Please pray for your Vestry this weekend as they attend their annual retreat at Serra Retreat Centre where prayer and meditation will be playing a significant role as they evaluate priorities for the upcoming year.

 

We thank Fr. Gabriel Ferrer who will be Celebrating and Preaching for the Sunday Masses.

 

PLEASE NOTE: The Friday evening, Saturday morning and Saturday Vigil Masses have been replaced with Morning Prayer & Evening Prayer services.

 

 

The new parking signs were put in place this week. Please  observe the signs before parking.

Help Wanted!  Every Sunday, and on special holy days, we record and upload the sermons, and sometimes entire masses, to our website and onto YouTube.com.  We have viewers as far away as Hungary tuning in to what is happening at St. Thomas!  Our Christmas Eve High Mass has been viewed by 350 people on YouTube alone.  The video recordings of sermons and masses are also posted on our Facebook page.  This is a vital outreach and means of making our presence known in Los Angeles and around the world.  If you have computer and video-editing skills, your help is needed.  Please contact Ken Koonce (323-856-5844) or Randy Oglesby (323-655-1852) if you would like to volunteer time to this important ministry.

 

 

World Premiere of Judith Bingham's anthem "Ave Virgo Sanctissima" commissioned by St Thomas the Apostle, Hollywood, to have its first performance by the LA Schola on Saturday 28th January, 2012 at the 5pm Latin Vigil Mass. All are welcome to attend, reception to follow. We are fortunate to have the composer present for this world-premiere.

 

Judith Bingham is a world-renowned composer of a younger generation and has written for the BBC Singers, St Paul's Cathedral, London, choirs in Utah and Albuquerque, as well as being an outstanding composer in the worlds of brass, orchestral and organ music.

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The commission is a gift to the Parish of St. Thomas the Apostle from its beloved Rector, Fr. Ian Elliott Davies.

 

Richard Rolle (1290-1349) was an English religious writer, Bible translator, and hermit. He is known as Richard Rolle of Hampole or de Hampole, since after years of wandering he settled in Hampole, near the Cistercian nunnery.

Rolle left Oxford at age eighteen or nineteen. Fearing he had ceded too greatly to temptation in his youth, and that he would transgress further, he adopted the life of a hermit shortly afterwards. He had his cell first at Pickering, and then in the North Yorkshire parish of Ainderby. Rolle, guided by his conscience, was often misunderstood and repelled by others. He briefly housed with a squire, John Dalton, whose wife disapproved of him, and he found no more favour with the bishop or monks, having to frequently change abode. The laity were cautious of him, and he found it difficult to approach women, who thought ill of his intentions.

Two years and eight months after becoming a hermit, Rolle had his first mystical experience. Around a year later, he felt similarly after listening to a choir, and he began to take less interest in all things temporal. Rolle then made his way to Sorbonne, which specialised at the time in Bibilical exegesis and pastoral theology, feeling that his attendance at the university was not inconsistent with his lifestyle. In fact, Rolle's time in Paris proved to be of great value in his life, much of which was taken up by contemplation, as he acquired an adeptness in theology. On the contemplative life, he wrote, "There are many active men better than some contemplatives", though, "the best contemplatives are better than the best actives".

 

In one of his best-known works, The Fire of Love or Incendium Amoris Rolle provides an account of his mystical experiences, which he describes as being of three kinds: a physical warmth in his body, a sense of wonderful sweetness, and a heavenly music that accompanied him as he chanted the Psalms. The book was widely read in the Middle Ages, and described the four purgative stages that one had to go through to become closer to God: described as open door, heat, song, and sweetness. Because of the wide proliferation of his works, there was a movement to have him canonized. As many of his works were concerned with personal devotion, some, with considerable alterations, were used by the Lollards.

Rolle died in 1349, the first year that the Black Death came to England, and it may have been the cause of his death. 

 

Adapted from www. wikipedia.org 

20-22 January

Vestry Retreat

Fr. Gabriel Ferrer celebrates and preaches

 

23 January @ 9:30am

County-USC AIDS Clinic Feeding Program

 

28 January @ 7:30am

Homeless Feeding & Outreach

 

28 January @ 10:30am

Newcomer Orientation Series 

 

28 January @ 5:00pm

LASchola sings the Mass 

 

5, 12 & 19 February

Fr. Davies on vacation

Fr. Gabriel Ferrer celebrates and preaches 

 

20 February

Parish Office Closed

Articles and photos from the early years of St. Thomas the Apostle are now available on our website!

A brief introduction to the liturgy at St. Thomas:

St Thomas Liturgy Sampler.mov

A brief introduction to St. Thomas, its history, its place in Hollywood, the Damien Chapel and the organ. 

Introduction to St. Thomas