New priest blog

Fr Richard Aladics, a priest of the Leeds diocese, recently started Friends with Christ. He tells of a building that is now vacant which he would love to secure as a centre for evangelisation: it used to be a Marie Stopes abortion clinic. (Sadly, Marie Stopes has moved to bigger premises - prayer vigils are held outside there now.)

Any rich Catholics out there who want to get to heaven more easily? Get in touch with Fr Aladics pronto!

H/T to Matt Doyle. Say a prayer for Matt & Wendy as they are expecting their first baby in 48 days, 1 hour, 7 minutes and 47 seconds ... no, 46, no... (see the counter in the sidebar!)

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1962 Missal pdf online

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Święcone - blessing of Easter food

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The blessing of meat, eggs and bread at the end of Lent is a Catholic tradition that has been preserved by the Polish people. A Polish family in my parish asked to bless their baskets of food (containing these items) on Holy Saturday so I arranged to do so at 11am, letting others know also. Above you can see a basket ( Święcone ) that was prepared as a gift for me. When I was asked to do this blessing by another Polish family a couple of years ago, I was intrigued to find that in my 1860 copy of the Roman Ritual ( above ), there is, precisely, a blessing of lamb, eggs and bread for Holy Saturday. This convinced me that the devotion kept by the Poles must have been something more widely practised in past centuries. The immediate explanation might be that this is the blessing of food at the end of the Lenten fast. It must be more than that. People would have abstained from meat, and from lacticinia (including eggs) but not from bread. Perhaps there is a more specifically eucharis
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Beachy Head and Lewes

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We did manage to visit Beachy Head yesterday on the way over to Shoreham-on-Sea. It was a good blustery English summer's day which added to the experience of walking near the edge of the highest coastal chalk cliff in Britain. Above is one of the photos I took. I might get a chance to stitch together a YouTube video about the site. Fr Sean Finnegan (of the Valle Adurni blog) was, as ever, a magnificent host, not only setting us up for our Masses but also giving us an excellent lunch. He has posted an amusing lament on the subject of his Church: Oh Lord! A prayer . Today, we took the train to Lewes to visit Fr Richard Biggerstaff at the parish of St Pancras. Fr Jonathan Martin is staying with him during the summer. Below, you can see the fine Church; thankfully, the Ditchling altar has survived various phases of "re-ordering". I realised today that I love serving Mass in the usus antiquior as well as saying it. I served Fr Briggs' Mass after saying my own and tried t
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SPUC Clergy information day

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When people walk away with Holy Communion

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