Parishioners were given an opportunity to celebrate the canonization of Mother Teresa on Sunday with a Solemn Mass of thanksgiving, followed by the Te Deum and veneration of her relic. Father Daniel preached the following sermon:

This morning in Rome, the Holy Father has pronounced the canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. What does it mean for us? Firstly it is a sign of hope for us because we can know for certain that Mother Teresa’s soul is in heaven. In raising saints up for our veneration, the Church exercises her office of teaching infallibly, says St Thomas Aquinas. (The veneration of the saints) is “a confession of the faith, in which we believe in the glory of the saints”, he wrote. Not all those in heaven are canonized, but those who are give us hope that this is the purpose of our lives too. This is what the Church is for; we are meant to follow them in holiness and so to arrive at the same destination. In proposing the lives of the saints to us as models, the Church also gives us intercessors: we are part of the same body as them; their prayers can certainly help us.

For many of us, St Teresa is a saint with whom we feel an instant connection because she was so well known during her life on earth. Perhaps some of you were present as I was in 1993 when Mother addressed the Oxford Union and courageously proclaimed the Gospel of Life with humility and clarity. So in fact, she is a saint who has visited our parish. On the same visit, St Teresa went to the then Notre Dame Convent, next door to St Aloysius’ School. Mrs Webb, who was teaching her class, saw Mother Teresa out of the window and took her pupils over to the fence to meet her. St Teresa told her what an important vocation it is to be a teacher, and to the children she gave each a small miraculous medal, as she did with everyone she met, saying, “Mary, Mother of Jesus, be a Mother to me”.

So it is right that we, together with so many millions of others, can lay a special claim to St Teresa’s intercession in heaven, feeling sure that she will answer our cries just as she answered the cries of the poor, the dying, the naked, the thirsty, the imprisoned and the hungry when on earth. But: and here I can only speak for myself, the holiness of the saints is a bit terrifying. Here is a women who said “yes” to the Lord without reservation, who saw Him in “the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor” and picked those poor up off the streets of Calcutta, who allowed herself nothing of earthly comfort but rather in the darkness of her inner soul allowed herself to be totally conformed to the Passion of Christ. And what have I done? I suspect that many of us should tremble at those words of Our Lord:

Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to Me. (Matthew 25:45)

St John the apostle is equally explicit about the fate of those who close their hearts:

“If you refuse to love, you must remain dead; to hate your brother is to be a murderer, and murderers, as you know, do not have eternal life in them.” (1 John 3:14–15)

Strong stuff; and a reminder that an event like today’s canonization is not just an excuse for us to pat ourselves on the back, feel good about humanity, and be complacent; no: the life and witness of Saint Teresa of Calcutta is for every single one of us an urgent call to conversion. Our Lord does not politely request that we give a brief thought to Him every now and again; He demands that we follow Him, He commands that we act as His witnesses, He says to us insistently, “Be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect”.

And this call is not just for an elite few, it is for all of us. There is a universal call to holiness. Universal in the sense that there is no opt-out for me or you. Our Lord is not interested in crowds, He has made each one of us individually in His image and likeness. In the criticisms of Mother Teresa, which you can find in all the predictable places in the media, there is a common theme: rather than trying to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number, Mother concentrated on the individual, rather than killing the children of the poor in the womb or stopping them reproducing in the first place, Mother loved the babies and mothers for whom she cared. We have seen in the past century what happens when we care about this nebulous concept “humanity” rather than individual human beings: it has led to concentration camps, gulags, experimentation on human embryos and a society that has never known such high levels of unhappiness. This is why Mother Teresa said when she was presented with the Nobel Peace Prize that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion. It is because the moment that we forget that every man, woman and child is precious in God’s eyes then we become incapable of love. Love is not drawing up a five-year plan or constructing an ideology, it is about seeing Christ in this particular, broken, sinful, flawed person whom we are called to love in this moment.

At the beatification of Mother Teresa, thirteen years ago, St John Paul II put it like this:

It was to Jesus Himself, hidden under the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor, that her service was directed … She wanted to be a sign of “God’s love, God’s presence and God’s compassion”, and remind all of the value and dignity of each of God’s children, “created to love and be loved”. Thus was Mother Teresa ‘bringing souls to God and God to souls and satiating Christ’s thirst.

There are two phrases of Our Lord which sum up St Teresa’s mission: the “I thirst”, He spoke from the Cross, and those words she heard on the train to Darjeeling in 1946: “Come, be My light”. Teresa sought to quench the thirst of Christ, and to be a light to others even though for many years, within herself, she felt only an inner darkness.

