In Jerusalem I had the privilege of interviewing Fr Piotr Zelazko, the Polish priest who heads the Saint James Vicariate for Hebrew-Speaking Catholics.

The community he looks after is a fascinating one and adds even more complexity to the rich tapestry of Christianity in the Holy Land.

The article is now up in its full form at the Catholic Herald online — including comments from Cardinal Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem — and a slightly shorter version appears in July’s summer issue of the magazine.

(My contribution to their summer books list is also in the July issue.)

The rather garish and invasive plans to renovate the parvis of Chartres cathedral, turn it upside down, and install a museum underneath — previously reported on here in 2019 — have been radically revised in an infinitely less offensive direction.

The City of Chartres has released the final approved designs which show the esplanade of the cathedral renovated but left largely in place.

Instead of the original plan up reversing the grade of the parvis upwards away from the cathedral, the entire museum will be kept underground and out of sight. (more…)

ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIVE years ago, at a time of great uncertainty in Europe, St George’s in Southwark was opened solemnly by Bishop Wiseman — writes the Cathedral Archivist Melanie Bunch. The ceremony was attended by thirteen other bishops in all their finery, of whom four were foreign. Hundreds of clergy of all ranks were in the procession and many of the Catholic aristocracy of England were present. The music was magnificent, the choir including professional singers.

Pugin’s neo-Gothic church was impressive but not finished, and it was not to be a cathedral for another four years. Dr Wiseman, who was both the chief celebrant and the preacher, was bishop of a titular see, as the Catholic dioceses of England and Wales did not yet exist. Nonetheless the opening marked a significant stage in the revival of the Catholic Church in this region. The spur had been the spiritual needs of the poor Irish who had long formed settled communities in parts of London and other cities. The plans for the church had been drawn up in 1839 – before the severity of the famine in Ireland, which began in 1845, could have been foreseen. Some had considered the size of the new church unnecessary, but it turned out to be providential, as immigration from Ireland to this locality and elsewhere was reaching a peak at this time.

The extraordinary turmoil in Europe that had started early in the year in Sicily could not be ignored. In February Louis-Philippe was dethroned in France. There was anxiety that revolution might cross the Channel. Pugin decided that he should obtain muskets to defend his church of St Augustine under construction in Ramsgate. Revolution spread to German and Italian states and countries under Austrian rule. For four days in late June, there was a brief and bloody civil uprising in Paris.

While Europe was ablaze, London was calm, and the opening went ahead. In his homily, Wiseman praised God for all his mercies to this country. From our perspective, we might have expected that he would have spoken about the dark days of persecution, or at least the struggles of the recent past to get such a large church built, constantly hampered by lack of funds. Rev. Dr Thomas Doyle, whom we honour as the founder of the Cathedral, was present and assisting at the Mass, but his courage, faith, and dogged persistence over many years were not acknowledged on this occasion.

We might remember that a Catholic event like this had not been witnessed in England since the Reformation, seemingly prompting Wiseman to take the opportunity to explain to the non-Catholics present that the ceremony and display of the Catholic Church came from a desire to show greater respect for God. To the foreign bishops he said that their presence proved the unity and diversity of the Church. At the end of his homily, Wiseman caused a sensation by reading out a letter from the Archbishop of Paris, Mgr Affre, regretting that he could not attend the opening. By then it was known that he had already died from wounds received on the barricades while he was trying to mediate with the rebels. Wiseman called him a martyr.

Among others who never saw the opening are some who served St George’s mission with Thomas Doyle at the earlier chapel in London Road. Three of them had died before their time, only a few years before, from diseases endemic among their flock. We remember them and all who have served the Cathedral with gratitude. At the time of the opening, St George’s was the largest Catholic church in London, and for the next fifty years was to be the centre of Catholic life in the metropolis. Much has changed since, including the rebuilding of the Cathedral, but we give thanks to Almighty God who continues to sustain it. (more…)

This week marked the ninetieth anniversary of the consecration of the high altar of the Dominican Church of St Vincent Ferrer in New York — one of the most beautiful churches in Manhattan.

