London: Vigil Mass to celebrate Canonisation of Oscar Romero

Oscar Romero's statue above Westminster Abbey's Great West Door

Fr David Stewart SJ writes from St Ignatius Parish, Stamford Hill: everyone is welcome to join us at Stamford Hill N15 on Saturday 13th as, with great joy, we celebrate the Vigil of the canonisation of Bl Oscar Romero. The parish has been praying for the canonisation for a long time and, since the official announcement from Rome, converting those prayers into prayers of thanksgiving, also for the intercession of this new Saint. Oscar will be canonised on Sunday morning, at St Peter's, alongside Bl.Pope Paul VI, whom he knew well, admired and respected.

We're delighted that Bishop Paul MacAleenan, auxiliary in Westminster Diocese, will join us at 7pm on Saturday for the vigil Mass and a short service of unveiling and blessing our new bust of the new Saint. He will also lead us in concluding our Novena of intercession and thanksgiving, begun for us by his brother Bishop John Sherrington a week ago. Each day, several hundred of our parishioners, either at one of the daily Masses or in their own homes, have been praying the Novena prayers and reflections from Oscar's writings and homilies, compiled by Fr David. Tomorrow evening's Vigil Mass, which is also the Mass of Sunday, will conclude with a short time of prayer and intercession, then the blessing and positioning of the bust of Saint Romero.

At last Friday's liturgy, Bishop John unveiled and blessed the wonderful painting 'The Great Amen' which, with the bust, will be located permanently in our church of St Ignatius. All week we have been receiving reports that the painting has "gone viral", showing up in social media repostings in many parts of the world and even at a conference in the Jesuit University of San Salvador! Our prayer-cards (in English, Spanish and Polish) will also be blessed at Saturday's Mass.

Do join us! All are welcome in this place.

St Oscar Romero, pray for us.

Many events are planned to celebrate the canonisation of Bl Oscar Romero. For more information visit: www.romerotrust.org.uk