April 2024 Letter from the Provost

Our human story begins in a garden. Genesis describes God placing Adam in “a paradise of pleasure” full of trees bearing wholesome and delicious fruit. In the midst of this paradise were two trees of special and mysterious significance – the Tree of Life, and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. It was, of course, through disobeying God’s instructions and eating the fruit of the latter that our first parents fell from grace and found themselves cast out from that wondrous garden where they had enjoyed the privilege of walking and conversing in friendship with their Creator. To bar their return Cherubim were posted behind them, along with a flaming sword turning in all directions. Separated from paradise, they would also come to suffer the separation of body and soul in death, as a punishment for their rebellion. During their departure from this garden, God hints that there is an antidote to the curse that they have brought upon the human race: the purpose of the angelic sentries and the swirling sword is to keep man away from the Tree of Life, “lest perhaps he put forth his hand, and take also of the Tree of Life and live forever” (Gen 3:22). Let this be a warning to today’s “transhumanists” who delude themselves into thinking that science and technology will endow them with divine capabilities: restoration to eternal life is attainable with God’s help, but man will never be allowed to achieve it on his own terms.

Excluded from the garden of paradise, Adam and his descendants must till the ground in toil and by the sweat of their brow, contending with thorns and thistles. Anyone who has created a garden will know how much time, thought, painstaking labour and resources are involved in such a project. Nevertheless, gardens of all shapes and sizes have been a mark of every civilisation. The Oratory Fathers are blessed with a garden of their own, which was part of the plot which they acquired along with their purchase of an old school, Blemell House, in the early 1850s. An engraved boundary stone in the wall indicates that our garden dates back to at least 1786, and in recent dry summers the traces of a previous layout have made a ghostly and temporary appearance through the parched lawn. One consequence of Adam and Eve’s transgression in Eden is the tiresome Massaria disease which attacks the branches of the plane trees planted by Father Faber, and which costs us a small fortune annually in fees for the arboreal surgery required to keep the garden safe for scouts, choir members and the patrons of our annual Summer Fete.

Following man’s expulsion from Eden, gardens continue to feature throughout the Holy Scriptures as a recurring theme in God’s plan for redemption. On Maundy Thursday, after the Mass of the Last Supper, we accompany Our Lord into Gethsemane, where He endured the first stage of His Passion. It is said that the ancient olive trees that grow in the area of Jerusalem identified as Gethsemane today draw their nutrition from ground that was moistened by the blood He sweated during His agony. The flowers at the Altar of Repose in St Wilfrid’s Chapel each year serve to evoke the ambience of a garden as we keep vigil before the Blessed Sacrament. On Good Friday we are then reminded in St John’s account of the Passion that “there was in the place where he was crucified a garden”, and that it was there that His body was enclosed in an unused tomb.

And so Our Lord’s definitive triumph over the calamity that occurred in the Garden of Eden also takes place in a garden. The shadow of death that crossed man’s path in that primeval paradise of pleasure, and the blood that soaked the ground of Gethsemane, give way to sweetness and freshness in the garden of the Resurrection. Arriving here in the early hours of the first Easter Sunday St Mary Magdalene mistakes the risen Second Adam for a gardener. The first Adam, after all, was put into the paradise of Eden “to dress it and to keep it” (Gen 2:15). The Cross on which Our Saviour died has become the Tree of Life, whereby man may attain the immortality that was forfeited in that first garden. We are mystically grafted on to the Tree of Life in Baptism, the primary sacramental means by which we die and are buried with Christ, emerging from the waters of regeneration filled with the supernatural life of the Resurrection.

Easter is a feast overflowing with the vitality of a spring garden bursting into a new cycle of life and growth, and if we wish to immerse ourselves in the atmosphere of that marvellous day of our salvation during this beautiful season of Eastertide, then perhaps we should make some effort to immerse ourselves in the cool air of a garden in its early morning lustre. Many of the public parks of London contain areas of cultivated garden which are verdant sanctuaries of tranquillity at this time of year. Breathe deeply the fragrant air and give thanks for the discovery of the empty tomb in that garden in Jerusalem, meditate on the Resurrection and what it means for us.

Father Julian Large

March 2024 Letter from the Provost

During Lent, those who attend the full series of Musical Oratories in the church on Wednesday evenings will be familiar with the invaluable contribution made by all of the three choirs with which we are currently blessed here. The superb and professional London Oratory Choir, the world acclaimed Schola from our senior school and the excellent parish Junior Choir each take it in turns to enhance the meditations on penitential themes that are led by the fathers over the course of four Wednesday evenings. Our holy father St Philip was a pioneer in this form of spiritual exercise, and it is said that the Oratory in Rome is the origin of the word “oratorio” when used to denote those great choral compositions of the baroque period.

At some stage during the musical Oratories, we are usually treated to the sublimely haunting motet Civitas Sancti Tui by the English composer William Byrd. A lamentation over the ruin of Jerusalem during the Babylonian captivity as described in the Old Testament, it was sung this year by the Schola at our second Musical Oratory, and is always repeated by our professional choir on Good Friday during the Veneration of the Cross. Its words poignantly convey the desolation of Calvary and point us to another destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple which would follow as a consequence of Our Lord’s Crucifixion: “Thy holy city has become a wilderness. Zion has been deserted; Jerusalem has been left desolate” (Is 64:10).

As a Catholic and a recusant, Byrd witnessed the religious devastation of this land during the Protestant revolt, when altars were stripped, shrines demolished, and relics desecrated. Civitas Sancti Tui seems to have been composed soon after the unspeakably savage martyrdom of St Edmund Campion at Tyburn in 1581, but it has been suggested that it was first inspired during Byrd’s late teens, when he witnessed the removal of the Blessed Sacrament from St Paul’s Cathedral after the death of the last Catholic monarch Mary Tudor in 1558.

