The Conception of Our Lady

An unusually high number of people visited The Rose Maniple on Tuesday. For those who are interested, I marked the day with a Procession and Solemn Mass at the Church of St Mary Magdalene. The leaflet hasn't been posted, but this pdf from a couple of years ago is pretty typical - although, maddeningly, the processional hymn this year was to "Daily, daily."

The day before, on the feast of St Ambrose, I visited Trinity College Chapel, where the Dean of Divinity, the Revd Canon Dr David Neelands, presided at Holy Communion after the rite of 1552. There were some anachronisms. By habit, most people said some prayers (the general confession, the prayer of humble access, for example) that the rubrics clearly meant to be presbyteral orations. "O come, O come, Emmanuel" and "Comfort, comfort ye my people" replaced the metrical psalms that we had had sung the year before. Several people made liberal use of the Sign of the Cross. The Dean celebrated in a comely surplice standing at the north side (not end, for the orientation was done the right way) of the holy table, with an unrealistic number of communicants (last year, at least, they had to sign up in advance) kneeling in a circle around the perimeter of the chancel from the end of the Exhortation. The rector of St Thomas's, Huron Street, preached what I suspect may have been one of the Homilies.

Readers in the Southern Ontario area should note the celebration of the First Mass of Christmass at Christ the Saviour Monastery in Hamilton, Wednesday 6 January, tentatively at 7pm. The Hamilton Schola Cantorum will sing the propers of the ancient Western Rite.