Another 17 places available: please book now. Bookings end on 27 May.
Year of Faith retreat for all:
31 May-2 June 2013
'You shall be My witnesses' (Acts 1:8):
In the prayerful and relaxing setting of Douai Abbey, come and reflect with us on how to bear a more fruitful witness to Our Blessed Lord Jesus in our everyday lives.
Upper Woolhampton, Reading, West Berks. RG7 5TQ.
Starts Friday 5pm, ends Sunday 3pm.
Led by Fr Armand de Malleray FSSP, assisted by Fr Matthew Goddard FSSP.
(Picture: The Calling of Apostles, by Domenico Ghirlandaio)
Spiritual conferences and direction, EF Holy Masses on Friday (6pm), Saturday and Sunday, Eucharistic adoration.
Cost full board 48h including VAT: £140 single room with ensuite bathroom, £110 shared room with ensuite bathroom or £90 without. Low income/Unwaged: contact us for significant discounts. Bookings/info: FSSP, 17 Eastern Avenue, Reading RG1 5RU, Berks. malleray@fssp.org. www.fssp.org.uk/england
Ordinations
Please pray for the ordinands:
May 25: diaconal ordinations in Wigratzbad by H. Ex. François Bacqué, Apostolic Nuntio Emeritus to the Netherlands:
Robert Dow, Jean de Massia, Pierre de Montlaur, Olivier de Nedde, Thibault Paris.
Happy feast of St Joseph!
Special treat here.
Text here.
Te Joseph celebrent. Musica : Franz Xaver Witt. Disco "San José amantísimo padre" de los Hnos. Pérez Urquieta. www.hermanosperezurquieta.com
Written by Fr. Juan Escollar (d. 1700), this hymn is used at Vespers for the feast of St. Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary, (March 19) and then again on May 1 (St. Joseph the Worker).
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New Traditional Personal Parish - a first for the Netherlands
Article in The Universe on a Traditional Vocation
10 APRIL 2013
It may be of some interest to our membership that the Universe (Sunday, 31 March 2013) included an article on a Traditional Vocation which we repeat here:
Trainee priest waving goodbye to surf
By Simon Caldwell
God works in mysterious ways ... and a surfer has found his vocation to the priesthood while riding some of the fastest breakers in the Atlantic Ocean.
Alex Stewart has turned his back on a life of ‘cutbacks ‘carvings’ and ‘strong turns’ to instead embrace the rubrics of the Latin Mass as a member of the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter (FSSP).
The 38-year-old was once so mad about surfing that he deliberately moved to Ireland, managing a commercial aquarium near Galway, just so he could ride waves breaking along the Atlantic coast.
He has now joined a seminary in Nebraska, in the United States, after discovering his calling as a priest.
It is situated in the heart of the American Midwest and there will be no opportunity for the sport that has occupied much of his time over the last 13 years.
“I miss it very much:’ said Alex, a former pupil of St Mary’s Catholic College in Wallasey Villiage, Wirral.
“I moved to Ireland so that I could surf as much as possible and at one point I surfed twice a day every day,” he said.
“I may now get the odd opportunity when I am on holiday, but that is all. Yes, surfing is an incredibly enjoyable and healthy pastime but in the grand scheme of things, there are more important battles to fight.”
He added: “If I am serious about a vocation to the priesthood, then the least I can do is give up what is essentially a trivial thing.”Alex admits that he was not a perfect student during his childhood and youth in Merseyside and that he especially lacked concentration and self-discipline.
“I didn’t do very well,” he said, adding: “I. would never have dreamed that I would end up studying Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas while discerning a vocation to the priesthood.”After leaving St Mary’s in 1990, he studied information technology before joining the NHS at Arrowe Park Hospital, near Birkenhead, Wirral.
He worked in Radiology Theatre, Accident and Emergency and finally the Intensive Therapy Unit.It was during this time he discovered surfing while visiting.a student friend in Plymouth.He then moved Wales, so that he could practice his hobby more, and then Ireland:
What never left him, however, was an interest in the Latin Mass which he had developed as a child.“I used to attend [Latin Mass] with my mother in St Anthony’s in Scotland Road, Liverpool,” he said.“Initially, I didn’t understand it, and didn’t like it at all, but after a while I started, to appreciate its deep beauty and reverence.