To mark the occasion, a sung requiem Mass was offered in the Dominican rite (under the sponsorship of the New York Purgatorial Society) for the benefactors of the parish.

The parish also shared this explanation of the art and symbolism of the high altar:

The Altar itself, the footpace of which is atop five steps from the presbytery, is in the form of a sepulcher. The Mensa is of Belgian Black marble inlaid with five crosses of Red Verona. It measures 15 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 6 inches thick, weighing about 2 tons.

The Altar Front consists of uprights of Belgian Black and Lepanto Marbles. The Frontal has five panels in a field of Tinos Green surrounded by a border of Mother-of-Pearl and Lapis Lazuli. The three principal panels, left to right, are: the arms of the Dominican Province of Saint Joseph (notice the carpenter’s T-square and the lilies, symbols of Saint Joseph); the shield of the Dominican Order in black and white marble surrounded by a carved inscription of the Dominican motto, “Laudare, benedicere, praedicare” (to praise, to bless, to preach), this is capped with a star; another Dominican shield with the crown, dog, lily, laurel, and star. The carving on the Mensa and the Altar Frontal is finished off in gold.

The Reredos Wall, acting as a back to the Altar and a base for the Reredos, is of Siena Marble. The wall contains a carved inscription of the Eucharistic hymn “Panis angelicas” written by St. Thomas Aquinas, O.P. On each side of the inscription are carved two large corbels the subjects of which are the Last Supper and the Elevation of the Mass.

On the Mensa of the Altar there are also six large candle- sticks of gold-plated bronze. Each candlestick weighs eighty-five pounds. On each candlestick is a medallion containing a symbol of the Passion or the Holy Eucharist, from left to right: Crown of Thorns and Three Nails on a background of blue; silver Rooster; silver Chalice with a Host bering the emblem IHS; three fish on a background of red enamel representing the Holy Trinity; Veronica’s veil; money bag of Judas on a background of red.

The Reredos is a magnificent structure of wood carving which forms the setting for a central painted triptych by Alfredo Mira depicting the miracles of Saint Vincent Ferrer, twenty-four statuettes of saints, and thirty angels of varying sizes. Dominating the entire structure is a majestic figure of Christ the King, approximately eight feet tall. The Reredos, extending forty-four feet above the floor, is of Hungarian oak which is stained to preserve the natural color of the wood. The color work has been done sparingly since it was not intended to destroy the natural finish of the wood by complete polychroming; yet the figure of Christ the King and the tester or canopy above it have been elaborately colored.

The Tabernacle at the center of the Altar is of gold-plated bronze, with twelve panels of symbols and miniature Biblical scenes in colored enamels. On the left door are six images from the Old Testament in which the Eucharist is prefigured. On the right door is the fulfillment of those types in the New Testament and the early Church. The Tabernacle, with its triple crown, is intended to look like a medieval tent, the literal meaning of tabernacle.

The Altar and Reredos were imported from Belgium where they were constructed by Joseph Van Uytvanch of Louvain. Almost two years were required to complete the work. The scheme was conceived by Wilfred Anthony, Bertram Goodhue’s assistant on the project.

Wanderers in central London who find themselves in the whereabouts of Piccadilly Circus or Soho of a Tuesday evening can avail themselves of the devotions offered by the Guild of Our Lady of Warwick Street.

Every week, the Rosary is said along with other prayers at this statue in Warwick Street Church. They conclude with the rather beautiful and moving ‘Night Litany for London’ imploring God’s mercy upon the many inhabitants of our capital city.

Its original form is believed to have been composed by the Rev’d H.A. Wilson, vicar of the Protestant parish of St Augustine in Haggerston. Msgr Graham Leonard — in the days when he was Anglican Bishop of London — also published a version through the Church Literature Association (a High Church body) with an introduction he wrote himself.

The version used at Warwick Street is included here:

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Students from St Andrews University have accompanied their Catholic chaplain to receive a relic of St Margaret of Scotland from the Archbishop of St Andrews & Edinburgh, Dr Leo Cushley.

