Liturgical Wanderings.

St Therese, OPN.

The painting of the gradine. It scratches easily with the constant movement of candles marking greater and lesser feasts.

The war memorial, not the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica Memorial.

There are a number of liturgical teething troubles coming up for us and I wonder if any of our readers might share one or two of them. Firstly, we are keeping Harvest a week on Sunday, so are having to change the (Roman) readings which we usually use, the best selection seem to be the Anglican Lectionary choices, so that is what we are going for. The other side of this is that we end up with all the ordered sheets from the Redemptorists going in the bin, but more of that later. Printing our own sheets is straightforward, but when I was finishing off the sheet I thought it might be a good idea to fill up the empty spaces with the collect, communion antiphon, etc. Which ones though! Having rejected the usual sheets for the day, it would seem to make sense to go the whole hog and have harvest propers. Common Worship provided a collect, prayer over the gifts and post communion prayer while providence provided an excellent communion antiphon. What though of the preface? Was it wise to use the CW Preface with the Roman Prayer III, particularly as there is no harvest Preface in our Missal? In the end we plumped for the Preface for Thanksgiving Day with a couple of words changed, now call us arch heresiarchs all you want, but the whole set of Preface, Propers and readings work remarkably well together. Anyhow, not something one wishes to do every day.

So far so good, but more problems were clear today. Firstly, the sheets from the Redemptorists for Remembrance Sunday will be for the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica and we are not inclined to keep this feast in gold when half of Prestwich comes to our black Requiem High Mass for the fallen each year. More sheets in the bin and more sheets to print off with readings and Propers from the Missal, at least there will be continuity in that with the whole Mass being from the Missal.

The Sunday of the eve of Saint Hilda's Day will see a Low Mass at 11am with the sheet of the day (or should we?) and a High Mass in the evening of the Patronal Festival with associated readings. But, again, there is a problem, as it is the High Mass of Dedication a few weeks before St Hilda's Day with those associated readings and propers, so more Redemptorist sheets in the bin. This amount of upheaval has not happened before and nor will it again for a long time, thus is the result of fixed holy days. I would come around to the thought of Parish Mass books from the Catholic Truth Society but that seems rather too extreme and also I am unconvinced if they would cater for every eventuality.

Today also sees the annual painting of the gradine, as you can see above and the memoria of St Therese, who's statue you see above, happily ensconced in St Hilda's from St Benedict's Ardwick. The lamp by her burns in memory of Gilbert LeFevre who was the first chef in Manchester to gain a Michelin star, some twenty years ago at the Midland Hotel. Liturgists need not fear that the altar will be returned to the east wall as soon as the second coat of paint is dry this evening.

Car problems today as well, with the front right side brake and the back right side one as well as a fluid container of some sort being dangerously damaged, I am told by the eater of money at the garage. Ho hum. I have just returned from the children's harvest rehearsal to wait for him to phone and tell me what the cost might be. It needs a service and MOT this month as well. I shall be spending the first day of my curacy applying for a clergy car loan I think!