Honouring Our Lady

The Church of Our Lady of the Rosary in Blackfen was founded in 1936 and was a chapel of ease, served by Welling parish. In 1945, it became a parish in its own right. Our beautiful resin statue of Our Lady of the Rosary was provided for the Church by Fr Adolph Koch, the first parish priest of Blackfen on the occasion of the silver jubilee of his ordination to the sacred priesthood. It is now housed in a side chapel that I erected, using the marble from a neighbouring parish that was no longer required after the re-ordering of their sanctuary. I have the good fortune to have a stonemason in the parish who carried out the work.

Maria, one of my parishioners, is an expert seamstress and has made several very fine altar cloths. Some time ago, I suggested to her that it would be a good thing if we could decorate the statue for feast days. Today, I was able to view the magnificent result of her efforts, just in time for the Day with Mary on Saturday. The picture below shows the statue flanked by Maria (left) and our indefatigable sacristan, Hilda (right).

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