I too hope there is a good turn out for Saturday and that the recollection will become an annual event.
1569 Uprising misses my point (for the first time?). I meant that he writes under the name of 1569 Uprising but his, alas, many critics refer to him simply as (alas and alack) 1569. Of course, he too errs from time to time (I do like understating things) in referring to me as Sceptical Believer. There is, of course, no space between 'Sceptical' and 'Believer'. For those of sufficently open mind (if there are any such who read this blog) SB (to save me writing out ScepticalBeliever again) does convey something, or at least intends to - to those who ask. So far, no one has asked why I use that title here. I'm not waiting in, either! In passing, I thought that his reverence might have answered my question about the hours when the priest is allowed to say Mass.
What`s all this about thinking not being allowed here? I suppose it depends on what you are thinking about. I censor very few comments as this post shows.
I failed to notice SB`s qury about Mass times. Canon 931 of the 1983 code says Mass can be celebrated at any hour except where liturgical norms say otherwise. Canon 821 of the former code said Mass could not be said more than an hour before dawn or later than an hour after noon. Pius XII and Paul VI modified this. The shrine at Wigratzbad has a monthly midnight Mass (or at least did when I was last there).
Congratulations to all concerned with the organisation and carrying out of the Day of Recollection.
The High Mass was especially moving, bearing in mind the impending final link with Douai.
Excellent sermon, Father.
Thanks 1569. It seemed to go ok. `Excellent sermon, Father` is praise indeed from an old Ushawman.
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