Lest we should ever be tempted to take our blessings for granted, we should sometimes reflect on what it must be like to live as a Catholic with no access to the Blessed Sacrament. The uncanny sense of emptiness that is experienced when visiting a beautiful medieval church is a reminder of what our ancestors were so brutally deprived of when the celebration of Mass was outlawed on pain of death and the Blessed Sacrament banished from the realm. Thanks be to God there were heroic priests who continued to offer the Holy Sacrifice in secret, and brave Catholic laity who hid them. The earthly price could not have been more gruesome, nor the eternal reward more glorious.

The closest that most of us will have come to anything like real sacramental deprivation will have been during the unwelcome restrictions that were imposed during the Coronavirus saga. It was horrendous to hear reports of sinners denied Confession, and of the sick and elderly dying without the consolation of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction and deprived of “Viaticum”, that supernatural food for the journey into eternity which is Our Lord’s Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. What a relief it was when church doors finally reopened. We can only hope and pray that if ever the Holy Mass is driven underground again in this country God will grant us priests with the courage to provide God’s children with the sacraments even if it means risking liberty, life and limb.

How delighted a Catholic recusant like William Byrd would have been to know that one day his sacred compositions would accompany Catholic worship publicly in English churches where Our Lord would be reserved in tabernacles once again. How thrilled he and those English martyrs who were slaughtered at Tyburn and elsewhere would be to walk into the London Oratory to find the Blessed Sacrament enthroned and exposed for public adoration over the High Altar amid a blaze of hundreds of candles during our annual Forty Hours Devotions this month. The Quarant’Ore will open with a High Mass of Exposition and Procession of the Blessed Sacrament on Tuesday 12th March at 6.30pm, and will close as usual with Mendelssohn’s Lauda Sion followed by Solemn Benediction at 7pm on Thursday 14th March. Making time to participate in these devotions and to rest in silent adoration in front of Our Lord is one valuable way of keeping Lent and showing our gratitude for His sacramental Presence with us. Let us make the most of it, and never take Our Lord’s Real Presence with us for granted.

Father Julian Large

February 2024 Letter from the Provost

On the Second Sunday of Lent, the Church leads us on a gentle hike up the slopes of Mount Tabor, to witness Our Lord’s Transfiguration. The three apostles who accompany Our Lord there will be those most intimately associated with His Passion. On Holy Thursday, we shall see how Peter, James and John will be invited to go with Him into the Garden of Gethsemane. There they will be present while He sweats blood at the prospect of what is to come. On Tabor, they are given a glimpse of His Glory. This is to prepare them – to prove to them that when Jesus suffers, it is only because He has freely and deliberately laid aside the glory and majesty which belong to Him by right and by nature.

The Transfiguration reminds us that behind the ordinary appearances of things there lies a much greater reality. Think of what happens when a grumpy little baby is baptised. It remains invisible to us, but once the water has touched that child's head, he is now a living Temple of the Holy Ghost. If only we could see the splendour of that soul in a state of grace, its brilliance would be too dazzling for our mortal eyes to behold. Likewise, if we saw the horrible effects of mortal sin on a human soul, it would be much too dreadful for any human language adequately to describe.

In the Blessed Sacrament, what presents itself to our human senses is common bread and ordinary wine. The reality, however, is infinitely more extraordinary and sublime than words can ever express. The Cure d ’Ars used to say that if we could see Our Lord Jesus in the Sacred Host, we would die – not from fear, but rather from love. It is a mark of God’s tenderness that His glorious presence remains veiled, otherwise we should never dare to approach the altar rails, never mind consume Him. Bearing this in mind, may we use this Lent to reflect carefully on the preparation we make before receiving Holy Communion, and the devotion with which we receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is so easy to live life on the surface, never really penetrating to the much greater reality of God’s presence in His creation. Holy Scripture tells us that every man, woman and child is fashioned in God’s own image. But how often do we really think about that in our dealings with difficult colleagues at work, or in our attitude towards the Sunday drivers who hog the road when we are cutting it fine to arrive in good time for Holy Mass? We surely need to remind ourselves that every human soul is intrinsically beautiful and valuable to God.

Lent, then, is a time for readjusting our focus, so that we look beyond the surface of things and contemplate those realities which are eternal. It is a season for reminding ourselves that all earthly gain and glory ends in dust and ashes – ashes which are just as dry and dead as the ashes we receive on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday. And to assist us in this readjustment of focus, the Church encourages us to fast, to pray and to give alms. In giving alms, or devoting some extra time and energy to those in need, we give honour to that divine image which is emblazoned on our neighbour's soul, and this is a form of worship which is exceedingly pleasing to God and an indispensable element of “true religion”. In fasting, we unite ourselves with Our Lord's Passion through self-denial, and we detach ourselves from worldly distractions. In praying, we lift our hearts and minds beyond the here and now to God in Heaven.

The glory we see in Our Lord's Transfiguration is a glimpse of the glory which we have been made to share. It should encourage us to make the best use of this season of Lent.

Father Julian Large

January 2024 Letter from the Provost

It seems that for many of our contemporaries the Christmas season begins as soon as the pumpkins and skulls of Halloween have made way for tinsel and baubles in the shop window displays in early November. By 26th December the streets of South Kensington are made forlorn by the skeletons of discarded Christmas trees next to the turkey carcasses that have been strewn around the pavements by foxes. Mercifully we Catholics have the liturgical calendar to save us from such premature “holiday burnout”. For us, the festive season only began on Christmas Eve and is still in full swing.

The Feast of the Epiphany reminds us that the Nativity of Our Lord is the ultimate gift that keeps on giving. An epiphany is a “manifestation”, and this most ancient and beautiful feast actually marks three great manifestations. In the Mass for the day we concentrate on the manifestation of His divinity to the Gentiles, when the Magi arriving from the East fall to their knees and offer to the Christ Child the latria, or adoration, which is the highest level of worship reserved for God alone. After Mass we should make some time to visit the Crib to join the Magi in contemplation of the scene at the manger. At Vespers, meanwhile, the full significance of this ancient feast day is expressed in the Magnificat antiphon: "Three miracles glorify this sacred day: today the star led the Magi to the crib; today at the wedding feast water was changed into wine; today, for our salvation, Christ willed that John baptize Him in the Jordan, Alleluia.”

