Today is the ninetieth birthday of Her Majesty The Queen. We wish Her Majesty every happiness, and pray that she may continue to reign over us for many years to come.

On Sunday 12th June, when Her Majesty’s Birthday will be celebrated officially,  the Prayer for The Queen will be sung or said after all Masses, at the request of the Bishops and England and Wales.  After the High Mass, there will be a ‘Street Party’ in front of the Parish Centre.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh with Saint John XXIII:

Visiting Saint John Paul II:

Here is the text of the resolution of the Bishops’ Conference:

Last night saw the opening of our official exhibition about the life of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, who will be canonized in September.

Fr Alexander Sherbrooke, Parish Priest of St Patrick’s, Soho Square, who knew Mother, preached at the Mass, and afterwards gave a short talk in the Parish Centre:

Then the exhibition opened in our library. It will be open every day from 10.30am until 7pm, until 30th April. Each afternoon at 4 o’clock, a film will be shown about Mother Teresa’s life in the Parish Centre.

Some of Mother Teresa’s sisters, the Missionaries of Charity, came from London and Liverpool:

The exhibition includes Mother’s habit and sari, some cutlery and crockery used by her, her Nobel Peace prize and other artefacts.

There are also many boards, which tell the story of Mother Teresa’s life, and some letters written in her hand.

At the end of the Mass, a first-class relic of Blessed Teresa was venerated. Fr Sherbrooke reminded us of the prayer Mother used to say after Communion each day, still said by the Missionaries of Charity. It is a prayer composed by our own Blessed John Henry Newman, before whose grave at Rednal Mother Teresa knelt in prayer:

Dear Jesus,
help me to spread your fragrance wherever I go.
Flood my soul with your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly
that my life may only be a radiance of yours.
Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with
may feel your presence in my soul.

Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus!
Stay with me and then I will begin to shine as you shine,
so to shine as to be a light to others.

The light, O Jesus, will be all from you; none of it will be mine.
It will be you, shining on others through me.
Let me thus praise you in the way which you love best,
by shining on those around me.
Let me preach you without preaching, not by words but by example,
by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do,
the evident fullness of the love my heart bears for you.  Amen.

 

An enjoyable evening was had by all on Saturday, as we played ‘Tombola’ (Italian for Bingo – which makes it sound so much more refined).

The numbers were called in Italian, and prizes included meals or vouchers from Gino’s, Carluccio’s, G & D’s, Brown’s, and a night at the Randolph Hotel.

Guests were served bruschetta, pizza and ice cream:

The tombolone seemed quite familiar:

 

 

The final run of our series of Evangelium presentations begins this Wednesday. Everyone is welcome, whether they have been to any of the other sessions or not. Tea & coffee are served from 7.30pm, and the presentation begins at 8. The topics will be as follows:

13th April: Christian Life in the World

20th April: The Life of Prayer

27th April: The Lord’s Prayer

4th May: Praying the Mass

11th May: The Practice of Confession

18th May: Catholic Devotions

 

A dozen pilgrims from our parish have been to the National Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham, where we had a very blessed few days.

We were able to celebrate Mass each day in the Slipper Chapel:

The Slipper Chapel is where mediaeval pilgrims would remove their shoes, before walking the final Holy Mile into Walsingham.

The statue of Our Lady of Walsingham was crowned by the Apostolic Delegate in 1954. It is based on the seal of the Priory, dissolved by Henry VIII in 1538. The surviving seal is from the document surrendering the Priory.

After Mass, we said the Prayer for England, that this land may once more be “Mary’s Dowry”.

Having walked the Holy Mile, we visited the Abbey Grounds. The sign says, “Grounds and Ruins”, and refers to the monastic ruins, rather than our pilgrims:

A walk through the Abbey grounds:

This is the spot where the Holy House once stood:

Then on to the Anglican shrine, where we prayed for the unity of the Church and the conversion of England:

One afternoon we went to Sandringham, the home of Her Majesty The Queen:

On our way back to Oxford we called in at the Holy House of Kings Lynn. From 1897 until 1934 this was the National Shrine. Pope Leo XIII sent a statue of Our Lady from Italy, before the image of Our Lady of Walsingham had been recovered. The Holy House is a reconstruction of the Holy House of Nazareth, which the Lady Richeldis was asked by Our Lady to build in Walsingham in 1061, so that pilgrims could make their way to ‘England’s Nazareth’.

 

On Saturday 16th April we will have our very smart Tombola evening (the accent is on the first syllable, in the Italian manner). Tickets are available from the Lodge at £20 each. Prizes include a meal for two at Carluccio’s and a voucher for the Randolph.

The feast of Divine Mercy takes on a particular significance this year, in the Year of Mercy.

We will be having the usual Divine Mercy Devotions this coming Sunday afternoon.

Chaplet and Blessing of Images, 2:30pm

Three O’Clock Prayer

Mass with Hymns, 3:10pm

Adoration, 3:45pm

Benediction, 4:30pm

Confessions will be heard during that time.

Please note that Vespers and Benediction will take place as usual at 5:30 and 6pm.

Refreshments are available in the Parish Centre after Benediction, from 4.45pm.

OXFORD ORATORY & CAMERATA OF CURIOSITIES

MONTEVERDI VESPERS

Experience the brilliance, beauty and power of the 1610 Vespers

Director – Andrew Knowles

Oxford Oratory Church: 25 Woodstock Road OX2 6HA

Monday 30 May 2016 7.30pm

His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts

Tickets £42, £35, £20 Students £10

Available from Oxford Playhouse 01865 305305

www.ticketsoxford.com

http://www.oxfordplayhouse.com/ticketsoxford/#event=20727

Sopranos Esther Brazil & Jennifer Attia

Counter-tenor Jonathan Darbourne

Alto Alison Coldstream

Tenors Chris Watson, Simon Irwin & Paul Bentley-Angell

Baritone Daniel Tate

Basses Thomas Flint & Henry Hawkesworth

Violinists Bojan Čičić & Jean Patterson

The picture below shows our tabernacle, decorated with a statue of the Risen Lord – and also a card from a four-year-old girl, who asked us “to give this Easter card to Jesus.”