Lawrence Lew – Page 6 – St Dominic’s

Mark your Diaries!

We have an exciting line-up of special events at the Rosary Shrine. Please do make a note in your diaries, and help us spread the word – invite your friends to an event.

Sat 7th March = performance of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater played once again by the wonderful ‘The Bach Players‘ in the Lady Chapel. Tickets at £15, which will be available from Eventbrite or on the door.

5th-11th April = Holy Week retreat preached by Fr Anthony Giambrone OP, Biblical scholar, and Sub-Prior of the Priory of St Stephen in Jerusalem.

Fri 15th May = Special gala event with Tom Holland, historian and author of ‘Dominion‘ (among other bestselling books), who will be speaking about the influence of Christian thought on our Western world, in conversation with Rupert Shortt, Religion Editor of the Times Literary Supplement, and author.
Tickets for this event at just £5 are now available online from Eventbrite.

January at the Rosary Shrine

Every blessing for the new year! Come join us this month of January in two special celebrations:

This statue of the Holy Child Jesus is a replica of the statue enshrine in Cebu in the Philippines and given to the Filipino people by Magellan.

Sat 18th Jan = Santo Niño celebrations by the Filipino community at 6pm Mass; a celebration of the Child Jesus, and the coming of the Christian faith to the Philippines. There will be food in the Hall after Mass.

Sat 25th Jan = monthly Eucharistic Rosary Procession with healing prayers, at 7pm. Come join us in prayer around the Blessed Sacrament, and with Our Lady of the Rosary, as we pray for new beginnings, blessings in the new year, and for conversion of hearts, unity, and peace.

December & Christmas at the Rosary Shrine

Our Christmas and New Year schedule is available in the church from this weekend. Here it is below for your reference:

In addition please note the following events this December 2019:

Thu 12 Dec – Annual Guadalupe Mass at 6pm, celebrated by Archbishop Malcolm McMahon OP
Sat 14 Dec – candlelit Rorate Mass (Dominican rite) in honour of Our Lady at 6 a.m., followed by coffee and hot chocolate in the Hall.
Sat 14 Dec – monthly organ recital at 7pm
Sat 21 Dec – monthly Eucharistic Rosary Procession at 7pm, praying for expectant and new mothers, and unborn children
16 – 23 Dec – Simbang Gabi Masses followed by reception in the Hall every night. For times and details, see this post.

Simbang Gabi

The Rosary Shrine is delighted to host the novena of Simbang Gabi Masses for the third consecutive year. This is a Filipino custom of celebrating a Novena of Masses in preparation for Christmas, which will take place from 16-23 December. To complete the novena, there will be Mass at 6pm on 24 December or the Midnight Mass. Please note the Mass times in the poster above for the novena of Masses from 16-23 December.

This year, we are happy to announce that Bishop Nicholas Hudson will be joining us on the 23rd of December for the Simbang Gabi Mass and the celebrations afterwards.

November at the Rosary Shrine

November is the month of the Holy Souls in Purgatory, a month of remembrance and prayer for all our beloved dead. The following is a list of events planned for this month:

9th Nov – Annual Sung Requiem in the Dominican rite celebrated for the Catholic Medical Association (UK), at 11:30am.
9th Nov – monthly organ recital, at 7pm.
17th Nov – annual parish Requiem at 12 noon.
22nd Nov – St Cecilia’s day concert of celestial music performed by Baroque lutenist Andrew Maginley and soprano Regina Martin, in the Lady Chapel at 7:30pm. Tickets at £20 available from Eventbrite or on the door.
23rd Nov – Day with Mary, beginning with Mass at 10am.
30th Nov – Eucharistic Rosary procession with ‘De profundis’ prayers for the dead, and prayers for healing.

The parish ‘Book of the Dead’ inscribed with lists of names for whom we pray in this month of November. The candle burns at St Thomas’s altar as a sign of our perpetual prayers for the faithful departed.

