Epiphany of Our Lord Catholic Church
  • Home
  • Online Giving
  • Map: Find us!
  • Meet the Staff
  • Calendar
  • Sacrament Prep
  • Men's Club (Holy League)
  • Altar Boy page
  • American Heritage Girls
  • Troops of St. George
  • Help! I cannot find the right Mass in my missal! I don't know when to sit, stand or kneel!
  • Pastor's bulletin article
  • Council of Catholic Women
  • Knights of Columbus
  • Photos
  • Youth Group!
    • Anima Christi
    • Sancti Amici
  • Latin Mass Schedule
  • Talks you don't want to miss!
  • Adult Catechism Class audio
  • Understand the Bible!
  • Extra Stuff
  • Things that need doing
  • Music
  • Bulletins
  • Covid information
  • CEW
  • Parish Business Directory

He only shuts up when he is writing!

Our Lady of Walsingham

9/23/2018

 
From the Pastor:    Our Lady of Walsingham

      As you are aware, this Monday evening at 7:00 pm I will celebrate Mass for local Catholics who are associated with the Personal Ordinariate of the chair of St. Peter. (Everyone else is most welcome to attend, too, so put it on your calendar!) Put simply, the Ordinariate is the branch of Catholicism for those who were Anglican or Episcopal and have converted to the Catholic faith and are allowed to use a special Missal for a Form of the Mass which is similar to but different than both the Ordinary Form (Novus Ordo) and the Extraordinary Form (Traditional Latin) Masses. Call it a hybrid, if you will. I don’t say that to be disrespectful and I am pretty sure that a priest of the Ordinariate would probably describe it in much more glowing terms, but I don’t really know how else to describe it in a succinct manner and still give you the general picture of how the Mass will be celebrated. Anyway, since I was asked to celebrate this Mass on their big feast day, Our Lady of Walsingham, who is the patroness of the Ordinariate (their cathedral church in Texas is even named for her), I thought it would be a good idea to get an altar Missal for the occasion. Somebody was kind enough to send me a link to the missal publishing company (it is located in England, of course, as not everything in the world revolves around the US) and I placed my order on Amazon Europe (or something like that). Unlike the Amazon I am used to dealing with, there was no “second day delivery” option. So I waited. And waited. And waited. They had given a quite wide range of expected delivery dates and when the last one was past and still no missal had arrived, I emailed the company. When they replied it was to send me a US Postal Service tracking number and a statement from the USPS that it was already delivered to Tampa and was awaiting “acceptance”, whatever that means. So I got online with the USPS and put in the tracking number and asked for information on the delivery. The next day I received notice that the package was moving from Tampa to Ybor City and would be delivered to me by Friday (of last week). (“Awaiting acceptance” evidently means “sitting on a shelf until somebody bothers us about it”.) They actually delivered it this past Thursday morning, a day “early”. I excitedly tore into the box and pulled out a very beautiful leatherbound Roman Missal, Third Typical Edition. In other words, an elegant Missal for use at a Novus Ordo Mass. Yes, the one I wanted is evidently out of stock so, rather than lose a sale, they sent the wrong one instead. Oh well. I tried. If anyone out there wants to give a NO priest a very nice altar missal, let me know before I send it back!
      Of course, one of the things I had to do was research a little about Our Lady of Walsingham. Every place I look which mentions her feast day says that in the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar it is celebrated on September 24, the date on which the Mass was requested. Yet on our TLM calendar, it is the feast of Our Lady of Ransom. On the Novus Ordo calendar, there is no celebration of Our Lady (or any Saint, for that matter) listed. Wikipedia, which is not exactly noted for complete accuracy even though it is often a good starting point, is one of only two places I found which claims that Our Lady of Ransom and Our Lady of Walsingham are one and the same. It explains it this way. “According to the reputed Marian apparition to Lady Richeldis, the Blessed Virgin Mary fetched her soul from England to Nazareth during a religious ecstasy to show the house where the Holy Family once lived and was then tasked to build an imitation of the home in which the Annunciation of Archangel Gabriel occurred. The building structure came to be known as the ‘Holy House’, and later became both a shrine and the focus of pilgrimage to Walsingham. The wooden image was carved in Oberammergau, Germany, and was once associated with the Virgin of Mercy under the venerated Marian title of Our Lady of Ransom, sometimes locally worded as ‘Our Lady of the Dowry’. The popularity of the Marian cult gradually localized the place of devotion as ‘Our Lady of Walsingham’.”
      The second place I found confirming this was the online old Catholic Encyclopedia. It included one simple line under the heading of Our Lady of Ransom. “In England the devotion to Our Lady of Ransom was revived in modern times to obtain the rescue of England as Our Lady's Dowry.” So, if Our Lady of Ransom, Our Lady of the Dowry, and Our Lady of Walsingham are all the same (of course, it is the same Blessed Mother; I mean if they are all the same like Our Lady of the Rosary and Our Lady of Fatima are simply two titles of the Blessed Mother as she appeared to the children in Fatima) that makes it quite interesting. St. Peter Nolasco, following a vision of Our Lady of Ransom, started the religious order of Mercedarians to rescue (by means of paying ransom) Catholics enslaved by Muslims and who were in danger of losing their souls through apostasy. Connecting the dots, once-Catholic England became Anglican and is becoming Muslim. Hmmm... Our Lady, pray for us!

​With prayers for your holiness,

Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

Dr. Foster Lerner
9/28/2018 10:15:20 pm

Thank you so much for offering such a reverent mass for us Ordinariate folk, Fr. We appreciate you and your holy ministry in Tampa.


Comments are closed.

    Author:
    ​Fr. Palka

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus
  • Home
  • Online Giving
  • Map: Find us!
  • Meet the Staff
  • Calendar
  • Sacrament Prep
  • Men's Club (Holy League)
  • Altar Boy page
  • American Heritage Girls
  • Troops of St. George
  • Help! I cannot find the right Mass in my missal! I don't know when to sit, stand or kneel!
  • Pastor's bulletin article
  • Council of Catholic Women
  • Knights of Columbus
  • Photos
  • Youth Group!
    • Anima Christi
    • Sancti Amici
  • Latin Mass Schedule
  • Talks you don't want to miss!
  • Adult Catechism Class audio
  • Understand the Bible!
  • Extra Stuff
  • Things that need doing
  • Music
  • Bulletins
  • Covid information
  • CEW
  • Parish Business Directory