Battle Re-Enactment

One of my sons has joined a battle re-enactment group, and last Sunday we went along to a place called Harthill, halway between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

I have been to similar events but usually these were from an earlier period, like Vikings, or Redcoats and Highlanders.

This event was from the First and Second World Wars.

There were guided tours if the trenches, built especially be the respective groups. There was a tank, should have been a replica WWII fighter, there was archery, Vikings even.

The weather was not the best, and it kept the crowds away.

My son is a member of group who portray a German army unit. I wonder how they had mock battles if there was not such a group?

All those involved put in a great deal of time and effort and money. They try as best they can to recreate what things would have been like at those times in History.

There were displays, and everyone was happy to answer questions. And the day ended with a mock battle between an American group -complete with tank- and a German group entrenched in their ditch.

Kidwelly Priory and St Mary's Church

When my children were much younger....and me too, we had many a happy holiday in Wales. We stayed in a little village called Gorrig, near LLandysul. Our host for all these great times were the late Sally and Cerdin Jones. Sadly missed.

We visited Kidwelly, to see the Castle there. We were unaware that once upon a time, there was a monastery there.

It was never a large complex. In fact it was one of the smallest Benedictine Cells founded by the Normans in Wales. It was a daughter of Sherbourne in Dorset, but throughout its existence it remained an remote and little known monastery.

It was the Norman Bishop of Salisbury who founded the monastery. Before that though, there had been Christian activity. Saint Cadog and Saint Teilo had worked in this area. There were ancien Holy Wells in the surrounding area.

The Welsh people are a proud people. Monasteries of the "Celtic" style were well thought of by the Welsh, but they were distinctly unhappy about the new Latin style Benedictine monasteries.

I

n the 12th century, when St David was bishop, The Lord of Kidwelly granted to God, to the monks of Sherbourne and to st Mary's Kidwelly, 12 acres of land around the Church of St Cadoc, which adjoined the Lands of St Mary's.

From then, till the dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII, the small group of tenacious monks held on to their possessions till Sherbourne was dissolved.

The Church building was still needed as a Parish Church, as happened throughout Wales with many Benedictine Churches. So the townspeople retained control of the nave of the Church.

But perhaps the most astonishing thing about Kidwelly is the survival to the present day of an alabaster statue of the Madonna and Child.

At one point, the minister, unhappy at the reverence shown to the statue, and seeing it as a vestage of popery, had it buried in the graveyard.

Such was the outcry that it was dug up again.

Since 1971, it has been in a niche in the East window.

http://www.kidwellyhistory.co.uk/

Pope PiusXII and the Jews

There was an article in the Daily Telegraph today suggesting that Pope Pius may have saved hundreds of thousands of Jews.

But this was already known by anyone who seeks the Truth.

Sadly, today the Church has many enemies who have no interest in the Truth. They seek only to destroy the Church. And the upcoming visit of Pope Benedict has become a catalyst in their attacks.
A wonderful article entitled, " A Righteous Gentile: Pope Pius and the Jews" by Rabbi David Dalin Ph.D can be found on the internet at www.catholicleague.org/pius

It is too long to quote here, but everyone should read this article. It says everything and should still the clamouring voices. But will it?

I doubt that very much. The enemies of the Church scent blood after the recent scandals within the Church, and they will not give up so easily. The Truth will not get in their way.

Please find the article above, read it, then spread the message to all your friends.

The time is now for all Catholics to stand and defend Holy Mother Church. Don't turn away and leave it to someone else. Your Church needs you now!!!

Abbey of The Blessed Virgin Mary, Margam

This Abbey was founded in the second half of the 12th Century by the Earl of Gloucester. It was a daughter house to Clairvaux Abbey.

It is believed that the abbey was built near to the site of a Celtic monastic house. Carved stones and monuments in the nearby Stones Museum point to an early Cristian presence.

The Cistercians worked the land and reared sheep, and they usually chose a remote site for their monasteries. It is reckoned that construction took around 40 years to be completed.

The abbey became, like many monasteries, a great centre of learning, and became very important in the social, cultural and religious life of this area of South Wales.

In 1536, Margam Abbey, like so many other abbeys, was dissolved by King HenryVIII, and was sold to Sir Rice Mansell.

For further information, and much more detail about the history of Margam Abbey,please click on the link below, where you will find much more about the history of this old Abbey.

The ruins of some of the Abbey still stand, and they give a clear impression of what a majestic building it must have been when the Cistercian monks lived and worked in this area.

http://www.margamabbey.co.uk/

The photos show what remains of the original abbey church and of some of the ruins still standing.

Cathedral Church of Christ and The Blessed Virgin Mary

This cathedral was founded in the year 680, bit nothing of that building remains.

The crypt of the present building dates back to the 10th Century and Saint Oswald who was Bishop of Worcester.

According to Bede there had been nuns and monks on this site from the 7th Century, and around the year 970, the Benedictine Order arrived here. They stayed till they were driven out in 1540.

The cathedral is the burial place of King John, Prince Arthur Tudor ( brother of HenryVIII), and Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.

The cathedral also had 2 shrines, one for St Wulstan and one for St Oswald. These shrines were destroyed during the Reformation. Wulstan was the lastsurviving pre conquest Bishop, and the only English born Bishop after 1075.

Oswald of Worcester, not to be confused with Oswald of Northumbria, was Archbishop of York from 972 till his death in 992. He actually died while washing the feet of the poor, something he did every day during Lent.

www.catholic.org/saints

http://www.worcestercathedral.co.uk/

The Abbey of St Mary the Virgin Tewkesbury

It is recorded that the first Christianity was brought to Tewkesbury by Theoc, a missionary from Northumbria. A monastery was built around 715, but nothing of it remains.

The foundation at Tewkesbury became a Priory in the 10th century and was associated with a BenedictineAbbey at Cranbourne in Dorset.

William The Conqueror gave the Manor of Tewkesbury to a cousin, Robert Fitzhamon. He, with the Abbot of Cranbourne, Giraldus, founded the present abbey in 1092.

The building of the present Abbey began in 1102, with stone brought from France.

Fitzhamon died in 1107, and his son-in-law Robert Fitz Roy, son of HenryI continued to fund the work. Tewkesbury became one of the wealthiest Abbeys in England.

When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, the people of Tewkesbury saved the Abbey from destruction.

They insisted it was their parish church, and so for the value of the bells and lead roof which would all have been melted down, they bought the Abbey for £453.

http://www.tewkesburyabbey.org.uk/

Tewkesbury Abbey

I think of all the Abbeys I visited recently, Tewkesbury was the most impressive to look at.

All of these remaining Abbey Churches are a testament of the belief and love that those who built them had for God. They were built for the Glory of God, not the glory of man.

And of course they are all a part of the Catholic Heritage of Britain.

Recently, Archbishop Conti here in Glasgow was awarded an honorary degree from Glasgow University.

The honour was bestowed on the 16th of June, which is the University's Commemoration day, which marks the foundation of Glasgow University in 1451 by a Papal Bull of Pope Nicholas V.

Aberdeen University was founded by a papal bull in1495.

We have much to be proud of in our Catholic History. There is a need for the knowledge of the good that the Church accomplished over the years before the Reformation to be rediscovered and relearned by Catholic and Non Catholic folk.

Perhaps the upcoming visit of the Holy Father is an opportunity for the Church to guide us in rediscovering our hidden past.

The photos are of Tewkesbury Abbey.

http://www.tekesburyabbey.org.uk/