Saint Catherine of Siena, a summer 2022 filming day from Mary's Dowry Productions

Yesterday (August 11th), Mary's Dowry Productions spent several hours filming at Cissbury Ring in West Sussex. We used the sun scorched fields and hazy heat to capture our silent portrayal of one of the great Saints of the Universal Church, Saint Catherine of Siena. As always we like to use our local surroundings. The South Downs at this time of year work well for European settings. We decided to work on our film about Saint Catherine of Siena and capture our own imagery for our film.

This film will be told from Saint Catherine's point of view. A popular and quotable Saint, her life is of interest and inspiration. She remained a single laywoman all her life and in her later years joined the Dominicans as third order member. She is a mystic and a Doctor of the Church. She is renowned for her great love of the Papacy and of the figure of the Pope and had a special calling for the Church in her time.

Mystically, Saint Catherine is remembered for her many spiritual letters, her book The Dialogue, as well as bearing the stigmata and the Crown of Thorns. She was the only one who could see this, it was invisible to everyone else. She lived in the 14th Century and was of special importance to the Papacy. She carried out many missions entrusted to her by the pope, which was quite rare for a woman in the Middle Ages.

During her life, Saint Catherine sent numerous letters to princes and cardinals to promote obedience to the Pope, at that time, Pope Urban VI, and to defend what she calls the "vessel of the Church". After spending much of the middle of her life in silence and solitude, Saint Catherine was called by Christ to be among people. She travelled with her followers throughout northern and central Italy advocating reform of the clergy and advising people that repentance and renewal could be done through "the total love for God".

During our filming at Cissbury Ring, we had to walk down the steep hill from the Iron Age hillfort and into a wooded area. It was here that we discovered an area of trees and branches shaped like a Crown of Thorns. We used this for some imagery of Saint Catherine of Siena bearing her stigmata and Crown of Thorns.

Our film about Saint Catherine of Siena will be available soon from Mary's Dowry productions. Celebrate the lives and missions of the English Martyrs, Saints and Blesseds with the films of Mary's Dowry Productions - more here: Mary's Dowry Productions

“If you are what you should be, you will set the world ablaze.” - Saint Catherine of Siena

Margery Kempe filming morning - New film

 Margery Kempe

This morning, Tuesday 1st February 2022, the Mary's Dowry Productions filming team went out on location to shoot footage for an upcoming film about Margery Kempe. Here are some screenshots from the filming morning.

We filmed for an hour and a half on location at Patching village once again, local to us, with its old church and grounds and walks and fields.

This enabled us to shoot some interesting shots of Margery Kempe travelling with her staff and pilgrim bag.

We also filmed her with one of her babies as on one pilgrimage she was pregnant and gave birth.

With the narration, written by Tony Triggs, for guidance, we were able to recreate various scenes and moments from Margery Kempe's life. Here she hears the sounds of bellows, which was the breathing of the Holy Spirit in her ears, as well as a bird singing joyfully in her right ear.

Margery Kempe was known for her displays of emotion and outbursts of prayer or sobs.

We filmed Margery Kempe with her baby walking on pilgrimage.

Margery Kempe also experienced mystical visions and ecstasies. We filmed these inside the church and outside the church.

Margery Kempe also saw devils. She was tormented by them and fought them off, as well as being dragged and pulled about them.

Thank you to our mum, Theresa, who did a wonderful job of portraying Margery Kempe.

We are pleased to now be able to make further progress with this film now we finally have the visuals to accompany the narration. This film will be made available from Mary's Dowry Productions website soon. Check back for more information and visit our website at:

WEBSITE

Sister Elizabeth Prout film available now on DVD worldwide

From Mary's Dowry Productions now available on DVD worldwide and Instant Digital Download is a NEW film that looks with devotion and detail at the life and mission of Venerable Sister Elizabeth Prout, a Passionist nun and inspiring Englishwoman.

