Send forth your spirit, O Lord

Today is Pentecost.

The Easter season comes to an end, but Christ, who has ascended to the Father, promises to send the Advocate, an event which is commemorated today, bringing to completion the Paschal mystery: "The Holy Spirit prepares us with his grace in order to draw us to Christ. He manifests the risen Lord to us, opening our minds. He makes present the mystery of Christ. And he reconciles us, bringing us into communion with God."

The Liturgy, the most perfect form of worship which we can offer to the Father, expresses most perfectly the meaning of a celebration, and today is no different. The new translation of today's preface of the Mass, addressed to the Father, reads:

Bringing your Paschal mystery to completion, you bestowed the Holy Spirit today on those you made your adopted children by uniting them to your Only Begotten Son. This same Spirit, as the Church came to birth, opened to all peoples the knowledge of God and brought together the many languages of the earth in profession of the one faith.

The Roman liturgy is as succinct as ever in its simple and noble expressions.

Tonight, those to be ordained, which, for our diocese, includes Pádraig, make their Profession of Faith at Vespers. This is a public act, sworn on Holy Scripture, proclaimed aloud and written in their own hand, of their fidelity to Christ and the Church, before they are called to be ordained in a few weeks.

High Mass in the Slipper Chapel:
Oscott on pilgrimage to Walsingham in the 1930s.
It was on this pilgrimage that Oscott donated a processional cross
to the shrine, which is still used today. Hopefully, we will use it tomorrow!

This evening also sees the arrival of the students from Ushaw who will be joining us in September. They are spending the whole week with us at Oscott. We will be spending the middle of the week undertaking more pastoral study days on the new English translation of the Roman Missal. Tomorrow, however, we are all traveling to Walsingham together on pilgrimage, to ask Our Lady's intercession for our community and the needs of the world. We are looking forward to being back in East Anglia, even for only a few hours!

At the end of this week, we are hosting Invocation! Please keep all these intentions in your prayers this week.




Spiritus Domini, the Introit Antiphon for the second Mass of Pentecost, which was sung at Mass at Oscott today, it reads:
The Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world, alleluia, and that which contains all things has knowledge of the voice, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face, alleluia.