Normally on Thursday evening at Blackfen, we have Rosary and Benediction, followed by the Novena to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. Today being St George's Day, we are going to change the evening programme, having High Mass followed by short Benediction.The Parish Social Club is open to non-Catholics provided that they do not form more than 50% of the membership. Hence we have a number of people from the surrounding streets who like to come out in the evening to a safe environment where they can relax with their families after a day on the building site, play pool and have a couple of pints.
We always have a big celebration for St Patrick's feast day but there are sometimes murmurings along the lines of "Why don't we do more to mark St George's Day?" We do in fact have a social evening with music on Saturday but when I mentioned to the Club Chairman that we were having a "Latin Mass" for St George and we might like to cook up some hamburgers and hot dogs afterwards, he told me that "some of the lads" were very pleased to hear this. I did say that they would be welcome at Mass (or part of it) - no need to "join in" - they were welcome to kneel at the back and watch (which is, of course "joining in" in a different way.) I'm not sure many will take up the invitation but it is at least "bread cast upon the waters."
(We should have some photos of the Mass and Benediction to post in due course.)
Incidentally, Roman Christendom has a good article today on St George.
9 comments:
Happy St George's Day to you all!
I'm not English (am Irish) but I think it would do everyone, including the English, a power of good if they celebrated their origins and invited us all along too!
We should have some photos of the Mass and Benediction to post in due courseOh, we should, should we...?
;-P
I can see Ma Pepinster wailing at the prospect of how un-PC this whole event is and how she wouldn't be invited to consume her fair share of burgers.
epsilon:
If we English were to invite you to celebrate our 'origins', and by that I think you must mean the origins of the Faith in England, then we would be talking to you about St. Alban our Protomartyr, third century, or SS Edmund, ninth century, and Edward the Confessor just into the twelfth. Symbolically St. Goerge has much to recommend him, but he had absolutely nothing to do with the history of England, apart from the chivalric model. The other three I mention lived and died on our soil.
I revere St. George because he was a martyr saint, and I too am stirred by the 'God for Harry...' and all that, but it's Shakespeare's words that cause the effect in this Englishwoman, not St. George. For me, it's St. Alban. Anyway, I was born on his feast day.
God bless,
J
Thanks for the link, Father. Much to my delight, when I spent a Summer in Tuscany, I was enlightened about a few things concerning the great Saint George.
Martyrs of that time, men or women, were depicted in Tuscany as slaying the dragon of the apocalypse, which is Caesar's Rome possessed by Satan.
The damsel, only in later representations, is also from the Apocalypse, the Woman being Holy Mother Church (and Mary).
The white horse is always used since, of course, this is a very paricular symbol in the Apocalypse.
The slaying takes place at the death of the martyr. Martyrs are victorious in their deaths for Christ, for the Church.
There are actually very many churches dedicated to Saint George throughout the Near East from the early centuries. Archeologists are doing their part.
Saint George, pray for us!
Father George bloggingLOURDES (for a little while longer!)
P.S. I'm happy to see that those who are English (even those who are not named George) have a devotion to Saint George. I've never met anyone more against the historicity of Saint George than an Englishman.
I still think that someone like St Edward the Confessor or St Augustine of Canterbury should be the Patron Saint of England - they at least had something to do with the English! St Patrick, Apostle to the Irish, St Boniface, Apostle to the Germans etc...
Hamburgers and hot dogs? Surely not on St. George's Day! Roast beef of Old England, Father!
By the way, Epsilon, a local priest hereabouts told me he said to his parishioners on St. Patrick's Day that we should all give thanks for this wonderful English saint who took the faith to Ireland (he has quite a few Irish parishioners). Personally, I always give thanks for that Englishman Arthur Guinness, but that's another story...
Well now Jane and The Guild Master and Paddy Sheridan1- I'm not as well up on the Saints as ye are, but I just discovered the other day that it's St Mellitus' feast day today and sure he was a friend of St Augustine, so what more do ye want - why not have a double day of celebrations:-)
The coincidence of knowing this is that I went back to visit our old parish church with my son who is 19 - I'm trying to make up for my liberal parenting, encouraging him back to Mass - anyway we discovered that not only is it St Mellitus' feast day today but the church is celebrating its 50th anniversary this weekend as well. Please join me in praying to St Mellitus that my children will find their way back to practising the Catholic faith properly.
Dear Father Finigan
Thank you for your e-mail relating to my work,and the launch of the Thames Gateway 'flagship' aka 'New Erith Library' on St Georges Day i.e...Will remember you at our solemn High usus antiquior Mass for St George...Fr Tim Finigan.
After shaking hands with Toni Ainge, Head of Cultural Services, London Borough of Bexley, and entering into a civilised conversation with her, it almost fealt as if I had been given a 'CRACK AT REDEMPTION', and that the pariah status engineered by the MPS,the neo-Nazi NF/BNP, and Densitron International (now Technologies) plc over the last 18 years, had been reconsidered and erased in light of the emergence of previously suppressed evidence now with the IPCC.
IPCC leaflets have now been placed in New Erith Library, and other Bexley libraries at my request.
A critical e-mail was sent to Ben Bolgar at the Prince's Foundation minutes before Mayor O'Hare launched the London Libraries flagship that is New Erith Library.
I pray that the impending meeting between Pope Benedict and HRH The Prince of Wales will prove to be mutually beneficial.
St George pray for us!
Our Lady of the Rosary pray for us in Richard Barnbrook's NF/BNP/GLA/LDA/ODA NEO-NAZI DEVELOPMENT TIMES Amen
In XtO "Vesper" aka
ROY HOBSON FCES1990,FRICS1984,Grad Dipl QS
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