“I fell in love with the particularities and mtricacies of the ceremonies, while becoming an altar server.” Alex went on retreat with FSSP in Reading, Berkshire, and realised that he was being called to the priesthood. The order was established by Pope John Paul II in. 1988 and there are two international seminaries - one in Bavaria, and one in Nebraska. Alex is today the second eldest man in a class of mostly young Americans. He hopes to be ordained in 2017.
Credit The Universe
Credit: LMS blog: Back to top of News Blog
Holy Week pictures!
Click on Good Friday; Maundy Thursday. (Thanks to Joseph Shaw)In preparation for Good Shepherd Sunday, 14 April 2013 we offered a Votive Mass to foster ecclesiastical vocations (would-be seminarians), and a votive Mass to safeguard ecclesiastical vocations (actual seminarians). Now for ordained priests: please pray for the spiritual success of our clergy retreat in Bavaria this week (15-20 April) with 15 UK priests led by Fr Armand de Malleray FSSP, on the theme: The priest and the Eucharist.
O Lord grant us many holy priests!
More places available for our Vocation Weekend on 26-28 April: book now.
To watch vocation video, please click here.
Resurrexit, sicut dixit. Alleluia!
The priests of the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter in England
wish you a happy Easter and a blessed Eastertide.
30 March 2013, England.
Dear Members of the Confraternity of St Peter,
Greetings in St Peter our Patron.
As announced in my Letter last 22 January, the General Council of the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter has been commissioned by our General Chapter last July to consider various suggestions of members and chaplains of the Confraternity made over the past years. Following this and after due concertation with the CSP chaplains, I am pleased to inform you of the following decisions:
1) Once a year:
So far, one became enrolled into the CSP on receiving the Certificate signed by the Chaplain in response to one’s application. This very simple procedure aimed at facilitating enrolment even in places where FSSP priests are not present. However, six years later, it seems appropriate to offer a simple liturgical setting for the act of enrolling. In consequence, once a year, on the Sunday following October 18 (anniversary of the granting by the Holy See of the pontifical right to the FSSP), members who will have received their Certificate of enrolment (posted as usual to their address by the chaplain) in the previous 12 months will bring the Certificate to an FSSP church or chapel and hand the Certificate to the local FSSP priest.
Then kneeling at the communion rail, they will receive the Certificate from the priest.
Then all the other CSP members present will come and kneel alongside at the communion rail.
All CSP members both new and already enrolled will then recite the Prayer of the Confraternity. Lastly they will all be blessed by the priest and go back.
2) In general: Members who wish to take on more commitments than the three compulsory ones (daily decade and Prayer and yearly Mass) are free to ask their CSP chaplain for suggestions (e.g. added prayers, material support to the apostolate, fasting).
Remarks:
Please note that attending this liturgical occasion on October 18 is not compulsory for members who may live too far from FSSP churches, although they are encouraged to take part if possible.
The three commitments are in force as from the date written on the Certificate received by post during the 12 previous months, so that one may be an active member up to 12 months already before the ceremony on October 18.
The ceremony should preferably but not necessarily take place before or after Holy Mass or Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
Signed: Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP - General Chaplain of the CSP
Now online!
Latest issue of our quarterly magazine Dowry N°17 (Winter 2013)
Click HERE to read the 1.5 Mo pdf.
22nd January 2013, England
Dear members of the Confraternity of Saint Peter,
Cordial greetings in our venerable Patron, the Apostle Saint Peter!
On Friday 22nd February, Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, we will celebrate the sixth anniversary of the Confraternity's foundation. On behalf of everyone, please allow me to express my heart-felt thanks for your spiritual commitment to and support of our priestly vocations and ministry.
You are doubtless aware of the fact that our young community will celebrate this year the twenty-fifth anniversary of its foundation. In the space of a quarter of a century, we have grown from the small group comprising a dozen founder members to roughly four-hundred, serving the souls of the faithful of one-hundred and sixteen dioceses spread across four continents. We work in the Lord’s vineyard as his humble and fallible servants, but made fecund by the strength of the Roman traditions of his Church and by the grace of hierarchical communion with the successors of his Apostles. However, do we not benefit from a third asset, less important than the first two, but essential for their concrete realisation? Indeed – your very selves. Each day, the 3800 souls of yours beg the Lord "to send labourers to his harvest," as He commands us to do. Each day you recite, alone or with your family members, the beautiful Prayer of the Confraternity of Saint Peter, enhanced with quotations from our cherished Roman Missal. Wishing to be heard more speedily by the Lord, you request the intercession of His Blessed Mother, the Virgin Immaculate, by your daily recitation of a decade of the Holy Rosary. Finally, each year you arrange for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to be offered for the Confraternity’s intentions, thus providing for ten Masses to be celebrated each day for our priestly vocations and ministry.
