150 Years of St Aloysius’ Church: (9) The Nave
We have skipped over the greatest part of our church so far: the nave. When his bishop thought that St John Henry Newman was too eager to consult the laity, the bishop asked him ‘What are the laity?’ Newman responded: ‘the Church would look foolish without them.’ And so indeed would our church if the nave were empty. (Somewhat ironically, when Newman visited our church to preach on Trinity Sunday 1880, he presented the Jesuit fathers with a watercolour of the church in thanksgiving for their hospitality. The painting depicts the church with an empty nave…)
The body of our church seats about 400 people (and even more when it needs to at Christmas and Easter). The “nave” takes its name from the Latin word for boat, since the historical shape of churches appeared to be that of an upturned ship. The ceiling of our church does indeed resemble this hull shape. And as we voyage towards heaven in it, we are reminded that those boats in the Gospels that carried Our Lord never sank, no matter what storms threatened the vessel.
A curious feature of our church is that wherever you sit in the nave (unless you are right up against the pulpit) the altar is clearly visible. Our church may be gothic in decoration, but it is not medieval in design. Instead, it is an example of the principles of the counter-reformation pioneered by the Society of Jesus in their mother church of the Gesù in Rome. The altar is not hidden behind a screen or a deep sanctuary, but all can see Our Lord directly when he is lifted up in adoration.
The nave is also home to the pulpit. The pulpit is an important place in any church for preaching sermons, but in the Oratory, it has a particular significance. It is said that there are three pieces of wood where a good Oratorian priest should be found: the wood of the altar step (because he is saying Mass), the wood of the confessional (because he is hearing confessions) or the wood of the pulpit (because he is preaching). The “daily distribution of the Word of God” was the essential work of the Oratory when St Philip started: he began preaching even as a layman. Sermons are preached at least daily in our church today.
The original pulpit — from which Newman preached — was made entirely of wood, and collapsed during a rather vigorous sermon of Fr William Humphrey SJ in the 1880s. Fr Humphrey, as he climbed out of the remains of the pulpit, could only conclude his sermon, “a blessing which I wish you all.”
The sturdier stone pulpit now in place is adorned with statues of the Madonna and Child, St Joseph, St Aloysius, St Philip and St Charles. After all, any ship needs to know where it is heading, and the saints are the stars in the heavens by which we direct the course of our lives.