Blessing of the New Painting of St Bede at Clapham Park

This morning, the parish priest at Clapham Park, Fr Marcus Holden, blessed a new picture of the parish's patron, Saint Bede, painted by James Tildsley. It is sited over a recently installed side altar near the rear of the Church. The altar itself was acquired from Antique Church Furnishings.

The website gives the information that the altar was built and carved by a nun in a convent near Liverpool. It is a beautiful piece of work and it is always a joy when such works of art find a suitable and dignified home. The inscription on the gradine is AMANS AMATUS AMOR. The sellers translate this as “Loving is the object of love” which is a reasonable stab at “dynamic equivalence”.

Today the parish's relic of St Bede was exposed for veneration in its distinctive brightly-coloured reliquary.

After the blessing, there was High Mass with Fr Holden as celebrant, Fr Littleton deacon, and myself subdeacon. That gave me the enjoyable task of chanting the five readings and epistle, since today is the Saturday Ember Day of the Pentecost Octave.

Afterwards the weather combined with the now lighter Government COVID restrictions, allowed the parish to put on a reception in the garden. We are perhaps learning to value even more the chance to meet and socialise after such occasions.

 

PICTURE CREDIT: Fr Timothy Finigan. Own work. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

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