 

Here is the DVD blurb:

Elizabeth Prout:

 Drawn to Catholicism through the preaching and example of a Passionist priest and missionary to 19th century England, Blessed Dominic Barberi, Elizabeth Prout would come to be known and loved throughout England, and eventually the world, as a daughter of the Passionists, a sister of The Second Spring, a founder of the religious Order of ‘The Sisters of the Cross and Passion’ and a shining light in the infamous slums of Manchester, where England and Ireland’s Catholics heroically persevered in living and practicing the Catholic Faith while enduring the most shocking conditions. 

 Raised a Protestant in 19th century England, Elizabeth lived near Aston Hall where Fr Dominic Barberi would be called by Our Lady from Italy to England her Dowry, to found the first Passionist foundation and receive Saint John Henry Newman into the Catholic Church. Despite England’s anti-Catholic atmosphere at that time and her parents’ hostility towards the Catholic Church, Elizabeth Prout joyfully entered into the Fullness of the Faith. Guided by the Passionists she was able to respond to the burning love in her heart for Christ in His Passion and in the faces of the poor. She worked with Fr Ignatius Spencer, a fellow convert and son of the Earl Spencer, (also a relative of Princess Diana), to found her order of nuns and live a life of inspiring service and deep spiritual insight. 

In this NEW film we look at the life of Venerable Sr Elizabeth Prout, a Saint for our times. Length and Format: Elizabeth Prout is 45 minutes in length and is available worldwide on Region Free DVD. As with all our DVDs you will automatically be sent PAL or NTSC format depending on your country.

Here are the links:

ELIZABETH PROUT DVD

ELIZABETH PROUT INSTANT DIGITAL VIDEO

Sr Elizabeth Prout NEW Catholic film trailer - Passionist, England

Now available to watch on Mary's Dowry Productions YouTube channel is our film release trailer for our Catholic DVD and film about Sister Elizabeth Prout.

Blessed Anna Maria Taigi (FILM TRAILER) Days of darkness

From Mary's Dowry YouTube channel.

Film trailer for Blessed Anna Maria Taigi

Anna Maria Taigi - Days of Darkness - NEW FILM RELEASE

 NEW from Mary's Dowry Productions this November 2021 and now available on DVD worldwide and Instant Digital Download is a film about Blessed Anna Maria Taigi. We were asked to produce a film about this Italian wife, mother and mystic and are now pleased to offer a detailed, spiritual, informative and devotional film that looks at her life and many of her gifts, visions and prophesies, including one that she is recently popular for among online Catholics: The Three Days of Darkness, as recorded by her biographer.

Here is the blurb:

Blessed Anna Maria Taigi: Blessed Anna Maria Taigi was beatified for her life of heroic virtue. She was also a chosen soul, a mystic, prophet and victim soul who lived a life of prayer, suffering and supernatural encounters with Christ and Our Lady, the Saints and Angels in 18th and 19th century Italy. God gifted her with a mystical SUN which was ever before her eyes. In this sun she could see past, present and future events. She was able to follow the whole life and campaigns of Napoleon Bonaparte, for Our Lord told her the Emperor was allowed to both attack the Church and work unknowingly for the Papacy in his campaigns and his persecution of Pope Pius VII "to make him a tool of my anger wherewith to chastise the iniquity of the wicked and to humiliate the proud".

Blessed Anna Maria Taigi advised Popes and Cardinals and was able to see events that could occur and had occurred through the mystical gift of her SUN. In this SUN, her biographer records that the mystic saw a future event which is commonly known today among some Catholics as 'The Three Days of Darkness'. She was an exemplary mother, wife and friend, a devout, holy Catholic and her life is both fascinating and inspiring for our days.

In this new film by Mary's Dowry Productions we look at the life, mission, prophesies and visions of Blessed Anna Maria Taigi as well as her relationship with the Catholic Church and the Popes of her days and ours. Length and Format: Blessed Anna Maria Taigi runs for 59 minutes and is available worldwide on Region Free DVD Format.

