REPORT ON BLESSED DAVID GUNSON PILGRIMAGE - AND SERMON TEXT

The Pilgrimage took place on Sunday and Monday as planned, the walk through the bustling muslim shops of the Old Kent Road to St Thomas Waterings giving it an uncanny affinity to the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem. Just as bustling would the street have been, though then populated with the bereaved Catholic poor, stripped of their religion, and their Protestant merchant masters, when Blessed David was dragged head-down on a hurdle along it. Life goes on, and sacred, sometimes momentous, things happen in spite of it.

400 years on, through all the secular change, the memory of the Pilgrim Route to Canterbury refuses to die. These photographs taken along the route on Sunday bear testimony.

We are grateful to Fr Mark Elliott-Smith for offering Holy Mass on the Monday evening, and to Fr Stephen Morrison, OPraem, for his wonderful homily.  For those who wish to study it at greater length, the transcript is given below.

The Professed Brethren 'social-distancing' carefully!

This was the first post-lockdown event of the Grand Priory, well done to all those came and joined in the celebrations.

Sermon for the Feast of Blessed David Gunson, Knight and Martyr

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.

Greetings to everybody listening to this video-sermon, and to all our friends in the order of Malta who will receive it on the feast day of Blessed David Gunson, Knight of the Order of Malta, naval man and an extraordinary hero, who was martyred under Henry VIII in defence of the rights of the Church. He was a martyr for the Truth - one who was tried for treason by the civil authorities for the admission of the Truth, namely that the King did not have supremacy in spiritual matters in this realm, and that King Henry was no better than a heretic for purporting to do so. As a result, Blessed David suffered the ultimate punishment, which at that time was an extremely cruel death by hanging, drawing and quartering. As a martyr, he is an example of heroism for all of us, alongside others of our holy religion who died at the same time, particularly Blessed Adrian Fortescue and the Venerable Thomas Dingley. But there were so many others - some named, some unnamed - who perished at the time of the Protestant Reformation, who remain examples to us of courage and fortitude, and of ‘speaking truth to Power,’ which is not always an easy thing to do.  

PRINCE BERTRAND D'ORLÉANS-BRAGANÇA and ST LOUIS

Following our report HERE on the attack on the statue of St Louis, King of France, in the eponymous city in Missouri, USA, we post below a video comment by Prince Bertrand d'Orléans-Bragança, Bailiff Grand Cross of Honour and Devotion of our Order. His Royal Highness is a descendant of the House of Bourbon, and a direct heir in the male line of Saint Louis.

His address is a rallying cry to Christendom. He is speaking to each one of us as Christian knights.

Saint Louis Roi de France, priez pour nous.

BLESSED DAVID GUNSON HOMILY

The Annual Homily for this Pilgrimage is this year preached 'virtually'. We are greatly indebted to Father Stephen Morrison, OPraem, for his profound insights into martyrdom, which speak to us very eloquently in this present time, in the video below.

 

Blessed David Gunson, pray for us

BLESSED DAVID GUNSON PILGRIMAGE

Our first post-lockdown event will be the Blessed David Gunson Pilgrimage. The pilgrimage this year will take a slightly different form, following the coronavirus shutdown and the fact that the feast falls on a Sunday. The celebrations will fall into three separate sections. 

(i)      Pilgrim Walk: the walk along the Martyr route will begin at 4pm on Sunday afternoon, 12th July. Please gather at 4pm sharp outside the (Anglican) church of St George the Martyr Borough High Street, SE1 1JA.  We shall walk as normally quietly saying the Rosary along the Old Kent Road to St Thomas Waterings for brief prayers, following which Anthony Delarue will provide drinks in the garden in Southwark to those who wish to come.

(ii)      Holy Mass of Blessed David Gunson: will be celebrated at 6pm on Monday 13^th July at, 6pm, at Our Lady of the Assumption, Warwick Street by Fr Mark Elliott-Smith. Members wishing to robe, please do so at the rear of the church and sit down once robed. You should not enter the sacristy or the rest of the building.

