On the feast of the Epiphany, at a solemn Mass in St Peter’s Basilica, our Holy Father Pope Leo closed the Holy Door, bringing to an end what has been a most extraordinary Jubilee year in the life of the Universal Church, and an eventful year in the life of the Church more locally.

On Easter Monday, 21 April, we learnt of the death of Pope Francis, who had been struggling with ill health for many weeks. As he had said from the balcony of St Peter’s only the day before, 

“The Resurrection of Jesus is indeed the basis of our hope. For in the light of this event, hope is no longer an illusion… All those who put their hope in God place their feeble hands in his strong and mighty hand; they let themselves be raised up and set out on a journey. Together with the risen Jesus, they become pilgrims of hope, witnesses of the victory of love and of the disarmed power of Life.” We prayed for the Holy Father in the days following, that he might experience that power of Life and witness the victory of Christ’s love, offering a Solemn Mass of Requiem for his soul with a packed congregation.

The whole world then grew tremendously excited as preparations were made for the cardinal-electors to enter the Conclave to elect a new Pope. The media was abuzz with speculation as to which Cardinal would be elected, with even one of our parishioners, Timothy Cardinal Radcliffe OP of Blackfriars, being in the running. Fr Nicholas was privileged to be in St Peter’s Square on 8 May as the bells of St Peter’s rang out, white smoke billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, and the Cardinal Deacon announced the great joy of the election of Robert Francis, Cardinal Prevost, as Pope Leo XIV.

Millions of Catholics flocked to Rome during the Holy Year to pass through the doors of the papal basilicas and participate in the Jubilee events. Our new Holy Father began his ministry with great humility, warmth, humour and Christ-centred faith. But he also showed himself a Pope of Surprises, announcing, with little to no warning, that he would declare St John Henry Newman a Doctor of the Church. This took place on All Saints’ Day, 1 November, in St Peter’s Square. Fr Dominic, Fr Rupert, Br Vincent, Br Ambrose and Br Thomas went to Rome to be present on this historic occasion, the fruit of so much effort and prayer since Our Cardinal’s canonisation only a few years before.

At the end of November we celebrated 150 years since the blessing and opening of our church of St Aloysius. His Grace the Archbishop celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving on 22 November, along with two bishops, an abbot, previous Parish Priests, and local clergy. We were privileged to have both the Vice-Chancellor of the University and the Lord Mayor of Oxford with us on that occasion. A fascinating exhibition of photographs and treasures of the parish was put together by Br Vincent in the Fathers’ library, along with a special anniversary edition of our Friends’ magazine. A special plenary indulgence was granted by the Apostolic See for the occasion, given by the Archbishop at the end of the Mass of Thanksgiving. Another plenary indulgence was also given by the Holy Father, which can be gained every day until the feast of St Aloysius this year by visiting our church.

The real treasures of the parish are, of course, the people. In 2025 we baptised fifty new Christians, welcoming Cecilia, Theodore, Lachlan, Sophie, Jeanne-Marie, Patricia, Wesley, Ben, Dominika, Mustafa, Eric, Paul, Isaac, Freddie, Finnan, Isabel, George, Rosemary, Bella, Rosalia, Elvis, James, Frederick, Megha, Trystan, Ava, Sheila, Audrey, Polina, Aurora, Anosh, Indira, Edna, Florence, Méabh, Oona, Zofia, Mila, Dominic, Marina, Lucia, Olivia, Grace, Edward, Magnus, Kalliope, Alexandru, Camila, Peter, and Karla, into the Church — twelve of whom are adults who have been instructed in the Faith in our parish. Prashanth, Helen, Jonathan, Nicholas, Bethany, Charles, Andrew, David, Grace, Lydia, Anne, Rakoen, and Sophie, were received into full communion. Another sixteen adult Catholics were confirmed, together with thirteen of our school and parish children. A total of forty one adults were therefore baptised, confirmed or received into the Church this past year — proof that there is indeed a “quiet revival” taking place in England and Wales. Twelve couples began their married lives together at the Oratory in 2025: please pray for Ramu and Chloë, James and Antonia, Rupert and Melody-Ann, Jose and Almudena, Paul and Herin, Thomas and Isabella, Cameron and Elena, Joshua and Selina, James and Karolina, Joshua and Alison, Jonathan and Caitlin, and Thomas and Cloe.

Our average Mass attendance (worked out by counting everyone at Mass on four weekends in September/October) was 993, which is an increase on last year and one of the highest in the Archdiocese. Many of those attending Mass at the Oratory travel some distance, and our virtual “attendance” on the livestream continues to be high.