Links below:

ANNA MARIA TAIGI DVD

ANNA MARIA TAIGI INSTANT DIGITAL DOWNLOAD

Fr Ignatius Spencer filming - New Catholic DVD

 July 11th 2021 - Mary's Dowry Productions UK

Currently we have six films in production at various stages, with narration being performed, editing on final productions, costume preparation OR writing taking place for films about:

Blessed Anna Maria Taigi

Fr Ignatius Spencer

Sr Elizabeth Prout

Margery Kempe

St Ralph Sherwin

and

Saint David Lewis

This weekend we were able to meet with a friend and parishioner at a local spot to film visuals of Fr Ignatius Spencer for our film about Sr Elizabeth Prout and out film about Fr Ignatius Spencer. Despite the threat of rain we were able to keep (mostly) dry and spent a good two and a half hours recreating significant moments from the life and mission of this important Passionist Priest.

Fr Ignatius Spencer is well-known as being a great uncle of Princess Diana Spencer. He was the youngest son of George, the 2nd Earl Spencer, and was given the name George at his birth. He grew up at Althorp House and Estate and went to Eton with his elder brother (the latter of whom would become the 3rd Earl Spencer). The late Princess Diana Spencer's brother is the current 9th Earl Spencer.

Very intelligent, sensitive, pious and good, the young George Spencer studied very hard and went off to Cambridge for further education. He later became an Anglican deacon and Anglican Vicar and was given a parish, spending his time in service to his people, especially the poor, taking clothes and food to those in need.

His study of the Early Church Fathers, as well as trying (and failing) to find a scriptural basis for the Protestant 39 Articles, led him eventually to Catholicism. Seeking to spare his aristocratic and Protestant family from the awkwardness of their son become a Catholic, he left England to study in Rome and eventually became a Catholic priest.

George joined the Passionist Order which was known for a special interest in England and the return of England to the Catholic Faith. He took the name Father Ignatius of St Paul and befriended Blessed Dominic Barberi. Before his religious life, Fr Ignatius had created a powerful crusade of prayer for the conversion of England and lectured on The Great Importance of a Reunion Between the Catholics and the Protestants of England and the Method of Effecting It.  He also wrote to St. John Henry Newman, then an Anglican, asking the great Oxford scholar to join him in prayer for unity. Newman refused but later apologised.

Fr Ignatius Spencer spent years travelling England and Ireland and was also the spiritual director of Sr Elizabeth Prout who founded an order of Passionist nuns in Manchester and dedicated her life to helping the poor.

He died not long after Elizabeth Prout in 1861. Father Ignatius’ health had always been precarious at best and worn out with continual work, preaching and begging he suffered a heart attack and died alone in a ditch (the death he had often described as ideal for himself) on 1st October 1864. He was buried alongside Dominic Barberi in St. Anne’s, Sutton, St. Helens on October 4th and now rests in the shrine church there. When his body was exhumed in 1973 it was noted that Father Ignatius suffered from horrific arthritis, but that his tongue had not suffered any decay since the day of his death.

Our film about Fr Ignatius Spencer will be released soon from Mary's Dowry Productions on DVD and Instant Digital Video. Visit our website for NEW releases and a full catalogue of our Catholic and historical films available worldwide.

www.marysdowryproductions.org 

Blessed Anna Maria Taigi and her Mysterious Sun - filming day

 BLESSED ANNA MARIA TAIGI FILM

Mary's Dowry Productions has been asked several times by several different people to produce a film about the life of Blessed Anna Maria Taigi, a wife, mother and mystic of the Catholic Church.

Today we filmed footage for a NEW film about her which is now in its production stage. Our location was at a local village to us called Clapham in West Sussex.

Anna Maria Taigi was an only child. When still little she moved with her family to Rome where she worked as a seamstress and milliner which gave her a love of fashion and high quality clothes. After her marriage she experienced a deeper conversion to the Catholic Faith when she was moved by an interior inspiration to go to confession while walking to Saint Peter's Basilica adorned in her finery. After several difficulties, Anna Maria went to Confession to a Saintly priest and began to walk the way of heroic sanctity.

