A mighty fortress

I've recently made friends with a sturdy Latin Mass Community facing certain difficulties. It's a group which extends up to, say, 50 to 70 of the faithful, travelling considerable distances to get to a regional Mass centre several hundred miles from a major city. Yet this isolated group punches with some force. One member is highly prominent in Right to Life, another in local politics, and a third may well provide a very necessary boost to jobs available in the area. It looks like the supply of a priest for Mass even on a weekly basis is going to be difficult. It's pointless moaning about the local priests who could help them out- they're all too compromised by the herd mentality of the NO clergy. The one who could be targeted to some use seems to hide behind lock doors twitching the curtains and trembling whenever one of the LMS crowd come knocking at the Presbytery door. With their regular priest ailing at the moment they are forced to rely on a foreign priest to get the basics allowed them by Summorum Pontificum.

Well, of course, my first thought- skeptic as I am- is that perhaps one of the greater urban centres could forego a High Mass for a Sung Mass for the sake of their country cousins. Just a possibility there- this is what is happening. Secondly perhaps somebody reading this post will know of somebody who might be able to help out for a Sunday or two. Then they, like the visiting priest, can spend three working days of time organising the permissions needed to say one Mass. Finally, and here I really enter cloud cuckoo land, the diocesan bishop responsible for this group of the faithful could just arrange for Mass to be said. What a wicked thought! Apparently it might detract from the lay led Communion service available with ease in the same chapel.

The picture, by the way, is 'symbolic' and is several hundred miles away from the valiant group. Entries on a postcard.