Sunday 11 August 2019

Vigil Service for new members


Members gathered for the Vigil Service to welcome new members into the Order recently.
As well as some of the Priory's Chaplains, pictured above we were joined by 
Rev Mgr Stephen Alker, MBE KCHS
retired Chaplain to the Forces
and Fr Leo Daley, who is a member of the Constantinian Order of St George and St Stephen
as well as Parish Priest and our host at the Church of St John the Evangelist, Burscough, Lancashire.


 Some of the Esquires who joined the Priory last year 
were in attendance as sword and banner bearers.


Entrance into the church.





We were very pleased to be joined by 
Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire Charles Hadcock and his wife Camilla.
The Lieutenancy is Her Majesty the Queen's personal representative 
in each county in the United Kingdom.





 We welcomed two new members, one a language teacher and one an aeronautical design engineer
 and one transfer member from another Green Cross organisation who is a barrister.
They should be a great asset to the Grand Priory, as between them they speak seven languages,
which is unusual for our British Priory, which in typical British style and unlike our international brethren, tends to be limited in excelling in other languages!

 


 The Vigil is now a short service of prayer focussed on the Beatitudes but is the remnant of an all-night vigil for those preparing to enter the Order.


Many thanks to Gregory Treloar, a music scholar at Blackburn Cathedral, 
who provided the chant for the Vigil Service.



The Grand Priory extends its thanks to Parish Priest Fr Leo Daley for his very hospitable welcome to the beautiful church of St John the Evangelist. St John's Church was built in 1793 and partly disguised with false windows making it look like a grand Manor House. Hence the presbytery’s designation as “Burscough Hall”. This was to keep a low profile at a time when Catholicism was still censured by law. It was extended with a bell tower and porch in the early twentieth century. Much of the land as you drive up the private Road of Chapel Lane once belonged to the church, which still includes a school, cemetery and fields stretching down to Abbey Brook.