This Sunday
This Sunday (3 July) we celebrate the 139th anniversary of the Dedication of the Church
We pray in thanksgiving for our principal founders and benefactors, and for the repose of the souls of all former worshippers and Parish Priests.
Solemn Mass at 11.00am
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The original design of the Church by James Brooks
inc. the tower that was never built.
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This Sunday's Service Booklet
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Visiting Preacher on Sunday
We look forward to welcoming Fr Max Marsh as our guest preacher on Sunday.
Fr Max is Assistant Curate of St Mary, Lewisham, and we keep him in our prayers as he prepares for his Ordination to the Priesthood on Saturday 2 July.
He will celebrate the Mass for the first time at St Mary's on Sunday 3 July at 6pm.
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Columbarium Garden
Your help, please!
The columbarium garden has become extremely overgrown is now in urgent need of some TLC.
We'd be grateful for your help to clear it of weeds and overgrowth on Sunday 31 July after Mass.
The columbarium is the area (accessed via the gate on Acanthus Road) where the mortal remains of some of our deceased priests and parishioners are buried.
Any assistance gratefully received to help us return this part of the church to a more worthy state. Thank you.
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Lavender Hill, c. 1890
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From the Archives
From the Parish Magazine: March 1925
Our Founders
Miss Irene Nettleton (PCC Secretary)
Interesting as is the information contained in the November and December editions of the Church Paper regarding the beginnings of the Church of the Ascension, to the ears of some of us who knew the Church in those far-off days, one important note is lacking from the chord that has been struck.
It is true, of course, that in his youth the first Vicar 'made it his ambition that if ever he became a priest he would, if possible, set himself to build here a church where the Catholic Faith might be completely taught, and the Catholic religion and worship worthily presented.'
It is true also that he 'owed great assistance both financially and in other ways to the late Lady Antrobus and Mrs Duff Gordon' but what of the one by whom the dream of the boy was transmuted into reality; who gave not only of her wealth that the Catholic Faith might be taught and Catholic worship worthily presented, but also that far higher gift of her own personal service for many long years until ill-health compelled her to resign?
Always a strong Catholic - when the loss of husband and children left her lonely - Lady Boston, still a young woman, took up as her life work the helping forward of the Catholic cause.
It would seem indeed that there is no such thing as chance: everything is ordered: for the young priest who ministered to Lord Boston during his last illness was 'the boy with the dream', John Bourdieu Wilkinson. Thus began the fulfilment of his dream!
The site of the future Church of the Ascension was chosen; its design was that of St Augustine's Church, Haggerston; the foundations were laid; friends from St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge and St Barnabas, Pimlico gathered round the new centre of Catholic Faith and Practice.
But the human keystone in the arch was Lady Boston herself, who, as Mother Mary Caroline, (having taken her vows at the Clewer Sisterhood) came to live at Lavender Hill, providing and maintaining for the parish the Mission House of which she was the Head, and from which she sent forth omen workers to visit the poor and tend the sick.
The foundations of the Church were laid deep in the hearts of the people of the parish in those early days, so that strangers to the Church would all pass the same comment - 'What a family feeling'; and this was in no small part due to the inspiration of Mother Mary Caroline and the hard work put in by her and those who worked under her.
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Architect's drawing of what is now the Corpus Christi Chapel
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Fr Luke (L), visiting the Parish to deacon the Mass in January
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Fr Luke Demetri:
Ordination & First Mass
We continue to pray for Fr Luke, sometime Churchwarden at the Ascension as he prepares to be ordained to the Priesthood.
Ordination: Saturday 9 July at 3.00pm
First Mass: Sunday 10 July at 5.00pm
both services at St Michael's, Croydon CR0 1UA
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