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Last week we celebrated Candlemas with Thomas Whitehead Academy at Mass with KS2. As always, the pupils led the reading of the gospel and the intercessions (beautifully and thoughtfully composed by them). At the end of the Mass, we distributed blessed candles to everyone: a reminder of the Lord Jesus as our light and the light of the nations.
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Nigel Steele took up the position as organist of All Saints in January 1998, and has been organist for twenty-five years. He has played for approximately 1500 Masses and other regular services, two inductions, four ordinations, several confirmation and civic services, together with countless weddings and funerals. Playing the organ for a service is a three-pronged juggling act – leading a congregation, accompanying the choir and playing music beforehand and afterwards. Prior to his appointment he has been involved with the music at Houghton Regis since 1987, and has been making a joyful noise unto the Lord from either choirstalls or organ bench for over sixty years. Over the years he has enriched the choir’s repertoire with occasional anthems and carol arrangements, and has either composed or adapted the responsorial psalms and gospel acclamations used regularly in our liturgy. Nigel has also given occasional recitals for the benefit of our congregation and other organisations in the parish and wider community. Nigel’s repertoire of music played before and after our services not only includes music written for the organ, but also includes that written for other instruments which he has arranged and adapted for the organ. He has a special interest in performing music by Handel and other eighteenth-century English composers, which is sometimes played from facsimile copies of eighteenth-century editions. His other great love and special interest is French organ music from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries during the reign of Louis XIV, which is occasionally played from facsimile copies of the original editions. Nigel has also supervised the recent refurbishment and cleaning of the organ by Pipe Organ Services. Nigel is fully aware of the fact that the music at All Saints has been and continues to be a great feature of our parish life and mission both within the parish and for the wider community, and he will hopefully continue to maintain and develop this tradition for many years to come. A photo-post of a very busy year for our church community. Weekly worship at All Saints' with Thomas Whitehead Academy saw the introduction of a School Mass twice a term, attended by Key Stage 2 children and staff, with readings and intercessions lead by the pupils. A few of our volunteers continued to work in other schools of the town along with other from the Churches Together in Houghton Regis. Preparation for Easter started on the Sunday before Lent with the burning of last year’s palm crosses to make the ash used on Ash Wednesday. Holy Week and Easter Celebrations took us to the heart of the Christian faith, and the Easter Vigil was a very powerful service of renewal of our commitments to follow the Lord Jesus. The Coronation bank holiday weekend was marked by Big Lunch, a Service of Thanksgiving, and the planting of a Coronation Garden on the south-east side of All Saints’. In May and June, we also celebrated May Devotions to Our Lady Mary and the Festival of Corpus Christi. We also travelled to St Albans with our friends from the Church of the Holy Cross in Luton for a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Alban. Bishop Norman visited All Saints’ to administer the sacrament of Confirmation and to dedicate the high altar triptych in memory of Father Colin Gay, sometime Honorary Associate Priest of our parish. We had the great joy to celebrate many Weddings and Baptisms. From the middle of July, Father Diego went on a sabbatical leaving the parish in the capable hands of the churchwardens, administrator, two lay worship leaders, and volunteers. While Fr Diego was away, visiting clergy offered Mass on many Sundays and Wednesdays. As always, our worship has been constantly supported and greatly enhanced by our team of servers, coordinated by David, and our choir, led by Janet and Nigel. Members of All Saints' Knitting Group have been busy producing many little bonding squares and little colourful hats used by parents, carers, and hospital staff in the care of new-borns, particularly of premature babies. Bonding squares are small pieces of soft material, knitted or crocheted. These squares can be used to encourage bonding between mums/carers and their babies, through sensory perception. Skin-to-skin contact is the most effective way to bond with a new-born baby. This can usually be done immediately after birth but sometimes this is not possible. In these cases, mums/carers can use bonding squares. Using these squares could also improve mums’ supply of breast milk. Bonding squares have been supplied to the Luton and Dunstable Hospital, and Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham, while the hats will be sent to Dreamland Mission Hospital in Kimilili, near Mount Eldoret on the Kenyan/Ugandan border. Find out more about the Knitting Group here. On Monday 26 June we had the great pleasure of welcoming Bishop Norman Banks, Bishop of Richborough and Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of St Albans, among us for a service of Confirmation and for the dedication of the altar triptych. Bishop Norman celebrated the Mass and administered the sacrament of Confirmation to six candidates. What is Confirmation? Confirmation is a response to God’s love for us, and a special way of receiving the gifts of the Holy Spirit through prayer and the laying on of the bishop’s hands in preparation for a life of Christian faithfulness and service. Confirmation is also a step of personal faith: the candidates take on for themselves the promises made for them at Baptism, confirming their faith and their membership of the body