June 2025 Letter from the Provost

On this year’s celebration of the Feast of St Peter and St Paul we shall all be praying especially for our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV. When the Oratory Church’s bell indicated that the Cardinals in Conclave had elected a new Pope, earlier than most of us had expected, those fathers who were in the house gathered in our Congregation Room where a television screen which is usually concealed behind cupboard doors showed the sunlit roof of the Sistine Chapel. One of the senior fathers, who has now lived during nine pontificates, quietly retreated on seeing the last wisps of white smoke issuing from the chimney, to carry on with his business of the afternoon. For this seasoned labourer in the vineyard it was enough to be pleasantly assured that the See of St Peter was once again occupied. The rest of us, however, waited with rising anticipation to hear the Cardinal Protodeacon announce the name of our new Holy Father. When His Holiness Pope Leo XIV eventually arrived on the balcony we were immediately touched by the appearance of his radiant modesty, and by his first words to the Faithful and to the world: “Peace be with you!”

No message could have been more welcome. The Holy Father continued: “Dear brothers and sisters, these are the first words spoken by the risen Christ, the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for God’s flock. I would like this greeting of peace to resound in your hearts, in your families, among all people, wherever they may be, in every nation and throughout the world. Peace be with you! It is the peace of the risen Christ. A peace that is unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering. A peace that comes from God, the God who loves us all, unconditionally.” We pray with His Holiness that the peace which only Our Lord can give will prevail in our time in which the world is riven with war and displacement, and that this peace will prevail within the Church, where division and internal conflict only serve as a hindrance to the divine commission to go into the world and “teach ye all the nations; baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

Naturally there has been much speculation in the press about “the direction” in which Pope Leo XIV is likely to lead the Church, and to what extent he will prove to be a successor of his immediate predecessor, and also of Pope Leo XIII, who inspired the choice of name. We should remember, however, that every pope is called above all to be a successor of St Peter, the humble fisherman whom Our Lord appointed to be the rock on which He would build His Church. As such His task is to preserve the integrity of the life-giving doctrine of the Deposit of Faith entrusted to St Peter and the Apostles and which has been handed down to us inviolate for two millennia, and to teach this saving truth in all its beautiful fullness in every generation.

We can be glad that not only the Catholic Faithful but also the world beyond the Church have welcomed our new Holy Father with such warmth and hope. The media, of course, is the most fickle of beasts, and so we should do well not to be swept backwards and forwards like chaff in the wind by whichever narrative is peddled as this new pontificate progresses. Let us rather pray continually for Pope Leo XIV and may our prayers be fortified by the intercessions of Our Blessed Lady, St Peter and of course the great “Counsellor of Popes”, our own St Philip. God bless our Pope.

Father Julian Large

Sermon: Requiem for Pope Francis

The following sermon was preached at a Solemn Requiem Mass celebrated for the repose of the soul of Pope Francis on 1st May 2025.

This Mass is being offered for the repose of the soul of His Holiness Pope Francis. Pope, or Papa in Italian, means father, and every successor of St Peter is in a very true sense a father to the flock that has been entrusted to his care by Almighty God. When the father of a large family dies, it is quite possible that his children will experience emotions which differ considerably between the siblings. Some may cherish treasured memories of their father, while others who feel that they were misunderstood, unappreciated, or even ill-used, may have cause to feel more ambivalent. But in a civilised and Christian family all will unite in expressing filial piety by praying with fervour for their father’s immortal soul. In so doing they perform a priceless act of real charity, knowing in faith that the prayers of the living are of great assistance to the faithful departed.

The strongest and most powerful prayer that we have is the Holy Mass. In this Requiem Mass, we gather as members of the Mystical Body of Christ, with the company of the saints in Heaven, praying that the merits of Our Lord’s Passion and Death will be applied to the soul of the late Sovereign Pontiff, who bore such formidable responsibilities.

A Requiem Mass is not the time for discussing the qualities of the deceased. Many modern funerals seem to have become like canonisation ceremonies. This does a great disservice to the dead, who need not accolades or appraisals, but rather prayers – prayers that are fortified by sacrifice and penance, to help them. It is not the Catholic way on an occasion such as this to avoid the unsettling reality of death by distracting ourselves with anecdotes and reminiscences. Instead, we confront death head-on, by doing something practical and positive.

