A Latin Mass to honour Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy

On his feast day, 25th October, members and friends of the Catholic Heritage Association gathered in the (North) Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Anne, Cork City, to honour Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy, the White Martyr of Cork.

Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy pray for us!

A pilgrimage to Cork

A Latin Mass in Abbeyleix

On 18th October, 2014, a Traditional Latin Mass was celebrated in the Church of the Most Holy Rosary, Abbeyleix, Co. Laois. You can find more pictures and information on this magnificant Church in the reports on the Masses in 2013, 2011 and 2010.

 

Annual Latin Mass in Abbeyleix

'Venerable, aged Simeon'

I was surprised to see that the entries for the saints of October 8 begin in The Martyrology of Gorman, with this lovely verse in praise of Saint Simeon:

8. a.

Símeon sruith saeglac[h]
ro gab Ísu ollán,
ar gecaib a gellamh

'Venerable, aged Simeon
who received great ample Jesus
on the branches of his white arms'.

A commentator has added in Latin 'ipse accepit eum in ulnas suas, Luc. ii. 28'. I could not find Saint Simeon commemorated on this day in any of the other Irish calendars, and as he is commemorated in the East on February 3, I wondered where the 12th-century Irish calendarist, Marianus O'Gorman, sourced this October feastday. The translator of the Martyrology of Gorman, Whitley Stokes, does not comment on this particular feast in his discussion of the Biblical saints found on this calendar but notes that 'Gorman, as a rule, agrees with the western martyrologies'. And indeed the Roman Martyrology at October 8 records: 'The same day, the birthday of the blessed Simeon, an aged man, who, as we read in the Gospel, took our Lord Jesus in his arms'.

 I will close with the Song of Simeon in Irish, taken from the translation of the New Testament by Canon Coslett Quinn:

A Thiarna, is anois a cheadaíonn tú do do sheirbhíseach imeacht faoi shíocháin, de réir do bhriathair;
mar tá mo shúile d'eis do shlánú a fheiceáil,
an slánú a réamhullmhaigh tú os comhair na gciníocha uile,
an solas a tharbharfadh eolas ort do na Gintlithe,
agus an solas a bheadh ina ghlóir do do mhuintir Iosrael.

Lúcás II, 29-32.

Note: This post first appeared at my own blog Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae which is dedicated to the saints of Ireland.

Pilgrimage to Enniscorthy Cathedral

The town of Enniscorthy is steeped in Irish history.  The town's foundation can be traced to the monastery of St. Senan and an early base of the Normans who entered Ireland at the nearby Bannow Bay.  Nearby Ferns was the seat of the Kings of Leinster and the see of St. Aiden, patron of the Diocese.  Overlooking the town is Vinegar Hill, where the men of '98 held out until 21st June.

The Cathedral of St. Aiden itself is historic, built in 1843 to the design of A.W. Pugin.