There are certain events in the history of Divine Revelation which might be described as truly seismic in their implications for the relationship of the human race with the Creator. One such “epiphanic” moment is recorded in the third chapter of Exodus, when God reveals His name to Moses from the burning bush: the name “I Am Who Am” (Ex 3:14) expresses profound truth about the very nature of the One True God whose very nature is to be, in a revelation that was granted a thousand years or so before the Greek philosophers began to talk about the source of all existence in terms of “pure being”.

This holy name revealed to Moses is so sacred to pious Jews that it could only ever be uttered by the High Priest, on certain occasions in the Temple and with the greatest solemnity, and even today cannot be written down. The “possession” of this truth was fundamental to the identity of God’s chosen people, who often found themselves in close proximity to pagans enslaved to the superstition of polytheism. It was the role of the prophets of old constantly to remind them of the unique privilege which had been granted to them, and of the responsibilities that accompanied it.

Saint John the Baptist is often described as the last prophet of the Old Testament, because he came “in the spirit and the power of Elias” (Lk 1:17), and when he baptises Our Lord, we witness another of those seismic developments in the history of The Creator’s interaction with His creatures. When God the Son emerges from the waters of the Jordan, God the Holy Ghost appears in the form of a dove above His head, and the voice of God the Father is heard to announce: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:17). And so it is manifested to us that within the One True God, there are in fact three Divine Persons, between Whom there is an eternal and infinite outpouring of divine love.

That this revelation of the Blessed Trinity occurs within the context of Baptism is of the greatest significance to us, because it is in our own Baptism that the divine life of the Blessed Trinity is infused into our hearts and we are inserted into that dynamic of knowledge and love which flows eternally between the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. It is in Baptism that the Christ Child is enthroned in our hearts, and when we are elevated supernaturally to a state of grace. It is in Baptism that we are made ready to receive the Word Made Flesh in Holy Communion, so that we may enjoy a union with God which is more perfect and intimate than any other union that is possible in this life. It is in Baptism that He ennobles us and shares His life with us so that we may truly be called His friends. This divine friendship is really the essence of the Christian life.

Like God’s Chosen People of the Old Testament, we have been granted knowledge of a holy name. And we do well to follow their pious example by treasuring the Holy Name of Jesus and only ever using it with the greatest reverence. The Feast of the Holy Name is just one of the many beautiful celebrations that adorns the calendar between Christmas Day and the Epiphany. The friendship that God extends to us in Baptism means that we can each of us dare to pronounce the name of Jesus with perfect confidence and trust. Let us resolve to spend 2024 cultivating that friendship.

Father Julian Large

December 2023 Letter from the Provost

In Advent we are called to prepare on different levels for the coming of Our Lord. Most obviously we look forward to celebrating His birth in Bethlehem. The meekness of the circumstances of the Nativity should inspire us to approach the manger with childlike simplicity and trust. We are also reminded to ready ourselves for His return in majesty and power to judge the living and the dead. This is therefore the time of year to reflect on the “Last Things.”

The Four Last Things – Death Judgment, Heaven and Hell – is not such a fashionable subject for preaching in our day. Death is something that modern man prefers to take place out of sight and out of mind. Rarely these days does it take place in the home, with all generations of a family praying around the sickbed. It has instead been banished to the sterilised corridors of hospitals and nursing homes. As for judgment, the thought that God might dare to call us to account is an affront to the prevailing view that, if we are to allow any existence to God at all, His role in our lives must be to affirm us in our choices and make us feel good about ourselves. Hell is hardly ever mentioned, and even the value of Heaven is debased if, as we are led to believe, we all eventually end up there automatically whether we choose to go or not.

In the Gospels, however, Our Lord Jesus mentions hell quite often. At the end of His parable of the talents, for example, the unprofitable servant is cast into the outer darkness where, in the words of Our Lord, “Men will weep and gnash their teeth” (Mt 25:30). Apparently, the Ulster firebrand Ian Paisley was once warming to his theme on this text when an old man shouted out from the crowd “I ain’t got no teeth!” The Rev. Mr. Paisley assured him: “teeth will be provided.” It was not a wholly frivolous answer. In the Creed we profess our belief in the Resurrection of the dead, meaning the reunion of our bodies and souls at the end of time when Our Lord returns in Glory to judge the living and the dead. We believe that our bodies will join our immortal souls in their destiny in eternity. So yes, teeth will be provided. Of course, we hope and pray that this will be in Heaven. But we must also consider the alternative so that we may avoid it.

That is why we priests must occasionally preach on the uncomfortable subject of hell. Not because we enjoy talking about it, or because anyone enjoys hearing it, but because we do not wish for you to go there. Neither do we wish to go there ourselves, and there is a good chance that we shall if we do not live up to our responsibility to preach the Gospel in all its fullness.

The truth is that we have each been created in the image of God. And the freedom of choice with which we have been endowed means that while we are able to embrace and treasure the gifts that God lavishes on us, we also remain free to reject them. This must be true if we consider that grace is a supernatural gift, and the nature of any gift is that it is freely given and freely received. And so, in this life, we remain able to extinguish the gift of Sanctifying Grace received in Baptism, through mortal sin. This is how a soul ends up in hell: when someone dies unrepentant in mortal sin.

We must pray, then, for the grace to hold sin in horror, and to use well the Sacrament of Penance which restores us from the death of sin to the life of the Resurrection. But we also need to remember that the Christian life involves so much more than the avoidance of mortal sin. Indeed, if this is what we reduce it to, then we become like that unprofitable servant who buries his talent in the ground. Even what he has shall be taken from him.

Maybe we are struggling with a habit of sin in one particular area. It would be counterproductive in the extreme to focus our entire spiritual energy in that one place. We can only hope to overcome our vices, with God’s help, if we are also making a real effort to practice all the virtues. Strive to live charity and humility to a high degree, and we give God’s grace the space in our hearts to work its wonders. Channel our forces on being good (and that means doing good), and we can be confident that God will give us the grace to conquer that within us which is bad.

