{"id":893,"date":"2008-11-23T15:57:22","date_gmt":"2008-11-23T15:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/11\/mass-in-brighton.html"},"modified":"2008-11-23T15:57:22","modified_gmt":"2008-11-23T15:57:22","slug":"mass-in-brighton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/11\/mass-in-brighton.html","title":{"rendered":"Mass in Brighton"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I cooked up this little layover side trip, I had hoped to have time to run down and wave to the English Channel. But no, I didn’t get down there soon enough, I was pressed for time afterwards, and besides before Mass…it was cold! Afterwards, it was markedly more pleasant, despite a scattering of rain.
\nThe ride down was pleasant, complete with sheep-in-field sightings and English-people-taking-walkies-in-the-field-with-their-dogs-in-the-morning-mist sightings as well.
\nSo, Fr. Ray Blake’s parish, St. Mary Magdalene<\/a>, is about a 5-minute taxi ride from the train station and about a 12-minute walk. (I know\u00a0 – I did both!). Brighton certainly seems like an intereting place – what little I saw of it. It’s a gorgeous little stone Gothic church, chock full of statues and art and just a strong sense of connectedness to the truth, to the Communion of Saints, to beauty.\u00a0 The congregation was diverse – young and old, babies, various ethnicities.\u00a0 The music was led by an energetic and quite capable schola that sang quite a bit of Latin, including the Introit of the day.\u00a0 The congregation joined in much of it, as well.\u00a0
\nTo me, it was a fascinating mix of the deeply, and deeply-felt tradition. There was precision, but no fussiness, great care with the ritual, which was expressive of deep prayer. There was incense. There were servers, young and old. People came and went. I have to say, there was almost an Eastern Catholic feel about it, of deep, prayerful worship which is active and engaged. It’s hard to explain – how can something be solemn yet lively, invigorating and energetic? That’s what happened here.\u00a0 Kudos to what seems like a wonderful parish, complete with the hospitality of coffee afterwards, which I was sorry not to be able to enjoy…
\nbecause I had not noted when I left the station what time the next train back up to Gatwick was, and had a 2pm flight to catch. As it turned out, I got there right in time (accompanined on the walk back to the station by a very nice fellow named John who chatted with me about the global financial situation. We agreed it’s not looking good.) – right on time for a train just about to pull out, the first of two times I would get that lucky break on Sunday…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I cooked up this little layover side trip, I had hoped to have time to run down and wave to the English Channel. But no, I didn’t get down there soon enough, I was pressed for time afterwards, and besides before Mass…it was cold! 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. 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