After an appeal from the pulpit towards the end of 2024, the average Sunday collection has also improved. There are details on our website on the need to support the Oratory and parish and how to give: https://oxfordoratory.org.uk/giving.php Cafe Neri continues to be an important part of our ministry on Sundays, providing not only refreshments after Mass, but also an opportunity to meet each other and make new parishioners and visitors feel especially welcome. The Lodge bookshop has had another very good year of sales, helped by a brilliant selection of books and devotional items (curated by some of the Fathers and Brothers). In fact, our retail income is such that we have had to register for VAT. The Oratory Prayer Book still sells all over the world through our online bookshop. Fr Rupert published a new book, I wait in the night, the first English translation of the diaries of Jacques Fesch, and we republished Fr Martindale’s Catholics in Oxford. All of these are available from our online shop, or in person at the Porter’s Lodge.

The last few years have seen an unusually large number of funerals at the Oratory. In 2025 we said farewell to to several longstanding members of our parish, and some more recent arrivals, commending to God: Timothy Davies, Tim Toomey, Hugh Smyth, Dolores Yong, John Kaye, Pat Marshall, Bill Hayes, Carol Wilson, Michael Hallas, Margaret Mongellas, John van den Bergh, Margaret Dewar, Baby Ignatius Sahner, Ashley Bale, and Penny Cornthwaite. Monsignor Vaughan Morgan CBE, a retired priest of the Archdiocese and a dear friend of the community, passed away in December. He was a familiar face in the parish, often attending Mass on high days and holy days when his purple monsignorial dress added a splash of colour and style to our sanctuary. His funeral will be celebrated in our church on 16 January. May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Holy Years tend to draw all pilgrims to Rome, but we still had visiting groups from France, Italy, Spain, the United States, and Indonesia. The Oxford Preservation Trust, The Ecclesiastical Architects and Surveyors Association, and The Victorian Society, came to see our church and were given presentations on some of the art and architecture of the church and our future plans. We had over 1000 people through the doors for the Oxford Open Doors in September. Abbot Cuthbert Brogan OSB and some of the monks of Farnborough Abbey joined us for St Philip’s Day, Fr George Bowen of the London Oratory, postulator for the cause of Newman’s declaration as Doctor of the Church preached for Our Cardinal’s feast, and Bishop Alan Hopes, Bishop Emeritus of East Anglia, celebrated and preached on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. The Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Miguel Maury Buendía, paid us a flying visit on 9 October, bringing with him the Sostituto of the Secretariat of State of the Holy See, Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, who lead us in prayer in thanksgiving for St John Henry being made a Doctor and asked us to pray for the Holy Father.

Both Fr Rupert and Br Vincent completed their noviciate in 2025 and were aggregated into the Congregation. Br Vincent began his theological studies for the priesthood at Blackfriars, Br Ambrose continued his philosophy, and Br Thomas, having finished his first year as a novice, started his studies. Please pray for our brothers as they continue their formation and preparation for ordination.

Through the generosity of parishioners and visitors, we were able to help a number of needy causes and charities. Our crib collection raised £876 for Aid to the Church in Need, and the Lent project for Helen and Douglas House totalled £3,854. The Mission Appeal for the Sacred Heart Fathers collected £1,1014, and we were able to send 200 gift parcels to the Operation Christmas Child Christmas shoebox appeal. The Oratory was also able to host the Companions of the Order of Malta Easter and Christmas lunches for the homeless and less fortunate, and the parish centre continued as the Companions’ base of operations for the twice weekly evening “soup and sandwich” runs. Oratory Outreach helped to host the homeless lunches, and ran very successful collections for the Oxford Food Bank each month.

We had hoped to share more exciting news about our great development project, to renew and redecorate our sanctuary, church and sacristies, and the plans for a baptistry and Newman chapel. Unfortunately we hit a number of setbacks in 2025 — not least the discovery of a certain amount of subsidence on the sacristy-side of the church — and will have to do some fairly serious (and expensive) remedial work on the apse and stained-glass windows this year. We are pushing ahead, and it will not be much longer before exciting things will start happening (and will be seen to be happening!).

The Holy Year of Jubilee may have come to a close, and it is unlikely that 2026 will see quite as much excitement in the Catholic world as the year past. But the daily round of Masses and confessions, the annual cycle of feasts, the moments of joy at baptisms and weddings, and the heartbreak of funerals, will continue in this little part of the Lord’s Vineyard that is the Oratory parish in Oxford. We entrust this new year to the prayers of Our Lady, St Aloysius and St Philip, and hope that the Lord will bless our efforts and crown our achievements. As Pope Leo said at his installation Mass in May 2025: “Together, as one people, as brothers and sisters, let us walk towards God and love one another”.

