A Whole Week of the Traditional Latin Mass at Pantasaph Friary


Torch of The Faith News on Sunday 24 July 2016 - 22:27:37 | by admin

at_pantasaph.jpg
Photo of High Mass in St. David's Church, Pantasaph, in July 2014 taken by Dr. Joseph Shaw.

We were delighted to read at the Latin Mass Wrexham blog that the Traditional Latin Mass will be offered every single day this week in St. David's Church at Pantasaph Franciscan Friary in North Wales. This is because the St. Catherine's Trust Summer School and the Latin Mass Society Latin Course are holding their annual week-long meetings at the friary.

Even if you are not attending these courses, all are welcome to attend St. David's Church for the Holy Masses.

The details for these Masses are: Sunday 24th July 5:30pm; Monday 25th July - Saturday 30th July inclusive 11:30 am; and Sunday 31st July at 11:00am. There will also be Sung Compline in the church at about 9pm each evening. The address is Pantasaph Friary, Monastery Road, Pantasaph, CH8 8PE.

We highly recommend these opportunities to any readers who can get to them.

Happy Memories
at_pantasaph_20.jpg
Pantasaph Friary (at left) with St. David's Church (to the right). The forested hill behind includes a marvellous Stations of the Cross with an indulgenced Crucifix at the summit; a splendid Rosary Walk; and a pleasant Lourdes Grotto cut into the craggy rock of the hillside. Rabbits often hop across the pathways, whilst Buzzards soar above the trees overhead.

As well as memories of some very painful crosses, Pantasaph Friary will always hold happy memories for us. From 2007 - 2009, we rented a bungalow in a nearby Welsh village to be close to the monastic prayer and the evangelization team which was then reaching out from the friary into North Wales and Cheshire. In fact, Torch of The Faith was launched during a Day of Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, at the friary, in the summer of 2008.

Earlier this year, we wrote an article about the hillside Stations of the Cross at Pantasaph as part of our Favourite Calvaries series. I noticed today that there are a couple of aspects in that article which need correcting. I had suggested that the founders, Lord and Lady Fielding, were married in 1849. I must have inverted my ''6'' and my ''9'' keys, because it was, in fact, 1846! I also said that St. David's was designed by A.W.N. Pugin. It was a little more nuanced than that: the original plans were designed by T.H. Wyatt; and Pugin later adapted and developed them for Catholic worship. The earlier article has now been corrected with these details.

As I explained in that earlier article - here is how it happened.

Lord Rudolph Fielding, later the 8th Earl of Denbigh, and his wife Louisa Pennant, were devout Anglicans at the time of their wedding. To celebrate their marriage, they commissioned the design and construction of St. David's in the rolling green countryside above the Dee Estuary. When they converted to the Catholic Faith in 1850, the planned church converted with them!
at_pantasaph_11.jpg
St. Francis of Assisi window - One of the fine stained glass windows in St. David's Church at Pantasaph.

Under Cardinal Wiseman, Lord Fielding took an active part in many charitable enterprises. In 1852, Lord and Lady Fielding established the community of Capuchin Franciscans next to St. David's Church. Their capacious friary was eventually completed in the 1860's. 

One of the highlights of a visit to Pantasaph is the St. Pio garden shrine. Since the feast of Pentecost in 1999, Pantasaph has been designated as the National Shrine of St. Padre Pio. The shrine garden includes a stone outdoor altar and fine statues of St. Pio and Our Lady of Fatima.
at_pantasaph_30.jpg
When I mentioned the other day that we used to attend outdoor Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament in the grounds at Pantasaph, this was the place I was referring to!

A couple of the friars, who have sinced moved on to pastures new, kindly invited us to give catechetical talks to pilgrims at the shrine on three occasions.
at_pantasaph_12.jpg
In September 2008, baked by the sun and flanked by the papal banners, we spoke to a couple of hundred Catholics, after Holy Mass, on the theme of St. Padre Pio - Father, Shepherd and Icon of Christ Crucified. In June 2011, we returned to Wales to speak to another gathering on the theme of Jesus, Our Divine Guest in Holy Communion. Then, on Ascension Sunday 2012, we spoke about the importance of The Ascension in the Daily Life of Catholics.

During the 1870's, the Capuchin monks developed the outdoor Stations of the Cross, which still zig-zag up the forested hillside behind the St. Pio garden to this day.
at_pantasaph_100.jpg
In a clearing at the very top of the hill is found the large crucifix, which featured in our Favourite Calvaries article in March.

When Lord and Lady Fielding converted to the Catholic Faith, Bl. Pope Pius IX granted an Indulgence to those who devoutly visited this Calvary scene, made the Stations of the Cross, or looked from a distance at the Cross whilst praying a ''Hail Mary'' for the re-conversion of England.

His Holiness also gave the Fieldings the, then, newly discovered relics of St. Primitivus. These sacred relics still repose beneath the Lady Altar in St. David's Church today.

Several years ago, some of the friars that we were friends with at Pantasaph restored the Tabernacle and Big Six candles to the centre of the sanctuary. For years before this, the Tabernacle had been relegated to a side chapel...

One of these friars told us that a couple of monks had searched in the grounds for Pugin's original wooden raredos from the High Altar - which he had learned had been buried there decades earlier! - but it seemed to have disintegrated in the interim.

Apparently, during some of the iconoclastic vandalism which broke throughout the Church in the years after the Second Vatican Council, some of Pugin's classical art work was destroyed and lost forever.

That raredos and the original High Altar were really national treasures; having even been displayed in the themed ''Medieval Court'' at the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than that, they were treasures in God's House.

St. David's had also contained altar rails and a pulpit. There are no altar rails today and, according to some sources, the pulpit was removed and actually destroyed during the post-Vatican II re-ordering...
ascension_2.jpg
In spite of this religio-cultural vandalism, St. David's Church is still a beautiful place of spiritual sanctuary.

Pugin's original Madonna and Child statue, together with the Lady Chapel raredos, are still in the sublime Lady Chapel. There is also a fine central Crucifix, a great deal of beautiful stained glass, carved wood, painted script and colourful wall-stencilling. The above statue of St. Padre Pio is a welcome recent addition.
ascension_3.jpg
There are many good people in the local area and evangelization, prayer, healing and conversions still grow from the friary.

Amazingly, even as I was gathering the photos for this post during the afternoon, Angie bumped into our old friends Anne and Gwyn, who were visiting on Merseyside.
at_pantasaph_3.jpg
Here we are in the Pantasaph Pilgrims' Hall with Anne and Gwyn on the day that they were received into the Catholic Church, at St. David's Church, in September 2008. Since then, they have been helping others to find the True Faith. God bless you guys!

It struck me today that, due to its architectural importance, the scale of the buildings, the support of some very committed people, its proximity to the A55 road link, and the annual week of Latin Masses each July, that St. David's has a lot to recommend it as a permanent location for a Traditional Latin Mass parish in the Wrexham Diocese.

Just a thought...

Anyway, in the meantime, the message to anyone wanting to attend St. David's Church for the above-mentioned daily Traditional Latin Masses, and/or the evening Sung Compline this week, is that the door is open and All are Welcome!
at_pantasaph_1.jpg
Don't miss this great opportunity!

St. David of Wales - Pray for us!


You must be logged in to make comments on this site - please log in, or if you are not registered click here to signup