Votive Mass of the Most Precious Blood
(Summorum Pontificum 10th Anniversary)

On Friday 7th July, the 10th Anniversary of Pope Benedict’s Moto Proprio “Summorum Pontificum”, a Missa Cantata (Sung Mass) was held at Our Lady of Perpetual Succour Catholic Church, Wolverhampton.

The Votive Mass of the Precious Blood was celebrated by Father Paul Gunter OSB, and altar servers included some from the neighbouring St Mary’s Catholic Primary Academy.

In the homily, Father Gunter started by talking about the Liturgy,

“It is something deeply special and pleasing to Almighty God that you are all engaged in this evening. For what is the Sacred Liturgy but in its service that worship reserved alone to Almighty God, that only the Sacred Rites can make present in our midst that which the angels glorify in Heaven.”

“And no less appealing to us on Earth is the beautiful music, the sacred sounds of the chant, the pre-eminence of the pipe organ, and the steadiness of the ceremonies of the Roman Rite to feast every one of our human senses that are defined when they meet the glory of God.”

Father Gunter then continued with a very powerful discourse about the Precious Blood.

“And why in this month of July do we focus so specially on the Precious Blood, for it is not some disembodied biological feast as if for one moment we look to venerate some aspect of Our Lord’s human body and then in another moment some other different aspect."

"Rather, tonight we celebrate the Precious Blood as the mystery of our redemption, that is all of it,  from the moment of the Incarnation when Our Blessed Lord met with human birth, to the shedding of His Blood on Calvary as the summation of the whole redemptive act of Jesus’ life, passion and death, and then the sacramental life of the Church which will lead us from this world unto the next.”