Posted on 09/22/2004 8:47:46 AM PDT by Pyro7480
Glad to see I wasn't off base.
Thanks for the ping ELS.
Excellent post Pyro - it almost makes me feel homesick!
Did you catch the name of the priest offering Mass? I can't tell from the picture who it is for certain - could be Fr. Ignatius Harrison.
You will have to let me know next time you're over - we could meet up at the "O".
Some trivia for you re Fr. Faber:
When they disinterred his body to bring it back for burial at the Oratory, the coffin was completely empty apart from his patent leather shoes!!!
"I think we talked about that before, and came to the conclusion that it was a Solemn Novus Ordo Mass. They usually don't have Solemn High TLM's there."
Correct - the main Sunday morning Mass is the Latin Novus Ordo. However because of the orientation, Gregorian chant, lack of sign of peace etc. many think they have stumbled into a Tridentine Mass.
(In fact you may find that the Canon used was from the 1962 Missal, but as it would have been sotto voce who would know???)
I don't remember who offered Mass, but I did hear Fr. Harrison lead Solemn Vespers on the Feast of Our Lady's Nativity on the 8th, via a BBC radio broadcast. The Oratory choir was absolutely beautiful, as always!
Wonderful! Thank you for sharing your trip with us.
Wow. Was the crypt damp?
(I'm really not being irreverent - at least not on purpose. I studied archaeology in college . . . and even in damp conditions there's usually a "shadow stain" at the least - even after thousands of years.)
"No dust or bones?"
Not a sausage, apparently!
"Wow. Was the crypt damp?"
Haven't a clue. And the priest who told me about it could venture no hypothesis at all.
Maybe Fr. Faber wasn't particularly turned on by relics and didn't want to take the chance?
;)
He was found about ten minutes later in a nearby bush. He was NOT injured seriously, much to everyone's surprise. He filed a workmen's compensation claim later, for which nobody blamed him much . . . :-D
Could be a statement about relics, for sure (do the shoes count as second-class relics? ;-) )
In August of 2000 I was in Italy, and a family friend took me an my Mother to a Jubilee Celebratory Mass in Sulmona, which is the home of Ovid, IIRC. The town predates Christ by quite a few years and has a feel that is indescribable. The road to Sulmona is triumphal flanked on each side with those strange sort of Pine trees which are enormouly tall, but have no vegetation except at the very top.
Anyway, the Mass was a High Mass offered in Latin with a full array of Altar Boys and Priests of all ages. It was unbelievably beautiful, moving and reverent.
As you might have noticed, the altar in the church in Texas is based on the altar in the Slipper Chapel.
Yes, Granda of Spain copied it for them. The statue of Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston came from the Slipper Chapel as well. It was the copy used when the Statue of Our Lady of Walsingham blessed by the Holy Father had to be removed from the Slipper Chapel for repairs.
Look closely at the picture of the Houston shrine-church: the window on the right is of Our Lady, holding a miniature of the holy house, appearing to Richeldis. Son Geoffry is depicted as a grown man behind her, holding the St George banner indicating that he became a crusader.
The Houston Church has a lady chapel the exact dimensions of the original holy house. On the tabernacle door there is a bas-relief of the Holy Family in Joseph's carpenter shop. The walls of the holy house shrine is built to the height of the house of Loretto, and the steep roof is supported by rough oak hammer-beams. The tiny chapel is wonderfully "home-like".
Upon reflection, it is as if God the Father established that parish as a summary and a crown of every apparition of the Blessed Virgin. Does that make sense to you?
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