The Relic Chapel is one of the most beautiful spaces in our Church. The furnishings were part of the legacy of an Oxford man, Hartwell de la Garde Grissell, who also received the image of Our Lady of Oxford from Blessed Pope Pius IX in 1869. It is an ancient tradition to enshrine an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the special protector of a place and to invoke her aid under the title of that place. Here we invoke her as Our Lady of Oxford and Mother of Mercy, confident that she intercedes with her Son for the protection of all in our city and university.

When Grissell died in 1907, he left the contents of his private chapel to the church on condition that a chapel be built to house it all. The font was moved and the chapel redecorated. The wall paintings in this chapel are of early Christian scenes and symbols from the Roman catacombs by the Catholic Arts and Crafts artist, Gabriel Pippet. They were restored in 2009. They depict two deer drinking from the waters of a fountain, evoking the words of Psalm 41: “Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is thirsting for you, my God.” There are also images of Christ the Good Shepherd, a typical early Christian depiction of Jesus, as well as the Blessed Virgin Mary and Christ child. Other symbols represent aspects of the Christian faith. The peacock represents new life and resurrection; loaves and fish point to the eucharist and the heavenly banquet; and the anchor is an early Christian symbol that symbolises arriving in the divine harbour of peace. Images of martyred saints take up the ancient posture of prayer, and the burning lamps represent faith.

These early Christian images are particularly appropriate since the chapel houses a collection of the relics of many saints, among them a number of the early Christian martyrs who were once buried in the catacombs in Rome.

Relics are reserved here not only for private prayer and veneration, but also to be placed on the altar during the celebration of Mass on solemn feasts. For Christians, the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and is a sacred thing, to be treated with care and reverence. Since we revere the saints as holy men and women, extraordinary individuals filled with the Holy Spirit, we reverence their mortal remains as having been filled with that same Spirit as holy relics.  It is something of a popular myth that the early Christians prayed in the catacombs just to avoid persecution. That may have been true at times, but those early Christians continued to celebrate Mass in the catacombs in time of peace because they wanted to be close to their brothers and sisters who had gone before them. Their bodies are a tangible link to their souls in heaven, and so to heaven itself.

Near the font we find the shrine to St John Henry Newman, our Cardinal. Newman was a fellow of Oriel College and the Vicar of the University Church but became a Catholic in 1845 having become increasingly dissatisfied with Protestantism. His studies lead him to see that the real “Church of the Fathers” was much richer and wider, and was to be found in the “One Fold of the Redeemer”, the Catholic Church.

Newman expressed with great clarity how complementary faith and reason are to one another, not enemies. He realised that we do not come to faith through argument, but once we have faith we can put it to rigorous examination and find it consistent with reason and our human experience.

John Henry Newman brought the Oratory of St Philip Neri from Rome to England in 1847, and whilst he longed to establish an Oratory in Oxford it was not to be in his lifetime (nor for almost 150 years). This Oratory in Oxford was founded from his community in Birmingham in 1990, and so we are his spiritual children. Newman was declared “Blessed” by Pope Benedict XVI in Birmingham in 2010 when this shrine was erected in his honour. He was canonised as a saint of the Church by Pope Francis in 2019. We seek the intercession of St John Henry that we may see another “second spring” of the faith in our day as he did in his.