De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

The Guild of Our Lady & St Joseph warmly invites you to an important lecture commemorating the 50th anniversary of the publication of Pope Paul VI's prophetic Encyclical  Humanae Vitae . We are delighted that Edmund Adamus will give this address entitled: Humanae Vitae 50 years on: A Jubilee Perspective Edmund Adamus is an internationally known speaker on marriage and family. He promotes authentic human sexuality in light of the catechesis of St. John Paul II on the Theology of the Body. ( https://edmundadamus.wordpress.com ) Date: 1 October, 2018 Location: St Patrick's Church, Soho Square, London W1D 4NR Time: Doors will open at 6:45 pm and the lecture will begin at 7:00 pm. Refreshments and Q&A will follow. Admission: £5 at the door Registration: guildofourladyandstjoseph@gmail.com Please do help us to promote what I am sure will be a most interesting presentation by inviting anyone you think may be interested. The more people who join us the stronger our netwo...

On 24th March, the current president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life gave a warning that it is “dangerous” to speak of the family as a “little church” and the “domestic church”. “The Church, which is a familial Church, for me, it isn’t very clear, it’s dangerous, for example, to define the individual family as a little church...It’s very dangerous, because it can encourage an egoism of the family,”  Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia said to a group of clergy and laity gathered at the major seminary of the Mexican diocese of Queretaro. Paglia called the tendency to the “egoism of the family” a form of “familyism” and claimed that Jesus spoke against “familyism.” “In the Gospel we have the very beautiful words of Jesus against familyism, very beautiful!” Paglia said. These words are naturally jarring to faithful Catholics, who know that the Church has always referred to the family as the domestic Church. Lumen gentium , paragraph 11, states:  “The family is, ...

Photograph: Paul F. Abbott Last Monday evening I travelled to St. Patrick's Church in Soho Square London to attend the presentation given by Bishop Mark O'Toole, Bishop of Plymouth for The Guild of Our Lady & St. Joseph . The talk Bishop Mark gave was to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the publication of the Catechism and entitled “How to be a disciple making disciple - Prayer, Faith, Loving Service and the Sacramental life". I have bumped into Bishop Mark a couple of times since he was ordained Bishop. At Buckfast Abbey where the School of the Annunciation is based.  Indeed Bishop Mark drew attention to the blessing the school constitutes in his address: ...as the local bishop I want to say what a great blessing it is to our diocese. Theological reflection and expertise within the Catholic tradition, is a limited resource in the South West, and indeed more widely in the English speaking world. It is good for us to have the School among us. I first me...

Back in November 2013 it was announced that Mark O'Toole would be ordained bishop of Plymouth Diocese. This took place on January 2014 at Plymouth Cathedral . Since then, he has notably spoken out on assisted dying and vocation , but Bishop Mark has made evangelisation a priority in his own diocese since 2015. This Pastoral Letter from that year lays out his initial vision for discipleship, and is well worth a read. In the covering letter  to his most recent Pastoral Letter , Bishop Mark wrote:  .....it is most of all in the parish that we experience Jesus’ Risen life. The parish is the precious place of God’s grace, the place where we discover our vocation. It is a place in which every baptised Catholic is called to deepen their own love and friendship of Jesus Christ and, at the same time to “make disciples”. It is not a matter of either having a deep relationship with Jesus or going out to help others encounter Him. It is both. Our vocation as discipl...

I'm a member of the Guild of Our Lady & St. Joseph, which supports the work of The School of the Annunciation at Buckfast Abbey, a Catholic Institute of Higher Education, for higher studies in the Catholic Faith, such as the MA in Catechesis and Evangelisation, validated by Franciscan University Steubenville, Ohio and a centre for adult formation at all levels. The Guild regularly hold days where Catholics can get together in like minded company and share interest and fellowship. The next Guild event is an evening of investigation of faith & Catholic praxis in London. Please do join us at St Patrick's Soho Square for an evening of Apologetics. You will need to register and send us your questions in advance to: guildofourladyandstjoseph@gmail.com  

