The Oxford Oratory is a vibrant centre of Catholic life. Our church is open every day: join us for Mass, pop in for some quiet prayer, or come and discover more at one of our groups. Our historic church of St Aloysius has been a key feature in the lives of the city’s Catholics for 150 years, attracting people of all ages and from every walk of life. We use beauty to raise hearts and minds to God, faithful to the traditions of St Philip Neri and St John Henry Newman.

Monday 18 March 2024

The final scene shows St Aloysius on his death bed aged 23, having caught the plague from those he had been nursing.

As well as the stunning scenes from St Aloysius’s life, this work has unlocked some of the general patterns that continued in other parts of the sanctuary. Notice how the leaf and vine pattern actually continues the mouldings above the reredos statues. It also ties in with the gold decoration behind the tabernacle and crucifix, and the brass railings beside the lecterns, showing us how the original decoration of our sanctuary all came together.

This work enables us now to reconstruct the decoration of the rest of the sanctuary, which has not survived under the modern paint in the same way as these murals, suffering from damp and flaking plaster over the years.

It is astonishing how quickly @clivedenconservation were able to uncover these paintings that had been lost for 60 years. Thank you to all our generous benefactors who made it possible to begin this work so quickly.

#oxfordoratory #oratory150

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Monday 18 March 2024

The next scene show St Aloysius’ professing his vows as a member of the Society of Jesus.

When this scene first began to appear, we saw the haloed priest holding a Host and assumed it must have been St Charles giving Aloysius his first Communion. When we found that scene on the other side, we realised we were wrong!

Unusually for a scene from a saint’s life, it depicts Aloysius with his back to us. This highlights his turning his back on the world to serve Christ alone. Jesuits make their vows during Mass directly to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament just before Communion.

We‘re still not sure who the saintly priest is. The canonised superiors general of the Society St Ignatius and St Francis Borgia both died before 1587, when Aloysius made his vows. We think it is most likely to be St Robert Bellarmine.

A particular highlight of these murals can be seen in the beautiful detail of the acolyte’s candle, where the flame is depicted by a star in gold leaf.

#oxfordoratory #oratory150 @clivedenconservation

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Monday 18 March 2024

Here are the first two scenes from the life of St Aloysius in our newly restored murals. The first shows his first Holy Communion at the hands of St Charles Borromeo on the left. On the right, St Aloysius receives his father’s blessing to renounce his inheritance and join the Society of Jesus.

Around the scenes are IHS and SA monograms, representing the Holy Name of Jesus and “St Aloysius”.

Underneath the layers of grey paint, we discovered there was actually a pretty serious crack in the plaster on this side. It’s not even possible to see where it was now, thanks to the excellent work by @clivedenconservation

#oxfordoratory #oratory150

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Saturday 16 March 2024

The sanctuary murals are completely uncovered and restored. Thank you to all the donors who made this work possible. Close up photos of each side with explanations to follow.

#oxfordoratory #oratory150

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Wednesday 13 March 2024

A Week of Prayer

The Church requires all priests to make a spiritual retreat each year — a week away from pastoral work to give some attention to their own spiritual lives, to pray and to rest. Christ took the disciples away from their public ministry to rest (Mark 6:31), and often escaped himself to be alone with his Father (e.g. Matt. 14:23, Mark 1:35).

A week-long retreat in a monastery will not be possible for those who have work, studies or families to take care of. But the busier we are, the more essential it is that we take time in the course of the year to give our relationship with God some more than ordinary attention. In many ways, the Church builds this time into the year for us, by encouraging us not just to attend Mass on Sundays and major feast days, but also to rest from our usual activity on those days and devote the time we save to extra prayer, study and works of charity.

In the fourth century, when the Roman Empire became Christian, the emperors suspended all law courts and businesses from functioning during Holy Week so that all the faithful would be free to spend the week in church. That practice continued in Christian countries even into the nineteenth century. All Christians were given time off to devote the whole week leading up to Easter to more intense spiritual activity.