The life of grace must be lived, so that God’s supernatural gifts may be multiplied within our hearts and souls. We have been given a participation in God’s own Divine Life so that we may build and extend His Kingdom around us, and especially in that part of Creation which He has entrusted to our influence – within our family, our workplace and home, and within our circle of friends. If we use what God has given us, His gifts will flourish and increase.

Father Julian Large

November 2023 Letter from the Provost

Ascending to the imposing pulpit of the Oratory church, the preacher these days has to remind himself to be grateful to look out onto a sea of faces. Not so long ago the doors of our churches were locked, and the Sacraments were denied to those who sought and needed them. During those bleak days, weeks and months of “lockdown”, when the sanctuary lamps continued to burn but only the residents of Oratory House were able to visit the Tabernacle, and Mass was celebrated by the Oratory fathers “sine populo” (apart from the invisible company of the Angels and Saints who surround the altar at every celebration of the Holy Sacrifice), one did find oneself wondering quite seriously how many of the faithful would bother to return if and when the ban on public worship ever came to be lifted.

Yes, many found comfort in the daily Masses which were live streamed from this church and others, morning and evening. Such virtual attendance at Mass was certainly an aid to devotion. But it cannot be stressed too much that it was no substitute for the real thing. And it certainly was not, nor ever could be, a means of fulfilling our obligation to assist at Mass on Sundays and holy days. Such an obligation requires that we each attend Mass physically and personally. If it is not reasonably possible to fulfil this, then the obligation is suspended, as the Church made clear during the period of contagion.

Thanks be to God you did return to Church once the restrictions were lifted. This is an encouraging sign that even the disappearance of the clergy during a period of great need was not enough to drive the faithful away from the Sacraments which Our Lord instituted for our salvation and sanctification. At the Oratory the Fathers have noticed that the numbers of those assisting at our functions are actually higher than they had been for some years preceding the strange arrival of the Coronavirus and all that came in its wake. It has been a great joy to see lots of new faces, including young families with children. We hope that you have found a warm welcome here, and invite you to introduce yourselves to us.

We can only hope and pray that the days when the only means of following the Holy Mass available is via a computer screen will never return. But perhaps one benefit of the livestream Masses was at least the valuable lesson that it is possible to unite ourselves prayerfully with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass without receiving Holy Communion. And if the impossibility of receiving Our Lord for a time was a cause of an increased spiritual hunger for the Blessed Sacrament, then that was a blessing indeed.

In one parable Our Lord describes a marriage banquet at which a king sees a guest who is not wearing the appropriate wedding garments (Mt 22:1-14). As a consequence the intruder is bound hand and foot and cast into the outer darkness where men weep and gnash their teeth.

The marriage feast is, of course, a symbol of the mystical banquet at which we consume Our Lord in Holy Communion. In Baptism we are clothed with a white robe, symbolising the Sanctifying Grace infused into our souls. The State of Grace is the supernatural marriage garment with which our souls must be clothed in order to receive the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ at the altar rails.

The Church insists that, if we are able to, then we must attend Holy Mass every Sunday and Holy Day; but She only insists that we receive Holy Communion once a year, around Easter. This is to ensure that when we do consume Our Blessed Lord’s Body and Blood, it is always in a State of Grace. Holy Communion is the most intimate and wonderful encounter with God that is possible in this life, the closest that it is possible to come to Heaven on earth. And we are encouraged to receive Our Lord Jesus in the Sacred Host frequently, even every day. Holy Communion is the most effective means to growth in holiness, rather than a reward for spiritual perfection. But we must be careful that our approach to the altar rails never becomes a mere routine, and certainly that we avoid ever making a sacrilegious Communion.

The glorious Council of Trent, which taught the Catholic Faith with such luminous clarity and eloquence, made a three-fold distinction regarding the reception of Holy Communion: firstly there are those who receive only sacramentally – meaning those who receive in a state of mortal sin. Not only do they not benefit from the Sacrament, but they also bring down condemnation upon themselves. Then there are those who receive only spiritually – meaning those who are unable to receive physically, but are in the state of grace and whose pious desire for the Sacrament means that they receive the fruits of Holy Communion in their souls. Thirdly, there are those who receive both physically and spiritually. The Council of Trent explains that these are the ones who examine and prepare themselves beforehand to approach this divine table, clothed in the wedding garment.

This means that each and every sacramental, physical Communion we make must also be a spiritual communion. And so if we have sinned mortally – and that would include missing Sunday Mass without grave cause – then we must first have recourse to the Sacrament of Penance to restore to us the white robe of Sanctifying Grace we received in Baptism – the Grace which turns our hearts into gleaming tabernacles, fit to receive the King of Kings.

Father Julian Large

October 2023 Letter from the Provost

The Holy Scriptures are so full of angels that we should not be surprised if our Bibles suddenly sprout feathery wings and flutter into the air. And at this time of year, the Church’s liturgical calendar is replete with angelic feasts. To the annoyance and inconvenience of the Oratory Parish Magazine’s poor editor, this letter is being written on the feast of St Michael the Archangel, days after the deadline designed to ensure the arrival of the printed editions in time for the beginning of October. On 2nd October we celebrate the feast of the Holy Guardian Angels. The 24th of the month is the feast of the Archangel St Raphael, who according to the Book of Tobit guided young Tobias by the hand on his perilous journey into Persia, along with Tobias’ dog. This inspired Fr Faber to make St Raphael the patron of the London Oratory’s noviciate, so that he might accompany the novices through their three-year journey towards becoming full-fledged Oratorians. For complicated logistical reasons the Archangel was later replaced in this role by St Wilfrid, but at least St Raphael remains patron of the fund which pays for the training of our candidates for the Sacrament of Holy Order.