(iii)    Homily: preached by our chaplain Fr Stephen Morrison, OPraem, is posted  HERE. (This is wonderful, do not miss!)

If you feel able, please take this opportunity to return to the liturgical life of our Order by attending all or part of these celebrations. Appropriate social-distancing measures will be in place for each element. 

Please email mc(AT)gpesmom.org, if you intend to come to any of the above.  

Blessed David Gunson, pray for us.

FEAST OF BLESSED ADRIAN FORTESCUE MARTYR ON. PATRON OF THE GRAND PRIORY OF ENGLAND

Painting of Blessed Adrian Fortescue by Andrew Festing, brother of Grand Master Festing,
in the possession of the Order in London, and based upon the portrait in Rabat, Malta

Today is our Patronal Feast in England! Adrian Fortescue was born around 1480, the son of Sir John Fortescue of Punsborne, Hertfordshire. He was made a Knight of the Bath in 1503 and was high in the favour of King Henry VIII, taking part in the Wars of England against France in 1513 and 1523. His personal piety is attested by his Book of Hours which survives with devotional maxims in his own hand. As a cousin of Anne Boleyn, he was present when she was crowned as Queen in 1533. Sir Adrian was twice married and had seven children. He became a confrater of the Dominicans of Oxford in 1533. In 1539 he was attainted of High Treason without trial, by an Act of Parliament which condemned fifty persons opposed to Henry VIII's ecclesiastical policies. Adrian Fortescue was beheaded on Tower Hill, London on Wednesday 9 July 1539, together with the Venerable Sir Thomas Dingley, a Knight of the Order. The Order of St. John of Jerusalem has considered Sir Adrian as a martyr and has promoted devotion to him at least since the early seventeenth century as a member of the Order. Leo XIII declared him Blessed on 13 May 1895.

For more information click here, including a translation of Mgr Ducaud-Bourget's biography of Bl. Adrian.

COLLECT OF THE MASS

O God, since all things are within your power, grant through the prayers of blessed Adrian, your martyr, that we who keep his feast today may become stronger in the love of your name and hold to your holy Church even at the cost of our lives. Through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Blessed Adrian Fortescue, pray for us 

TUITIO FIDEI ALERT - SAINT LOUIS

It may seem a long way away, and at one level quite absurd, but this story, a spin-off of the satanic movements around the world of the last fortnight, impacts upon our entire culture and Faith.

The city and images of Saint Louis in the United States, named for the saintly King whom our forebears in the Order served during the Crusades, is being attacked by a mob. They wish to destroy the saint's statue, and rename the city. It's bad enough being attacked by people with some knowledge, as our Order has alway been, but here we have a bunch of uneducated idiots who don't know their history, who are motivated by hatred of all that is Catholic.

Please look at this and sign their petition. HERE.

Be under no delusions, this is the thin end of the wedge. Satan has tasted blood in recent months. Tedious as it may be, we have to fight each of these battles as they come along, a bit like playing tennis. Otherwise, quite simply, we lose. Christendom loses.

The Order of Malta doesn't lose.

Our Lady of Philermo, pray for us

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us

Saint Louis, pray for us

The painting is by el Greco, in the collection of the Louvre.

UPDATE

There is a very disturbing article of a protest HERE, where this time at least, Truth prevailed. But for how long? We must pray hard, and be prepared to act, in charity but firmly, if necessarily. 

The picture below, under a threatening sky, is from the scene. (On a happier note, how lovely that the City of St Louis, Missouri, looks so very French.)

CANON TUCKWELL RIP

Of your charity, pray for the repose of the soul of 

The Very Reverend Christopher Howard Joseph, 

Canon Tuckwell, 
Administrator of the Cathedral Church of the Precious Blood, Westminster,
Chaplain of our Order,

born Kingston-upon-Thames 25th September 1945,

who departed this life on Friday 26th June 2020 

at the Royal Trinity Hospice in Clapham.

Requiescat in pace.

The photograph shows his stall in the Cathedral, with the unfolded cappa of a Canon of the Cathedral Chapter. This will be placed upon the coffin at the funeral, and is the only time a Westminster Canon gets to wear his cappa with the train let down.