Lent is a time of preparation for Easter. That preparation takes the form not only of prayer, fasting and almsgiving but also of planning. Without a plan, Holy Week and Easter may pass us by like any other ordinary days. The thought of Easter rapidly approaching should remind us to make some more practical plans for the Sacred Triduum. The full schedule for the liturgies and other devotions taking place that week in church is now available on our website. Do we know what time we will spend in church? Do we know what else we will do in those days? Will we make sure in advance that the house is clean, the shopping is bought and the laundry is done so that we are free to focus on God during those days that he was so especially focused on us and our salvation?

Fr Walter Ciszek, in his book He Leadeth Me, speaks of the retreats he organised for his fellow prisoners in a Soviet prison camp. They managed to spend their days in prayer without any break from their work in some of the toughest conditions human beings have ever faced. Fr Ciszek and his fellow priests made this possible by the rigorous planning they put in ahead of each period of retreat, in order to make the most of the little time they had available to them. It is possible for all of us to grow in our love of God — but we need to plan how we are going to do it.


These reflections are sent out each Wednesday to all those on our mailing list. Click here to sign up to our mailing list, and receive our Sunday E-newsletter and these reflections straight to your inbox.
Tuesday 12 March 2024

Holy Week Schedule

Palm Sunday
24 March
Saturday Vigil Mass: 6:30pm
Sunday Masses: 8am* (EF), 9:30am* (Sung English)
Blessing of Palms & Solemn Mass at 11am*
Vespers & Benediction at 5pm*
Evening Mass: 6:30pm

Maundy Thursday
28 March
Solemn Mass of the Lord’s Supper at 8pm*
watching at the Altar of Repose until midnight

Good Friday
29 March
Tenebrae 9am
Children’s Stations of the Cross at 11am
Solemn Liturgy of the Passion at 3pm*
Stations of the Cross at 7pm
Confessions 10–11am, and after the end of the 3pm Solemn Liturgy

Holy Saturday
30 March
Tenebrae 9am
Confessions 10am–1pm
Children’s Prayers at the Tomb at 12noon
Solemn Vigil of Easter at 9pm*

Easter Sunday
31 March
Masses at 8am* (EF), 9:30am* (Sung English), 11am* (Solemn Latin), 6:30pm
Choral Vespers at 5pm*

Easter Monday
1 April
Mass at 10am* only, after which the church will be closed.

Services marked with * will also be streamed online.

Friday 8 March 2024

The altar of Our Lady of Oxford came originally from the private chapel of Hartwell de la Garde Grissell on the High Street. Grissell’s chapel became the place where many entered the Catholic Church, and these new Catholics all received their First Communion from this altar. Today, this same altar served as a fitting place to continue a 150 year old tradition. Many congratulations to Edward, who was baptised today, and was confirmed and received his First Holy Communion at Grissell’s altar. #oxfordoratory

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Wednesday 6 March 2024

How’s your Lent going so far?

We are not quite half-way through Lent, the penitential season, and by now it is not unusual to hear the complaint: “I’ve broken every one of my resolutions.” If that is the case, never mind, just pick up where you left off and start off all over again. It’s the intention that counts.

Naturally, we want to do as well as we can, to be as perfect as can be. However, experience shows us that we are a long way off perfection. But will eating a biscuit in Lent really bar us from Heaven? Of course not. But that is not why we make those Lenten sacrifices — or because eating or drinking less may be good for us for health reasons. We do so because we are disciples of Christ and are seeking to learn from his teaching and to imitate his example.

On the First Sunday of Lent, we read, as we do every year, the account of the Temptation of the Lord in the desert. This year, we heard Mark’s somewhat pared back version of the incident, mentioned, it almost seems, as if in passing. But our minds went back, I’m sure, to the fuller stories in Luke and Matthew’s Gospels, which tell us how Jesus was tempted. It’s not necessary to rehearse them here. All that is necessary is to recall that he was tempted. We learn from his example how to deal with those temptations, and to learn that it is essential and indeed possible to say say “No” to ourselves and not simply to give in to our every whim and desire.

