BRANCH NEWS

CANTERBURY
Once again, our Canterbury Branch has been very active. In the summer, we enjoyed two lovely visits, one to Deal, on Saturday 12th, for the May Festival of our Lady and one to Wingham on July 12. At deal, we were welcomed by the vicar of St Andrew's, Fr Christopher Landler and were also honoured with the presence of the Mayor and Mayoress of Deal. We had a talk from Canon Christopher Irvine, Librarian at Canterbury Cathedral, on the words 'And his Mother was there'. As in past years, we then formed a procession through the town carrying a statue of Our Lady in a lower decked model boat and singing hymns to her. At the shore, the vicar blessed the sea and he and Canon Irvine walked down the beach to throw the wreath of flowers into the waves. Three rockets were fired into the air as a royal salute to Our Lady, Queen of Heaven. At Wingham, we visited the church of St Mary the Virgin, greatly enlarged to almost cathedral proportions in 1286. Until the Reformation, the church was partly collegial and partly parochial with six canons. In the 1970's, the Vicar agreed to a Catholic Mass being said each Sunday for the Catholic parishioners, thus bringing the Mass back to yet another pre-Reformation church. We had a delightful tour of the Church and a cup of tea at a local inn afterwards.

Future meetings
September 17th - Fr Tony Cassidy will talk about The Women in the early Church
October 1st - Mr David Heap will talk about the importance of ecumenism in today's world
December 3rd - Miss Barbara Markham will lead a meditation on Isaiah's prediction of the birth of Jesus

BIRMINGHAM
October 4th - Canon Paula Gooder will give a talk on Our Lady in the Old Testament at St Lawrence Church, Northfield at 7.30pm

OTHER NEWS

ESBVM Regional Day at St Mary-the-Virgin, Kenton - 'Our Lady on Saturday' - Saturday September 8th 2007
The Feast of Our Lady's Birthday - the first of what is to be a series of ecumenical talks on Mary was given by the Rev'd Norman Wallwork, Methodist Minister and Ecumenical Canon of Wells Cathedral at St Mary-the-Virgin, Kenton in the Diocese of London. The overall title of these talks is 'Our Lady on Saturday'. Over 30 people gathered for Saturday's talk, the title of which was 'The Blessed Virgin Mary in the Methodist and Reformed Tradition'. They were provided with an overview of the very real importance of Our Lady to Reformed Christians - something not always appreciated by Christians not from the Reformed communities, plus a review of the recent Anglican - Roman Catholic document, 'Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ' from a Methodist perspective. The talk and discussion were followed by refreshments and a local launch of the recent co-publication by ESBVM and Gracewing Publications 'Mary for Time and Eternity', a third collection of essays on Mary and ecumenism edited by Fr Bill Mcloughlin OSM, Hon. General Secretary of ESBVM, and Jill Pinnock. It was lovely to have Jill present at this local launch as she had been unable to be with us at Lambeth. The event concluded with the saying of Evening Prayer according to the New Ecumenical Office of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. It is hoped that these talks may lead to the formation of a Middlesex Branch of ESBVM. Anyone interested in attending future talks or being involved with a Middlesex branch of the Society should contact Fr Giles Pinnock SSC on 020 8907 2914.

Dedication of a new statue of Our Lady of Tintern - Sunday September 9th 2007 - an ecumenical celebration of Evening Prayer and the dedication of the new statue of Our Lady of Tintern. The ESBVM AGM lecture in March was given by the sculptor, Philip Chatfield, who has carved a new statue of Our Lady & Child for Tintern Abbey. The statue was completed only hours before the blessing on Sunday 9th September 2007, after the annual ecumenical service of Sung Vespers took place in the famous ruins of the Tintern Abbey church in the presence of the Archbishop of Cardiff, the Bishop of Monmouth, the Abbot of Belmont and a range of local clergy including the Rev'd Norman Wallwork Minister of Cam & Durlsey Methodist Churches and Minister of Wotton-under-Edge United Church (Methodist-United Reformed) and Ecumenical Canon of Wells Cathedral (since 2005) as Prebendary of Holcombe. Fr.Bill OSM was present as Hon Gen Sec of ESBVM, bringing a party of pilgrims from Bath. The sculptor of the new statue, Philip Chatfield was the speaker at our ESBVM AGM in March 2007 in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey and he sent good wishes and thanks to the Society on this occasion. Our Lady is patroness of Tintern, as she is of all Cistercian monasteries. The statue is likely to be positioned within the abbey church itself. It is hoped it might become a focus of renewed devotion at the abbey, which is so well known worldwide. The speaker was the Rt Rev'd Br Stuart Burns OSB, Abbot of the Anglican Benedictine Community of Burford, Oxfordshire.

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2008 at Westminster Abbey
The Week of Prayer as we know it today was first celebrated January 18-25 1908 as the Church Unity Octave. It was observed simultaneously in St David's Church, Moreton-in-Marsh, which, coincidentally, has historical links with the Abbacy of Westminster, by the Revd Spencer Jones and at Graymoor, New York State, by the Society of the Atonement, a community of Anglican friars led by Fr Paul Wattson. To mark the centenary, following on from an exploratory meeting held at Westminster Abbey earlier in the year, a service at 5 pm in the Abbey on the 18th Jan 2008 is being planned at which ESBVM has been invited to have a presence. The following day, Saturday 19th Jan, an ecumenical spirituality day will be held at the Abbey in which it is hoped that there will be contributions on the hour from each of the invited participating groups/traditions. ESBVM has been invited to play a part supplying a Marian angle in the form of an office/service that can appeal to many rather than anything too particular- something simple and devotional, not simply long and liturgical, to which music, ideally of the best quality, is integral. More details of this will hopefully appear in our January newsletter.

Bath ESBVM Centenary Celebration of the 2008 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
ESBVM in Bath has invited Fr. Michael Seed, SA to speak in the City of Bath during the Centenary Celebration of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in 2008. He is well known nationally and has served as Ecumenical Officer of the Archdiocese of Westminster for the past 20 years. He is a member of the Society of the Atonement, which had its beginnings in 1898 in Graymoor, Garrison, New York where The Friars were founded. There, in 1908 the Week of Prayer began and as a Franciscan Friar of the Atonement, whose order helps prepare the material for the Week of Prayer each year, Fr. Michael is a very appropriate choice as a speaker. His theme will be Mary and Ecumenism. The venue will be Bath Abbey, by courtesy of the Rector and Church Wardens, and the date is set for Wed 23/01/2008 at 7.15pm, when Fr. Seed has made himself available to the ESBVM in what will undoubtedly be a very demanding week for ecumenists. Father Bill, OSM has made Bath Abbey aware that the ESBVM, marking the 40th year of its foundation this year with its ongoing commitment to this difficult and sensitive area of Ecumenism, enjoys the patronage of prominent members of the main Christian traditions including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, Cardinal Walter Kasper, Dr. John Newton, Bishop Christopher Hill of Guildford, Dr.Frances Young, Archbishop Gregorios of Thyateira & Great Britain and others. The service will take the form of praying the Ecumenical Office of the ESBVM together in the Abbey, during which Fr. Seed is to speak for about 10-15 minutes, the service being followed by simple refreshments. Fr.James Puglisi, SA, The Father General of the Friars of the Atonement directs the Centro Pro Unione at Rome with which the ESBVM has links and where the ESBVM was graciously hosted during our Rome Conference, so ably co-ordinated by our much missed and sadly lamented Sr. Mary Peter Froelicher, SHCJ of the Rome ESBVM Branch RIP. The Centro maintains a magnificent library, second only to that of the World Council of Churches at Geneva.

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