Fr Michael Melrose of S Giles, Reading

I inherited a fine collection of liturgical books from Father; in one of them was this old prayer card.

IPSE DOMINUS HOSTIA OMNIUM SACERDOTUM EST. IPSIQUE SUNT HOSTIAE SACERDOTES. S Paulinus de Nola

MICHAEL MELROSE
offered for the first time to the honour
and propitiation
of Almighty God
the Most August Sacrifice of the Mass
for the Peace of Holy Church
a blessing on all his friends and for
himself the gift of apostolic and
priestly charity.
ALL SAINTS CHELMSFORD
JULY 3rd, 1972*

O ADMIRABILE COMMERCIUM

Father was a shy and bookish and devout priest deeply loved and trusted by his people. I have very little doubt that he would have been with us in the Ordinariate. His predecessor, Blessed John Eynon, was a Benedictine monk (probably) of Reading Abbey and pp of S Giles, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered  together with Abbot Faringdon, on November 15, 1539.

* By 1972, I presume that the Church of England had invented "the Petertide Ordinations". They did this not so much out of an exuberant affection for the See of Rome as out of a desire to get a full academic year in before the main ordinations. Trinity Sunday, drat it, was inconveniently situated. They even had the nerve to reposition the Ember Week. Thus ordinati were deprived of the joy of reading Isaiah 6 (both in the C of E Lectionary and the Old Roman Breviary) at Mattins on the morning of their ordination and on its subsequent anniversaries.

Fr Melrose presumably said his first Mass on the Monday after being priested on the Sunday.