If we have an uncontrolled habit of snacking between meals, or spending hours on social media or endlessly checking our mobile phones, or pouring ourselves a drink (just the one?), we may find ourselves enslaved, unable, or so we think, to free ourselves from whatever addiction it is we are subject to. Lent is a good time to seek our freedom again, and to re-evaluate our relationship with our phones, with food and drink, or Ebay and Amazon. It can be a struggle, and present a real test of our love for God and our self-control. God allows us to be tested not because he does not know how strong we are, but because we do not know. We are all of us tested, tried, by the stresses and pains of life, by the burdens others lay on us, by the ceaseless challenge to respond with love to those whom we find difficult to love. When we succeed in overcoming this or that temptation, we are doing so in his strength, not ours. When we suffer some temptation, we must see it as an opportunity to grow, in holiness and in virtue. Only when we are tempted do we have the chance to triumph. When we choose to try to resist temptation, standing firm, having recourse to the grace of the Sacraments, then every temptation becomes an occasion of virtue.

Every temptation is an opportunity — to be faithful or not. The saintly Curé of Ars, John Vianney, told someone who was struggling with some temptation to imagine Our Lord standing beside him, neither judging nor condemning him as he struggled, but saying, “Ah, so you do love me.” There can be no virtue without temptation. “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” (I Cor. 10:13) As we continue our Lenten journey, let’s keep in mind that in our weakness, the Lord will show himself to be strong and will hear our prayer “lead us not into temptation.”

The prayer of surrender which many use each day, can be a great help: O Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything. A simple enough prayer to make. Worth trying.


These reflections are sent out each Wednesday to all those on our mailing list. Click here to sign up to our mailing list, and receive our Sunday E-newsletter and these reflections straight to your inbox.
Tuesday 5 March 2024

Charlie was received into the Church today, confirmed with the name “Aloysius” and received his first Holy Communion. In the background, another Aloysius can be seen receiving his own first Communion. #oxfordoratory

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Saturday 2 March 2024

Today we celebrated the reception of Kevin and Melanie into full Communion with the Catholic Church.

Christians who are already baptised are “received” into the Church (and are not technically “converts”) because baptism joins a person to Christ’s Body — the Church — wherever it may take place. The fullness of Communion with the Church comes about by receiving Christ’s Body for the first time in the Eucharist.

Please pray for all those we have baptised or received into the Church recently, and carry on praying for those who are still on their way!

“We entreat you, brothers, as earnestly as we are able, to have charity, not only for one another, but also for those who are outside the Church. Of these some are still pagans, who have not yet made an act of faith in Christ. Others are separated, insofar as they are joined with us in professing faith in Christ, our head, but are yet divided from the unity of his body. My friends, we must grieve over these as over our brothers. Whether they like it or not, they are our brothers; and they will only cease to be so when they no longer say ‘Our Father’.” — St Augustine

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Friday 1 March 2024

March Music

Sunday 3 March Solemn Mass 11:00
3rd Sunday of Lent
Missa Inter vestibulum  Guerrero
Rex autem David Ribera
Tristis est anima mea Kuhnau

Sunday 10 March Solemn Mass 11:00
4th Sunday of Lent (‘Lætare’)
Mass in the Dorian Mode Howells
Laetatus sum Vaet
Manus tuae Morales

Sunday 17 March Solemn Mass 11:00
Passion Sunday
Missa Quarti toni Victoria
Voce mea Porta
Ave verum Byrd

Sunday 24 March Solemn Mass 11:00
Palm Sunday
Pueri Hebræorum Victoria
Ingrediente Domino Malcolm
Missa brevis Palestrina
Christus factus est Anerio
Improperium Palestrina
Vadam et circuibo Victoria

Thursday 28 March Solemn Mass 20:00
Maundy Thursday
Missa Vinum bonum Lassus
Ubi caritas Duruflé
Dominus Jesus in qua nocte Palestrina
Pange lingua Victoria

Friday 29 March Solemn Liturgy 15:00
Good Friday
Christus factus est Bruckner
St John Passion Victoria
Popule meus Victoria
Crucifixus a8 Lotti
Versa est in luctum Lobo
O suavitas et dulcedo de Monte
Crux fidelis King John IV of Portugal
Lamentations I Tallis

Saturday 30 March Easter Vigil 21:00
Holy Saturday
Missa Tulerunt dominum meum Praetorius
Aurora lucis rutilat Lassus
Dum transisset Taverner
Chorale Improvisation sur ‘Victimae Paschali Laudes’ Tournemire

Sunday 31 March Solemn Mass 11:00
Easter Sunday
Coronation Mass Mozart
Christus resurgens Allegri
Surrexit a mortuis Widor
Hallelujah Handel
Prelude and Fugue in G BWV541 Bach

Solemn Vespers 17:00
Deus in adjutorium Croce
Haec dies Sheppard
Magnificat tertii toni Vivanco
Ecce vicit leo Philips
O salutaris hostia Howells
Tantum ergo Howells
Regina Caeli Howells
Finale from Symphony 6 Widor

Friday 1 March 2024

We pray the Stations of the Cross at 5:30pm every Friday during Lent. At the end, there is a blessing with a relic of the Holy Cross.