Traditionally the custom at a Requiem Mass is actually to preach, if at all, on the Four Last Things – death, judgment, Heaven and hell.

Death. According to Catholic doctrine, death was never a part of God’s original plan for mankind. Along with sickness and all manner of suffering, it entered the human experience as a punishment for the sin of Adam. Through Baptism, however, while death remains a consequence of Original Sin, it is transformed so that sickness and the manner in which we approach death may themselves become meritorious for eternal life. The late Pope suffered considerably and publicly from a debilitating illness, the last stages of which coincided with the whole period of Lent and Holy Week, during which the Church enjoins us to participate in the Way of the Cross through prayer and mortification. We can be grateful for the witness His Holiness gave by persevering in his own personal Via Dolorosa, by sharing it with the world and by dying in office. This is particularly poignant for us at a time when relentless lobbying for so-called euthanasia would seem to suggest that there can be no value in suffering or decrepitude. And the Pope’s death came on Easter Monday, while the Church was rejoicing in Our Lord’s Resurrection. Easter is our assurance that the bodies of those who die in God’s grace will eventually be resurrected on the Day of Judgment to be renewed, perfected, reunited with their souls, and glorified forever.

Judgment. In the Hail Mary, we petition the Blessed Virgin to pray for us now and at the hour of our death, the only two moments over which we have any real control in our lives. Every “now” is an occasion which we must use to make sure that when the hour of death comes, we are found spiritually enlivened by the Sanctifying Grace that was infused into us in Baptism. It is that State of Grace, and nothing else, which will determine our portion in eternity when our soul departs from the body, and we come face to face with our Lord in the moment of our Particular Judgment. But while the everlasting destiny of every soul is sealed irreversibly at the moment of death, we must remember that God dwells in eternity – and while time is linear to us, to the Creator every moment of our time is present at once. This means that we can ask and hope for the prayers which we offer here and now to have been effective at the moment when a soul was about to leave this earth and stand before the Throne of reckoning.

Heaven. This is the supernatural state and place for which we have been created and redeemed. In Heaven the saints wear the crown of everlasting life and are elevated to the state of glory and the Beatific Vision in which they behold God face-to-face and become like Him because they see Him as He is.

Hell. We know, because Our Lord Himself has told us so, that hell exists and that it is populated. Beyond that, we can have no certainty of who is there. The Church has Her list of canonised saints, but She keeps no equivalent register of those who have died in mortal sin. And so we pray for all of the faithful departed, commending each and every one of them to the mercy of God, with the assurance that any graces obtained by our intercessions for a soul that is beyond benefitting from them will be redirected to where they are needed by souls being purified in the cleansing fires of Purgatory.

And so we ask the Blessed Virgin, St Peter, St Philip, and all the saints and holy angels to join us in praying for the soul of His Holiness Pope Francis. May his judgment have been merciful. May each one of us one day join him in Heaven. We pray too for the Cardinals gathered in Rome, that the Holy Ghost will guide them to choose a worthy successor to the humble fisherman from Galilee, St Peter.

May 2025 Letter from the Provost

On Easter Monday the world received the news that His Holiness Pope Francis had died in the Vatican. Masses were offered at the Oratory on the day and will continue to be celebrated throughout the Easter Octave for the repose of the immortal soul of the 265th successor of St Peter. A solemn Latin Requiem Mass for the repose of the soul of a Sovereign Pontiff will be celebrated on Thursday 1st May at 6pm.

During the next weeks we should continue praying for the soul of Pope Francis, and for the cardinals who will travel from all over the world to convene in Rome for the election of a new pontiff. We know in Faith that our prayers for the dead are of great assistance to the souls of the faithful departed, and as living members of the Mystical Body of Christ, we can be confident that our supplications and any sacrifices we offer up with the latter intention will play some part in the outcome. In the Church, we never really watch on as helpless bystanders. There is always some contribution we can make.

