Juventutem London are going to Oxford

Shamelessly taken from the excellent Juventutem Oxford blog...


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This is the big event of the year for the Latin Mass Society locally, and involves not only a a really splendid Mass with beautiful singing, but a procession through the streets of Oxford from the place where some of the Catholic Martyrs were held, before their execution, to the place of execution itself. The priests who died in 1589 were dragged to their execution on hurdles; it seems right that we should retrace that route on foot, in thanksgiving for their witness to the faith, and in doing so make an act of witness ourselves.

This Pilgrimage has been instrumental in getting Oxford's two sites of martyrdom publicly recognised. This year we are going to the place where two priests and two laymen were hanged in 1589; there is a slate plaque marking the site at the end of Holywell Street (on number 100) which was blessed at the Oxford Pilgrimage by an auxiliary bishop of the Birmingham diocese, Bishop William Kenne, in 2008. Last year Archbishop Longely himself blessed another plaque, marking the site of the martyrdom of Bl George Napier, in the Castle, during the Oxford Pilgrimage. So look out for these plaques! They are not just tourist attractions, but sites of special spiritual significance. In these places the Catholic Faith was confirmed by the blood of martyrs.

So come along to Mass in Blackfriars at 11am on Saturday 22nd, Sat of 2nd Week, for a Solemn Mass in the ancient Dominican Rite celebrated by the Dominicans. The procession starts from outside St Michael at the North Gate, the Saxon church in Cornmarket which stood next to the Bocardo Prison in the 16th Century, at 2pm. We will walk down Broad Street and Holywell Street singing the Litany of the Saints, the Te Deum, and English hymns, and back again to Blackfriars for Benediction.

If anyone would like to be a marshall, or would like to volunteer to carry the LMS banner or the very exciting new processional statue which will be used for the first time on this procession, please email us!

(Photos: Archbishop Bernard Longley leading the procession in 2010; Solemn Mass in Blackfriars on the same occasion.)

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Juventutem London will find our way to a local inn or restaurant at the conclusion of the pilgrimage. We've got a Facebook event page. Please feel free to use it to invite all your friends.