ESBVM

Our 2008 AGM was held in Edlington, Doncaster, at St Kentigern’s Orthodox Church during November. Our Officers were re-elected and agreed a programme of ten events for 2009. We had sent out 4 Branch newsletters and 2 Notices in the year, in addition to the 3 Society Newsletters. Hopefully this policy will keep our members in touch, and provide a source of information on Mariology, and encouragement in their day to day approach to Ecumenism.

Membership remains static at 25 with another 20 members living in Greater Yorkshire. We expect to arrange at least one event each year which will enable all Yorkshire members to come together. Meeting some of them at Lastingham last year was thoroughly enjoyable.

Our programme for 2009 commenced in January when we were again invited to celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, with Fr Alan Watson’s congregation at Dunscroft St Edwin, near Doncaster. During Mass, we heard an inspired sermon on Our Lady by the Rev. J. Stokoe, the Vicar of nearby Edlington. It was encouraging to speak to our members and friends in the congregation of around 80, as we enjoyed the legendary hospitality of what has been the anchor event of our Annual programme for some past years. With grateful thanks to Fr. Alan Watson and to Tina Harper, who offers us much splendid support each year.

On Tuesday 19th May, we had a ‘Quiet Day’ at Whirlow Grange Ecumenical Centre in Sheffield. Commencing at 9.45am and ending at 3.45pm., the day included a Eucharist, and a guided programme of Readings, Prayer, and Meditation. An opportunity to relax and enjoy the peace and tranquillity of this lovely centre. Lunch will be provided and there is a charge for the day. For information and to book please ring the Secretary on 0114.2682984.

On Saturday the 13th June. Pilgrimage to St Anne in the Grove.Parish Church, Southoram, near Halifax, by kind invitation of the Vicar, Rev. Guy Jamieson. We especially hoped that our Yorkshire members and those interested in the Society would join us for this Ecumenical day commencing with ’The Angelus’ and Mass at 12 Noon, and concluding at 3.30pm with the Society Office.

St Anne’s has an appealing history which spans both sides of the Reformation. It has a Walsingham Chapel and there are some small but beautiful stained glass windows of St Anne with Our Lady on the South side of the building. Lunch was to be provided by the good ladies of the parish.

The Branch celebrated the Annunciation at a meeting in St Thomas’ Church hall on 25 March.

The day began with Mass at noon, followed by the Rosary. There was then a buffet lunch in the hall and we viewed there a life-sized statue of the Archangel Gabriel, all resplendent with fairy lights. The statue had originally been a Marks and Spencer manikin and had been used previously in an exhibition of angels at St Mildred’s Anglican Church.

After lunch we greeted old friends especially Fr Stanley Evans who came all the way from Ramsgate. We then said and sang the office of Our Lady, the music being varied, ranging from J.S. Bach to Cliff Richard. We sang the Lord’s Prayer to the accompaniment of Cliff!. Everyone enjoyed the mixture of old and new and Fr Stanley closed the meeting with a prayer.

I would like to thank all those who make our meetings possible, especially our parish priest, Canon Bunce, who does our printing, our sacristan, Tina Hamilton, who organises the catering, our caretaker, John Spillett, who prepares the hall and Brenda Lippert, the parish secretary who does all the copying needed.

Strong links have been forged between St Thomas’ and St Mildred’s. Some of our folk also belong to the St Mildred’s Senior Citizen Club and we look forward to more combined social gatherings in a genuinely ecumenical spirit.

On Saturday 9 May, we made our firth visit to St Andrew’s, Deal. After Mass and the usual magnificent lunch, we had an interesting talk by Canon Martin Warner of Walsingham, who is also a canon of St Paul’s Cathedral. We had the usual procession of Our Lady’s statue through the town, followed by the blessing of the sea and the throwing of the wreath into it. We had with us a new member, Susan Shaw, who, a few years earlier, had been the organiser of a splendid exhibition of our Lady of Lourdes in Whitstable. We were glad to be with our Chairman, Fr Stanley Evans and his wife, Marie. It was a splendid day, enjoyed by everyone.

On June 13, we visited the East Kent Annual Festival of the Guild of Servers of the Sanctuary of which our chairman, Fr Stanley Evans is chaplain. The festival was held at Holy Trinity, Broadstairs. Afterwards, we were able to visit the shrine of Our Lady of Bradstow (the old name for Broadstairs).

On July 6, at St Andrew’s Church, the Deal Festival of Art and Music took place. We enjoyed a concert by the Cambrini ensemble. After lunch, we returned to the church to view Les Mysteres du Rosaire by Pierre Joincret of St Omer. The twenty paintings illustrative of the mysteries were placed round the church rather like stations of the cross. As we moved round, we said our own private prayers before each painting. The paintings were magnificent.

Seventy-five people from many faith traditions, eastern and western, gathered in Walsingham for a four-day pilgrimage beginning on Tuesday, 17 March. This biennial meeting, organized by the Ecumenical Marian Pilgrimage Trust, has the support of the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius, the Catholic League and the Pontifical Society of St John Chrysostom. Accommodation was at the Anglican Shrine, which has had some significant new developments in the past year in particular the Milner Wing where those fortunate enough to have an en-suite room found it very agreeable. The architecture of the new buildings harmonizes well with the older structures.

There was a full programme of liturgical services, scriptural meditations and formal talks. After the welcome by the newly appointed Administrator of the Anglican Shrine, Bishop Lindsay Urwin (previously Bishop of Horsham), the proceedings opened with a Liturgy of Reconciliation in the Shrine Church. This was followed by a Holy Communion Service in the United Reformed tradition conducted by the Revd Dr Colin Thompson, Fellow of St Catherine’s College, Oxford, and held in the Methodist Church. Prebendary Norman Wallwork in his sermon compared the thanksgiving and praise in Mary’s Magnificat with that of the Eucharist. After supper, the Choir of Norwich Cathedral sang Choral Evensong in the Anglican Parish Church. The Rt Revd Dr Peter Forster, Bishop of Chester preached on the theme of ‘God’s choice’.

Wednesday began with a Scripture Meditation on the Marriage Feast at Cana by Dr Thompson followed by a talk from Metropolitan Kallistos who, reflecting on the Feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God, considered her vocation and our own vocation. At noon, Bishop George Stack, Auxiliary in Westminster was Principal Celebrant at the Roman Catholic Mass in the Reconciliation Chapel. After lunch Fr. Mark Woodruff spoke on Arca Foederis: the Mother of God, Lambert Beauduin and the Church’s Prayer for Unity. This was followed by the Ecumenical Office. Returning to Walsingham and to the new Church of the Annunciation there was Benediction and a reflection on John 19:25-27, Mary at the foot of the Cross, by Fr Philip Swingler. After supper Jon Cannon gave an illustrated presentation on English medieval Lady Chapels.

During Thursday morning Bishop Lindsay Urwin was officially Licensed as Administrator of the Anglican Shrine by the Bishop of Norwich in the Shrine Church. So our pilgrims moved to the Anglican Church of St Mary for a reflection on Mary at Pentecost, and her relationship with the Holy Spirit, by Metropolitan Kallistos. Dr Athanasius McVay, a church historian and priest of the Ukranian Greek Catholic Basilian Order spoke on the Pre-Ecumenical Uniates and the Ecumenical Eastern Catholic Byzantine (Greek) Catholics yesterday and today. After which the Anglican Eucharist was celebrated by the Revd John Hunwicke, Priest-in-charge of St Thomas’, and Senior Research Fellow, Pusey House, Oxford. In the afternoon the Revd Sandy Williams – Senior Tutor at Wesley College, Bristol – spoke on Rescue, release and Redemption: Mary and the Exodus Traditions in the Gospel of Matthew and their relevance today. Fr Shnork Baghdassarian (Armenian Orthodox) followed with a talk on St Mary in the Armenian Church: doctrinal position, rituals, feasts, customs and tradition. In the evening we shared in the Akathist Hymn and later in the Panel Discussion.

The Friday programme began with a Passion Meditation. Helen Brock together with Paul Paniccia and John Hanks read a Syriac Dialogue Poem: The Cherub and the Thief. The main Eucharistic service of the day was the Orthodox Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified in the Orthodox Church of St Seraphim celebrated by Metropolitan Kallistos. The Pilgrimage ended after lunch with ecumenical prayers in the Anglican Shrine Church.

Fr Peter Marr who organized the pilgrimage is to be congratulated and thanked for the success of this truly great pilgrimage/conference. All went very smoothly and the contribution of all the speakers was outstanding. The weather was kind and one met many friends from previous conferences and pilgrimages. It was a very blessed event.

Desmond Miller

The North-West branch held its last meeting of the year in the picturesque Lancashire village of Waddington, a couple of miles north-west of the town of Clitheroe. For those of the Society who have not ventured to this part of the world, the Ribble valley is second-to-none in scenery, beauty and interest. Our venue was St Helen’s church and the reason for our visit was to hear a talk by one of our own branch members, Nigel McNeill, on “Buxted, Nazareth in Sussex”

Nigel began by reminding us of the glorious medieval shrine of Walsingham, of its origins and its popularity in the Middle Ages with many English monarchs, including Henry VIII before his break with Rome. After the rupture, the image of Our Lady of Walsingham was removed to be burned with others in the hope that Mary would thus be expelled from the consciousness of the faithful. Whilst Walsingham awaited its resurrection, events in other parts of England contributed to this.

One of the unsung champions of the Oxford Movement (and a particular hero of Nigel’s) was a Fr Wagner, parish priest of St Bartholomew’s in Brighton. He was a wealthy man in his own right and did great work building churches at his own expense. One of these, St Mary’s was in the village of Buxted, near Uckfield in Sussex. Fr Wagner had a house there that he used as a retreat from his parish work in Brighton and he had built a Lady Chapel for the church. It seems he was a man entranced by proportion: St Bartholomew’s was built on the proportions of Noah’s Ark; the Lady Chapel at Buxted was built on the proportions of Walsingham’s Holy House. Quite how he got the Walsingham proportions is a mystery but he was very friendly with J.M. Neale, who was an antiquarian as well as hymn writer.

A later rector of Buxted was Fr Charles Rowe, whose brother was the Rural Dean of Norfolk. He was looking for a vicar for the living of Little Walsingham and asked Fr Charles for suggestions. Fr Charles remembered a keen young clergyman who might fit the bill, one Fr Hope Patten and duly recommended him. As the cliché says, the rest is history – or mystery! There are those who would point to serendipity but to those of us who know and love Our Lady, the request to Fr Charles and appointment of Fr Hope Patten was more than mere serendipity. Hope Patten had the model and proportions for the Holy House from Buxted and so it can truly be called England’s Nazareth in Sussex.

After Evening Prayer from the Ecumenical Office, the North-West branch shared ideas for next year’s venues and topics and we only need to organise these to provide our programme for next year.

Our AGM was held on the 31st October at St Oswald’s Anglican Church in Sheffield. Our secretary, John Harrison, reported on the past year’s activities which included two pilgrimages to the Shrine of Our Lady at Egmanton, support for a pilgrimage to Ladyewell, and two presentations given by Sr. Ruth, on ‘Holy Grandmothers’, and the Shrines at Walsingham. John confirmed his retirement as our Secretary for 18 years.

Our re-elected Chairman, Fr. Dennis, thanked John warmly for his many years of work for the Branch and then made a presentation to him on behalf of the members. The meeting closed with the Ecumenical Office of Mary.

Refreshments were then served, courtesy of our lady members, and we enjoyed a pleasant ecumenical chat. With 18 members plus Father Alan Watson (Anglican) who has just joined us, we hope to continue our activities, and have already made an excellent start.

A group of 11 accepted an invitation to join the congregation at Ss. Columba & Kentigern Orthodox Church, Doncaster, where we had Vespers, followed by Mass, to celebrate the Presentation of the Mother of God in the Temple. We enjoyed the rich orthodox Liturgy (some for the first time), and the warm welcome and hospitality extended to us. We returned home fortified by a lovely buffet, after a holy and spiritually uplifting evening. Grateful thanks to our hosts.

The first of our programme of events for the new year takes place on the 23rd January 2007, in the’ Week of Prayer for Unity’. We have been invited to join the congregation at St Edwin’s Anglican Church, Dunscroft, near Doncaster, where the Vicar, Rev. Alan Watson, will celebrate Mass at 7.30pm. In addition, we have set out a full programme of activities through to September 2007, details of which may be had from the Secretary or the Chairman.