From the media, meanwhile, we can expect a maelstrom of speculation and lobbying, with various of the eligible being presented as “traditionalist”, “liberal”, “progressive” and, (for the preferred candidate of those in Rome who are most adept at briefing the press corps over coffee in the Borgo Pio), “moderate conservative”. If we wish to play our part spiritually and supernaturally in the process, then we would do well to avoid such useless distraction, reminding ourselves that every quarter of an hour wasted reading the blather of the Vatican-watchers would be more profitably spent with a Rosary in our hands.

Perhaps the silliest thing we shall hear from Catholic sources is that it is the Holy Ghost who chooses the pope. This is the sort of platitudinous pseudo-pious gibberish that can give our religion a bad name. The most cursory glance at the Church’s history shows us that it is the cardinals in conclave who decide the election, and in the past some of them have exercised that privilege under the influence of personal ambition, bribery, political pressure, and browbeating. God’s permissive will means that He may allow evil to happen for some greater good, and while many of St Peter’s successors have been splendid fellows, and a number of them are canonised saints, there have been others who were incorrigible scoundrels. We should not blaspheme the Holy Ghost by blaming Him for those popes whose elections would seem to have been allowed by the Divine Providence as a punishment. Our duty is to pray, with the cardinals, that the guidance of the Holy Ghost will prevail over the weaknesses of fallible men.

As we rejoice in the glorious Resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, we also look forward to the resurrection of our own bodies when He returns in Glory. Let us pray that Pope Francis, who preached so often on the mercy of God, will himself receive a merciful judgment at the Throne of Grace and that his soul will be admitted to the Beatific Vision in Heaven and reunited with his mortal remains on that final day. And let us pray that the cardinals enter the Conclave with hearts and minds open to the promptings of the Holy Ghost so that they may provide the Church with a holy, worthy, and above all Catholic, successor to the humble fisherman from Galilee.

Father Julian Large

April 2025 Letter from the Provost

In 1974 the Venerable Servant of God Archbishop Fulton Sheen startled his audience by declaring, “We are at the end of Christendom”. In case it was assumed that he meant the end of this world was nigh, he continued: “Not of Christianity, not of the Church, but of Christendom”. The good Archbishop then explained that by Christendom he meant “economic, political, social life as inspired by Christian principles,” adding: “That is ending, we’ve seen it die. Look at the symptoms: the breakup of the family, divorce, abortion, immorality, general dishonesty.”

If the good Archbishop lived to see the crumbling of that citadel in the 1960s and 70s, we now inhabit its ruins. They are the ruins of a once great civilisation, which was great, if naturally always imperfect, in so far as its foundation was the Baptism conferred by the early Christian missionaries who exorcised the demons that held sway over our pagan antecedents.

In one of the Gospel readings traditionally appointed for the Lenten cycle, Our Lord recounts an exorcism that is initially successful. But after the expelled unclean spirit roams around and finds no new home on earth in which to take up residence, he returns to his previous dwelling with seven more spirits even more wicked than himself. Finding it swept and garnished they enter in and make themselves at home so that “the last state of that man becomes worse than the first”. (Lk 11:24-26). St Anthony the Great, meanwhile, related how the devil once appeared at the door of his hermitage in the desert. When St Anthony asked him what he was doing on the threshold of his cell, the devil complained that he was weary, because the whole land that had once been pagan was now full of zealous monks, so that he was reduced to wandering around with nowhere to dwell, and his power was weak because the incessant prayers of these Christians were far stronger than any weapons that he had at his own disposal. St Anthony was astonished that for once the Father of Lies had told the truth.

In the light of Archbishop Sheen’s 1974 elegy on Christendom, all of this would seem to have obvious and troubling implications for our own society. Nature hates a vacuum, and the devil is constantly on the prowl in search of a spiritual vacuum in which to take up residence. Now it seems as if the devil has returned to this windswept house to unleash his vengeance with reinforcements, so that “the last state of that man is worse than the first”. We would have to be blind not to see the effects of his activity all around us. The hubris of nominally Christian policymakers who have attempted to redefine the nature of marriage, the push for the legalisation of so-called euthanasia, indoctrination of the children in our schools in which disorder is supposedly normalised – all lead our society to ever greater depths of decay. We see its all too baleful consequences within the Church wherever those of us who are supposed to be ambassadors of the King of Kings go native and embrace the spirit of this world.