She joined the Trinitarians as a Third Order member and developed a deep prayer life amidst her duties as a wife and mother. Her love for the poor was utterly giving and selfless. She entered upon the narrow way of the Cross with a special call from God to be a victim soul, interceding especially for the conversion of souls.

After she received the Scapular of the Trinitarians, Blessed Anna Maria saw a mysterious sun that would remain before her interior eyes for 49 years. It was a gift from God in which she was able to contemplate heavenly Truths, the state of souls, events from the past and present and sometimes future events. This gift was unique in the life of a Saint and after alarming her when she first saw it she found that it gave her permanent control over her interior emotions and her outward actions as well as a special means for knowing divers wants of individual souls, the secret of sinners' consciences, the snares of Satan, the Church's dangers and all the evils she was destined to remedy.

In her mysterious sun, Blessed Anna Maria simply had to direct her gaze upon it and come into possession of knowledge far transcending what was merely human and natural. It was ever present to her inward eye and remained before her wherever she was, both day and night. Our Lord Himself often directed her, as did Our Lady and various Saints.

Blessed Anna Maria had a great love for the souls of the deceased, a devotion to Saint Philomena, the rosary, visiting the sick and the incurable, but most especially the care and education of her children, the management of her house and the patient attention and marriage duties to her husband, Dominic, who often had ill humour and bad moods with his fiery character, but who loved and admired his wife deeply.

This great Blessed of the Church would often become enraptured at the presence of God and contemplation of His Truths while even at simple tasks. She would go rigid and behold many correspondences from Christ in her mysterious sun for the good of souls, the world and the Church.

Despite such heavenly gifts and a mystical life, she was profoundly humble with an intense charity that saw her bear with great sufferings, persecutions, calumny, devilish attacks, ill health and the toils of every day life. She used and enjoyed her supernatural gift of her mysterious sun constantly to the end of her life.

Our film about Blessed Anna Maria Taigi will look at her life in her family and her special call, mystical gifts, encounters with Christ, Our Lady and her patron Saints, her mysterious sun, her example and place in history as well as many things she foresaw. COMING SOON from Mary's Dowry Productions.

For a list of films available NOW visit:

MARY'S DOWRY PRODUCTIONS

Saint David Lewis - Welsh Martyr film

SAINT DAVID LEWIS

 

We were asked 10 years ago to make a film about the last Welsh Martyr, Saint David Lewis. We are pleased that we now have a film in production. Here is a look at the upcoming film in this new trailer from Mary's Dowry Productions. COMING SOON!

Elizabeth Prout filming day - NEW Catholic DVD

 

ELIZABETH PROUT FILMING DAY

A morning in March 2021 saw Mary's Dowry Productions on location at Patching, West Sussex, filming for our next production; Elizabeth Prout. She was born and raised an Anglican but encountered the Catholic Faith especially through the Passionists. She lived near Aston Hall where Father Dominic Barberi founded the first Passionist monastery after an invitation from Nicholas Wiseman. The Catholic Faith was still regarded with suspicion and hostility in England, particularly by the Protestants. Elizabeth would find her calling among the poor in Manchester in the slums around Saint Chad's, guided to found a new order of nuns who lived and worked with the poor. The community would later become the Sisters of the Cross and Passion, with the spirituality of the Passionist Order.

Elizabeth's life and mission was linked to the Second Spring of the Catholic Faith in England with Blessed Dominic Barberi and especially her spiritual director, Father Ignatius Spencer. She is honoured for her special love for the poor and Irish Immigrants, the Passion and her order of nuns.

We decided to portray Elizabeth wearing her habit with a Passionist Emblem, the latter of which was approved and added a few years after her death.

In our film we look at the life of Elizabeth Prout which has a very special relevance today in the Church and for the Catholic Faith in England.