We know of the existence of angels with certainty through Divine Revelation. Even without the Gospel, however, we might have guessed at their presence. In Creation we observe a clear hierarchy of being. At the base of the pyramid is inanimate nature, from which we progress to plant and then animal life, eventually reaching the pinnacle of the physical universe where we find man, who combines within himself both the material and the spiritual. It would seem to make sense that the immense gulf between man and God, Who is pure spirit and infinite, should be occupied by created finite spirits ordered within their own divinely appointed hierarchy. And so we find references to angels even in the false religions, and especially today in New Age superstition.

Those of us who have been blessed with the benefit of true religion know that we must be discriminating in our dealings with the angelic realm, divided as it is between the Holy Angels who worship at the Throne of Grace and those rebels who fell with Lucifer in revolt against the Creator. Any gift must be freely given and freely received and so, like us, the angels needed an opportunity to accept or decline Sanctifying Grace and freely to embrace the ultimate gift of Glory in Heaven which, once received, can never be forfeited. Lucifer & co seem to have become indignant at the prospect of God mixing messy matter with glorious spirit in the creation of man, and to have taken an even dimmer view of the Incarnation, in which the Divine Nature itself would be “contaminated” (in the devil’s opinion) by union with human flesh. Realising that he would be required to bow before and adore the Incarnate Word, Lucifer cried “I will not serve”, and that howl of “Non serviam” has reverberated from the deepest caverns of hell ever since.

We thank God, then, that St Michael, who cast Satan and the rebellious angels out of Heaven before the creation of this world, has also been given the power to imprison the demons in hell for eternity at the Final Judgement when Our Lord returns in glory. Meanwhile, we occupy a battlefield in which the enemies with which we must contend consist not only of the temptations and trials presented by this fallen world around us and the vagaries of our own human nature wounded by Original Sin, but also of principalities and powers made up of spiritual beings that regard us with profoundly malicious loathing. The outcome of this war, however, has already been secured. We must just make sure that we are allied to the side to which victory in the final conflict is assured.

The Holy Angels are a great example to us of humility. They are closer to God than us and considerably higher in the hierarchy of nature, and yet in perfect obedience to God’s will they exercise themselves in the service of our well-being. Thus we find St Raphael guiding Tobias, St Gabriel visiting the Blessed Virgin to announce God’s plan for our redemption, and St Michael flying to our assistance whenever we invoke his protection. Thus we are each accompanied throughout this life by a holy Guardian Angel, whose company and friendship we do well to cultivate. The fallen angels have no direct access to the hidden secrets of our hearts. Confident that our Guardian Angels know what is good for us better than we do ourselves, we can grant to them a distinct advantage over our spiritual foes by inviting them to read our hearts.

In our October Devotions, the Litany of Loreto also reminds us of the extraordinary privilege that has been given to one human creature, when we invoke the Mother of God under Her beautiful title “Queen of Angels”. May we imitate the Holy Angels in their humility, and invoke their aid and protection in all the circumstances of our lives. And may the intercession of Our Lady gain for us a place with them at the Throne of Grace in eternity.

Father Julian Large

September 2023 Letter from the Provost

Reading the account of Our Lord’s encounter with the Canaanite woman in The Gospel of St Matthew (15:21-28), we might well be surprised by the tone of their exchange. Our Lord Jesus, whom we know to be the living embodiment of charity and tenderness towards the needy, seems to insult this poor woman mercilessly. First, she approaches Him crying “Have mercy, O Lord, Son of David!” and she explains that her daughter is severely possessed by a demon. What a terrible affliction. And yet Our Lord cuts her dead. The disciples urge Him to send her away, because she is making such a nuisance of herself. And when she kneels at His feet and implores His help, He replies that it is not fair to give the bread of children (He means the bread of the children of Israel) to dogs. It would be hard to imagine a ruder rebuke.

Once we are told the outcome of this extraordinary conversation, however, it seems that Our Lord was employing playfulness all along. For the Jews, the Canaanites were just about the most despised of all gentiles. In the Book of Joshua, we read that God had commanded the Jews entering the Promised Land to eradicate any Canaanites they discovered there, so that the moral depravity and superstition of these pagans might not contaminate and corrupt God’s Chosen People. In the days of Our Lord’s ministry, it was apparently usual for Jews to call descendants of any surviving Canaanites dogs.

In insulting this woman who approached Him, Our Lord was playing up to the caricature of how His fellow Jews, and His own disciples, might have expected Him to behave. Meanwhile He was allowing this female gentile – from a despised pagan tribe – to manifest her faith in Him. The call to Conversion, and Faith, are supernatural gifts from God. In addressing Him as “Lord” and “Son of David”, and in begging Him for mercy, she was manifesting her conversion to true religion, uniting herself in faith to the One Who has declared Himself to be the Way, the Truth and the Life.

In response to her conversion and her request, Our Lord praises her for her faith, and He Who possesses invincible authority over the whole of Creation, physical and spiritual, immediately frees her daughter from the demon that has taken possession of her soul.

It should come as no surprise that the woman’s daughter has been possessed by a demon. The Canaanites were idol-worshippers, and pagan practices predispose the soul to demonic influence, and sometimes even possession. The Fathers of the Church – those early theologians who unpacked and articulated the Deposit of Faith entrusted to the Apostles – taught that the idols of the pagans were infested with demons, who were all too ready to take advantage of those who opened the doors of their hearts to them in false worship.

It has been said that when men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, but rather become capable of believing in anything. The vacuum left by the retreat of true religion from so many areas of public life in our own society is replaced by ever more weird and not so wonderful forms of neo-paganism and nature-worship.

Our Lord warns us that the devil often disguises himself as an angel of light. Sometimes we can expect to find the demons lurking in the supposedly secular idols of diversity, equality and inclusivity – idols which have been enthroned in almost all of our once-venerable institutions, and to which we seem expected to render complete submission. But while the camouflage of the demons might adapt itself to the colours of the day, the intention of the fallen angels is always the same: to gain entry into our hearts, to distort and disfigure that divine image emblazoned on the soul which is the glory of every human being, and ultimately to deprive us of our salvation. Dabbling in the occult, by playing with Ouija boards and tarot cards, or consulting fortune tellers and mediums, is of course an open invitation to the devil to create havoc in our lives.