Archbishop Sheen would not leave us discouraged, however. Instead he declared in that same sermon in 1974: “These are great and glorious days to be alive. I thank God…that I can live in these days, because these are days of testing.” He continued: “Really it is beautiful. Now we can say “aye” or “nay”, and we can bear up under assault, criticism and ridicule, because this is the lot of the Christian in the days of the spirit of the world.” We have a clear choice: either we can drift downstream with the flotsam and into the abyss, or we can swim against the current and claim the crown of everlasting glory. The Provost does not possess the prophetic charism of the great Archbishop, but it is quite conceivable that where Christendom long waxed and lately waned another religion will gain dominance of economic, political and social life, and then we shall be tested further. And with testing comes purification.

Lent should be a bad time of year for the devil. It is a season during which we make war on the evil spirits through penance, fasting, prayer and almsgiving. It is the time of year more than any other when we heed the injunction of St Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians: “Put you on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places” (Eph 6:11-12).

Let us thank God for the blessing of our Baptism, and stand unflinching in our Holy Faith. During these remaining days of Lent let us daily do battle with the world, the flesh and the devil, as we approach Calvary and the Resurrection under the protection and intercession of the Immaculate Mother of God, Who crushed the serpent’s head under Her heel.

Father Julian Large

March 2025 Letter from the Provost

We live in an era in which invective is endemic. Politically, much of western society has become divided to the point of extreme polarisation, in which one side views the other as positively evil. One politician running for the most senior office in her country infamously described the supporters of the opposition as “a basket of deplorables”. Judging by comments posted on Catholic social media it seems that this fetid atmosphere of vituperation that has taken possession of public discourse has also taken root within the Church.

It is, of course, to be expected that when the stakes are high passions will simmer and boil. Perhaps the stakes have never been higher. Issues which for Catholics are crucially important – the sanctity of human life, the divine institution and the meaning of Holy Matrimony between man and woman, the special sovereignty of the family, and the intrinsic value of each and every human being – are all under ferocious attack from various quarters. It can be tempting for us to demonise the opposition, especially when the tactics used to undermine the principles that we treasure are duplicitous and unscrupulous.

But however hard we battle to defend these principles we must resist the temptation to dehumanise our opponents in this war. In the Gospel Our Lord instructs us: “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.”

A few years ago one of the Oratory fathers wandered into the halal quarter of a picturesque town in southern France and found himself being verbally abused for being a Catholic priest by a group of young zealots. His command of their language was just good enough to understand the gross nature of the insults, but not to formulate an appropriate response. Remembering Our Lord’s injunction in the Gospel to “bless those who curse you” he silently made the Sign of the Cross over his assailants. The result was that he found a butcher’s knife being brandished before his face. A priest he was travelling with pulled him away, and martyrdom was averted. The blessing was well intended if not so well received.

What we have to remember is that each and every human being is created in the image of God. This indelible divine image is universal throughout the whole human race. When God looks at any of us, He sees a potential for great beauty of soul and holiness. If He also finds sin within our hearts, then that is an obstacle to our growth which He, with our cooperation, desires to remove so that we might flourish. We must strive to see our fellow men with this same divine vision. Witnessing the concerted efforts of the earthly powers-that-be to contaminate the innocence of children in schools with pathological ideologies, we might feel inclined to identify the human agents promoting such evil with the diabolical forces which are ultimately their inspiration. Demonisation of any human being is however a grave sin against charity and a denial of the Divine Providence. While the image of God in a demon has been distorted beyond redemption for eternity, even a man who has given himself over to wicked depravity is capable with God’s grace (and the help of our prayers) of conversion to the life of grace which elevates the image of God in his soul to a supernatural likeness, at least while he still has breath in his lungs.

