Mass times for Holy Week, Easter and the Feast of Divine Mercy
Monday to Wednesday of Holy Week
- Mass times as usual, but Stations of the Cross at 11.30am on Tuesday & Wednesday
Maundy Thursday, 17th April
- Mass of the Lord’s Supper at 7pm
- Watching at the Altar of Repose until 11.45pm when we will end the period of watching with Compline.
Good Friday, 18th April
- Matins and Lauds at 9.00am
- Children’s Stations of the Cross at 11am
- Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion at 3pm
- Stations of the Cross at 6.30pm
Holy Saturday, 19th April
- Matins and Lauds at 9.00am
- Easter Vigil and First Mass of Easter at 9pm
Easter Sunday, 20th April
- Masses at 8.30am, 11am and 5.00pm Extraordinary Form Missa Cantata
- Benediction at 6.00pm
Low Sunday - The Feast of Divine Mercy, 27th April
- Masses at 8.30am, 11am and 5.00pm Extraordinary Form Missa Cantata
- Eucharistic Holy Hour with Divine Mercy Devotions including the Chaplet and Three O'Clock Prayer and Confessions from 2.00pm
- Benediction at 6.00pm
York Aquinas Reading Group
The York Aquinas Reading group will meet this Friday, 11th April, at 7.30pm in the Upper Room at St Wilfrid’s. The group normally meets on the third Friday each month but has brought the meeting forward because of Holy Week. The aim this week is to conclude the discussion of Aquinas’ Treatise on the Angels in the Summa.
Mass and Procession for St Margaret Clitherow. And just a few confessions….
Saturday 29th March was a busy day at St Wilfrid's. The annual Mass and Procession of St Margaret Clitherow organised jointly by St Wilfrid's and the Latin Mass Society drew a large crowd. Fr Michael Brown was the celebrant and Fr Richard preached.
After Mass there was Solemn Benediction and tea in the Upper Room. Thank you to our Filipino community who organised the refreshments.
While all this was going on St Wilfrid's was also one of the nominated churches in the Middlesbrough Diocese to be be open from 7am to 7pm for the Day of Reconciliation called for by Pope Francis. The Oratory Fathers and many local clergy were kept busy all day. Well over a hundred people came to confession. Not a few said they were responding directly to the call from the Holy Father.
For more photographs of the day please click here.
Fr Robert Byrne to be the new Auxiliary Bishop of Birmingham
Pope Francis has appointed Fr Robert Byrne of the Oxford Oratory as the new Auxiliary Bishop of Birmingham. The new bishop will have a good northern titular see, Cuncacestre (Chester-le-Street), seventy miles up the Roman road from York.
Fr Robert has been here to St Wilfrid’s a few times in the last few months so some of you have met him. Fr Robert is from Manchester and joined the Birmingham Oratory in 1980. He was one of the founder members of the Oxford Oratory and its first Provost from 1993 until 2011. Since 2012 he has been Secretary for Ecumenism for the Bishops’ Conference of England & Wales.
Bishop Byrne will be the first English Oratorian to become a bishop since Edward Bagshawe of the London Oratory became the Bishop of Nottingham in 1874. (Bishop Bagshawe had a small connection with St Wilfrid's when he gave his consent for the transfer of the ancient statue Our Lady of Mercy from his diocese to become the Shrine of Our Lady of York in our Lady Chapel in 1884)
As we offer our warmest congratulations to Fr Robert we also ask you pray for him as his new ministry begins. Please also remember the Archdiocese of Birmingham and the Oxford Oratory. The community is losing a familiar and valued presence by this appointment.
Fr Robert's episcopal ordination will be at St Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham, on Tuesday, 13th May - the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima - at 11am.