Too much interest in the demonic is unhealthy, and gives undeserved attention to the devil. For most of us it is enough to be aware of where the dangers lie and to avoid them like deadly poison. We should cultivate the friendship and the assistance of the Holy Angels, and especially our Guardian Angels. The fallen angels tremble in the presence of St Michael, and fell in terror at the invocation of the Queen of Angels, whose birthday we celebrate this month.

So what can we learn from the Canaanite woman in this Gospel account? First of all to be grateful, if we have been blessed with the gift of faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who frees us from the power of the forces of darkness, and Who heals us and makes us whole when we ask for His assistance. We also learn from this woman to be persistent in our prayers. If it seems that God is ignoring us, or even that He is treating us roughly and rudely, then we should never lose heart. Rather we should redouble our petitions, in the confidence that He hears us, and is purifying our Faith so that our hearts will be prepared to receive His blessings in full abundance.

Father Julian Large

August 2023 Letter from the Provost

We are all familiar with the parable of the sower, who distributes his seed with such varying success. Our Lord helpfully unpacks and explains this particular parable for us, teaching us how to interpret His parables in general.

Something we might bear in mind is that in the ancient world, even more than now, seed was a highly precious commodity. In the days before combine harvesters, the seeds of crops had to be gathered at considerable expense of time and effort. In the parable of the sower, however, we see the seed being dispersed with great generosity, and even abandon – so much so that a good deal of it ends up being scattered along the pathway, or on earth too shallow to support a root system. And yet the sower continues in the confidence that, however much seed goes to waste, the crop that eventually grows to maturity will have made his efforts worthwhile.

The living and life-giving seed of the Gospel, and the salvation it brings, is also a commodity that comes to us at great cost. Its price is, in fact, Our Lord’s own Precious Blood. When Mel Gibson’s remarkable film The Passion of the Christ was released in London in 2004, the Oratory fathers booked a cinema in Chelsea so that we could attend as a parish. It was a memorable evening for various reasons. At the beginning of the viewing someone sitting near the Provost of the day complained that his view of the screen was obstructed by a sizeable statue of Our Lady of Fatima, complete with crown, which had been placed on the chair in front of him. Hearing his remonstrations, the statue’s owner turned around to inform him politely but firmly that Our Lady’s ticket had been paid for with good money, and so the Mother of God had as much right to a seat as everyone else. As we spilt onto the King’s Road afterwards, a number of parishioners remarked that one moment in the film which they had found especially harrowing was the scourging at the pillar, in which Our Lord’s Body was beaten and flayed like wheat on the threshing floor, until the courtyard of the Praetorium resembled a glistening crimson lake of blood. During that scene there was one person in the crowd who seemed to realise the value of what had been spilt. It was Our Lord’s Blessed Mother, who fell to Her knees to soak up the blood of Her Son with linen cloths. The message was clear: each and every drop of that Precious Blood was valuable beyond words.

Those of us who have been baptized have received a most precious blessing – and one which bears its fullest fruits in eternity. At our Baptism, the supernatural gifts (“Theological Virtues”) of Faith, Hope and Charity were planted like little seeds within us. And our godparents made the promise to tend and nurture those seeds and bring them to fruition. The heart of a newly baptised infant actually provides very fertile ground for the nurturing of these precious seeds. Perfectly pure and innocent, there is nothing within a young child to stand in the way of the fullness of God’s life and His love. And so a newly baptised child is in fact brimming over with the Sanctifying Grace which is the life of God. Whenever we feel that sanctity is distant from our hearts, then, we should perhaps remind ourselves that when we were baptised, we were each one of us made saints, at least for a time.

Perils to our salvation then arise as we mature. That is when the seedlings that were planted so safely and securely in our infancy have to contend with thorns and the scorching rays of the sun, such that the supernatural life that was infused into us in childhood can be in danger of being stunted or even suffocated.

We should reflect, often, on the value of those seeds that were planted in our hearts and souls in Baptism. With God’s help we need to tend what has been sown within us carefully, pruning away and uprooting the thorns and thickets of vices and unhelpful worldly attachments that threaten to throttle the supernatural life of the soul. We need to pray for the strength to chase away the predatory birds of temptation, which would snatch those seeds from us; we need to turn away from the blinding scorching light of all that information (so much of it misinformation or downright disinformation) with which we are dazzled by the media, and focus our attention towards that light of the Gospel which feeds our Faith, the light that strengthens our Hope, and the light that teaches us to love God above all else and to recognise and honour His image in our neighbour so that Charity is brought to perfection within us.

During this month of the Blessed Virgin’s glorious Assumption into Heaven, let us ask for Our Lady’s intercession to gain for us a true appreciation of the value of the graces that we have been given, and to use them well.

Father Julian Large

July 2023 Letter from the Provost

Father Hugh Barrett-Lennard, who died just six days short of his ninetieth birthday in 2007, is remembered with great fondness by those who encountered him during his sixty-two years at the Oratory. In addition to a host of remarkable qualities, he was endowed to an uncommonly high degree with the attractive gift of seeing the best in his fellow human creatures. As a chaplain in one of London’s tougher jails, he organised annual Corpus Christi processions within the prison precincts. The four “lifers” whom he trained to carry the canopy over the Blessed Sacrament might have been notorious violent criminals in the eyes of their warders. To Father Barrett-Lennard they were a quartet of “the most excellent gentlemen – impeccably pious Catholics”.

One Holy Week about twenty-five years ago the ceremonies in the Oratory church were disturbed by a heckler, whose protests reached a resounding crescendo during the Veneration of the Cross on Good Friday. Removing his cotta in the sacristy afterwards, Father Barrett-Lennard remarked “It was decent of that fellow to cheer us on, but he might have chosen a more appropriate moment to shout, ‘Long live the Oratory!’” It had to be explained that what might have sounded like “Long live the Oratory!” to the innocent ears of Father Barrett-Lennard was actually “Pagan idolatry!”

