Latin Mass Pilgrimage to Carlow Cathedral

Members and friends of St. Conleth's Catholic Heritage Association and other Catholic Heritage Associations were delighted to make another annual pilgrimage to the Cathedral of the Assumption, Carlow, in the Month of the Assumption.  Reports of previous pilgrimages can be found here: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 (May), 2013 (December), 2014. 

 

There is something special about making a pilgrimage to a Cathedral.  Ireland has its ancient sites and its holy wells (too often left only to the locals), Ireland has the sites associated with our National Apostle (although Armagh never became the place of pilgrimage it deserves), its apparition shrine in Knock and National Shrines (too often neglected by pilgrims) to various Saints.  However, Ireland, after long centuries of dispossession and persecution has begun again to have her Cathedrals.  It is a special duty of love to make a pilgrimage to the Mother Church of one's own Diocese and a special privilege to make pilgrimages to other Cathedrals around the Country.  Our first Cathedral pilgrimage was to Carlow, one of our oldest extant Cathedrals still in the hands of the Catholic Church.

 

While the Cathedrals in Waterford (1793), Cork (1808) and Dublin (1825) may be older, Carlow Cathedral is the first fruits of Catholic Emancipation that came in 1829.  Completed in 1833, with its near contemporary in Tuam (1836) it stands in contrast to the soaring confidence of its younger sisters of the 19th and 20th Centuries.  It is the more to be treasured for all that. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anniversary Mass

This morning members and friends of St. Conleth's Catholic Heritage Association gathered at the Church of the Most Holy Trinity, Allen, County Kildare, for an Anniversary Mass in the Gregorian Rite for one of their founder members, Miss Gertrude Hyland. After Mass, some of the members went to Crosspatrick Grave Yard nearby to pray at her graveside, and then to Father Moore's Well, a shrine to a saintly Parish Priest of Allen.

The spire of Allen Church can be seen on the horizon, as can the hill of Allen, the palace of Fionn Mac Cumhail, the warrior chieftan of ancient Ireland.  This parish was the hiding place of the Bishops of Kildare during the centuries of persecution.  A history of the Parish can be found in Dr. Comerford's Collections.

CHRISTVS REGNAT, Vol. VII, No. 2, December, 2014

In the December, 2014, issue of CHRISTVS REGNAT:

• 1914 By Mr. Thomas Murphy

A retrospective of the Catholic heritage of the centenary.

• St. Pius X and Little Nellie of Holy God By Mr. Thomas Murphy

One of Ireland's little saints, the four-year-old who inspired the admission of children to Holy Communion.

• The Holy Thing By Mr. Seamus O’Connor

How Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich saw the Effectuation of the Immaculate Conception

• Sacrosanctum Concilium 50 Years On – Part II,  Reform of the Rite of Mass By Mr. David McEllin

Some personal considerations on the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy.

• On the Blessed Virgin’s Love of God By Msgr. Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

From the collected sermons of the greatest preacher of France's golden age of sacred eloquence.

• Out of the Common – Introduction & Part I

Extracts from the commonplace book of a member.

• The Kildare Jacobites – Part II – Sir Charles Wogan By Mrs. Ellen Wilson

An account of a Kildareman who upheld the cause of his King and eloped with his Queen.

• The Architects of Kildare and Leighlin – Part IV By Mr. Paul Hannon

The final part of a survey of the individuals behind the architectural heritage of the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin

 

You can obtain copies of CHRISTVS REGNAT by becoming a member of the Catholic Heritage Association.  Further details are available from membershipcommitteecha[AT]gmail[DOT]com.  Further details on how you can contribute an article to CHRISTVS REGNAT are available from christusregnatjournal[at]gmail[dot]com.

 

Latin Mass in the Pro Cathedral, Dublin

With the permission of His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin and the Very Reverend Canon O'Reilly, Adm., St. Laurence's Catholic Heritage Association organised a pilgrimage to the Pro Cathedral, Dublin, today, to honour the feast of St. Laurence O'Toole, Patron of the Archdiocese, and to venerate his relics enshrined there.

The sacristy staff honoured us by laying out for use at the Mass the vestments made for the High Mass in the Phoenix Park at the 1932 Eucharistic Congress in Dublin and the chalice given as a gift by the People of Ireland to St. John XXIII, gifted by him back to the Pro-Cathedral, and used by St. John Paul II at the Mass that he celebrated in the Phoenix Park when he visited Ireland in 1979.

