About this Site

The purpose of this website is to offer a continuing journey through the liturgical year in the spirit of Dom Prosper Guéranger, the great Benedictine abbot of Solesmes, and author of the magnum opus "The Liturgical Year". Dom Guéranger founded Solesmes Abbey and the French Benedictine Congregation; he was well regarded by Pope Pius IX, and was a proponent of the dogmas of papal infallibility and the Immaculate Conception. Dom Guéranger is credited with reviving the Benedictine Order in France, and revitalising the Tridentine Mass.

With his work as inspiration, the authors hope to offer material for the major feastdays of the Roman calendar, as well as insights from Dom Guéranger and other authors on the liturgical year. We hope to describe the liturgy of the Catholic Church throughout the liturgical year, including the Mass and the Divine Office. It is also hoped to feature biographies of saints and their liturgies on their feast days.

This site will focus on the 1st and 2nd class feasts of the Roman liturgical calendar according to the Missale Romanum of 1962. The Collect will be given in both Latin and English and relevant links, commentaries, and other material. Where possible acknowledgement will be given for source works. Every effort will be made to rely on public domain works; where this is not possible a précis will be made of the relevant sections of "The Liturgical Year". The authors crave the indulgence of any persons whose copyright may have been unwittingly infringed.

Posting on particular liturgical days will commence on Advent Sunday 2008 (Sunday 30 November), with posts being made 24 hours, or thereabouts, in advance to account for time zone differences. Until then we will feature a précis of the General Preface to "The Liturgical Year" and some other short pieces.

Your suggestions, comments, and continued prayers are ever welcome and sought.

About the authors

This website is run by Jane and Mark.

Jane is a retired teacher of English Literature and lives in south west France with her husband, 4 cats and her library of 4,300 titles. She is devoted to all things Gregorian and Benedictine (in the historic and current sense of these words). A lay disciple of the Rule of St. Benedict since the 1970s, she has been following it more closely over the past decade. Her library catalogue includes 117 items on Chant, 32 of which are books on its history, theory and performance. The collection reflects her passion for the music which should accompany the Prayer of the Church.

The seeds of this passion germinated over 50 years ago and flourished during her 25 year membership of a well-known London Catholic church choir. Jane's other passion is her Prayer Garden: her three books of meditations (Continuum International) were inspired by her long experience of prayer and gardening as mutually supportive. They reflect her Benedictine spirituality and indeed were encouraged by a correspondence with the late Dame Felicitas Corrigan O.S.B. of Stanbrook Abbey, herself an organist and scholar of the Chant. (Requiescat in Pace)

Mark is a 20-something layman living and working in Edinburgh, Scotland. During the day he works for the Police, specialising in recorded Crime statistics, whilst attempting to live out the balance between the contemplative and active life in the spirit of Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard.

A Trappist, born in 1858, Chautard makes the strong case that the exterior works of evangelisation must rely and be built on an inner life of union with God. In his famous work "The Soul of the Apostolate", Chautard uses an abundance of scripture quotes, anecdotes, and examples from lives of the Saints, to show how it is possible to preach the Gospel and save one's own soul, by becoming real men of interior life. He gives powerful arguments to back up this point and proves how interior life is not lazy, selfish or detrimental to a truly fruitful apostolate done for the salvation of souls.

A convert from "High Church" Anglicanism, Mark has developed a love for the extraordinary forms of the Mass and the Divine Office. With a side interest in webdesign and "new media", Mark hopes this liturgical offering will be both a fitting gift for the Church and a full introduction to the lectionary of the 1962 Missal, whilst edifying the authors. Mark hopes to successfully apply to a traditional Seminary in Europe in 2009.