As you may remember, last September, the Society made the courageous decision to purchase Aston Hall, in the little village of Aston-by-Stone, in Staffordshire, and invited the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary to settle there. On Tuesday, 30th July, I was a concelebrant at a very beautiful Mass in the newly redecorated and refurbished chapel within the Hall. It was celebrated by the Archbishop of Birmingham, and the new Bishop-Ordinary and his predecessor were also concelebrants.
Aston Hall will now become the monastic home of the Ordinariate Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
It is our intention to create a shrine to Blessed Dominic in the chapel, and during the Mass on Tuesday, the Archbishop installed the relics of Blessed Dominic which were originally kept there. The Sisters will become the guardians of that shrine and, in time, we hope to revive the pilgrimages to Aston Hall which have been such a feature of its life in the past.
Not only have we been able to provide a home for the Sisters, but we have also been able to save Aston Hall for the Church and for future generations of Catholics, just as Blessed Dominic and St John Henry Newman would have wished.