All of us who have learned to "live by the faith" (Hebrews 10:38) know how your invisible prayers are a fundamental cause of the numerical and geographical expansion of our little Fraternity, and even more importantly of the supernatural good that the Lord deigns to bring about through its apostolic work. Without your commitment in daily prayer as members of the Confraternity of Saint Peter, we would not have the grace of admitting many candidates each year at our two international seminaries. Without your faithful prayers our priests would be less protected against the world enemy of Christ and of his Church, and less fervent in their sanctification for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Allow me to share this in confidence. Like I do, surely my priest confrères ask themselves regularly how to improve our ministry. The hindrances to our priestly zeal are numerous: negative influence of the media, anti-natural laws voted by parliaments, lack of understanding of certain Churchmen in positions of responsibility, occasionally deficient time-tables and sacred edifices… Over the years however, the priest discerns more clearly the fundamental obstacle to his sacred ministry, which is his own lukewarmness. He laments his lack of mortification, of prayerfulness, of studiosity, of poverty, of purity, of obedience and of joyfulness. He understands more fully that the Lord Jesus wants to save the world through him and that only too often he does not love enough Jesus, the Church and the souls, that he is wasting the grace of his priesthood and rationing it out to souls.
Then it is, dear brethren, that the part you play is so important! Your prayer can obtain from the Lord an increase not only in the quantity but also in the quality of your priests and future priests. Satan said to the Curé of Ars: "Were there three like you in the world, my kingdom would be destroyed." We are far more than three, and yet Jesus is still little known and poorly loved. Pray therefore dear friends and offer up sacrifices so that our seminarians will be docile and generous, and our priests faithful and supernatural. Fewer holy priests is better than many mediocre ones. Even better however is many, many, many eminently holy priests. And who will affirm that such is not God’s will! Dear friends, we also pray for you, for more holy married and single Catholics, for more holy young people, and for more holy clerics and consecrated persons within the Confraternity. You also pray for each other, even if you have not yet met all of the 3800 members of the Confraternity, you are present to them daily when they recite the Prayer, and at least each Sunday at Mass, and every month or more during Holy Hour. Let us thank God for this mutual support and let us offer up to Heaven more regular and more fervent prayers.
To that end, I shall inform you before Easter of an encouraging decision made by the Superiors of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter. In the meantime, your Chaplains offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for your intentions each month, and every 5th November the 236 priests of our Fraternity include your deceased members in the Memento of a Holy Mass of Requiem. Finally, I should like to remind you of the three plenary indulgences the Holy See granted you on the day of your incorporation and every year on 22nd February and 29thJune.
With my best wishes in Saint Peter and Our Lady,
Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP,
General Chaplain of the Confraternity of Saint Peter
Confirmations in the EF of the Roman Rite
will be given at
St William of York Catholic Church in Reading, Berks.
on Saturday 3 August 2013
by the Rt Rev Philip Egan, Bishop of Portsmouth
for the benefit of candidates presented by the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter in England.
Fr Armand de Malleray FSSP and Fr Matthew Goddard FSSP,
together with the members of the congregation at St William of York
thank Bishop Egan for his pastoral sollicitude.
Considering that some Catholics attending our Holy Masses travel sometimes from outside the diocese, Bishop Egan has agreed to confer the sacrament to them as well (provided the necessary steps are followed with their own diocese and the FSSP).
Potential candidates (normally not younger than 11) should contact us shortly.
Schedule:
11.30am: Arrival of Bishop and meeting with candidates
12 noon: Sacrament of Confirmation with homily by Bishop
12.30pm: Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament
1pm: Refreshments with families
Papal resignation - Communiqué of the General House of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter
[13.II.2013 - www.fssp.org] On Ash Wednesday, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter had the opportunity to personally express its profound gratitude and to assure the Sovereign Pontiff of its prayers through one of its priests. Fr. Martin Ramm, FSSP, was able to greet the Pope on behalf of all of his community. Our confere, who was received in general audience by His Holiness, presented him with an edition of the traditional Roman Missal recently published by the Fraternity of St. Peter as a gesture of filial devotion and of great gratitude for the promulgation of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.
