The Wednesday Morning Group had a highly enjoyable trip to Hereford yesterday. The coach ride over to Herefordshire took us past some beautiful scenery, and then we were warmly welcomed by the Dean, The Very Reverend Michael Tavinor, and other members of the Cathedral community.

We had coffee on arrival, lunch and then afternoon tea in the College of the Vicars Choral.

Hereford Cathedral is noted for the shrines of St Ethelbert, King of the East Saxons, who was murdered by King Offa of Mercia in 794 AD, and St Thomas Cantilupe (sometime Chancellor of Oxford University) who died in 1282. Both of these shrines have been restored.

Before lunch, we were able to go to Holy Mass at the Catholic church of St Francis Xavier, in Broad Street, just next to the Cathedral.

St Francis Xavier is a magnificent church, originally built by the Jesuits, but since the 1850s in the care of the Benedictines of Belmont Abbey. Dom Michael Evans, O.S.B. was most gracious in his welcome, as were his enthusiastic parishioners, who clearly have a great love for their beautiful, well-restored church. It is evident that it is open as an important act of witness in the centre of the city. Here are some of our group, after Mass:

To the right of the High Altar is the relic of St John Kemble, a local martyr who ministered as a priest in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire for over fifty years, before being arrested on false charges in 1679 and executed. A Catholic woman managed to catch his left arm as it fell from the gallows when he was quartered, and it is this relic which is preserved at St Francis Xavier. The relic is believed to have worked miracles, down to our own time.

After lunch we had a tour of the lovely gardens, which was a great treat – especially to see the gardens of the Bishop’s Palace and the Deanery.

We were also able to visit the exhibition at the Cathedral, which includes the Mappa Mundi, a 1217 copy of Magna Carta and the Chained Library, which, it was noted, houses three editions of the Annals of the Christian Church by Cardinal Baronius of the Roman Oratory.

His Grace the Archbishop came to Oxford to lead the Corpus Christi Procession yesterday, which attracted great crowds in a wonderful witness to our love of the Blessed Sacrament and was a tremendous sign of unity among the different parishes, religious houses and institutions of Oxford.

The participants gather:

The marshals are briefed:

The Franciscans prepare to carry the canopy:

The Procession leaves our church:

The Archbishop carries the Blessed Sacrament through St Giles’:

This year we were unable to go into Blackfriars as the church is closed for repairs, so we carried on straight to the University Chaplaincy. The Dean, Fr John Hancock, carried the Monstrance from Blackfriars to Queen Street:

Along St Michael’s Street:

The Procession passes through the district of St Ebbe’s:

Fr Dushan Croos, S.J., Chaplain to the University, carried the Blessed Sacrament for the last stage of the Procession:

We had a rousing accompaniment from the Witney Town Band:

Fr Dominic played the organ as the Blessed Sacrament was brought into the Newman Rooms:

The Very Rev. Fr John O’ Connor, O.P., Prior of Blackfriars, preached powerfully about the abiding presence of the Eucharist, and how we carried our Lord through the streets so that He might bless all the people of our city:

His Grace gave Benediction:

After Benediction we sang the Salve Regina and then concluded with “Faith of our Fathers”:

A welcome cup of tea at the Chaplaincy after Benediction:

Photographs courtesy of Hannah Chegwyn and Br Joseph Bailham, O.P.

There was a beautiful performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor on Sunday evening by the Camerata of Curiosities, conducted by Andrew Knowles, as part of our celebrations for St Philip’s 500th Birthday.

From the Programme notes:

Concerning the Oratory and Bach’s B Minor Mass

This year the Oxford Oratory is celebrating the 500th anniversary of the birth of Filippo Neri, a Florentine who moved to Rome as a young man and set up the Congregazione dell’ Oratorio – which attracted huge crowds in Rome and became an artistic and spiritual power-house. Palestrina frequented the Oratory and confessed there, whilst Tomás Luis de Victoria received a chaplaincy at San Girolamo della Carità after joining this community of priests; in fact, all kinds of people were deeply attracted to the Oratory, where they learned to pray.

Filippo Neri would take hundreds of people on pilgrim walks up to the hills of Rome, where they would sit and listen to spiritual stories of angels and saints delivered, often by young children, in a dramatic way. The people were amazed, hearts were moved and their lives became charged with a new zeal and vigour. They were attracted to evening spiritual concerts too in the church, and these semi-staged dramatic dialogues and choruses prefigured the development of both the oratorio and opera genres. At the end people would sing one of the beloved laude – vernacular hymns of Florentine origin and much beloved by Neri since his youth – and would feel the power of the Holy Spirit moving deep within. These developments can easily be seen to be the very cradle of the Baroque in music, and led to a more extended type of dramatic performance with instrumental accompaniment, which foreshadowed the future development of the large–scale oratorio of the late Baroque and which made possible the composition of pieces like Handel’s Messiah, and Bach’s great St Matthew Passion and B Minor Mass. It was at the Oratory in Rome that this genre first started and from which it takes its name.

The performance this evening uses the text of the Mass, but the genre is more germane to that of the oratorio. The B Minor Mass is Bach’s only complete setting of the Ordinary and it follows a long tradition of complete Mass composition – yet Bach outstrips his predecessors by the large scope of this work. This Mass occupies an outstanding position in the whole of his œuvre; it is an artistic legacy which he spent his final years, and his last death–bed moments, completing. This monumental work is a synthesis of every stylistic and technical musical device which Bach had at his disposal. It is my belief that in performing this work one–to–a–part, the graceful filigree of this intricate writing will be vividly presented. Bach believed that it was by the musico-mathematics of his counterpoint that he extended the mystery of creation into music; he rendered praise to God by his own intelligent creativity – that by imitating the fractals and patterns of Nature, he was writing truly God–worthy music. This work of supreme genius is an astonishing encounter between the cult of the cross and spiritual ecstasy.