The injunction to love our enemies is certainly not a commandment to like them. Liking is based on feeling, and feelings are neither here nor there when it comes to sanctification. Feelings wax and wane, and our control over them is generally limited. Loving is an act of the will, and exercise of this virtue even has the power to affect how we feel towards one another. Monsignor Ronald Knox, preaching on the subject of “Forgiving and Loving” had this to say about the saints: “They really do love their fellow man as such; they feel the same thrill of pleasure when they see a man coming down the road which you and I feel when we see a friend coming down the road. Mankind is their kindred; the world is their parish. And, consequently, one who shows bitter enmity towards a saint, speaks evil of him, persecutes him, is to the saint simply a friend who is being tiresome; it’s a sort of tiff between lovers that is bound to blow over. I know the lives always tell us the saints loved their enemies as being instruments of their own mortification; and I dare say it’s true, but that’s not all the truth. They didn't love them for being instruments, they loved them for being men”.

So does the Gospel insist that we must never put up a fight? Is it a charter for pacifism? Certainly not. There are times when we must fight for what is true and just. It does, however, correct our perspective. We may not wish our enemy victory; but we must desire his salvation. And in the culture wars that rage around us we are not called to be pacifists, but we are obliged to be pacifiers.

Father Julian Large

February 2025 Letter from the Provost

One of the joys and great responsibilities of the priesthood is the preparation of young couples for the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. At the Oratory the Fathers are blessed to be able to do this on an individual basis, seeing each couple regularly in the months leading up to the big day. The priest’s role is to make sure that all of the ingredients necessary for a valid marriage are present, and to encourage each couple to approach the Sacrament thoughtfully and prayerfully, so that the channels of communication are uncluttered and wide open for God to infuse His grace in abundance into this lifelong union.

Our Lord’s first recorded miracle takes place within the context of a marriage at Cana in Galilee. The transformation of water into wine represents far more than the facilitation of a convivial wedding reception. In his Gospel St John refers to it as a “sign”: God is fulfilling His promise to wed Himself as a divine bridegroom to His people in a new and everlasting covenant. In elevating marriage to the level of a sacrament, Our Lord enables a man and a woman to enter their own lifelong and grace-filled covenant of self-gift which is indissoluble just as His union with His Bride, the Church, is indissoluble.

The Church also attributes a profoundly Eucharistic meaning to this miracle at Cana. Just as it is easy for our Saviour to turn water into wine, so we can take Him at His word when He promises us that He will transform bread and wine into His Body and Blood during the Sacrifice of the Mass, and that He will feed us with Himself when we kneel to receive the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Communion. Of course, the miracle of Cana was a verifiable miracle, because those who observed what was happening could see, taste and smell that what had been water was now wine. In Holy Communion the accidents of bread and wine remain, so that we have to accept in faith that what we are actually receiving is the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ. We do accept this because Truth Himself has told us “this is my body”.

Every sacrament is a sign of an invisible, supernatural reality. Every sacrament, instituted by Our Lord Himself, actually brings about the invisible supernatural reality it signifies. The water of Baptism represents washing and new life. Descending into the waters of Baptism we are buried with Christ in His tomb, dying to the old Adam of sin within us, rising out of the water to new life in the Resurrection – so that there is all the difference in the world between a baptised baby and a baby that has not yet been baptised. Each is created and loved by God, but one is a living Temple of the Holy Ghost, full of Sanctifying Grace.

Our Lord has also elevated marriage to a Sacrament of His New Covenant. In the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony there is another transformation. When a couple exchange their vows, they become one flesh before God, and this indissoluble union which joins them together until separated by death is sealed definitively the moment the marriage is consummated. This is why a validly confected marriage can never be dissolved. A real transformation has occurred, and this is irreversible, just as the seal of Baptism is indelible. It is not God’s intention in marriage merely to join the couple together with superglue and then to launch them on their own into the world. While the bride and groom confer their vows of faithfulness on each other, God promises to be a living presence in this marriage sustaining them, answering their prayers, sanctifying them, picking them up and binding their wounds if and when they fall.

