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Cause for the Beatification of Derrick Taylor
The Cause for the Beatification of Derrick Taylor was officially launched on 20th October 2021. This launch is the official commencement of the campaign for the recognition of Derrick Taylor, the paternal grandfather of Cometan, in the Roman Catholic Church.
Details
Derrick Taylor (born August 12, 1930 - November 26, 2011) was an English coal miner, gardener and milkman from Coppull, Lancashire who, despite being raised in the Church of England, felt from age seven an instinctual calling to the Catholic faith. Derrick Taylor's conversion to Catholicism officially commenced in September 1950 with help from his Catholic fiancée Irene Mary Taylor who introduced Derrick to Father Patrick McNally of St Mary's Church, Bamber Bridge.
Following the reforms introduced to the Latin Mass by the Second Vatican Council, Derrick Taylor entered a spiritual crisis that ultimately resulted in his experience of interior locution on at least two occasions. Derrick Taylor's experience of interior locution enriched his Catholic faith once more and solidified his faith in Christ and his allegiance to the Pope along the while continuing to attend Latin Mass until he died from ischemic heart disease in 2011.
Link to Derrick Taylor's 1995 interview Light a Candle for Me published in the Sceptre Bulletin.
See below the Official Depiction of Derrick Taylor commissioned as part of his Cause for Beatification. This unique work was illustrated by artist David Young and was published on 23rd March 2022.
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The Cause for the Beatification of Derrick Taylor in the Roman Catholic Church is wholly supported by the Astronist Institution in alignment with Cometan's wishes concerning his grandfather's posthumous recognition in the church of his faith.
The Locutions of Derrick Taylor
Period depicted: 31st May 1971
Artist: David Young
Published: 23rd March 2022
On the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1971, a Catholic convert named Derrick Taylor, then aged 40 and father to ten children with his wife Irene Mary Taylor, entered St Wilfrid's Church in the city of Preston in Lancashire, England. Disgruntled and confused over his Catholic faith as a result of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, Derrick Taylor feared that the sanctity of the Latin Mass and the sovereignty of the Pope were being eroded from within the Church. In St Wilfrid's narthex, he knelt down before a representation of the Sacred Heart and looked up to the Lord Jesus Christ with a fervent request to be shown a path out of this spiritual crisis he found himself in. What Derrick Taylor then endured would come to change the course of his life for his first known experience of interior locution –– God's voice communicated to the human ear –– occurred that very day. Emotional still yet also elated, Derrick Taylor heard the words, "keep up with your Mass. Everything is all right." And so, this is what Derrick Taylor did; he followed the word of God as it was directly spoken to him and attended the Latin Mass no matter the ridicule he knew he would receive. This experience and those that followed it enriched his Catholic faith to even higher degrees than he thought possible.
The Kindlement of Derrick Taylor
Period depicted: 1st July 1938
Artist: David Young
Published: 1st March 2023
On the Feast Day of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1938, a young boy named Derrick Taylor who was living in the mining town of Coppull, Lancashire, experienced a Catholic spiritual awakening that would change the course of his life. Derrick, seven years old at the time, entered his friend Stanley Eastham’s home in Coppull and in the corner of the hallway, saw for the very first time a representation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus candlelit by votive lamps. Derrick walked over to the picture and touched the Sacred Heart, then instantly feeling inside an instinctual draw to the Catholic faith through the devotion. This moment of elation sparked Derrick’s journey of conversion to Catholicism at age 20 from his childhood religion Anglicanism. Now viewed as a metaphor for his conversion, Derrick asked his friend’s mother to light a candle for him to stand alongside that same picture of the Sacred Heart that had kindled his Catholicity. On that day, the Lord Jesus Christ guided the young boy Derrick to him through his Sacred Heart and it is to this same devotion that Derrick would return throughout his life to guide him through the many tribulations and sufferances he would necessarily endure. The Kindlement is the commencement of Derrick Taylor’s journey in the Catholic faith and embodies the first event of divine intervention in his life. As a result, Derrick’s deep connection to the Sacred Heart was established, a connection that would, some thirty-three years later, effectuate his first experience of divine locution.
Exegetical book. Published in March 2022
A brand new book of resources on Irene & Derrick Taylor
Irene Mary & Derrick Taylor's Beatification Story