A reminder that we are offering High Mass (Requiem) for King Richard III this Thursday - the day of his interment at Leicester. While it is styled as being “in the manner of his day”, the intention is not to create an historically accurate re-enactment, like some set piece of theatre preserved forever in aspic. We are the living Church, not an historical re-enactment society, praying for one who was baptised into that Church.
Not that I would be adverse to wearing a Sarum vestment loaned by the V & A or Sir Harry Christophers turning up with the Sixteen but we will manage a good showing, none the less. In fact, I'm very pleased that the singing and chant is now being provided by a new young singing group based in Manchester - the Manchester Singers - an exciting new a cappella vocal ensemble whose members include talented young artists just embarking on their professional careers.
There is a buffet and wine afterwards - again with a Ricardian theme, although I can't guarantee there might not be some more prosaic fare amongst the swan stuffed with widgeon!
Cardinal Vincent Nichols said at his Mass for King Richard this week:
"We know that Richard was a man of anxious devotion who kept and marked his own book of prayers and who must have attended Mass throughout his life.
During this week, Mass is being offered in many Catholic Churches for the repose of the soul of King Richard III. Rightly so. That is exactly what he would have wished."
So, its the intention to offer King Richard Catholic rites that more closely resemble what he might have expected on the day of his death. Those we hope the Fransiscans at Leicester gave him, no matter what the defeated and unceremonious arrival at their gates. Our intention is to offer the grace of Christ’s sacrifice that every soul would surely wish for and stands in need of in approaching the Gates of Heaven and the Judgement Seat of the Creator.
Thursday 26th March
7.30pm
At St Catherine’s Church
Stanifield Lane
Farington - Leyland - PR25 4QG
(Off Junction 1 M65 or Junction 28 / 29 on M6
& between Farington Park & Kew Gardens locally)
A Requiem Mass in the style and manner of his day.
Sung High Latin Mass
with the Manchester Singers.
A light Buffet with wine will be served afterwards.
All Welcome.
For any further details
Telephone 01772 421174
E-mail: simonphenry@hotmail.co.uk
1 comment:
You are to be commended for this great act of true Catholic charity, Fr (and in Lancashire, too!).
In all seriousness, though, I have just read with utter dismay, on the BBC site, the words of the Dean of Leicester Cathedral concerning today's re-interment ceremony/service in that city: "There are no mourners. Instead it's much more of a hello, a welcome, a recognition of our history."
It's one of the most depressingly muddled things I've ever read (though I should possibly in charity allow for it to have been taken out of context). But such cloying and false sentiment is entirely typical of the dangerously skewed river of thinking that is perhaps the inevitable end deposit of 500 years of the Reformation flowing freely throughout our lands. The only blessing for His Majesty was that he didn't live to see its rotten birth pangs.
May the Requiem at St Catherine's tonight send a storm of prayers to heaven for the Lord to have mercy on his and all souls.
Richard III - Rex Angliae et Franciae et Dominus Hiberniae - Requiescat in pace.
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