The relic was put in the care of Canmore, the Catholic chaplaincy at St Andrews, whose chapel is dedicated to the Hungary-born English princess who became Scotland’s saintly queen.

When the relic in St Margaret’s Church in Dunfermline — the country’s royal centre in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries — were being removed from their reliquary the piece of bone fragmented.

The Archdiocese decided to make this an opportunity for the relics of the royal saint to be distributed further.

This relic of St Margaret will remain in Canmore where it will be available for veneration by students and other visitors.

SAINT MARGARET
QUEEN OF SCOTLAND
pray for us

(In honour of his descendant coming to London for a coffee last month.)

There are almost as many Londons as there are Londoners. There’s Shakespeare’s London, Pepys’s London, Johnson’s London — even fictional characters like Sherlock Holmes have their own London.

The city of Saint Thomas More takes form in a representation made by the excellent map designer Mike Hall, Harlow-born but now based in Valencia.

This map was commissioned from Hall by the Centre for Thomas More Studies in Texas and the designer based the view and the colour scheme on Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg’s map of London from their 1617 Civitates Orbis Terrarum

From his birthplace in Milk Street to the site of his execution, all the sites from the great points of More’s life are here in this map.

The future Lord Chancellor was educated at the school founded by the Hospital Brothers of Saint Anthony, one of the best in the City of London, and when he finished at Oxford returned to London to study law at New Hall and Lincoln’s Inn.

Crosby Place, the house that he bought in 1523 is not far from St Anthony’s School though its surviving remnant was moved brick by brick to Cheyne Walk in 1910 — a site close to More’s Chelsea residence of Beaufort House.

The chapel of Ely Place — town palace of the Bishop of Ely — still survives as St Etheldreda’s, the only mediæval church in London now in use as a Catholic parish.

God’s own Borough of Southwark gets a look in as well, with the Augustinian priory of St Mary Overs (now the Protestant cathedral of Southwark) and the town palace of the bishops of Winchester. Remnants of the great hall of Winchester Palace remains standing to this day.

As is the mapmaker’s privilege, Mr Hall has taken some liberties: in order to fit Lambeth Palace — the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury (and Primate of All England) he’s shifted it a bit north of its actual spot.

I wish he’d kept the Rose and Globe theatres which he included in his initial sketch for the map — Southwark was the theatre district of its day.

Hall also completed a sketch of Beaufort House as it would have appeared during St Thomas More’s lifetime. The house was demolished in 1740, and today’s Beaufort Street runs the line of the main drive leading up to it.

The Church of All Saints at Chelsea (now known as Chelsea Old Church) is at the bottom of the sketch and is where the More family burial vault is. His severed head is believed to be entombed there to this day.

The Feast of the Annunciation — “Lady Day in Lent” to distinguish it from the Assumption which is “Lady Day in Harvest” — was for much of Christendom the first day of the new calendar year and remains one of the traditional Quarter Days of England.

Eleanor Parker — aka “A Clerk of Oxford” — explains here why Lady Day is so important:

It was both the beginning and the end of Christ’s life on earth, the date of his conception at the Annunciation and his death on Good Friday.

To underline the harmony and purpose which, in the eyes of medieval Christians, shaped the divinely-written narrative of the history of the world, 25 March was also said to be the date of other significant events: the eighth day of Creation, the crossing of the Red Sea, the sacrifice of Isaac, and other days linked with or prefiguring the story of the world’s fall and redemption.

The date occurs at a conjunction of solar, lunar, and natural cycles: all these events were understood to have happened in the spring, when life returns to the earth, and at the vernal equinox, once the days begin to grow longer than the nights and light triumphs over the power of darkness.

The last time I wrote about today’s feast I also pointed out it’s also the reason why many English pubs are called ‘The Salutation’.

It was also on this day in 1654 that the English Catholic colonists aboard the Ark and the Dove arrived in the New World and founded the city of Saint Mary in Maryland, as depicted in the painting above.

