torchlight

Torchlight Procession

in honour of The Blessed Virgin Mary

Monday 5^th October 2009

This is now the third year that the revived torchlight procession has taken place in Batley - setting out from the Town Square and making its way to the parish Church of St Mary - and it was, as the Bishop, said even bigger than ever - in fact about 2,500 were there.
   The Bishop opened the service with a few words of welcome to everyone there and thanked The Mayor of Kirklees for being there and her Consort as well as the local MP, Mike Wood and Local Councillor Peter O'Neill and Parishioner of St Mary's Parish.
   Fortunately it was a mild evening - not like the evening twenty years ago that Fr Newman, the preacher for the evening - remembers when the rain poured down.
   In his homily Fr Newman stressed that the greeting Mary used was `Peace be with you'- she was and is, he said, a child of peace and we are her children of peace -children of God. It was fitting he said that we had just had the relics of St Therese in the Diocese for she showed to us how to be `Little Children' - of Peace.
   The Statue of Our Lady was carried from the Town square to the Church as the rosary was said and hymns to Our Lady sung. In Church The Bishop celebrated Benediction. Then at the end he thanked everyone for coming and invited them to bring a friend next year. As people left there were pies and peas in St Mary's Social Club.

Reproduced from The Catholic Post

The Torchlight Procession was started in the 1951 by Father Gallon so that parishioners could take part in what is both an torchlight procession(32K) act of public worship and a display of witness to our faith. After the Rosary was said at the Church the procession; preceded by a statue of Our Lady and a loudspeaker van playing appropiate Hymns got underway, the original route went on Cemetery Road and then along Wellington Street turning left at the Yorkshire Bank onto Commercial Street and finishing at the Market Place where there would be a short service followed by Benediction. I'm told that in the early days the Market Place would be full before the tail end of the procession had even reached Commercial Street, in later years the route was shortened by not going on Wellinton Street but entering onto Commercial Street at its other end. From the start it was hugely popular attracting people from all over the diocese and beyond, sadly in recent years attendance has declined and in 2001 the decision was taken to end the walk.

I think these are from the Torchlight Procession of 1974.

torchlight procession(33K) torchlight procession (22K) torchlight procession(22K)