#oxfordoratory

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Wednesday 28 February 2024

The Lenten Fast

On Ash Wednesday we asked the Lord to grant “that we may begin with holy fasting this campaign of Christian service, so that, as we take up battle against spiritual evils, we may be armed with weapons of self-restraint”. We were told to give alms, and pray, and fast. Self-discipline, penance, works of charity and, particularly, fasting will be demanded of us in the liturgy for these forty days. The ancient preface of Lent is all about fasting, by means of which God restrains our faults, raises up our minds, and bestows virtue and its rewards. We speak of the Solemn Lenten Fast — in fact, the Dutch and Afrikaans word for Lent is Die Vaste or Vastyd, “The Fast” or “The time of fasting”.

Fasting has always held a special place in Jewish and Christian religious thought and practice. Both Elijah and Moses fasted for forty days before seeing God. St John the Baptist and his followers fasted. The Lord himself fasted in the desert, not for his own needs, says Dom Guéranger, but to serve as an example for us. The Church has sanctified, encouraged, and sometimes mandated the practice of fasting. Why? According to St Thomas Aquinas, to “bridle the lusts of the flesh, to raise the mind more freely to the contemplation of heavenly things, and to satisfy for sins”. He quotes St Augustine who says, “Fasting cleanses the soul, raises the mind, subjects one’s flesh to the spirit, renders the heart contrite and humble, scatters the clouds of concupiscence, quenches the fire of lust, kindles the true light of chastity.”

For more than a thousand years, the Lenten fast was of the strictest kind. Abstinence from meat, eggs and dairy products was required of all Catholics for the entirety of Lent, and every day except Sunday was a day of fasting — with only a single meal allowed, and only after sunset. In more recent centuries this fast was mitigated, and by the middle of the twentieth century eggs and dairy were permitted and abstinence from meat only required on a couple of days each week. Fasting was still obligatory, but a small breakfast and an evening snack were permitted. Today, the only days of obligatory fasting for us are Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and even then we are allowed one meal and two small snacks (which is what many of us would eat ordinarily anyway). So what are we to make of the liturgy’s assumption that we are all engaged in a prolonged and difficult fast from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday?

Some people have said that fasting means to give up doing something, so in Lent we should give up all sorts of bad behaviour: refraining from hurtful words, sadness, anger, worry, bitterness, selfishness, and so on. But surely we should be trying not to act in these ways throughout the year? Fasting has never been seen as giving up what is bad — that goes without saying. Rather, to fast is to deny ourselves something that is good for the sake of a greater good. We reduce our eating not because it is bad — or because we want to lose weight or be healthier — but because in denying ourselves we show the Lord that we are sorry for our sins, for all those times when we have indulged ourselves and let our appetites lead us away from God. We take our attention away from food and drink to focus it on repentance and prayer. We give up something good for the sake of him who gave up his life for us.

St John Henry explains how we should keep Lent, especially at a time when the rules of fasting have been mitigated, in a sermon he gave in 1848 (when, despite several relaxations, Lenten fasting was still much stricter than today). He says:

…fasting is only one branch of a large and momentous duty, the subdual of ourselves to Christ. We must surrender to Him all we have, all we are. We must keep nothing back. We must present to Him as captive prisoners with whom He may do what He will, our soul and body, our reason, our judgement, our affections, our imagination, our tastes, our appetite.

The great thing is to subdue ourselves; but as to the particular form in which the great precept of self-conquest and self-surrender is to be expressed, that depends on the person himself, and on the time or place. What is good for one age or person, is not good for another.