For nearly eight years, Benedict XVI has, with great humility and courage, guided the Bark of Peter - facing great storms – with the greatest concern to always lead souls to safe port. Giving an example of a profound interior life, he refocused the attention of the Catholic faithful upon the fundamentals of the Faith, putting them on guard against every form of relativism; and explaining the more recent Magisterium in the light of Tradition. Ever mindful of the restoration of the sacred, he reconciled the Roman Church with its two-thousand year liturgical patrimony. As a tireless apostle of Church unity, he was particularly engaged in dialogue with the Society of Pius X, in order to achieve the full reconciliation of the latter. The care given to this, on the part of the Holy Father, is particularly dear to us; and reminds us of the care he extended to our own foundation in 1988, when he assisted John Paul II in his role as Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.
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Let us pray for the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI and for his successor.
IMPORTANT!
FSSP 5pm Sunday Mass moving south
from Sacred Heart Church in Flitwick
to Sacred Heart Church in Luton
148 Ashcroft Road, Stopsley, Luton, LU2 9AY
10mn off the M1, Junction 10: follow signs for Airport.
Same time, same church name, same priests, same diocese -
only 2 junctions further south on the M1
From Sunday 10 February 2013.
As usual Holy Mass will be offered at 5pm every Sunday, with confessions before Mass and refreshments after. By kind permission of Fr Chris Whitehouse, P.P. and with the approval of Bishop Peter Doyle, the priests of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (i.e. FSSP) will serve this apostolate.
On 19 July 2011, Bishop Peter Doyle established a Gregorian Chaplaincy for members of the faithful throughout the diocese who wish to worship according to the older form of the Roman liturgy in Latin. He appointed Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP as Chaplain. Priests of the FSSP have offered Mass every Sunday in various locations across the Northampton Diocese for 7 years. Since December 2008, Mass was offered at Sacred Heart Church in Flitwick. We thank wholeheartedly Canon Denis McSwiney, P.P. for his great support and hospitality in his parish church over the past years as well as the parishioners at Flitwick. Please note: our last Sunday Mass in Flitwick is this Sunday 3 February 2013.
Our moving further south to a larger urban centre with improved facilities will hopefully make it easier for more members of the faithful to experience that form of the Mass. Stopsley is a peaceful and family-friendly residential area of Luton located 4mn drive north of the airport. All are welcome, even without any particular experience of the traditional Latin Mass. God bless you.
Click HERE for interactive map.
Luton Parish website: http://sacredheartluton.org/
By train: Luton station 2.3 miles; Luton Airport Parkway station 2.7 miles.
By car: from M25 (London Orbital) : 14 miles - 18 minutes.
For more information, please contact us:
St John Fisher House, 17 Eastern Avenue, Reading RG1 5RU
malleray@fssp.org – 0118 966 5284 – www.fssp.co.uk/england
33 seminarians ordained
on 9 February:
Please pray for the ordinands:
• Ordinations in Wigratzbad by H. Exc. Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Astana (Kazakhstan)
- Porters and Lectors : Laurent Dejean, Manu Ihou, Jakub Kaminski, Edouard Laurant, Henri Lefer, Vasily Prusakov, Mateusz Rutkowski, Štìpán Šrubaø, Nicolas Telisson, Hilaire Vernier, Roland Weiss, Jakub Václav Zentner
- Exorcists and Acolytes : Pierre de Bodard, Pierre-Emmanuel Bonnin, Sebastien Damaggio, Martin Danielou, Simon Gräuter, James Mawdsley, Antoine de Nazelle, Gregor Pal, Louis-Marie Parnaudeau, Michael Parth, Cyrille Perret, Christian Skaaren, Jakub Václav Zentner
- Subdeacons : Robert Dow, Jean de Massia, Olivier de Nedde, Thibault Paris
• Subdiaconal ordinations in Denton by H. Exc. James Timlin, Bishop Emeritus of Scranton: Michael Flick, Joseph Heffernan, Paul Leung, Daniel Nolan, Joshua Pass
Feast of the Chair of St. Peter
February 22: Feast of the First Class in the FSSP, by concession of the Holy See on July 7,
Indulgences for the Confraternity of St Peter
By decree of the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary, dated June 7, 2008, a plenary indulgence is
also granted at the usual conditions to the members of the Confraternity of St. Peter the
day of their admission and each February 22nd and June 29th.