VOTIVE MASS FOR ST. RICHARD GWYN, WREXHAM CATHEDRAL

Saturday 18th October 2008

Tim Fawcett, LMS Wrexham Representative, writes:

The Latin Mass Society’s commemoration of St. Richard Gwyn at the Cathedral Church of Our Lady of Sorrows, Wrexham drew members from far and wide on Saturday October 18th to offer divine worship.

The event started with a Rosary procession from the Beast Market, the place in Wrexham where St. Richard Gwyn was hanged, drawn and quartered in 1584 for refusing to attend Protestant services. Wrexham has been extensively redeveloped over recent years and much of the procession route was through new shopping precincts. The Beast Market itself is now bounded on two sides by a supermarket and department stores, but in plan is much the same as it was four hundred and twenty-four years ago.

The procession was followed by Low Mass at the main altar of the Cathedral celebrated by Fr. Gerard McGuiness of Shrewsbury diocese. There was a congregation of about forty. Vestments were kindly loaned for the occasion by Mrs S. Sunderland of Newtown parish in the south of the diocese.

In his homily Fr. McGuiness referred to St. Richard Gwyn’s abhorrence for the replacement of the high altar with a ‘mean table’ and lamented the number of churches at which Mass is now celebrated without adornment, without even a crucifix and facing the congregation.

A relic of St. Richard Gwyn had been set on a table with candles at the side of the sanctuary and was available for private veneration after the Mass.

Cathedral staff and clergy offered every assistance to the pilgrims and grateful thanks are due to them. It is hoped that another event of similar type can be arranged for St. Richard’s feast day on 17th October next year which falls on a Saturday.