The relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux are being exposed for veneration in churches throughout England & Wales. St Thérèse (1873–97), the “Little Flower”, was a Carmelite nun inspired by an intense devotion to the person of Jesus Christ. Her practice of complete fidelity to Him in the smallest events of daily life, her “Little Way”, gives an example that shows how a profound spiritual life can be within the reach of ordinary men and women. This teaching, as she lived it, is described in her autobiography, “The Story of a Soul”. It led the Church to declare St Thérèse a Doctor of the Church, a teacher of the most profound truths of the Catholic faith.
The visit of her relics to our busy capital city teaches us that the most important work in life is to learn to know and love God in our own lives. Relics remind us that God himself made human life holy when he became a man, Jesus Christ. He continues to make himself known in the words and deeds of holy people.
Relics are a sign of God’s presence in his saints and a focus for our prayer. The relics of St Thérèse recall her “Little Way” of complete fidelity to Jesus Christ. In them she comes to us and invites us to follow Him. To prepare as a community to receive the relics into our Diocese, and to invite St Thérèse to pray for us and open our hearts to the grace of God, a Novena is recommended.
NOVENA PRAYER Come Holy Spirit and fill the hearts of the faithful, and kindle in them the fire of divine love. V. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created. R. And You shall renew the face of the earth.
Let us pray: O God, who have instructed the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit; grant that by the gift of the same Spirit, we may be ever truly wise and rejoice in His consolation, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Lord Jesus, through the life of St Thérèse, you have brought new hope to all who long to open their hearts to you. Teach us the secret of her ‘Little Way’ and help us to realise that we can always talk with You and bring You our gratitude, our smiles and our tears. Stay with us, Jesus, so that in the midst of our busy hours, we may turn to You in loving trust. Transform each passing moment of time into a moment of prayer. Fill every troubled heart with the confident faith of St Thérèse. In joy and in sorrow, in every circumstance, may our hearts rest in Your peace, who live and reign for ever and ever. Amen.
SAINT THERESE'S PRAYER FOR PRIESTS
O Jesus, I pray for your faithful and fervent priests;
for your unfaithful and tepid priests;
for your priests labouring at home or abroad in distant mission fields;
for your tempted priests;
for your lonely and desolate priests;
for your young priests;
for your dying priests;
for the souls of your priests in Purgatory;
but above all, I recommend to you the priests dearest to me:
the priest who baptised me;
the priests who absolved me from my sins;
the priests at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion;
the priests who taught and instructed me;
all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way.
O Jesus, keep them all close to your heart,
And bless them abundantly in time and in eternity. Amen.
HYMN TO SAINT THERESE
From clear high mansions of that shining palace
Where you enjoy the light of God's dear presence,
And plead our causes, mindful of your promise
Shower down your roses.
Roses of faith to shed its light supernal,
Roses of hope when obstacles surround us,
And for our strengthening in daily living
Roses of pure love.
Through your own childlike confidence and candor
Send us the rose of quietly discerning
Love of a Father, shining in each happening
Both sweet and bitter.
This be our portion, God forever blessed,
Father eternal, Son and Holy Spirit,
Whose is the glory which through all creation
Resounds forever.
October is traditionally the Month of the Holy Rosary. The feast, which falls on Wednesday 7th, has a great significance for the Order of Malta, as it is the commemoration of the victory of the Battle of Lepanto against the Turk in 1571, in which Our Lady's holy assistance is attributed to the prayer of the Rosary. In more recent time victories, including the fall of the Siege of Vienna, have been attributed to Our Lady's intercession through the prayer of the Rosary.
In our own age we ask Our Lady to pray for peace in the world, and for strength against the powers of darkness which surround us in all walks of life. Especially in the Hospital and Hospice we ask her intercession for the conversion of those in our country who would wage war on the sick, the elderly and the unborn.