Newman teaches that fasting from food is appropriate in people or places where the struggle against sin is a bodily struggle: against lust, greed, gluttony, drunkenness, and violence. But when fasting rules are relaxed, it is a reminder to us that there are other sins and weaknesses to mortify in us — sins of the intellect, the affections, the will, sins of pride — which need subduing even more than our bodies. He suggests that we mortify our curiosity for news and information (how necessary this is today, with constant exposure to media and social media), and mortify our reason (taking time to hear the opinions of others, and getting into the habit of mistrusting our own views in order to properly try them and purify them). None of these involve giving up that which is objectively bad, but all will involve some effort and renunciation on our part — a real “fasting”.

Lent is a sacred time in which we double our efforts to reject sin, to amend our behaviour, and move from darkness to light. But it is also a time when we offer to the Lord true sacrifices: denying ourselves in little ways and big ones to tell him — and to show our selves — that we love him above all things and repent with our whole heart for having offended him.


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Saturday 24 February 2024

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Saturday 24 February 2024

Fr Dominic spoke on St Philip’s life of prayer this morning. #oxfordoratory

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Friday 23 February 2024

Today we discovered a section of mural depicting St Aloysius’ First Holy Communion at the hands of St Charles Borromeo.
#oxfordoratory #oratory150

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Wednesday 21 February 2024

Work on uncovering our sanctuary murals began this week. #oxfordoratory #oratory150

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Wednesday 21 February 2024

Jerusalem

Flanders and Swann once pointed out that England doesn’t really have a national anthem of its own: God Save the King is for all the United Kingdom, and so England is left with a patriotic song about the capital city of another country — Parry’s Jerusalem. This hymn, which poses questions in its words that can all be answered ‘No’, speaks to us of the constant fascination with Jerusalem, with the Holy City, which God chose as his own. This fascination we see in other outlets of mankind’s God-given genius: for example, the beautiful hymn, which I should like at my funeral, Jerusalem the Golden and the other 1960s version, which I should not, popularised by the Israeli pop ballad singer Ofra Haza. There are books, thousands of them, of course, which tell of Jerusalem’s tortured history or otherwise introduce us to her glorious cuisine. Pilgrims today, as in the past, bear her very name tattooed on their bodies, and in many Jewish homes there is a plaque on the wall bearing her name or simply ‘Mizrah’ (east), as Muslim homes will have an image of the Al-aqsa mosque. She is the focus of the prayers of billions each day, and has been fought over since first she was thought of. Etymologists debate the origins of her name but we suppose that Jerusalem is called the ‘City of Peace’, which only heightens the terrible irony of her suffering.

If you have had the chance to go to Israel and to visit Jerusalem you will know that for a Christian it is an unparalleled experience. The first-time visitor never knows quite what to expect, and some are disappointed that their pilgrimage is not an expedition into time-travel. But for all the modern dual-carriageways, impossible bureaucracy, and millennia-old general chaos which inhabits everything, there is ever a sense of the proximity of the Incarnation. In the Old City, those streets that wind about and those tiny courtyards that beckon one into yet another site of God’s dwelling with mankind, all of it changes, fundamentally, how one hears the Gospel and reads it — because with Jerusalem one can see it. These stones upon which Christ walked, these places where his Apostles preached him, this mount where his blood was shed…the wonder and the privilege to be simply there is something that not even hordes of selfie-takers can obscure.

As Christians, Jerusalem is in our soul. We have always faced East to offer the Sacrifice of God to God and in the Mass our very posture positions us towards the East: to Eden and to Jerusalem, that our faces and hearts may be lifted up to God and to his City and thus to the hope of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Each day we utter the name of Jerusalem: in our psalms, hymns, and prayers. Our minds and hearts are transported there by the words of the prophets, the songs of David, and all our sacred history as it is recounted. Just a few months ago we found ourselves only just outside her limits as we knelt before the Christ-Child in Bethlehem and then Candlemas took us up to Jerusalem — one always goes up to Jerusalem just as one does to Oxford — to the Temple itself, and now in these weeks we will follow Our Lord through her alley-ways and porticoes, to witness there his miracles and to hear his preaching, to follow him then from Gethsemane to Calvary. And not long thereafter we shall wait at the Sepulchre from which will burst forth his victory, to be taken thence out of the Holy City of Jerusalem to every corner of the world.