New Parish Priest & Shrine Rector

Over the summer, Fr Thomas Skeats OP – the Prior and Parish Priest – was asked by Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, to take on the role of University Chaplain of King’s College, London.
To allow Fr Thomas to fulfil this new responsibility it has become necessary, with the consent of the Cardinal and the Prior Provincial of the English Dominicans, to re-assign the roles of the priests who serve and minister here at St Dominic’s.
Fr Thomas Skeats OP will continue as Prior of the Dominican community of friars based in St Dominic’s Priory. But having been Parish Priest for nearly 5 years, he will now need time to devote to his new appointment in the Archdiocese. We thank Fr Thomas for all he has done as Parish Priest of St Dominic’s.

Therefore, from 29 September 2019, Fr Oliver Keenan OP will take over as Parish Priest of St Dominic’s parish, Haverstock Hill. Fr Thomas – just to repeat – will continue as Prior, and he will still be living at the Priory, and he will continue to celebrate Mass and other liturgies in the church.
Fr Lawrence Lew OP will take on the responsibility of running the Rosary Shrine as Rector of the Diocesan Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary.
It is hoped that this new arrangement of shared responsibilities will also help to facilitate the completion of all the planned works for the ‘Future Decades’ campaign over the next few years.

Archive photo showing, from left to right, Fr Lawrence Lew OP (new Rosary Shrine Rector), Fr Paul Murray OP (visiting lecturer), Fr Thomas Skeats OP (Prior), Fr Oliver Keenan OP (new Parish Priest), and Fr Martin Ganeri OP (Prior Provincial)

Finally, in the next couple of weeks we shall be joined in the Priory by two more Dominican friars who will provide support and help to St Dominic’s: Fr Nicholas Crowe OP will be returning to London after working for a period at our Priory in Leicester; and Brother Andrew Brookes OP, a deacon, will be joining us from Newcastle.
Please pray for our friars in our new roles, and may Our Lady of the Rosary guide and protect us all.

Weekly Sunday Sung Mass (EF)

Masses will take place every Sunday at 4pm at the Rosary Altar

The Rosary Shrine is delighted to add something both new and old to our liturgical provision: starting on Rosary Sunday (6th October) this year, the Dominican friars will offer a Sung Mass (Missa Cantata) in the Dominican rite every Sunday at 4pm, at the Altar of Our Lady of the Rosary. Where possible, translations of the Latin prayers and texts will be provided. All are welcome.

What is the Domincian rite?

In 1217, Pope Honorius III declared Saint Dominic’s nascent band of itinerant brothers to be an “order of preachers” who were sent throughout Christendom to preach for the salvation of souls. But as the friars travelled from place to place they encountered numerous local variations within the basically Roman form of the Liturgy that prevailed in the West. Efforts to redact a uniform Liturgy for the use of the Order of Preachers is likely to have been started by Saint Dominic himself but something was produced by his successor Blessed Jordan of Saxony. In 1245, a commission of four friars, including one from the Province of England, undertook a revision of that first attempt, and they seemed to have moved away from the Parisian sources of the earliest version of the Dominican rite in order to make it more Roman. Their revision was finally redacted by Blessed Humbert of Romans, Fifth Master of the Order, and he authorised its use throughout the Order in 1256. The resulting Liturgy, Archdale King says concerning the Dominican rite, “is more Roman in character than the actual Roman liturgy.” The Dominican rite of Mass remained the unique form under which Dominican friars, individually and in their convents, prayed the Mass all the way until 1969. In that year, the Holy See granted permission for the Order of Preachers to adopt the reformed Roman rite instead of the Dominican rite, although individual Dominican friars were always allowed to celebrate their own rite with permission from their superiors. Thanks to the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum of Pope Benedict XVI issued in 2007, and the subsequent Instruction Universae Ecclesiae issued by the Pontificial Commission Ecclesia Dei in 2011, individual Dominican friars are permitted to use the Dominican rite for private Masses, or for stable groups of the lay faithful who request it of him; public Masses require permission from the local superior. This regular Sunday Mass in the Dominican equivalent of the ‘Extraordinary Form of the Mass’ that we are introducing is a pastoral initiative of the Dominican friars, and it has the full approval of the Prior, Parish Priest, and Rector of the Rosary Shrine.