of Christ, the Church. During the service the altar triptych was formally presented by Mr Terry Payne and dedicated to the glory of God, in memory of Fr Colin Gay, former Assistant Priest in our parish. We are very grateful also to our Town Mayor, Cllr Jimmy Carroll, for attending the dedication. The triptych’s central panel depicts the Lord Jesus Christ in glory with the Blessed Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist. St George and St John the Baptist are one the right section, St Wilfrid and St Theodore of Amasea on the left panel. The piece was painted by Nechita Laurentiu, a talented Romanian icon writer, using authentic gold leaf. The artist has worked for the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and he has several pieces displayed in UK church. The triptych was commissioned in 2007 for Preston Minster and placed above the high altar, encased between the back riddel posts. However, it was sold off in 2020 and purchased by a parishioner. On Saturday 10 June we celebrated our Corpus Christi Festival with our friends from the Church of the Holy Cross, Luton. Corpus Christi is the great solemnity in honour of the Holy Eucharist, and its Latin name literally means “Body of Christ”. The Eucharist is the Sacrament of the Lord’s Body in Blood and, in this Most Blessed Sacrament, the Lord Jesus is present in his fullness – Body, Blood, Soul, and Divine Nature. He is with us in the Eucharist to be our food, our sustenance, and our refuge. The Solemnity falls on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, but we have been transferring it to the Saturday of the same week for a few years now to facilitate the participation of both people and clergy from other parishes. Corpus Christi is marked by a procession of the Blessed Sacrament, where the Body of Christ, the Risen Lord Jesus among us under the form of bread, is carried by a priest outside the church accompanied by singing, and preceded by servers with incense, and the scattering of fragrant flowers and petals. At our festival the procession also featured a canopy held over the Blessed Sacrament and carried by members of the choir and congregation. The service ended with Benediction, invoking the blessing of the Lord Jesus on our parishes and all our people. Blessed, praised, hallowed, and adored be Our Lord Jesus Christ in his throne of glory, and in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar! On Saturday 3 June a group of worshippers from our church community and from the Church of the Holy Cross, Luton, travelled to St Albans Cathedral for a short pilgrimage to pray at the shrines of St Alban and of St Amphibalus. Father Diego and Father Richard concelebrated a votive Mass of St Alban and led the people in prayer for Houghton Regis and for Marsh Farm. After Mass the ministries of laying on of hands and anointing took place at the shrine altar. Saint Alban, first martyr of England, Pray for us! Saint Amphibalus, priest and martyr, Pray for us! The Easter Vigil, which is the greatest and most noble of all solemnities, marks the end of the emptiness and sorrow of Holy Saturday, and leads us into the celebration of Christ’s victory over Death and Hell. The word ‘Alleluia’ (meaning “God be praised”) which has been silent throughout Lent, returns. The Vigil is arranged in such a way that after the Lucernarium (the lighting of the Paschal Candle) and the singing of the Exultet (the Easter Proclamation), we meditate on the wonders the Lord God has done for his people, focusing on the theme of Renewal. After this, we are invited to renew our Baptismal commitments to the Christian life before being called to celebrate the Eucharist, the living memorial of his Death and Resurrection. Photo Copyright: All Saints' PCC Houghton Regis Good Friday's liturgy centres on Jesus’ Passion (his sufferings) and Death on the Cross for our salvation. In order for us to enter more deeply into this great mystery, the “Celebration” is marked by deep silence. The act of Veneration of the Cross, when a wooden crucifix is unveiled before the congregation, is replaced at All Saints' by veneration of a Relic of the True Cross of Jesus, usually kept at St Thomas' Church. On Good Friday and on the following day, by a most ancient tradition, the Church does not celebrate the Sacraments, except for Confession and the Anointing of the Sick. Holy Communion is distributed from the store of Blessed Sacrament reserved consecrated on Maundy Thrusday. The church remains stripped of all decoration. It continues bare and empty through the following day, which is a day without a liturgy: there can be no adequate way of recalling the being dead of the Son of God, other than silence and desolation. But within the silence there grows a sense of peace and completion, and then rising excitement as the Easter Vigil draws near. Photo Copyright: All Saints' PCC Houghton Regis The Thursday of Holy Week, called Maundy Thursday or sometime Holy Thursday, recalls the day when the Lord Jesus instituted the Holy Eucharist, the sacrament of his Body and Blood. The name Maundy Thursday derives from the Latin mandatum, meaning ‘commandment’, because of the use of John 13.34 in the Antiphon. At this Mass, the "Mass of the Lord's Supper", the Priest washes ceremonially the feet of twelve members of the congregation to remember Christ’s washing of his twelve Apostles at the Last Supper. This Mass stresses the importance Jesus puts on humility and service within the Church. Also emphasised are the fundamental importance of the Eucharist and the sacrifice of Christ’s Body, which we now find present in the Blessed Sacrament. O Bread of Heaven, beneath this veil Thou dost my very God conceal: My Jesus, dearest treasure, hail! (St Alphonsus) At the conclusion of the Mass, people are invited to continue adoring the Blessed Sacrament at the Altar of Repose, just as the disciples were invited to watch with the Lord during his agony in the garden of Gethsemane. Photo Copyright: All Saints' PCC Houghton Regis |
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