Mercifully such interruptions of our liturgical functions tend to be quite rare occurrences. There was, however, an incident during last month’s Corpus Christi celebrations which left a number of parishioners feeling unsettled. As the Blessed Sacrament procession made its way towards the front of the church after leaving the courtyard of Oratory House and proceeding along the pavement of the Brompton Road, the face of a pedestrian who was approaching head-on became animated with indignation and he began to protest quite vigorously. Entering the church and processing up the nave it was still possible to hear cries of “You Catholics will burn in hell!” coming from the street.

It should not surprise us if our religious practices sometime elicit hostile reactions from those who have not been blessed with the light of our Catholic Faith. To non-Christians who are zealous for the honour of their particular deity, our belief in the Blessed Trinity can easily seem like the polytheism of pagans, and the worship that we offer to Our Lord Jesus like a shocking blasphemy. Is it so strange that to a convinced Protestant the adoration that we lavish on the Blessed Sacrament (the “Latria” that is due to God alone), and the veneration with which we honour Our Lady and the saints, should seem to be flagrant idolatry?

And so we must strive be patient with the hecklers, and charitable towards those whose consciences make them feel duty bound to protest. The vehement objection of the man whose religious sensibilities are inflamed by the sight of us adoring what he sincerely believes to be a wafer of bread probably indicates that he is more solicitous of God’s honour than those who politely step out of the way of our processions with their gazes glued to telephone screens, as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening around them. In the view of our founding Provost Father Faber, the tepidity of the indifferent was a more formidable obstacle to evangelisation than the hot-blooded animosity of protestors. When the first generation of Brompton Oratorians were fixing riot shutters to the ground floor of the Oratory House in the 1850s, he told them not to worry themselves unduly, adding “the first brick through the window will be the sign that the message is getting through.”

Having been a fanatical persecutor of the early Christians, St Paul became “Apostle to the Gentiles” and the most effective missionary in the history of our Church. One of the most implacable and vociferous opponents of the Church in more recent times, meanwhile, was the Jewish Frenchman Alphonse Ratisbonne, whose railings against the Mystical Body of Christ on earth are not suitable for repetition in a family publication. Thanks to a divine intervention which involved the prayers of his Catholic acquaintances, the recitation of the Memorare, the Miraculous Medal, and apparitions of a black dog and Our Lady, he received the Faith miraculously in the church of Sant’Andrea delle Fratte in Rome, on 20th January 1842. After baptism, he trained for the priesthood, becoming Father Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne, S.J., and founded an order devoted to missionary work among his fellow Jews.

Those familiar with the life of our holy father St Philip will be aware of the numerous instances in which his patience, charity and prayers gained the souls of those who had come to mock and to obstruct the work of the first Oratory in Rome. So let us ask Our Lady and St Philip to fortify our intercessions with their own, as we pray for the hecklers who occasionally raise their voices, along with those who sometimes vandalise the fabric of the church. Pray that the zeal which makes them so obnoxious in their ignorance will be transformed by the gift of the Faith into a burning devotion that sanctifies and saves their souls, and contributes to the mission of God’s Church on earth.

Father Julian Large

June 2023 Letter from the Provost

Everyday language inevitably fails us when it comes to expressing the Mysteries of our holy Catholic Faith. The first sign that we are beginning to penetrate more deeply into the truths of Divine Revelation is when words fail us and we are left speechless in wonder before the Majesty of Almighty God. 

When this happens, it is time to let the Church’s Sacred Liturgy take over. Never is this more true than on the great Feast of Corpus Christi. The flowers strewn in the path of the Blessed Sacrament, the incense and genuflections that accompany the procession, and the solemn enthronement of the Sacred Host in a monstrance over the altar all testify more poignantly than any words to our firm belief that the King of Kings is present. 

But how is He present? And how can we possibly justify lavishing what appears to be the adoration reserved for God alone on something that seems to onlookers to be at best a humble symbol of the Body of Christ?  

In order to explain why it is appropriate to offer the highest level of worship to the Blessed Sacrament – adoration, or latria – we have no choice but to resort to human language. The most basic answer we can offer must be something like this: “We offer the adoration due to God alone to the Sacred Host because we believe that the Sacred Host is God.”   

In describing how God is present on earth we cannot do any better than revisiting what has been said already, by saints, Doctors, and the Church in Her own solemn definitions. Theologians talk about the Blessed Sacrament in terms of the “Real Presence”. This distinguishes Our Lord’s Presence on the Altar from all those other ways in which He is truly present. As The Second Person of the Trinity, He is of course everywhere at all times. He is also present in the Church which is His own Mystical Body, and He lives in the heart of anyone who is in a state of grace. When we talk about His Real Presence in the tabernacle, however, we mean that He is actually with us in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.   

This Real Presence is also referred to as a “Sacramental Presence”. This tells us that Christ’s Presence on the Altar is realised and remains hidden under the signs of bread and wine. It is only through faith that we know He is there: He has said “This is my Body”, and we take Him at His word. 

The Church offers us an expression, one that actually describes the process by which Our Lord’s Real and Sacramental Presence comes about: Transubstantiation. 

The doctrine of Transubstantiation describes how the substances of bread and wine are actually transformed into Our Lord’s Living Body and Blood. Only the “accidents” – the taste, smell, colour and texture – of bread and wine remain. This means that in the Blessed Sacrament there is not only a Real Presence, but also a real absence. The substances of bread and wine are no longer there. The little white wafer has given way to the Sacred Host. The liquid in the chalice has become the Precious Blood. 

This is why we are able to offer to the Blessed Sacrament the worship due only to our Creator. To adore bread, however solemnly that bread had been blessed, would be idolatry; but we can, and must, adore the Host because the Host is the Living God. 