If you’d like to help with singing or serving the Mass, please contact Fr Lawrence Lew, OP.

October at the Rosary Shrine

October is the month of the Holy Rosary, which is celebrated with joy here in Our Lady’s Rosary Shrine in London. A feature of this our October celebrations is a weekly candlelit Rosary procession. This year we have events for your diaries that are both old and new, so please do mark your diaries and start planning a special pilgrimage in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Candlelit processions every Saturday in October, at 7pm.

Sat 5th: Candlelit Rosary Procession with statue of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima (7pm).
Sat 5th – Sun 6th: Annual St Dominic’s Art Exhibition and Sale in the Parish Hall.
Sun 6th: Rosary Sunday – Solemn Mass celebrated by Bishop Michael Campbell OSA, Bishop Emeritus of Lancaster at 12 noon. Blessed roses will be distributed after every Mass.
Sat 12th: Candlelit Rosary Procession with statue of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima (7pm) followed by a music recital on our historic ‘Father Willis’ organ.
Sun 13th: Solemn Mass commemorating Newman Canonisation (12 noon)
Sat 19th: Living Rosary Procession with statue of Our Lady of the Rosary of Manaoag (7pm).
Sat 26th: Rosary Vigil – Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and Eucharistic Rosary procession, with music composed and conducted by Pawel Bebenek (7pm). This event will be preceded by music workshops with Pawel Bebenek, starting at 11am, in the parish hall. Details forthcoming.

Eucharistic Rosary procession around the Rosary Shrine

Praying the Rosary in the Rosary chapels during the Eucharistic Rosary procession. Here, we pray the 5th Sorrowful Mystery.

In addition, the Rosary Shrine is delighted to announce that from Rosary Sunday onwards (6th October), there will be a Sung Mass (Missa Cantata) in the Dominican rite at 4pm every Sunday, at the Altar of Our Lady of the Rosary. All are welcome to this weekly Sunday Mass, and we will be looking for singers and servers. If you’re interested please contact Fr Lawrence Lew, OP.

Homily for St Dominic’s day

The Regent of Studies of the Province of England, Fr Simon Gaine OP presided at Mass on 8th August, the feast of our holy father St Dominic, this year. Below is his homily on both the compassion and the love for truth exemplified by St Dominic.

Preach the word, says the second letter to Timothy: be urgent in season and out of season, unfailing in patience and in teaching. But what can motivate us to be so urgent in preaching, so unfailing in teaching?

Dominic’s motivation was clear. It was his compassion, something that characterized him in all sorts of ways. We know that when he heard how some people had been captured as slaves by the Moors – Dominic wanted to sell himself into slavery to gain their release – and other people had to stop him from doing this. But his compassion had been aroused by the plight of these captives. There were great saints the time, John of Matha and Felix of Valois, who founded a whole religious order to obtain the release of captives by raising money to pay their ransoms. But Dominic’s compassion worked in a different way: he founded a religious order not to ransom captives, but to free people who were held captive by falsehood, by lies. Dominic’s order was to be an Order of Preachers, and that tells us something about the special character of Dominic’s own compassion. It was not that Dominic necessarily possessed a more intense or keenly felt compassion than the founders of orders that tried to help captives. Rather Dominic’s compassion was different because it was fed by a certain insight into those who were enslaved by false teachings.

