De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

  O God, who in this wonderful Sacrament have left us a memorial of your Passion, grant us, we pray, so to revere the sacred mysteries of your Body and Blood that we may always experience in ourselves the fruits of your redemption. Who live and reign with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen

On a much more positive note, I was fortunate enough to attend a sung Mass in the Dominican Rite at Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane  on Monday. This is one in a series of special liturgies which form part of the London Eucharistic Octave for 2022 . Corpus Christi, a London Church of great provenance, has recently been restored and dedicated as the Diocesan Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament, making it a particular place of pilgrimage and devotion to the Eucharist. The Eucharistic Octave runs from 11th - 19th June 2022, leading up to Corpus Christi. Each day, Mass is celebrated in a different tradition of the Catholic Church. Full details at https://catholiclondon.org/ I had to rush up to London after work, but it is quite an easy run for me from Essex. It was a beautifully sunny day, and I brought a friend with me who has found their own faith greatly deepened through attending the Traditional Latin Mass, so I had someone to chat with on the train and share the experience with. Entering C...

This blog is subtitled: “It is written,  ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.” We had a beautiful Corpus Christi procession on Sunday in Leigh-on-Sea, Deo gratias! The Church was fairly full, but really one would hope that the whole Parish family would turn out to this event. Indeed, Father Kevin has expressed his own sadness that this is not the case in his homilies leading up to the feast. As my wife expressed it, a large part of the congregation is made up of the First Holy Communion families as the children take part in the procession, the rest are the stalwart parishioners. So why is this? The institution of Corpus Christi as a feast resulted from approximately forty years of work on the part of Juliana of Liège, a 13th-century Norbertine canoness, also known as Juliana de Cornillon, born in 1191 or 1192 in Liège, Belgium, a city where there were groups of women d...

This Sunday 12th February sees the unveiling of the restored sanctuary At Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane.  After the Protestant Reformation, this 'hidden gem' in London's West End was the first Catholic Church in the country to be dedicated with the title Corpus Christi. It was built in reparation for all the sins committed against the Blessed Sacrament in the 16th century and since. Corpus Christi was opened by Cardinal Manning on the 20th October 1874 with the intention that it would stand as a statement of what the Catholic Church believes about the Mass, i.e. the confection of the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of the Lord, and as “a sanctuary created specifically for the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament” . (Words of Cardinal Manning, from his homily at the opening of the church). After a long period of neglect, exacerbated by considerable pollution in Central London, and clumsy attempts to clean the internal fabric by sandblasting, the interior walls and sto...

...And all around the world as Catholic's responded to the Pope's call to unite in an hour of Eucharistic Adoration today, the Feast of Corpus Christi, at 16:00 BST. Pope Francis led the unprecedented, worldwide event from Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Catholic faithful throughout the world took part in their own Cathedrals and churches, and followed the event on television, radio, and the internet. The Holy Father asked that this time of Eucharistic Adoration be offered especially for: For the Church spread throughout the world and united today in the adoration of the Most Holy Eucharist as a sign of unity: May the Lord make her ever more obedient to hearing his Word in order to stand before the world ‘ever more beautiful, without stain or blemish, but holy and blameless.’ That through her faithful announcement, the Word that saves may still resonate as the bearer of mercy and may increase love to give full meaning to pain and suffering, giving back joy and serenity. Fo...