If a young couple preparing for this great sacrament is serious about making it work, then both parties are going to have to set their faces against the prevailing culture. The sexual revolution has been hugely detrimental to the family and society. The notion that cohabitation before marriage is normal, desirable and even inevitable, has been disastrous on many levels. First of all, mortal sin brings spiritual death, so that until and unless we repent, then nothing we do can contribute to our salvation. Secondly, if a couple have already been living as if they are one flesh, then how are they ever going to appreciate the wondrous reality of what is really happening when they do eventually exchange their vows? The marriage ceremony becomes a rubber stamp, ratifying a living arrangement which has already become longstanding. All of this is catastrophic as far as benefitting from sacramental grace is concerned.

Thankfully, there are many young couples nowadays who do want to prepare properly for marriage, and who haven’t been taken in by the insipid defeatism of the boomer generation. They are fascinated by and attracted to the proposal of living chastely with God’s help, and preparing for their marriage in line with the perennial wisdom of traditional Catholic teaching. They are eager to keep all of the channels of communication with God open and unobstructed so that He is able to infuse His divine life into their hearts, their marriages and their families in abundance. This all bodes well. We should give thanks for them, and pray for all couples who are preparing to embrace the lifelong adventure of love and faithfulness in marriage this year.

Father Julian Large

January 2025 Letter from the Provost

On Christmas Eve, at the Midnight Mass, we heard how the first to be called to Bethlehem to join the Holy Family were some poor shepherds, who were summoned from the surrounding hills by a choir of angels. The scene of these rustics in their rough clothes leaves us in no doubt of God’s special love and regard for the humble and the lowly. The King of Kings has not come to impose His reign on earth by consorting with the powerful and making backroom deals with the “elites” of this world. He has entered this world to establish His kingdom within the hearts of those who approach Him in meekness and simplicity. On earth, the shepherds might be considered uncouth by those who like to consider themselves highly cultured. In the Kingdom of Heaven they are the real V.I.P.’s

On the beautiful feast of the Epiphany, however, we celebrate the arrival of some new V.I.P.’s These visitors are real aristocrats, and highly educated. Everything about the Magi, carrying gifts which are brimming over with mystical significance, and their journey to Bethlehem, is mysterious and exotic. The mystique and fascination that surrounds this event is increased by St Matthew’s Gospel account, which tells us so little about the identity of these distinguished gentlemen. But again, what makes the Magi examples to us, like those rough shepherds, is their simple faith and humility.

There are three types of worship, to which the Church has given Greek names. The first is dulia. This is the veneration that we offer to the saints. And really, when we venerate the saints, we are honouring God, whose divine life overflows within the saints as they behold Him face-to-face in the Beatific Vision. The second is called hyperdulia, and this is the special veneration which is offered to the Blessed Virgin by virtue of Her unique position in the whole human race as Mother of God, Immaculately conceived and overflowing with grace from the very moment of Her creation.

The third and highest form of worship is called latria, and this is a different type of worship altogether. It is the adoration which is due to God and God alone. In adoration, we offer to God all that we have and all that we are without reserve. We recognise that He created us from the dust of the earth and that we belong to Him. It would be a grave sin of idolatry to offer this latria, or adoration to any created thing, even to the greatest saint.

When the wise men from the East come to Bethlehem to pay their respects to the Infant Jesus, the Holy Scriptures inform us that it is this highest form or worship – adoration, or latria – that they offer to the King of Kings as they fall to their knees before the manger. The divine identity of this Child can only have been revealed to them supernaturally.

In our own age of scepticism, these wise men are a great example to us. They were the ultimate sophisticates of their time, learned in the sciences and in the philosophies of the age. And yet here they are, on their knees, in adoration, before a Child who cannot yet even speak or walk. What a wondrous example they are of faith and trust in God’s revelation. When the opinion-makers of our own day mock our Catholic religion as something archaic and superstitious, then we should remember these genuine wise men whose vision of reality was enlightened and enhanced by their openness to the word of God.

But the Wise Men are not merely historic figures, whose beautiful encounter with the Christ Child has been transmitted to us down the centuries in the Gospel. The Church holds that they are saints, which means that they are praying for us now in Heaven. There is an ancient tradition that their earthly remains were preserved, and these relics were eventually taken to Germany, where they are venerated to this day in the Cathedral of Cologne.