From Dublin: The City Within the Grand and Royal Canals and the Circular Road by Christine Casey, p. 126 ff:

ST. MARY'S PRO-CATHEDRAL

Marlborough Street

Of 1814-25.  A large and remarkably ambitious metropolitan chapel whose style and scale provided an exemplar for Catholic church building in the city for over half a century.  In all but name, this is the Roman Catholic cathedral of Dublin.  It is the parish church of the archbishop and since its dedication in 1825 it has played a central role in national religious ceremony.  The remains of Daniel O'Connell, Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera lay here in state; John Henry Newman was inaugurated here as the Rector of the Catholic University; and in 1903 John McCormack began his career here with the renowned Palestrina Choir, founded in the previous year.  At 4,734 square ft (1,320 square metres), it was the largest church built in Dublin since the Middle Ages.  The model was French, in particular the basilican church of St Philippe du Roule in Paris (1764-84), a Neoclassical design with a nave, apse and ambulatory... The Pro-Cathedral design is more fastidiously primitif in its employment of Greek Doric throughout, modulated to Tuscan in the tripartite windows of the s elevation.  'Sublimely Greek by any standards' concluded J.M. Crook, 'pedantic' and 'dogmatic' counters Michael McCarthy, both seeing through the many accretions to the original heroic concept.  While substantial C19 and C20 alterations have considerably reduced the potency of the original design, the Pro-Cathedral still ranks among the most powerful Greek Revival church interiors in these islands...

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.

 

Latin Mass in Strokestown

Latin Mass in Duiske Abbey

Latin Mass in Goresbridge Co. Kilkenny

St. Brigid's Day Pilgrimage to Limerick

To honour St. Brigid of Kildare, the members and friends of St. Conleth's Catholic Heritage Association made a pilgrimage to the former Jesuit Church of the Sacred Heart in the Crescent, O'Connell Street, Limerick, for Holy Mass celebrated by Canon Wulfran Lebocq of the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest.  Afterwards, we had the great privilege to hear a talk by Canon Lebocq.  We sang the hymns to St. Brigid in Irish, English and Latin (Gabham Molte Bríde, Far Above Enthroned in Glory, and Christus in Nostra Insula.  We were then given a tour of the Church and Residence to see the immense challenges faced by the Community in restoring the fabric of the building.  Afterwards, members of the Institute of Christ the King Community joined us for a late lunch near the banks of the River Shannon.

The present church, the Sacred Heart church, is situated at the Crescent, on O'Connell Street. It was completed in 1868 and opened to the public on January 27 1869. The architect of this church was William Corbett and the church is in the parish of St Joseph's. According to Murphy, it was originally intended to dedicate the church to St Aloysius but when it was dedicated in 1869 it was called the Church of the Sacred Heart. The façade of the church is Classical/Grecian in design. It was renovated in 1900. There is a statue of the Sacred Heart above the porch. There are no aisles in the church but the nave has two rows of pews. The nave was extended in 1919.

There is a small medallion about 6 inches high of Our Lady and the Child on the front of the gallery, facing the altar.

There is an altar to Our Lady of Lourdes in the right transept. This altar was the first of its type in Ireland. It was designed by Mr. Goldie and was a gift from Thomas E. O'Brien. Above the altar to Our Lady of Lourdes, there is a mosaic of Our Lady and three Jesuit saints. These saints are (from left to right) St Robert Bellarmime, St Alphonsus and St Aloysius Bonzagh. Beside this altar, there is a statue of St Patrick.

In the left transept, there is an altar to St Joseph. A painting of St Joseph and the Infant Jesus forms the centerpiece of this altar. Above the altar, there is a mosaic of St Ignatuis Loyola and his first group of Jesuits. 

The high altar was designed by William Corbett and is made from 22 types of precious marble. On each side of the altar there are statues of kneeling angels. The carving on the front of the high altar depicts a scene from the Last Supper. On the floor around the high altar, there are the symbols of the four writers of the Gospels. The angel represents Matthew, the lion represents Mark while Luke and John are represented by the bull and eagle respectively.

There are nine mosaics above the high altar. The central mosaic is of the Sacred Heart ascending in the presence of St Margaret Mary Alacoque and Blessed Claude la Colombiere. It is surrounded (from left to right) by depictions of St Francis Jerome, St Francis Borgia, St Francis Xavier, St Ignatius, St Stanislaus, St Aloysius, St John Berchmans and St Francis Regis. (From Limerick Diocesan History Project)