Thus the Feast of the Annunciation is officially recognised as the State Day of Maryland.

The cause of all this joy is related best in the Gospel according to St Luke:

AND IN THE SIXTH MONTH, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.

And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

Who having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be.

And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God.

Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus.

He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end.

And Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man?

And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: Because no word shall be impossible with God.

And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

Catholic Amsterdam Proclaims a Year of Saint Nicholas

A TINY RELIC of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker has provided an excuse for Amsterdam Catholics to organise a whole year of festivities dedicated to the holy man and his legacy. The Basilica of St Nicholas stands just across from Centraal Station, gateway to the Dutch capital for so many visitors, and the parish has received as a gift the relic from the Benedictine abbey of St Adalbert’s in Egmond.

The tiny sliver of St Nicholas’s rib was enshrined in the Basilica at a special Mass opening the Nicolaasjaar on the eve of the saint’s feast in December. Bishop Jan van Burgsteden presided and prayers were also offered for HKH Princess Catharina-Amalia whose eighteenth birthday fell days later on 7 December.

The opening of the year met with wide coverage in the media, with even the website of the city proclaiming “There will always be a bit of Sinterklaas in Amsterdam from now on”.

“Saint Nicholas is really coming to Amsterdam now,” deacon Rob Polet told the evening news on Dutch television, “and here he will stay”.

“From the Friesch Dagblad to the Nederlands Dagblad, from Trouw to De Telegraaf: hardly any newspaper wanted to miss it,” the parish reports. “De Stentor, the Eindhovens Dagblad, the Zeeuwse PZC, and many other titles spread the news of St Nicholas. NRC Handelsblad and Het Parool even used it twice.”

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A little bit goes a long way at Southwark’s Catholic cathedral

One of the privileges of living in St George’s Fields on the western marches of Southwark is the presence of St George’s Cathedral: the Catholic mother church for London south of the Thames, and indeed all the way out to Kent and the English Channel.

London’s two cathedrals match one another well. Both serve congregations that are incredibly diverse. At Westminster you are just as likely to find a peer of the realm as a Filipino cleaner. St George’s has an earthier mix, much populated by pious Africans of great dignity, young people, old people, and all the odd bits and bobs who give this part of London its welcoming character.

St George’s is a beautiful cathedral as well. Not without its flaws: the tower is unbuilt, the flooring is too bright and too cheap, and the sanctuary needs some ordering. But never let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The Cathedral took a direct hit from a German firebomb during the war, and — despite the immense loss of most of the Pugin ornamentation and decoration — architect Romilly Craze’s postwar re-building was an immense improvement on Pugin’s original design which that great architect had never really been satisfied with.

A reordering of the sanctuary as late as 1989 very much reflected the ideas of a decade or two earlier. The altar was brought forward into the nave, with the bishop’s throne the focus of attention and the choir shoved behind it. To avoid the visual distraction of the choirmaster, an metal installation with textile hangings stood behind the throne (colloquially known as “the towel rack”).

Luckily the crucifix and “big six” candlesticks from the 1958 re-consecration were found hidden away. Last month they were restored atop a short retable behind the cathedra and this small change has helped immensely in providing a more prayerful atmosphere and a stronger visual focus to the cathedral.

The photos above and below are from the Cathedral’s Advent Carol Service.

The contrast between before (above) and after (below) is subtle but effective.

I love this photo of Blessed Charles — here still the heir to the throne — inspecting Austro-Hungarian troops in the Südtirol in 1916.

On the far right of the photograph, Gen. Franz (Ferenc) Rohr von Denta, commander of the Royal Hungarian Army, beams with a massive grin. He looks like a bit of a character.

Next to him is Archduke Eugen, the last Hapsburg to serve as Hoch- und Deutschmeister of the Teutonic Order, which in 1929 was transformed into a priestly religious order.

Franz Joseph would die just months after this photograph was taken.

His grand-nephew and successor Charles would be the last Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, and King of Bohemia — amongst the myriad other titles — to reign (so far).

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