At the 10 o’clock Mass in our church on 1st January 2013 a group of Anglican nuns from the Community of St Mary the Virgin (CSMV) in Wantage, Oxfordshire is to be received into the full communion of the Catholic Church.

Eleven sisters from the historic Anglican community will join the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, the structure established by Pope Benedict XVI to enable groups of Anglicans to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church whilst retaining elements of their liturgical, spiritual, and pastoral heritage. The group includes the Superior of the community, Mother Winsome CSMV.

The eleven CSMV sisters, will be joined by Sister Carolyne Joseph, formerly of the Society of St Margaret in Walsingham, who joined the Ordinariate in January 2011. These twelve sisters will initially be established as a Public Association of the Faithful within the Personal Ordinariate. They will be known as the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary and will continue in their work of prayer and contemplation, whilst retaining certain of their Anglican traditions and practices. Foremost amongst these is the tradition of English plainchant for which these sisters are well known.

The sisters will move from their convent in Wantage and, after reception into the Catholic Church, will spend a period of time with an established Catholic community. Following this, the new community will seek to find a suitable new home.

Mgr Keith Newton, the Ordinary of the Ordinariate, who will receive the sisters, said, “Those formed in the tradition of the Oxford Movement cannot help but be moved to respond to Pope Benedict’s generous invitation to Anglicans. The sisters have always prayed for the unity of Christians with the See of Peter, now this is to become a reality for them by means of the Ordinariate. We are truly grateful for their faith, courage, and resolve”.

The community has been in discernment about the way forward since the publication of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus in 2009. Mother Winsome CSMV, the Superior of the Community, said, “We believe that the Holy Father’s offer is a prophetic gesture which brings to a happy conclusion the prayers of generations of Anglicans and Catholics who have sought a way forward for Christian unity. The future of our community is a fulfilment of its origins, and as part of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham we will continue with many of our customs and traditions, whilst also seeking to grow in Christ through our relationship with the wider Church”.

One sister, who was ordained in the Church of England and is now to be received as a Catholic, said, “The call to Christian unity must always be the primary motivating factor in the decision of Anglicans to enter the Catholic Church. Anything which impedes that process cannot be of God, and so must be set aside to achieve this aim, which is the will of Christ”.

The Community of St Mary the Virgin was founded by the Reverend William John Butler and Mother Harriet CSMV as one of the first communities of nuns in the Church of England since the Reformation. Under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary the community has engaged in charitable work throughout the Anglican Communion, whilst maintaining a balance with the life of prayer. It is the oldest surviving religious community in the Church of England and was founded on 2nd February 1848 – the very same day on which Blessed John Henry Newman founded the English Oratory. In the reception of these sisters into the Catholic Church, we can see an historic convergence of two strands of the Oxford Movement.

Please keep this community in your prayers as they prepare for their reception.

Bishop Paul Hendricks of the Archdiocese of Southwark came to preach and celebrate the Solemn Mass for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.

Our Lady conceived without sin is the patroness both of the Congregation of the Oratory and of the Archdiocese of Birmingham.

Bishop Hendricks used the chalice presented to the parish by Blessed Pope Pius IX, who defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854.

Emily Watson has gone on an 8 day cycle ride across Costa Rica, completing an average of 70km per day in tropical temperatures. She has done this to raise funds for the Oratory “Reaffirmation and Renewal” Campaign.

Emily writes: “Please sponsor me by making a gift to support the Oxford Oratory campaign, which is aimed at restoring its beautiful buildings and extending its large and welcoming community.” You can do this by visiting her JustGiving page here

Here are some of the newly-confirmed with Bishop William Kenney after the Mass of Confirmation on Monday. We are particularly grateful to Bishop William for coming, given that he broke his left wrist in the South Sudan a little while back, and this was the first liturgical action he has performed since then. Fortunately a bishop confirms with his right arm!

Fr Dominic and the boys of St Philip’s School, London, where he is chaplain, have just returned from a visit to Rome. During the four day pilgrimage the boys attended Mass at Santissima Trinita dei Pellegrini, at St Philip’s Shrine in the Chiesa Nuova and at the Tomb of St Peter.

The boys also attended the Angelus in St Peter’s Square when the Holy Father addressed them directly. The boys also had a private audience with His Eminence Cardinal Burke:

At the end of October the Women’s Oratory went with Fr Anton on Pilgrimage to Rome to mark the beginning of the Year of Faith.

We went to the Chiesa Nuova and had Mass at the altar which contains the body of St Philip Neri. Afterwards we had a tour of his rooms. This picture shows us standing in front of the famous painting of St Philip by Guido Reni. In the right of the photograph you can see the confessional used by St Philip.

Clearly Fr Anton got rather excited talking to the Women about St Philip!

On Wednesday we went to the General Audience in St Peter’s Square to pay homage to the Holy Father and to receive his blessing. This photograph shows how close we got to him at the end of the Audience as he passed by.

We enjoyed a beautiful private tour of the Vatican Gardens on the Thursday morning which lasted two hours. It was very warm and sunny.

Our Archbishop was in Rome for the Synod. He very kindly visited us in the Convent Chapel where we were staying. He spoke to us about the Year of Faith. He brought with him a first class relic of Bd Dominic Barberi, our Archdiocese’s Patron for the Year of Faith, which he placed on the altar. He led us in prayer and then we had an opportunity individually to venerate the relic.

Finally, we visited the patron of our Parish, St Aloysius Gonzaga. We had Mass at the altar which contains his body in the Church of Sant’Ignazio. Afterwards we had a private tour of his rooms. This picture is taken in what was the Recreation Room for Jesuit Scholastics in the sixteenth century. It was much plainer at that time. The statue of St Aloysius shows him treading on a crown, showing how he rejected the riches of this world for the riches of God’s grace and the Kingdom of Heaven.

55 members of the Filipino Community Prayer Crusade of West London made a pilgrimage today to the shrine of Our Lady of Oxford in our church.

The image of Our Lady was acquired by Hartwell de la Garde Grissell and was granted a partial indulgence for all who recite the Salve Regina or the Litany of Loreto before it.

On Friday our Forty Hours began with a Solemn Mass of Exposition.

At midnight the Dominicans from Blackfriars came to sing Compline before the Blessed Sacrament:

Our Holy Father St Philip used to say that everything that was good in him he had learnt from the Dominican Fathers at San Marco in Florence. In Rome he would take the Dominican novices on picnics, and was given the key to the Church of the Minerva so that he could let himself in to Compline there. It was at the Minerva that the Forty Hours was held to pray for a favourable judgement on Girolamo Savanarola. St Philip, who had a great devotion to Savanarola, stayed praying for the whole forty hours – but fell into an ecstasy. When he came round, he declared that the thing for which they had been praying had been granted. It was later discovered that the Pope had judged in favour of the Dominicans at just that moment. It seems highly appropriate then that the Dominicans should come to pray Compline during our Forty Hours, and we may hope that our own prayers before the Blessed Sacrament may be just as efficacious!

Compline was followed by Benediction:

The night vigil continued, with Matins and Lauds sung by the Sisters of the Work and then Mass at 6pm. This evening there has been a Mass for Peace and the church closes at midnight.

The Blessed Sacrament will be exposed again after the Solemn Mass on Sunday 14th – of the Sacred Heart – and the Forty Hours will conclude with Solemn Vespers, a Procession and Benediction at 5pm.