St John Paul again:

This harsh spiritual trial led her to identify herself more and more closely with those whom she served each day, feeling their pain and, at times, even their rejection. She was fond of repeating that the greatest poverty is to be unwanted, to have no one to take care of you.

And this is why holiness is not to be left to the few but it is a call for all of us. Mother Teresa loved the saying of her patron, St Thérèse of Lisieux: “To be a great saint means to do small things with great love.” She also said, “Peace begins with a smile”. We too are called to quench the thirst of Christ by loving Him in those we meet every day, to be His light in all the darkness of the world around us. The order Mother Teresa founded is called the Missionaries of Charity because their purpose in tending the poor, the sick and the unwanted is not just to solve a social problem, but to be a light to others, to bring the light of Christ to the darkness, to be missionaries. To be a missionary is the vocation of every Christian, it is your vocation. To see Jesus in others is the one difference we can make.

At the end of this Mass we shall have the opportunity to venerate a relic of St Teresa of Calcutta, a piece of her hair. It is a reminder to us that the saints are not distant from us: we have seen them, and we can touch them. And whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do it to Me.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta will be canonized in Rome this coming Sunday, 4th September. The eleven o’clock Mass here will be a Solemn Mass of Thanksgiving, at the end of which there will be the opportunity to venerate a first-class relic of the new Saint.

Some of the Brothers of the Secular Oratory have been away on retreat to Belmont Abbey in Herefordshire.

Their visit coincided with the feast day of the local martyr St John Kemble, which they went to celebrate at nearby Welsh Newton:

They also visited Llanthony Priory, a former Augustinian house. The Priory buildings were once among the greatest in mediaeval Wales:

Yesterday Fr Jerome led another tour of Catholic Oxford, this time including some sites connected with the martyrs, such as Blessed George Napier, who was born at Holywell Manor in 1550.

George Napier became a Catholic and  entered the English College at Douai in 1596, and was sent on the English mission in 1603. He appears to have lived with his brother William at Holywell Manor. He was arrested at Kirtlington very early in the morning of 19 July 1610, when he had on him a pyx containing two consecrated Hosts as well as a small reliquary. Brought before the justice he was strictly searched; but the constable found only his breviary, his holy oils, and a needle case with thread and thimble.

The next day he was sent to Oxford Castle, and indicted  for being a priest. The possession of the oils was held to be conclusive and he was condemned, but reprieved. In gaol he reconciled a condemned felon named Falkner, and this was held to aggravate his crime, but as late as 2nd November it was believed that he would have his sentence commuted to one of banishment. As he refused the oath of allegiance, he was condemned to death.

He was executed between one and two in the afternoon, having said Mass that morning. His head  was set up on Tom Tower.  His quarters were placed on the four city gates, but at least some were secretly removed, and buried in the chapel (now a barn) of Sandford Manor, lear Littlemore.

Our friends from the Benedictine monastery at Norcia have been affected by the terrible earthquake yesterday in Italy. Norcia is the birthplace of St Benedict and St Scholastica, and a new and vibrant community of monks has been there again since the Holy Year 2000, to restore monastic life in its primitive form.

The monks have been painstakingly restoring the monastery and basilica, which have now both suffered grave damage in the earthquake.

It being the feast of St Bartholomew, the monks were already up at the time of the tremor. They led the people of Norcia in the Rosary in the main square.

The community is unable to occupy its buildings at present, because they may be unsafe, and so they are being sheltered at Sant’Anselmo in Rome. Two monks have remained behind to stay in tents near the monastery, to protect the monastic buildings and the basilica.

This Sunday we will have a second collection for the monks of Norcia, to help them to return home and rebuild their monastery as soon as possible

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Some more mature and wise parishioners asked if they could have a punting trip, similar to that for Young Oratory last week.

The middle-aged punting expedition was in fact incomparably less raucous, more decorous and infinitely drier than that for those yet to achieve middle age. We floated placidly to the Victoria Arms and then back again after lunch.

Fr Jerome yesterday took a tour of Catholic Oxford, including Worcester College, pictured here. There will be another such peregrination on Sunday 28th August at 3pm.

We have in our church a fine, silver monstrance, which has the following inscription: “Pray for Richard Walker  Killed in Action  9th August 1916”. Today is the centenary of his death.

This photograph is by kind courtesy of the archivist of Downside.

Richard Walker was born on 24th April 1883, the only son of Charles William Walker of Holmshurst, Burwash, Sussex. He was educated at Downside School from 1894 to 1902, and came up to Christ Church from 1902–3, where he took a B.A.