Our Lord comes to the altar in this way primarily to feed us, so that we can enjoy a union with Him that is more complete and intimate than any other union this side of the Beatific Vision in Heaven. He also remains on the Altar outside of the Mass so that He may be carried to the sick and dying; and He abides on the altar so that we may worship Him. 

We have Our Lord’s assurance that there is nothing demeaning about Christian worship: “I do not call you servants,” He says in the Gospel of St John; “I call you friends.” (Jn 15:15) This friendship with Christ is made possible because He shares His own Divine Life with us in the Sacrament of Baptism. The glory that we praise in God is a Glory in which we ourselves have been called to participate, and to be transformed by, in Heaven. The Blessed Sacrament is the token par excellence of Our Saviour’s friendship. 

No friendship can survive for very long without communication.  For this reason, the Church provides many beautiful prayers for us to use in front of the Blessed Sacrament. We need never be afraid, however, of using our own poor words, telling our Friend in the Blessed Sacrament what is on our minds. If we are afraid, ask His protection. If there is some recurring temptation that seems impossible to resist, ask Him to reach into our hearts to break the chains of bad habits with the invincible solvent of Divine Grace. 

While there is a time for speaking, however, there must also be time for silence. The need for constant chatter in any relationship is a sign of insecurity. The ability to rest in the presence of the other indicates that our friendship has reached greater maturity. 

These days we are blessed to have churches, in London at least, that are open during the day. Catholics who suffered during the centuries of persecution would have rejoiced to know that this would once again be possible. At Tyburn Convent near Marble Arch, close to the spot where so many of them were martyred, the Blessed Sacrament is even exposed for adoration throughout the night. Our forebears in the Faith surely plead with us now from Heaven never to take any of this for granted. When we see the open door of a Catholic Church and a light flickering before the Tabernacle, we should always go in, if only for a few moments. Open our hearts before our Friend in the Blessed Sacrament and allow Him to refresh us with His peace, His joy, His love. 

Father Julian Large

May 2023 Letter from the Provost

It is surely a grace of Divine Providence that the feast of our holy father St Philip falls within the month that is so sweetly fragranced by its dedication to Our Blessed Lady. Saint Philip’s whole life and apostolate was lived under Her mantle. His disciples recounted him conversing with Her from his bed during periods of sickness with such affection and familiarity that it seemed as if She were actually present in his room. Indeed, he was blessed with visits from the Blessed Virgin, as when She appeared one night to show him that She was holding up a dislodged beam in the roof of the church which was likely to crash down on to the congregation below. On another occasion She appeared to him when he was ill with a severe fever and seemed to be nearing the point of death. Immediately cured, he sat up and was amazed that no-one else in the room seemed to have seen Her whom he was wont to call ‘Mamma Mia’.

For St Philip, it was a special blessing that the church given to the Congregation in Rome had been dedicated since the 12th century to Santa Maria in Vallicella (St Mary in the Little Valley), and it was at his insistence during the rebuilding that every chapel should contain an image of Our Lady over the altar. His personal favourite was Federico Barocci’s rendering of the embrace between the Blessed Virgin and Elizabeth, for the altar of the Visitation, before which he was seen to be in ecstasy. And so, when the Roman Oratory fathers constructed a shrine after his death to contain his mortal remains, they made sure that the beautiful painting of our saint by Guido Reni over the altar depicted him on his knees, in Mass vestments, in front of a vision of the Madonna and Child.

It is a nineteenth century copy of this Guido Reni that was placed above St Philip’s altar in the first church of the London Oratory off the Strand, and which came with us to Brompton, where it was eventually placed in a magnificent carved and gilded surround sponsored by Father Ralph Kerr. One of the attractions of St Philip for the first English Oratorians was his profound devotion to the Blessed Virgin. After his reception into the One True Fold of the Redeemer in 1845, St John Henry Newman was given a house at Old Oscott by Cardinal Wiseman. He renamed it “Maryvale”. Father Faber would point out the similarity of this name to “Santa Maria in Vallicella” when, in 1848, the first Oratorian community in England was canonically erected there.

Our own church in London contains many images of Our Blessed Lady, from the poignant Pietà in the war memorial near the Baptistry, to the Nazarene School painting of Our Lady of Sorrows in the Dolours Chapel, the altar to Our Lady of Good Counsel and the nearby painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe in St Wilfrid’s Chapel, to our magnificent Lady Altar with its statue of Our Lady of Victories. This last chapel, flanked by statues of Dominican saints, is a monument to the Church’s victories throughout history over the cancer of heresy from within, and at times of menace from the infidel without. Above the High Altar, meanwhile, we see a large red heart pierced with thorns. This represents the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to which our church is dedicated and which Our Lady has promised will have the final triumph over all evil.

Our May devotions include daily recitation of the Holy Rosary followed by the Litany of Loreto at Our Lady’s altar twenty minutes before the evening Mass, throughout the month (to be on the safe side, arrive twenty-five minutes before the Mass, as some of the fathers tend to be a bit quick off the mark). A plenary indulgence may be gained by this public participation of the Rosary, under the usual conditions. In these days of heightened international tensions, which coincide with an unprecedented crisis of credibility in the leadership of our governments, it is only normal that there should be great anxiety among decent people who feel helpless as they witness policies being pursued which seem to guarantee escalation. As children of the Mother of God, however, we are not helpless. The Rosary is our secret weapon, both against the forces of evil at work in the secular realm, and against the heretics who work to wreak so much havoc within the Church. Let us pray it with great trust and faith, remembering the countless occasions on which Our Lady has intervened to rescue Christian civilisation in response to this devotion which She has so often commended to Her children.

As the nation prepares to celebrate the Coronation, we must pray for our new King, Charles III, asking God to guide him, bless him, and give him the gumption to resist the zeitgeist of these days of all-pervading “wokery”. Ultimately the criteria by which the success of this new reign will be judged will be the extent to which it conforms to and extends the reign of our divine Sovereign, Christ the King. With that in mind, let us entrust our earthly King to the care and the constant intercession of our heavenly Mother Who has been crowned Queen of the Angels and Saints.

Father Julian Large