A Message from Archbishop Bernard Longley, the Archbishop of Birmingham:
“I am immensely grateful to Pope Francis for appointing Fr Robert Byrne Auxiliary Bishop of Birmingham. From his time at the Birmingham Oratory and as Provost of the Oxford Oratory, Fr Robert has come to know our Archdiocese well. Having worked alongside him in recent years as the Bishops’ Conference’s Ecumenical Officer, I know that he will bring considerable pastoral, theological and administrative skills to his new responsibilities as a bishop. Above all I am grateful that he brings the spirituality of St Philip Neri, the founder of the Oratory, to enrich his ministry among us. I know that everybody in the Archdiocese, and especially in his pastoral area of Birmingham and Worcestershire, will join me in asking for the prayers of Fr Robert’s fellow Oratorian, Blessed John Henry Newman, as he now prepares for his episcopal ordination in May. I also wish to record my abiding gratitude to Bishop Philip Pargeter for continuing to serve the Archdiocese with great dedication in recent years and for the support and friendship he has so generously given me.”
St Margaret Clitherow Pilgrimage and Procession
St Margaret Clitherow was martyred in York on 25th March, 1586. It was both Good Friday and the date of the Annunciation. St Margaret witnessed to Christ and his Church on a day that represents the whole of Our Lord's life from its beginning to its end. She followed her Lord by giving all that she had.
We will celebrate that great act of witness with Solemn Mass, Procession and Benediction on the nearest Saturday, 29th March.
Singers and Servers
We are still looking for singers in all voices for the 11am Mass on Sunday.
From Sunday, 23rd February the 5pm Mass in the Extraordinary Form will be a Missa Cantata every Sunday. We need more singers and servers for that Mass too
If you can help, please contact Fr Richard
SPUC - March for Life
York SPUC is organising a coach to this event from central York. Cost will be between £10 and £20 (depending on numbers). For further information and to book a place on the coach please contact either Jim Quinn 01904 708658 or Sue Whitaker 01904 762559 suemwhitaker@btinternet.com
City Council Plans for Duncombe Place
Day of Prayer for Victims of Human Trafficking
The Bishops of England and Wales have asked us to pray for the victims of human trafficking on the feast day of St Josephine Bakhita, February 8th. We might also pray for her homeland, Sudan.
Josephine Bakhita, was born in 1869 in Darfur, Sudan. When she was seven, she was kidnapped by Arab slave traders and over the next eight years was re-sold five times. She was so traumatised by the brutality of her captors, she could not remember her birth name. Her kidnappers gave her the name "Bakhita"- which means ‘Fortunate’.
Her final owner, the Italian Consul brought her to Italy to be a nanny for his daughter. When the family had to go away on business, they left Bakhita and the child in the care of the Canossian Sisters of the institute of Catechumens in Venice. It was there she came to know and experience God’s love.
In 1890 Bakhita asked to be baptised and received the name Josephine. When the family returned to reclaim their daughter and Bakhita, Josephine resisted and her case went to court which upheld her freedom, since slavery was not recognised in Italian law.
In 1896 she took her vows as a Canossian Sister and for the next fifty years she led a life of simplicity, prayer and service (especially as the doorkeeper in the convent) always showing kindness to everyone especially the children in the street.
In her final years she suffered from sickness and the haunting memories of the flogging and beatings she received whilst in slavery. Josephine Bakhita died in 1947 and in 2000 she was canonised - the first Sudanese ever to be proclaimed a saint.
O God, who led Saint Josephine Bahkita from abject slavery to the dignity of being your daughter and a bride of Christ, grant, we pray, that by her example we may show constant love for the Lord Jesus crucified, remaining steadfast in charity and prompt to show compassion. Through Christ our Lord.
Forthcoming Masses
There will be a Missa Cantata in the Extraordinary Form on Sunday, 26th January at 5pm with the Gregorian Propers. It is hoped to have a Sung Mass on the last Sunday of every month.
The 11am Mass on Sunday, 2nd February, the Feast of Candlemas, will begin with the Blessing of Candles and a Procession.
If you are interested in singing at the 11am Mass or at the 5pm Mass, please contact Fr Richard.