Author: Lawrence Lew

Nine of our young parishioners were confirmed on Pentecost Sunday (23 May 2021). Thank you to their catechists and congratulations to them! We value the contribution of our young adults to the life of our parish, and we pray for them. 

We will be enrolling new Confirmation candidates for both 2021 and 2022 at the same time in December this year, and they will be confirmed together in the Summer of 2022. If you would like to be confirmed this year (2021) it may be possible to join the Deanery group at the Cathedral. Please speak to Fr Lawrence after Sunday Mass. 

Candidates for First Holy Communion: Parents should have registered their interest with the parish secretary, or should speak to the parish priest after Sunday Mass. We hope to begin catechesis soon for 2021 Communions, so please register asap at: secretary@haverstockhill.org.uk

Baptismal Preparation: Infant baptisms will ordinarily take place on the 1st Sunday of the month at the 10am Mass. Please speak to Fr Lawrence after Sunday Mass if you wish to have your child baptised. In most cases, you will need to attend two sessions of the Baptismal Course. This usually takes place on the 3rd Sunday of every month after the 10am Mass. A form will be given to you either by Fr Lawrence or the Catechist, and you can book the Baptism after you have attended the second session, if necessary.

We are grateful to all our benefactors and to all the talented craftsmen who have worked hard on repairing and restoring the stonework and stained glass in the apse of the church, which is dedicated to the Fifth Glorious Mystery – The Coronation of Our Lady and the Glory of all the Saints. The High Altar with its beautiful marble, mosaics, alabaster and metalwork has also been completely cleaned, and we are now in the final phase of re-gilding the walls of the apse, the tabernacle, and the High Altar itself.

From the very beginning, the High Altar with its Tabernacle and Exposition Throne has been the central focus of this beautiful church; this is its heart. And since Apostolic times, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has been celebrated with the Priest and people standing on the same side, facing the so-called ‘liturgical East’, in anticipation of the Lord who promised to return from the East. Turned together to the Lord, the Priest and ministers and laity express outwardly an important interior turning of our minds and our hearts and our whole lives and beings towards the Lord who comes to us in the Holy Mass, present on the Altar.

Therefore, from Sunday 25 April onwards, the 12 noon Solemn Mass will be offered at the High Altar. This ‘Ordinary Form’ Mass will be in English, as usual, with Gregorian chants and choral motets sung by the choir as usual. The readings will also be read in English, with lay readers as usual. The only difference is that the Offertory and Eucharistic Prayer will be prayed by the Priest at the High Altar.

On the same Sunday 25 April, the Dominican rite Sung Mass, which is an ‘Extraordinary Form’ Mass in Latin, will resume. This Mass (which used to be at 4pm on Sundays) will henceforth be at 6pm, sung at the High Altar; this is the only sung EF Mass on a Sunday in our Archdiocese of Westminster. Where possible, sheets with English translations of the readings and prayers will be provided.

So, from 25th April, the Sunday evening schedule at the Rosary Shrine will be as follows: Adoration from 5pm; Solemn Vespers (sung by the Dominican community) at 5:30pm followed by Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament; Dominican rite Sung Mass at 6pm.

Our Sunday morning schedule remains unchanged: Mass at 8:30am (said) and 10am (Family Mass), with confessions from 9:45am and 11:45am.

All are very welcome indeed, and we hope that this full liturgical life, offering all that the Church’s rich Tradition allows, will be of service to you, and help you to feel at home in Our Lady’s Rosary Shrine, where together as one community but in a legitimate diversity of forms we can, in spirit and in truth, worship the one true and living God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The altar of Saint Thomas Aquinas, at the top of the south aisle, sits right up against the great organ. It was donated by Mrs Monselle in memory of her four sons, all of whom became priests. As the brass plaque to the left of the altar indicates, three of her sons (two of whom were Dominicans) died tragically young.

Heartbroken, Mrs Monselle erected this beautiful altar, a veritable Shrine, dedicated to St Thomas Aquinas, to whom her sons must have had a great devotion. St Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican friar and priest, the pre-eminent theologian and philosopher of the Catholic Church, and declared the Common Doctor of the Church, who died on 7 March 1274. His feast day is still celebrated on this date in the Dominican rite calendar, although the universal Church now observes his feast day on 28 January, the anniversary of the translation of his relics to Toulouse where they are enshrined in the medieval Dominican church (L’eglise des Jacobins).

This year the English Dominican Province gives thanks to God for their 800th Jubilee, for the first Dominican friars arrived in England in 1221, sent by St Dominic himself, and they established their first priory in Oxford on the 15th of August 1221.

In commemoration of this historic event, and to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the Province, the friars at St Dominic’s, London decided to restore and, for the first time, gild the altar of St Thomas Aquinas. The plan to gild the altar, as it was a new addition to the interior of this Grade II* listed building, had to be submitted to the Historic Churches Commission for consent. The friars noted that the three altars in the Lady Chapel, which have similar stonework and gables to the St Thomas altar, are all gilded, and so it would be fitting to thus complete the gilding of this set of four altars, which are the only altars in the church not dedicated to one of the Mysteries of the Holy Rosary; the other fifteen altars in the church, including the High Altar, are effectively Rosary altars. Happily, approval was granted by the HCC, and we were asked to consider replacing the finial that surmounted the central gable but which had gone missing. The restorer was prepared to re-create this, using a historic photograph (shown above) to help him replicate the original finial.

As work commenced this week and the altar was cleaned, the original finial, although broken in parts, was found on top of the altar! This saved us time and money so the finial was repaired and then gilded and put back in its place, where it beautifully crowns the entire work.

The Aquinas Altar is now completed and beautifully gilded just on time for his ‘dies natalis’, his heavenly birthday, on 7 March 2021. The gold highlights include the carving of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, the edges of the pages of his books, the sun emblem on St Thomas’s chest, and the stars on the predella and around him. The sun and stars are inspired by this verse of Scripture: “They that are learned shall shine as the brightness of the heavens: and they that instruct many to justice, as stars for all eternity.” (Daniel 12:3)

Funding for this project came from generous donations through our Justgiving page, and also through the post, including a donation from members of the Priestly Fraternity of St Dominic – fitting, given the intention of the original donor of this altar. A Mass will be celebrated for all those who donated towards this restoration.

We trust that Mrs Monselle will be pleased with this work, and we ask St Thomas Aquinas to pray for her and her sons, and for the English Dominican Province. May the Lord grant us many vocations, fervent lovers of divine Wisdom and preachers of Truth like St Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor.