Marylebone Ordinariate Group: Dublin 1932

Thursday 29 March 2012

Dublin 1932

Vintage footage of liturgical celebrations from the past crops up regularly on this blog. In our post The Angels Rejoice......and so do the ex-Anglicans you can see Pope Pius XII solemnly declaring, ex cathedra, that the Blessed Virgin Mary "....having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory." There is Pathé film of the 1950 celebrations at Westminster Cathedral and at Wembley Stadium of the centenary of the re-establishment of the Catholic hierarchy in our post on Cardinal Wiseman. You can see Cardinal Merry del Val visiting Assisi in another of our recent posts.

Today. we've uncovered some youtube footage of the 31st International Eucharistic Congress, held in June 1932 in Dublin. The footage very much speaks for itself.

One of these films is a mini-documentary on that great event, which gives more of the background, including a recording of the great tenor John McCormack singing Panis Angelicus as a million people attended Mass in Phoenix Park. I particularly like the footage of the Free State Air Force flying in the formation of a Cross to escort the arrival of the Papal Legate, Cardinal Lorenzo Lauri, into Dun Laoghaire Harbour. Images of the Phoenix Park Mass, and of hundreds of thousands kneeling in adoration by O'Connell Bridge are also immensely powerful. Just one complaint about the otherwise fascinating third video - the anachronism of having accompanied film of the 1932 procession through Navan with a soundtrack of an admittedly tasteful rendering of Make Me a Channel of Your Peace does rather jar!

For a fuller account of those great days in Dublin, I commend this article to you.

Here is the video invitation to this year's International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin. As we all know, much has changed since 1932, but we must all offer our support and our prayers, and if possible our presence, to this great call to witness and adoration.

In spite of the danger of severe video overload, I'm afraid it was simply not possible to resist the temptation to take the opportunity to include John McCormack singing Panis Angelicus, sadly not the recording from Phoenix Park, but immensely evocative nonetheless.

How wonderful it is, now in the Ordinariate, wholly in the Catholic Church and in communion with the Successor of St Peter, to be part of all this.

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Blessed John Henry Newman on the hope for Reunion

… I gather up and bear in memory those familiar affectionate companions and counsellors, who in Oxford were given to me, one after another, to be my daily solace and relief; and all those others, of great name and high example, who were my thorough friends, and showed me true attachment in times long past….

And I earnestly pray for this whole company, with a hope against hope, that all of us, who once were so united, and so happy in our union, may even now be brought at length, by the Power of the Divine Will, into One Fold and under One Shepherd.

Apologia pro Vita Sua

Blessed John Henry Newman's Prayer for Unity

O Lord Jesus Christ, who when Thou wast about to suffer didst pray for Thy disciples to the end of time that they might all be one, as Thou art in the Father and the Father in Thee, look down in pity on the manifold divisions among those who profess Thy faith and heal the many wounds which the pride of man and the craft of Satan have inflicted on Thy people.

Break down the walls of separation which divide one party and denomination of Christians from another. Look with compassion on the souls who have been born in one or other of these communions, which not Thou, but man, hath made.

Set free the prisoners from these unauthorised forms of worship, and bring them all to the one communion which Thou didst set up at the beginning – the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Teach all men that the See of Peter, the Holy Church of Rome, is the foundation, centre, and instrument of Unity. Open their hearts to the long forgotten truth that the Holy Father, the Pope, is Thy Vicar and representative; and that in obeying him in matters of religion they are obeying Thee, so that as there is but one company in heaven above, so likewise there may be one communion, confessing and glorifying Thy holy Name, here below. Amen

Fr Ignatius Harrison, the former Provost of the London Oratory, on Unity

Another of the Holy Father’s outstanding achievements is his inspiring work for Christian Unity in setting-up the Ordinariates for former Anglicans. What a brilliant way of cutting through the plethora of mealy-mouthed verbiage and foggy thinking that has characterized so much ecumenical activity in recent decades, verbiage and fogginess which may indeed have had the very best of intentions, but which nevertheless achieved so little in real terms.

Let us also pray with all our heart and mind and strength that our vitally important ecumenical journey with our Greek and Russian Orthodox brethren will continue apace, that our charitable and respectful dialogue with them will bear much fruit, so that the universal Church might once again breathe with two whole lungs, and so that soon there may be but one flock and one shepherd. Domine, ut sit!

Thursday 29 March 2012

Dublin 1932

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