THE HOLY ROSARY WILL BE RECITED BEFORE THE THURSDAY MASS EACH WEEK DURING OCTOBER, BEGINNING AT 6.15 pm.
On Thursday 18th June 2009, in the presence of the Grand Prior, the President of the British Association, Mr Charles Weld, invested Colonel Tommy Pace, RAMC, who has been sacristan of the Conventual Church for over thirty years, as a Knight of Malta.
On Sunday 14th June, the transferred Feast of Corpus Christi, a solemn Mass and procession around the Hospital was celebrated by members of the Order, Companions and their families, and the Sunday congregation, with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament at altars set up in the grounds and in the Hospice Reception. The procession was followed by a picnic lunch for families in the garden of the Order Chancellery, to which parishioners and members of the Order and their children came, and who enjoyed the sunny weather.
A Requiem Mass was celebrated, in the presence of the Grand Prior, for the repose of the soul David Lumsden of Cushnie, Knight of Honour and Devotion, Director of Ceremonies of the Scottish Delegation, on Saturday 6th December 2008.
Following the election of the Grand Prior of England Fra' Matthew Festing as 79th Grand Master of the Order on 11th March 2008, Fra' Fredrik Crichton-Stuart was installed by His Most Eminent Highness the Prince and Grand Master as Grand Prior of England on 21st April, in the Conventual Church.
Since 2003 the Holy Easter Triduum has been celebrated each year by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in the Conventual Church, as part of a spiritual retreat. These ceremonies are open to all.
The office of Tenebræ is celebrated each morning, and the Liturgies celebrated solemnly. Spiritual conferences are given each day by one of the chaplains to deepen our understanding of these Sacred Mysteries.
Below are some photographs of the ceremonies in 2007 and 2008, the first showing the procession of the Blessed Sacrament leaving the church at night on its way to the Altar of Repose.
The Good Friday veneration of the Cross is emphasised by the gaunt character of the denuded church.
The Easter Fire is blessed in the Hospital courtyard, as the Paschal Candle is prepared.
The glories of the Resurrection are celebrated at the Mass of the Easter Vigil, as all the majesty returns to the Church's Rites.
Frequent are the occasions upon which Requiem Masses, both funerals and memorials, are celebrated in the Church, for patients of the Hospital and Hospice, and members of the Order of Malta and their families.
Rarely however are such grand occasions seen as that celebrated on 22nd September 2007, the 200th Anniversary Requiem of Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York.
His Excellency Bishop Bernard Longley celebrated Pontifical Mass of Requiem for the repose of the soul of the man who might have been King of England.
Fra' Andrew Bertie, the first English Grand Master of the Order, was born on the 15th May 1929 elected on 11th April 1988, and died on 7th February 2008. His funeral took place in Rome, in the church of Santa Sabina on the Aventine.
A Requiem was celebrated in the Conventual Church in London on 14th February 2008.
The 19th century was the period of the great revival of Catholicism in Britain and symptomatic of this movement was the reintroduction of the Order of Malta into this country. The Order, so powerful in Europe in the Middle Ages, was suppressed in England along with the other Religious Orders by Henry VIII.
The wish to reintroduce the Order to Britain coincided with the return from the Crimea of the Sisters of Mercy to Bermondsey where they had been established in 1839. These nuns had nursed wounded British soldiers at Scutari and Florence Nightingale had written to them "… you were valued here as you deserve… the gratitude of the Army is yours".
Cardinal Wiseman was determined to establish a hospital for the poor of London, particularly the incurably sick and for children, and he saw in the Sisters of Mercy and in the Knights nursing and administrative ability to enable him to achieve his aim. In 1856 the nuns moved into 47 Great Ormond Street. The hospital opened on the Feast of St. Elizabeth of Hungary (17th November) 1856, following the purchase of the property by a group of leading Catholic laymen including the Duke of Norfolk and Sir George Bowyer.