During Lent, each Friday in our church at 5:30pm, we pray together the Stations of the Cross, tracing Christ’s journey to Calvary to shed his Blood for our redemption. This is the Via Dolorosa. The Franciscans bought back this devotion from Jerusalem so that all those who could not travel there could instead trace Our Lord’s journey in every Temple of God throughout the world. The journey to Jerusalem has rarely been easy and at this precise moment would be rather precarious; if we want to see those streets and follow the Cross through them we are probably better advised to do it on Google Street View for the moment. Far better of course to follow Our Lord in his own House, in his Church. The Stations are not a re-enactment; they are a prayer — lifting our mind and heart to the moving and bloody reality of the price God paid for us in love.

This Lent, as we follow his Via Dolorosa in our own churches, as we pray those psalms and hymns, and hear day after day of Jerusalem, we do well to pray for the people of that Holy City and Land that Christ wept over. And for ourselves too, that we may follow Christ this Lent in every mystery of his Passion, to contemplate his inexhaustible love continually poured out for us, and know at last the “sweet and blessed country, that eager hearts expect! In mercy, Jesus, bring us, to that dear land of rest”.


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Thursday 15 February 2024

Last Saturday, the sisters of the Spiritual Family The Work invited the Fathers and Brothers to Newman’s College at Littlemore to take part in the Forty Hours, where Benediction was given by one of their recently ordained priests. #oxfordoratory

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Wednesday 14 February 2024

An Island in the Rain

Many of us might dream of an escape to an island. Perhaps the island you think of is full of palm trees and coconut trees, hammocks strung between them and endless sunshine. Perhaps it is the calm of the beach that your fantasy island provides, sea lapping at the sandy shore, not a cloud in the sky nor a care in the world. Today, on Ash Wednesday, another island might come to mind to some. Despite the wild natural beauty of the place, the tranquility, the breath-taking sunsets and sunrises, this is no holiday island, but a place of pilgrimage and a place of penance. On Lough Derg thousands come each year, unshod, fasting, denying themselves sleep and replacing the chatter of conversation with constant prayer. Our fantasy islands are about escape from the world, getting away from it all, a change of scene. And although from the Maldives or the Seychelles we might come home rested (and poorer), that’s all. From this island we are invited to come back changed.

On this island, called, in fact, “Station Island”, the round of “Station Prayers” contains a gesture that is particularly striking. At a simple cross cut into the wall of the church, pilgrims stand facing out, with arms outstretched in the form of the cross, saying three times aloud, “I renounce the world, the flesh and the devil.” Watching this scene, a young man will come along and make this profound sign, then a teenager, and next in line perhaps a woman in her seventies. Bare-foot, hungry, there is an amazing equality in these pilgrims — even down to the wet-weather gear that is almost always needed on this island island lake in Donegal. There is equality in their penitence, in their penance, but also in their desire for the mercy of God. The three days they spend here are not an escape, but rather they think about their lives, they thank God for his blessings and, by disciplining themselves a little, they seek what is most essential, to strengthen their relationship with him. It is a powerful gesture of their need for God.

Lough Derg has always struck me as a sort of mini Lent. Lent is not a time of punishment for punishment’s sake, but a time of renewal of what is most important. Lent is a powerful gesture of our need for God. By paring back for a while, by denying ourselves, by praying more, by thinking of those who have much less than we do, we gain a different optic on our life. We look again and we seek to change for the better. Our Lenten penance is a bit like standing at that cross on Station Island: we renounce those things that can trap us so that we can be freer to love God. It sounds simple, but if only it were so. Rather in stretching out our arms we are reaching out to our God who comes to save us, to lift us up by his grace and help us.

At the end of the three-day pilgrimage on Lough Derg, the pilgrims (shoes on, faces washed) return to the world delighted, a spring in their step, a smile on their face. They have done it! The real joy comes from that reaching out to God, however, of having given him their small gesture, to receive much grace in return. Whatever you do this Lent — whether it’s giving up Mars Bars or merlot — remember that it is really all about the heart that is within our sacrifice, and if in our heart we too reach out more to him, then we too will skip off our own Lenten “island” closer to him and ready to face life a bit better off for it.


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