The book Downside and the War 1914-1918 records that,

“In his last year at school “Dick” Walker passed the Higher Certificate in seven subjects and won the History, English Literature and Essay Prize, and the French Prize. He played cricket in the Second Eleven, and will be remembered by his contemporaries as the best boxer of his generation at Downside. He was an ideal Captain of the Boxing Club, most energetic and successful, and through his efforts, boxing became very popular in the School. He himself won the Challenge Cup several times, and being unchallenged in 1902, the cup became his absolutely. From Downside he went to Christ Church College, Oxford, and continued to distinguish himself as a boxer at the University.

Early in the War, in spite of great difficulties in the way, he joined the Artists’ Rifles, volunteered for foreign service, and went to France with his battalion in October, 1914. He ultimately became a company sergeant-major, and in 1916 obtained a commission in the Lancashire Fusiliers.”

Our thanks to the Archives of Downside Abbey and School for allowing us to use this information.

Killed in action at Trônes Wood, Richard Walker’s name is recorded on the Thiepval Memorial, Pier and Face 3C and 3D.

This photograph is from the Imperial War Museum. © IWM (HU 126967)

May he rest in peace.

2017 will be the one-hundredth anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima. We will be having a pilgrimage in September:

This coming Sunday  (17th July) we shall celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Oxford, venerated here under the title, “Mother of Mercy”. In this Jubilee of Mercy, this devotion takes on a particular significance. There will be special prayers in honour of Our Lady of Oxford at the end of the eleven o’clock Mass.

In mediaeval Oxford there were many well-known images of Our Lady, including the one before which St Edmund of Abingdon made his vow of perpetual virginity, at the age of twelve, placing a gold ring on the statue’s finger. Tragically, this and other signs of devotion to the Mother of God were destroyed by a later age and it was not until the nineteenth century, at the time of the ‘Second Spring’, that Our Lady of Oxford was to return. Hartwell de la Garde Grissell was an Oxford convert who became a Private Chamberlain and personal friend of Blessed Pope Pius IX. The Pope granted him indulgences for a painting of Our Lady as “Mother of Mercy”. This picture, together with a large collection of relics and other treasures were installed in a private chapel, dedicated to Our Lady, on the High Street.

The devotion to the Mother of Mercy has its origins with the Order of Mercy (the Mercerdarians), who were founded in the thirteenth century for the special purpose of redeeming captives in the Holy Land. Mercerdarians and others would offer themselves as substitutes for those who were imprisoned. In England this work proved especially popular, and Mary was invoked under the title of “Our Lady of Ransom”. Today, Our Lady of Ransom is still the patroness of our country, and is particularly associated with conversions to the Faith. The second line of the Salve Regina addresses Our Lady as the Mother of Mercy, reminding us that she is the Mother of all Christians, one to whom we may turn without fear in all our difficulties.

After Grissell’s death in June 1907, he left his collection, with Our Lady of Oxford as the centrepiece, to St Aloysius’ Church, on condition that a suitable chapel should be built. This relic chapel is where the image is venerated today, amid the bones of the martyrs who hid in the Roman catacombs and laid down their lives for Christ and His Church.

Pope Saint John Paul II spoke many times about the importance of the Mother of Mercy. In 1980 he said that because Mary has experienced the mystery of the Cross to a greater degree than anyone else, she ‘is the one who has the deepest knowledge of the mystery of God’s mercy. She knows its price, she knows how great it is. In this sense, we call her the Mother of Mercy’. In 1996, on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, an enlarged copy of the picture of Our Lady of Oxford was taken to Rome, and in St Peter’s Square, the Pope gave his blessing to this and many other representations of Our Lady from around the world. John Paul II had held up Mary as a model to all, and gave honour to Our Lady of Oxford, as did his predecessor Blessed Pius IX. On the Feast of Our Lady of Mercy in 2001, Cardinal Stafford, the President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, said Mass in our church and prayed at the shrine of Our Lady of Oxford.

That we can address Mary as Our Lady of Oxford, reminds us that although the Virgin’s care and intercession is universal, she is also able to care for each one of us individually. To have her image set up in a particular place shows that she is not remote or unapproachable, but rather our Mother, whose love for each of us is intimate and personal. Today we need our Mother’s prayers more than ever, and we know that in all our struggles and difficulties, she is there with her protecting mantle to shield us from all harm. When we are conscious of our own sinfulness and unworthiness, we need not hold back, for Mary is the Mother of Mercy, whose arms are always ready to receive us. Just as Christ was given to the world through Our Lady’s acceptance of her vocation, so our way to heaven is through her. If we trust in Mary, we need have no fear, for a loving Mother will never abandon her children.

Merciful Father and God of all consolation, you have shown yourself to be wonderful in the glorious Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ, and have given her to us as the Mother of Mercy. May all of us who venerate her with devotion, always experience her powerful intercession, and enjoy your immense mercy. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.