It has just been announced that, by special request, an exciting new Catechetics course is being offered by SoTA at Buckfast Abbey in early October. Full details are available on the SoTA website here . Given that the course will take place very shortly, please help to get the word out to priests, catechists and all others interested in faith formation. The course will be packed with sessions from prominent clergy and scholars explaining the four dimensions of the Christian Life. Learn to transform your vital ‘explanations’ of the Faith into ‘Good News’ of the Faith. Explaining our faith to a sometimes hostile culture goes back to the days of the Early Church. The accusations of the world can be turned around by new methods of transmitting the positive and beautiful teachings of Jesus Christ. Learn why to teach everyone the ‘four dimension of the Christian life.’ The four pillars mentioned in the Catechism of the Catholic Church are there to support and defend life. They ...

As anticipated, the The Guild Day at Ealing ( details here ) on Saturday was a great opportunity to deepen our faith and meet other Catholics. I have written the whole day up here if you want to know what went on. My friend, Paul Abbott accompanied me with his camera, and took a few choice photos which I am posting here for your edification and enjoyment: Mike, me, John and Joao. What is the collective noun for Priests? Fr. Anthony Doe and Fr. Francesco Donega And again Guild President, the wonderful Margaret Wickware on the left there. Two happy attendees Me explaining something important, Kerry Urdzik in the picture there too. Dr. Kahn delivering his lecture Carol Anne Harnett

I'm feeling on top of the world this morning, home from Mass and after a wonderful day yesterday at Ealing Abbey for the Guild of Our Lady & St. Joseph's day of Catholic study on The Family: The Fundamental Cell of Society . I was privileged to have the company of my son Mike and a couple of friends, Joao Pereira and Paul Abbot, and we all traveled up from Essex together. We got there in time for Mass with the Benedictines, celebrated by one Brother who was 60 years a priest on that day! Initially, the take up for this day was low. This wasn't a surprise; the day clashed with the Proclaim15 event in Birmingham and the LMS AGM at Westminster Cathedral. We also did not have any "star speaker", the last Guild Day I attended in Soho, we had Bishop Phillip Egan, who no doubt drew a crowd just to see him. Despite these issues, we received a good number of registrations in the week running up to the event and quite a number of people showed up on the day. B...

The Guild of Our Lady & St. Joseph, who support the work of The School of the Annunciation, are holding another exciting Guild Day at Ealing Abbey in West London. The programme for the day is as follows: 9.15 am Holy Mass in the Abbey Church (conventual) 10.00 am Coffee and Welcome: Dom Dominic Taylor OSB and Mrs Margaret Wickware 10.30 am The Sacrament of Marriage: what the celebration of the sacrament establishes ~Fr Francesco Donega, Redemptoris Mater Seminary 11.30 am The virtue of chastity: what it is and why all need it ~Fr Anthony Doe, Psychotherapist and Westminster Priest 12.30pm Lunch 1.45 pm The Family and the New Evangelisation: Exploring Evangelii Gaudium 66 ~Dr Peter Kahn, School of the Annunciation 3.00 pm DVD Marriage God’s Design for Life & Love (2015) 4.00 pm Vespers and/or Adoration/Benediction 5.00 pm Departure It is also a great opportunity to network with other Catholics, make friends, renew old acquaintances in a thoroughly Ca...

The School of the Annunciation are holding a Guild Day this Saturday, 31st January at St. Patrick's, 21a Soho Square, London W1D 4NR. This will present an excellent opportunity to spend a day deepening your faith and networking with other Catholics. The day will constitute a conference on the New Evangelisation with the wonderful Bishop Philip Egan of the Diocese of Portsmouth as keynote speaker. Bishop Egan will present a discourse on Evangelii Gaudium , 27. A particularly interesting paragraph of Pope Francis' Apostolic Exhortation as it speaks of the indispensable contribution to ecclesial renewal made by mission. This may come as a surprise to many Catholics and others who read the news headlines, as opposed the Pope's actual words. He has been quoted as saying that he “ doesn’t want to convert Evangelicals ”, although, as usual, once one reads behind the report of a remembered conversation someone had with the Pope, we find a different story . In any case, I ...