News
planning application chugging along
The City Fathers have acknowledged receipt of our final planning application for the new buildings, and tell us we should know the result by 12 October. We will let you know! The Oxford Times gave us a very good write-up when we had our Press Conference in July, and are promising another story tomorrow - it is good that the local Oxford papers are supportive and helpful, as they were so noticeably last year when St Therese came to visit.
In the meantime the fund raising campaign chugs along. Now that holidays are over and people are back to normal (well almost), we expect to see more of you attending our Information Functions, and, most importantly, introducing us to your influential contacts.
No picture seems particularly relevant this week so here's an Elephant and an Elephant's Child.
Heads will roll, statues stand
Sponsor a Statue or Head!
We had to restore the Sanctuary in 2008 in a hurry, because a stone fell during Mass. So there wasn't time to gather sponsorship in advance, or to apply for grants. Infuriatiungly, no grant-giving trust will make grants for work already completed, but that is no reason why individual benefactors should not.
Behind the altar there are fifty two statues of saints and angels, and above them there are twenty heads of saints. All of them were cleaned and restored by Taylor Pearce of New Cross. The statues were all taken out, crated and carted to South London, where they were cleaned, the missing bits restored, and the gilding refreshed. The heads wouldn't come out, so were restored in situ. We have calculated that it cost £350 for each of the heads, and £750 for each of the statues.
If you would like to sponsor an individual head, or a statue, cable us at campaign@oxfordoratory.com.uk, and we will send you an up-to-date list of which statues or heads have not yet been sponsored. When we have sponsors for the full list, we could even publish an illustrated book of them all, naming all the sponsors!
Here are the Saints being crated up.
The Camino to Santiago
Fr Daniel and six companions walked from Leon to Santiago (340 km) in nine days.
The paths were well marked with yellow arrows, shells and signs:
Alternatively we could simply follow our shadows:
We walked along a variety of paths:
Most of the churches provide good spots for storks' nests:
And inside, we were able to celebrate Mass. Spain has the privilege of using blue vestments at Masses in honour of Our Lady. Here at Santa Caterina de Somoza:
On the whole the locals were friendly:
Mass at the tomb of the Apostle St James, where we remembered the intentions of all our sponsors, of the Oratory and of the Oratory parish:
We were able to see the famous bottafumeiro twice in Santiago Cathedral. It is the largest thurible in the world, and swings dramatically along the transepts. When Catherine of Aragon witnessed this in 1499, the bottafumeiro came loose and flew out through the window. No such worrying portents occurred during our visit.
This year is a Holy Year in Santiago. We queued in the rain for an hour and a half to go through the Holy Door, before hugging the statue of St James just as the Archbishop was celebrating Mass and had reached the consecration.
The Women's Oratory has done a fantastic job in raising sponsorship for the walk, in aid of the Oratory Reaffirmation and Renewal Campaign. It is not too late to sponsor us retrospectively. Simply go to our JustGiving page. Thank you!
Late Summer Exhibition
We have now started our second exhibition of the year - this weekend, 28th to 30th August (because Monday is a public holiday in honour of Blessed Juvenal Ancina of the Oratory). This time the theme is "Tell them about the Vestments". We have in the Guild Room a dazzling display of real vestments and accessories, dating from the sixteenth to twenty-first centuries, all of which are at least in occasional use in our Church. In the parish centre is a display of brass rubbings, from England and overseas, showing vestments as worn from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. They include some of the Polish giants not seen in Oxford since 1971. The catalogue explains what vestments are for, and how they are worn.
Open Saturday 10:30 to 5:30, Sunday 12:30 to 5:30, and Monday 10:30 to 5:30.
Admission is free, the catalogue £1.00, and if you would like to take the opportunity to join our development campaign, the information is all there.
Plus the final application document for planning permission is on display between the two models.
Newman Exhibition
Our exhibition of items connected with Newman in Oxford attracted between 150 and 200 visitors - at least we sold nearly 100 catalogues, and we imagine that was one between two. There were some quite distinguished guests as well, including experts on Newman who had never seen some of our items before. Many of the engravings were used for the new edition of "Newman's Oxford" (which is still available from the Lodge or Campaign Office at £5.00, of which £2.00 goes to the Appeal). The other engravings, and the autographs, the bust and the Venables portrait, were illustrated in the catalogue, which is also still available.
We are now getting the next exhibition ready - weekend of 28th to 30th August, church vestments in reality and on brass-rubbings. See you there.