CALENDAR OF SERVICES FOR NOVEMBER 2019
Sunday readings from Revised Common Lectionary, Year C (Year of Luke)
Weekday readings from Lectionary for Ordinary Time (Year One)
Liturgical colour (LC) green
Sunday, 3rd November: Solemn Feast of All Saints: All Hallows Day (transferred): LC white:
9.30am Parish Mass in Llanigon
11.00am Parish Mass in St. Mary’s, Hay
2.30pm District Mass in Little St. Mary’s Capel-y-ffin
Monday, 4th November: Thirty First Week of Year
Tuesday, 5th November: ‘Darling, what are those noises downstairs in the cellar?’
Wednesday, 6th November: All Souls Day (transferred):
10.00am Requiem Mass in St. Mary’s, Hay
Thursday, 7th November: St. Willibrord (658-739), Apostle of Frisia, Archbishop of Utrecht, Patron Saint of Holland and founder of Echternach monastery in Luxembourg: Willibrord, native of Northumbria, was the first in a succession of English missionaries, who were sent to Continental Europe during a century of apostolic endeavour. Greatest of these was Boniface, who preached alongside Willibrord for three years, before proceeding to Germany. Willibrord was trained not only by Wilfrid but also by Irish monks at Mellifont, where he received ordination. During his mission he depended very much on support from the Pope and the Christian King of the Franks. Like Boniface Willibrord bravely defied pagan superstition. He killed ‘sacred’ cows to provide delicious dinners for famished followers. He broke the ‘sacred’ silence of a spring by using it for a service of Christian baptism.
10.00am Mass in Chapel of St. John Baptist, Lion Street: If the chapel is still under repair, services are moved from St. John’s to St. Mary’s.
Friday, 8th November: Feast: All Saints of Wales
Saturday, 9th November: Festival: Dedication of the Lateran Basilica (cathedral of the Roman diocese).
Sunday, 10th November: Thirty Second Sunday and Week of Year: Trinity XXI: Remembrance Sunday
9.30am Parish Mass in Llanigon
1.00am Parish Mass in St. Mary’s, Hay
Wednesday, 13th November: St. Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917), foundress of Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart; Patron Saint of Immigrants; first citizen to be canonised from the land of Trump; a diminutive woman, strong in spirit but weak in health: Mother Cambrini had wanted to go as a missionary from her native Italy to China. However, Pope Leo XIII changed her destination to U.S.A. in view of the ‘white slave trade’ of Italian emigration to America. When Mother, accompanied by six nuns, landed in New York, Bishop Corrigan told her to go back home, because he only wanted priests. She responded, ‘I have letters from the Pope’, and she stayed – unwelcome and utterly destitute. From this bleakest of beginnings, the achievements of Mother Cabrini’s sisterhood were vast in founding schools, hospitals, orphanages etc. She travelled back and forth to Italy, and across both parts of the American continent. Her service was given above all to Italian immigrants, at that time often treated as an underclass.
10.00am Mass in St. Mary’s, Hay
Thursday, 14th November: St. Dyfrig, monk-bishop from Hereford – Gwent, died in 500AD (on the roughest estimate). This places him a couple of generations before Dewi Sant. Dyfrig belonged to our own beautiful valley of the Wye, but he used to spend Lent on Caldey, and he travelled north to die on Bardsey. In the Middle Ages diocesan press officers were already in business. In 1120 they accomplished a grand coup. Dyfrig’s relics were transported to Llandaff Cathedral, which sought to gain thereby publicity and hard cash. The nearest Dyfrig churches to Hay are Moccas and Gwenddwr.
10.00am Mass in St. John’s Chapel
Sunday, 17th November: Thirty Third Sunday and Week of Year: Trinity XXII:
9.30am Parish Mass in Llanigon
11.00am Parish Mass in St. Mary’s, Hay
2.30pm Evensong in Little St. Mary’s, Capel-y-ffin
Wednesday, 20th November: St. Edmund (841-69), King of East Anglia and Martyr: Except for King Alfred’s realm of Wessex, England came to be occupied by Scandinavian invaders. Edmund was defeated and killed at Hellesdon, Norfolk, by the great army of Vikings under Ingwar. In 915 his remains were transferred to Bedricsworth, to be known later as Bury St. Edmunds. In pursuit of national reconciliation, the Danish King Cnut built a stone church and founded a Benedictine abbey to shelter St. Edmund’s shrine. In the Wilton Diptych there is a picture of two royal patrons of England, Edmund the Martyr and Edward the Confessor.
10.00am Mass in St. Mary’s Hay
Thursday, 21 November: Feast: Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary: This is one of the Twelve Great Feasts of Orthodoxy.
PROPER HYMN: ‘The most holy Virgin Mary, herself the living Temple that is to hold God, is dedicated within the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem. Young girls, bearing lamps, now go before her. Her noble parents, Joachim and Ann, leap for joy, for they have borne her that is to bear the Creator, and she, the all-pure One, enters, with rejoicing, the Holy of Holies, and is fed by the hands of an angel. She it is that shall become Mother of Christ, who grants the world great mercy’. This festival makes use of apocryphal myth rather than biblical history. The message of this feat is Mary’s necessary consecration by the Holy Spirit and symbolised by her legendary experience: that, between the age of three and her espousal to Joseph, the Blessed Virgin inhabited the innermost sanctuary of the temple, like a sort of boarding school served by angelic caterers.
10.00am Mass in St. John’s Chapel
Sunday, 24th November: Solemnity of Christ the King: Sunday next before Advent: LC white:
9.30am Parish Mass in Llanigon
11.00am Parish Mass in St. Mary’s, Hay
Monday 25th November: Thirty Fourth and Last Week of Year
Wednesday, 27th November
10.00am Mass in St. Mary’s, Hay
Hay Winter Festival: 28th November – 1st December
Thursday, 28th November:
10.00am Mass in St. John’s Chapel
Saturday, 30th November: Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle
EVENSONG IS SAID OR SUNG IN ST. MARY’S, HAY, EVERYDAY AT SIX O’CLOCK.