The God of gods, the Lord,
has spoken and summoned the earth,
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
Out of Zion’s perfect beauty he shines.
Our God comes, he keeps silence no longer.
Before him fire devours,
around him tempest rages. (Ps. 49:1–3)

If I were one of the shepherds watching my flock, all seated on the ground and minding my own business, I think I would have been more than a little taken aback to find my otherwise quiet night shift interrupted by hosts of angels shouting something about God at me. It must have taken a moment for them to catch their bearings, to figure out amid their half-awake grogginess quite what was happening. But they must have snapped awake pretty quickly. The angelic tidings announced something earth-shattering: the eternal Word of God had taken flesh to save mankind, and had just been born at Bethlehem.

In that moment, the Word “spoke, and summoned the earth”. Since the Fall, mankind had been waiting for this moment. Prophet after prophet came to call Israel to back to God — but now, God came to them. First he called the shepherds, representing that people to whom the Lord our God spoke first. They had been waiting patiently for their promised Saviour for millennia: now the moment has arrived, and not only for Israel but for the whole world. By the star which shone above him, God summoned the whole earth, represented by the Magi, to come and worship him.

“Our God comes, he keeps silence no longer.” And yet, wrapped in swaddling bands and lying in a manger, he is the picture of meekness. God’s humility, coming down from heaven and taking human flesh in order to redeem us, is the greatest mystery of our faith — but it is something we all too easily skip over in our mind. The Christmas story is so familiar to all of us that we can forget quite how remarkable a thing it is that we commemorate each year. By Our Lady’s faithful obedience to God’s will, the Divine Word became a man, just like any of us. He does not come attended by earthly pomp and ceremony — the King of kings and Lord of lords is born, but there are no gun-salutes in Hyde Park, there are no Red Arrows fly-pasts. But still, “before him fire devours and tempest rages”: he has come to earth to destroy sin and death. By taking human flesh, by his life, his death and his resurrection, Jesus Christ reconciled us to God. His humility rescues us from the arrogance of our sin; by his wounds we are healed.

O God, who wonderfully created the dignity of human nature, and still more wonderfully restored it, grant we pray, that we may share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity. Who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.

We celebrated on Monday the feast day of Blessed Antony Grassi of the Oratory in Fermo. He is famous for living the Oratorian vocation in a quiet and unassuming way, yet with complete and perfect fidelity to the rules of the Congregation. His aim was always to emulate Saint Philip in everything. He, like Saint Philip, had a great devotion to Our Lady, whom Saint Philip always considered the true foundress of the Oratory.

Blessed Antony used to say, “It is devotion to Mary which fills paradise for one who is truly devout to her cannot perish, for no one could have a real love for her and yet continue in sin.”

He had a great devotion to the shrine of the Holy House of Nazareth in Loreto and made many pilgrimages there, both before and after he joined the Oratory. It was on one such pilgrimage in 1621 that he was struck by lightning during a thunderstorm and fell headfirst down the steps of the Sanctuary. Miraculously he survived and he attributed his recovery to the intercession of Our Lady, donating his scorched clothing as a votive offering to the Shrine for the favour received.

The focus of the Shrine of the Holy House at Loreto, of which Blessed Antony was so fond, is of course the Annunciation — it is the place where the Word became flesh. Saint Augustine reminds us that Our Lady first conceived Our Lord in her heart before conceiving him in her womb. Perhaps then in this last week before Christmas, we can strive to make our own hearts a fit dwelling-place for Christ.

Blessed Antony encouraged people to imitate Our Lady in a particular virtue and pray to her to obtain it. When people came to him for spiritual advice, often rather than giving his own guidance, he would instead apply a particular title of Mary from the Litany of Loreto that he felt was relevant to the situation. Whether we are looking for joy, hope, wisdom and so forth, we can turn to Our Lady and invoke her aid under one of her many titles.

He also reassured people to have confidence in the powerful intercession of Mary. On one occasion, a poor man was repeatedly being robbed by a thief and so he came to Blessed Antony for consolation, since he had begun to fear for his life. Blessed Antony simply told him to say every day the Sub tuum præsidium and have no fear. The man went away encouraged and faithfully did as Blessed Antony had instructed him. Shortly afterwards the thief was killed in a fight.

Blessed Antony used to be particularly devoted to saints that had a uniquely great love for Our Lady, namely Saint John the Evangelist, and Saints Joachim and Anne. Surely then we ought to cultivate a devotion to Blessed Antony who himself had such great love for Our Lady. Through his intercession may we grow in love for Our Blessed Mother and be assured of her powerful prayers.