Sir George Bowyer constructed the present magnificent church both for the knights of Malta and for the nuns and their patients. It was opened on the Feast of St. John 1864 by Cardinal Wiseman, the architect being George Goldie, a leading Catholic architect of the day, and was built "in the Italian baroque style particularly favoured by Anglican converts to Rome".
In the early l890's the Hospital moved to St John’s Wood, a former property of the Order before the Reformation, with the Children’s Hospital remaining in Great Ormond Street. The church was carefully dismantled and re-erected as the centrepiece of the new Hospital designed by Edward Goldie, the son of the original architect. The foundation stone of the reconstruction was laid by Cardinal Vaughan on 7th June l899 and it may be seen at the back of the church.
When Sir George Bowyer died in 1883 he left his heart to the church and it still lies beneath the slab marking it in front of the High Altar.
The Italianate façade of the church immediately informs the visitor that this is a Church of the Order of Malta - Maltese crosses abound.
The design, by George Goldie, is in fact a fairly close copy of the church of S Nicholas des Lorrains in Rome. Much of the contents of the church were installed in 1864, including the marble High Altar under its baldacchino; this was the gift of the Lieutenant Grand Master of the Order to the British Knights. The altar to the right, in Siena marble with a Spanish tortoiseshell reredos and crucifix, was the gift of Cardinal Wiseman, but had formerly belonged to the Throckmorton family, many of whose descendants are members of the Order today.
The church also contains two 17th century statues of saints over the west door facing the altar. These are reputed to have once been part of the stern decoration on one of the Order's galleys.
To the left to the sanctuary sits the large red and gilt throne occupied by the Grand Master of the Order when in England and by the Grand Prior of England at other times. The large black rock is from Mount Phileremos on Rhodes (the seat of the Order from l310 to l523) and is surmounted by a reproduction of the Icon of Our Lady of Philermo to whom the Order has a special devotion.
Visitors to the church will be struck by the large number of Maltese Crosses included in the decoration. The eight pointed cross has been used for 900 years by the Order and although its origins go back into the mists of time, it is probable that it was first used by merchants from Amalfi in Italy. The Order took it with them to Malta and that island adopted it as its own. Down the years it has been used as an illustration of the four cardinal virtues and the eight beatitudes by spiritual writers. Today it continues to be the principal badge of the Order.
Welcome to the new blog for the Conventual Church of Saint John of Jerusalem. As a first post, we include below some photographs from the Mass for the re-establishment of the Grand Priory of England on St John's Day, 23rd June 1993, and the Installation of Fra' Matthew Festing as 55th Grand Prior, in the presence of the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Luigi Barbarito, members of the hierarchy of England, and much of English Catholic society. As many will know, Fra' Matthew is now Grand Master of the Order. Please pray for the humanitarian and spiritual works of the Order of Malta. Sancta Maria de Phileremo, ora pro nobis. Sancte Joannes Baptista, ora pro nobis.
Lord Jesus, Thou hast seen fit to enlist me for Thy service among the Knights of St John of Jerusalem. I humbly entreat Thee through the intercession of the most holy Virgin of Philermo, of St John the Baptist, Blessed Gerard and all the Saints, to keep me faithful to the traditions of our Order. Be it mine to practise and defend the Catholic, the Apostolic, the Roman faith against the enemies of religion: be it mine to practise charity towards my neighbours, especially the poor and the sick; Give me the strength I need to carry out this my resolve, forgetful of myself, learning ever from Thy holy Gospel a spirit of deep and generous Christian devotion, striving ever to promote God’s glory, the world’s peace, and all that may benefit the Order of St John of Jerusalem. AMEN
THESE PAGES EXIST TO GIVE REPORTS AND IMAGES OF PAST EVENTS OF THE ORDER, AND TO PROVIDE PUBLICITY FOR FUTURE EVENTS, TO MEMBERS OF THE ORDER OF MALTA AND THE COMPANIONS AND THEIR FRIENDS.
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