All Saints' Day

Of course, the bishops in England and Wales have the authority to move the local celebration of the Feast of All Saints to the nearest Sunday.

Of course, they were unwise to do so.

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to celebrate the Feast on its time-hallowed day - the day on which our forefathers have celebrated it for centuries, and indeed the day on which most of the Catholic Church celebrates it even now.

So Mrs T and I went to Preston, to St Walburge's, for Mass this morning: in the Extraordinary Form, we keep the traditional calendar. It was wonderful to be able to do so, but also sad to see how few went to Mass for the Feast. Given what a centre of the Faith Preston has always been, I had hoped to see more than twenty people at Mass, particularly as today is one of the great Feasts of the Church's year.

On the feast of All Saints, we honour all those who have achieved their heavenly goal, known and especially unknown; and we ask for their intercession as we, the Church militant, struggle on.

Here is Victoria's wonderful setting of O Quam Gloriosum Est:

O quam gloriosum est regnum,

in quo cum Christo gaudent omnes Sancti!

Amicti stolis albis,

sequuntur Agnum, quocumque ierit.

Oh, how glorious is the kingdom

in which all the saints rejoice with Christ!

Clad in robes of white,

they follow the Lamb wherever he may go.

--

After Mass, Mrs T and I spent the day in Preston. We visited the beautiful Jesuit Church, and then went to the Harris Museum, which has a fine collection of art, a fascinating costume gallery, as well as many other artefacts of interest. It is also currently curating an exhibition of Marian Clayden's work, which I enjoyed much more than I had feared. Not only had I not known she was a native of Preston, I had never even heard of her. (Don't tell Mrs T, to whom I nodded sagely when she suggested we should look in on the exhibition!)