Andrew Knowles, Abingdon, May 2015

Last Saturday over one hundred members of different religious communities in Oxford took part in First Vespers of the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity in our church, to celebrate the Year of Consecrated Life.

Many communities were represented: The Holy Child Sisters, the Sacred Heart Sisters, Dominicans, Assumptionists, The Spiritual Family of the Work, Jesuits, Benedictines, Capuchins, Conventual Franciscans, De la Salle Brothers, Salesians and Oratorians were among them.

Bishop William Kenney, of the Congregation of the Passion, presided at Vespers.

Afterwards there was a reception at Blackfriars.

All pictures by Br Joseph Bailham, O.P.

The Oxford Catholic Handicapped Fellowship joined up with the recent Birmingham 75th Archdiocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes.

The Group attended the International Mass on Wednesday May 27th at which Bishop William Kenney was the principal celebrant, together with six other Bishops and over one hundred Priests from the dioceses of Birmingham, Middlesborough and Plymouth.

2015 marks the 45th Birthday of the Oxford Fellowship Group

Fr Dominic has been the Fellowship Chaplain since 1990.

For more information on the Catholic Handicapped Fellowship in Oxford please contact Fr Dominic at the Oratory.

Last Wednesday, His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, Patronus of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, was present for Vespers in our church for the Order.

His Eminence had earlier in the day met members of the Companions of the Order of Malta, who do wonderful work in Oxford with their homeless Shower Project, soup runs, visiting the sick and elderly and other corporal works of mercy. Cardinal Burke was greatly impressed by the Companions and warmly encouraged them in the twofold ministry of the Order of Malta: the care of the poor and the defence of the Faith.

The Vespers was that of the Octave of Pentecost, and the four coped cantors were an Oratorian, a Jesuit, a Benedictine and a Dominican – which sounds like the beginning of a joke about going into a bar, but here is a manifestation of the rich variety of Catholic life in this city.

After Vespers, the Cardinal gave Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, before going on to deliver a lecture at the University Chaplaincy on “The Legacy of Pope Benedict XVI”.

Photographs courtesy of the Oxford Companions of the Order of Malta.

We were honoured to welcome His Eminence Cardinal Burke to our Church to celebrate a Solemn Pontifical Mass for the feast of Our Holy Father St Philip, in the 5th centenary of his birth.

We were joined by many friends and visitors, including the Rt Rev. Hugh Allan O.Praem., Prior of the Norbertine community in Chelmsford, and many local clergy and Knights of Malta.

In his sermon, the Cardinal encouraged each one of us to take St Philip as an example of how to transform the world in Christ. His full sermon can be read here.

The Archbishop very kindly leant us Bishop Ullathorne’s crozier for the Cardinal to use.

On Wednesday, Fr Daniel took the Cardinal on a tour of Oxford. Here he is pictured next to the bust of Blessed John Henry Newman in Trinity College.

All photographs by Hannah Chegwyn

Br Joseph Bailham, O.P., has taken some photographs of the G.K. Chesterton open day in our library last Saturday, some of which are shown below and the rest may be seen here.

Chesterton’s typewriter:

The bust of G.K. Chesterton:

Mr Aidan Mackey addresses the gathering:

In the evening there was a performance of the famous debate between Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw. Fr Jerome took the part of the chairman, Hilaire Belloc, in rather gallic style:

Shaw, looking very radical:

G.K. Chesterton plays the part of Dr William Oddie:

Father Daniel went to preach at one of the Masses at Holy Trinity, Dorchester, for the visit of the holy relics of Blessed Louis and Blessed Zélie Martin, the parents of St Thérèse of Lisieux.

A picture of the casket containing the relics during an earlier stage of the visit in Plymouth Cathedral:

From the Plymouth diocesan website:

Shortly after his ordination, Bishop Mark O’Toole wrote to Lisieux to invite the relics of Blessed Louis and Zélie Martin, the parents of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus of the Holy Face, to visit the Diocese. They are the first parents of a saint to be beatified, and the the first spouses in the history of the Church to be proposed for sainthood together. Zélie and Louis are an inspiration to the families of today. Each owned a small business and worked hard while raising a large family.

In the 19th century this two-career couple faced the challenges we face in the 21st: finding good child care; achieving professional excellence; operating a profitable business; caring for aging parents; educating a special-needs child; forming their children in the faith; finding time to pray and to be active in their parish.

Devout Catholics, they saw Christ in the poor and worked for a just society. In 1877 Zélie died of breast cancer, leaving Louis a single parent with five minor daughters to bring up. Later Louis was diagnosed with a form of dementia (cerebral arteriosclerosis) and spent three years in a psychiatric hospital.

Like us, Louis and Zélie could not control their circumstances. Life came at them unexpectedly, just as it comes at us. They could not prevent their tragedies: the Franco-Prussian war, when they had to house nine German soldiers; the infant deaths of four of their nine children, one from abuse by a wet-nurse; their painful diseases; Zélie’s premature death. Nor could they escape their responsibilities as business owners, caregivers, spouses, and parents. Their genius lay in how they accepted what happened to them: they accepted their own powerlessness, that God might be all-powerful in their lives.

They taught the same radical openness to their youngest daughter, Thérèse, now a doctor of the Church. Zélie and Louis were not declared “blessed” because of Thérèse. She became a saint because of them. They created an environment that invited her to holiness, and she responded freely to the invitation they offered her. They offer the same invitation to us and in this period between the two Synods in Rome, they are particularly important and welcome guests in our diocese.