Our film about ELIZABETH PROUT is coming soon to DVD from Mary's Dowry Productions. For a fill list of films by Mary's Dowry Productions about the lives of the Saints and English Martyrs visit our website:

MARY'S DOWRY PRODUCTIONS

Edel Quinn and The Legion of Mary NEW film

 

Our NEW film about the Servant of God Edel Quinn is now available worldwide on DVD in all region formats from Marys Dowry Productions. In this film we look at the life of Edel Quinn, her work with the Legion of Mary, her special mission to Africa and the Legion of Mary as an apostolate worldwide.

Here is the blurb and direct link - DVD will be sent in your region format - English language only:

"Edel Quinn was born in Ireland in 1907 into a loving Catholic family. She was lively, happy, kind and attentive. These dispositions remained for her whole life which was centred upon charity for her neighbour, service of Our Lady and attending Mass. She said, “What a desolation life would be without the Eucharist.” Despite her plans to join the Poor Clares, God had a different plan for Edel’s life: she would become a legendary missionary for the Legion of Mary, especially working to spread the great and powerful work of the Legion of Mary throughout Africa. Although she battled with tuberculosis for most of her life, Edel was dedicated in her vocation. She only lived until the age of 36, but has left us an inspiring example of trust, love of Mary and our neighbour, dedication and prayer. She especially points us to learn about and perhaps even join the Legion of Mary. In this new film by Mary’s Dowry Productions we look at the life and mission of Edel Quinn and the Legion of Mary."

EDEL QUINN DVD

Saint Anne Line and the Feast of the Purification

 

Saint Anne Line was arrested in Elizabethan England on 2nd February 1601 when her house was raided during the feast of the Purification, also known as Candlemas. On this day a blessing of candles traditionally takes place before the Mass, and it was during this rite that the raiders burst in and made arrests. The priest, Fr Francis Page, managed to slip into a special hiding place prepared by Anne Line and afterwards to escape, but she was arrested.

She was tried at the Sessions House on Old Bailey Lane on 26 February 1601 and told the court that so far from regretting having concealed a priest, she only grieved that she "could not shelter a thousand more." Sir John Popham, the judge, sentenced her to death for the felony of assisting a seminary priest. Saint Anne Line was hanged on 27th February 1601.

She was executed immediately before two priests, Fr. Roger Filcock and Fr. Mark Barkworth, who received the more severe sentence of hanging, drawing and quartering. At the scaffold she repeated what she had said at her trial, declaring loudly to the bystanders: "I am sentenced to die for harbouring a Catholic priest, and so far I am from repenting for having so done, that I wish, with all my soul, that where I have entertained one, I could have entertained a thousand."

The lives of the English Martyrs in film from Mary's Dowry Productions - 'Saint Anne Line: The Safe House Keeper' produced 2010, more here: 

SAINT ANNE LINE FILM

Filming for Edel Quinn and the Legion of Mary filming day

This month (September 2020) we have kick started production once again with a morning spent filming scenes for an upcoming DVD about Edel Quinn and the Legion of Mary.

We headed for Clapham Wood and church in West Sussex with our camera, a few props, costume and tripod to capture some imagery representing Edel Quinn in Ireland for the first part of her biography.

Edel Quinn travelled often to set up praesidiums, so we used a suitcase from our 94 year old grandfather's loft which looked perfect to accompany Edel on her travels.

Shots that we also wanted to include for our film about Edel Quinn included Edel praying her rosary, reading and writing.

We also included Edel praying the Tessera prayers of the Legion of Mary on a wooden bench we discovered in the woods.

The little statue of Our Lady has featured in several of our films about the Saints and English Martyrs so we brought it along with us to Clapham Wood and had Edel Quinn pray her Tessera and rosary with it beside her - a lovely image.

Our final scenes were filmed in a 'dragonfly meadow' at the back of the woods where we had Edel Quinn walk to visit a housebound or sick person with her umbrella up. There were at least 6 dragonflies keen to be in the shot and an entire flock of sheep.

All in all, this was a nice morning of filming. We managed to acquire some excellent footage and plan to have one more filming session before being able to edit the film together and make it available.

EDEL QUINN AND THE LEGION OF MARY is coming soon from www.marysdowryproductions.org