We see this compassion at work when Dominic was on a diplomatic mission from Spain to northern Europe. He passed through the South of France, where many people had abandoned the Catholic faith for the teachings of the Cathars. Dominic stayed at an inn, where the innkeeper was a Cathar. It was out of his compassion for this man that Dominic spent the whole night trying to persuade him of the Christian truths of God and creation. Dominic easily perceived that Catharism was mistaken about these things, but he also saw how dangerous its errors could be for people. While Christianity taught that this material world, including our bodies, were good, the creation of one good God, Catharism taught that there were two gods, one good and one evil, and that this material world was created by the evil god, and so this material world was in itself evil, through and through. Marriage and having children were then evil, because they enclosed good spiritual souls in evil material bodies.

I suppose Dominic could have just noted these ideas as interesting, and respected those who sincerely held them, leaving it at that. But Dominic’s compassion was greater, because he realised how dangerous such ideas could be for people who were created to be truly happy only by knowing and loving the truth of the one God. Dominic’s compassion had been aroused by the evident needs of people who had been captured by pirates.

But in Dominic we also see compassion also at work in a manner that is not so immediately obvious, a compassion which was enlightened by Dominic’s grasp of the truth about God and his world. Dominic’s compassion was illuminated by this special insight, and it made him reach out in love to all who did not know true Christian teaching but whose minds and whole lives were held captive by falsehood. If we are not so motivated to reach out to people in this way today, it could be because we lack compassion; but maybe not. I wonder whether it is because our compassion is in need of the illumination, the special light that Dominic’s compassion had; and I wonder whether this is why study is so much at the heart of the religious way of life that Dominic founded. St John and St Felix had to raise money to pay the ransoms of captives; and Dominicans have to study to know the truth that sets us free.

So compassion for others who have need of the Gospel should drive us to study of some kind, so that we really know the liberating truth of God that we can then proclaim. But it’s not just that compassion leads to study; study should also lead to compassion. Because in learning about our faith we gain insight into what is truly good for men and women made in God’s image; through study we learn what is bad for them, bad ideas as well as actions; and we learn why falsehood can so often be attractive, as well as dangerous. And there is much to learn in a world of so many conflicting ideas, where some people even doubt that there is truth at all. But through what we learn, our compassion for others can be nourished and fed, as we learn how much falsehood harms us and how much the truth can set us free. If our compassion is not enlightened by knowledge, we will probably never grasp the need for preaching, and so others may not benefit from the Gospel; again, if we have a grasp of the truth but no compassion, our efforts may do harm, turning easily to violence and compulsion. Instead we must follow neither compassion alone nor truth alone, but walk in the spirit of St Dominic, where knowledge enlightens compassion, and compassion enlivens knowledge, and gives birth to wisdom, the wisdom that comes from above which, as St James says, is kind and considerate, and makes for peace.

*Pilgrims to the Rosary Shrine venerating a relic of St Dominic on his feast day.*

Festal Masses in August

The summer months are full of saint’s days, including the universal feast of St Dominic, although in our parish we mark his feast day with special solemnity on 24 May. This August we have three special Masses scheduled in the Rosary Shrine, to which all are very welcome:

*5th-century mosaic from Ravenna of St Lawrence, who was martyred on a gridiron*.

Thursday 8 August: the feast of our holy father, St Dominic. In addition to Masses at 7:30pm and 6pm, there will be a Mass at 11:30am celebrated with the Missionaries of Charity.
Saturday 10 August: the feast of St Lawrence, deacon and martyr. There will be a ‘Missa Cantata’ (Sung Mass) in the Dominican rite at 4pm, at the Altar of Our Lady of the Rosary, followed by the praying of the Rosary.
Thursday 22 August: the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (or Queenship of Mary). There will be a ‘Missa Cantata’ (Sung Mass) in the Dominican rite, at 7:30pm, at the High Altar, followed by a Eucharistic Rosary Procession. The ‘Schola Sainte-Cecile’ from Paris will be singing this Mass. More details here.

St Dominic’s – The Rosary Shrine

Author: Lawrence Lew