Pray to the Magi and ask them to help us to worship God correctly. We might feel that we do not have the benefit of having the Christ Child in the Manger in front of us now. But we are blessed beyond imagination with the Blessed Sacrament, in which the Word is made Flesh on the altar. Kneeling at the altar rails we offer to Our Lord in the Sacred Host the same adoration the wise men offered to the Infant Jesus. Before consuming the Host, we need to be sure that we are always in a state of grace, which will mean that we must first go to Confession if we have committed any mortal sin, so that our hearts may be tabernacles fit to receive the King of Kings.

Visit the Crib during this period of Epiphanytide. Leave all earthly encumbrances and distractions behind, and ask the Magi in trust and simplicity to gain for us the childlike wonder of true worship as we join the Holy Family, the shepherds and the wise men at the Manger.

Father Julian Large

December 2024 Letter from the Provost

A royal birth is traditionally the occasion for celebration. When the civilised world was ruled by kings and disputed succession might mean civil war and the threat of foreign invasion then the hopes of an entire nation would be invested in a new-born child, and especially a first-born son.

At Christmas we celebrate the birth of a royal Son who carries within Himself the fulfilment of all our deepest human aspirations. The Nativity is a royal birth with a difference. There are no palace walls or gates, and no guards, to protect this royal Child; and although a convoy of V.I.P.s will eventually make its way to Bethlehem from the East, the first subjects to pay homage to this Child will be some shepherds summoned from the surrounding hills by an angel. Our Lord was born into the cold and the dark of a winter’s night. As they knelt to adore the Child in a manger, however, those shepherds must have realised that they would never have to fear the dark again. With the faith infused into their souls on that first Christmas Eve, their hearts were warmed by the rays of divine light that streamed out of the manger and into the world around them.

The arrival of the King of Kings in a stable rather than a palace is no accident. His desire is that we should be moved to offer Him a home within our hearts. An army would be completely useless in establishing the sort of reign that He intends. He has not come to govern by force of arms. Rather He has come to take possession of our hearts by invitation. He asks for entry, but we always remain free to lock Him out. There is of course a catch. Around December, animal welfare societies have been known to put up posters declaring “A pet is not just for Christmas”. And the Christ-Child is certainly not just for Christmas. Once accepted, the divine gift of the new life that He offers us has to be fed and nurtured. We must become sensitive to what nourishes that life, and we have to learn to avoid whatever is harmful to its flourishing. The life of grace has to be sustained by loving contact with its divine origin, through prayer and worship. It must be made incarnate in good works.

At the beginning of the Midnight Mass a life-size plaster figure of the Christ Child is carried in procession and enthroned above the High Altar where it remains for the whole Christmas season surrounded by golden rays. This painted figure is a holy image, which is why we venerate it; but it is only a figure. Directly underneath it is the Sacred Reality that it represents. If only we had the faith of those shepherds in Bethlehem, then perhaps we should be able to see the rays of divine light escaping from behind the veil of the Tabernacle, and our hearts would glow in the warmth that they exude. Our Lord did not just come to us once, on a winter’s night, two thousand years ago in Palestine. He comes to us every day on the Altar. He comes to feed and to nourish us with His living Body and Blood. He remains on the Altar so that we might always find rest, peace and strength in His Presence. Perhaps we have set our hearts on some particular gift this Christmas. The best gift by far that we can ever receive is Our Lord in Holy Communion. That little white disc is infinitely more precious than the whole material universe in all its majesty. The Sacred Host is God Himself.

For many of us there are considerable preparations to be made in the days preceding Christmas. We must almost make time to reflect on the message of Advent: “Make straight the way of the Lord”. The most important preparations to be made are spiritual, and the best way we can ready ourselves to participate in the joy of Our Lord’s Nativity is by going to Confession. The Sacrament of Penance transforms the lowly stable of our hearts into the palace that was denied to the Christ Child in Bethlehem, and makes us living tabernacles able to receive the Word Made Flesh in Holy Communion. Let us give Him the best welcome we can this Christmas.

Father Julian Large

November 2024 Letter from the Provost

If you come into the Oratory Church on 1st November, you will find the Altar of St Philip Neri and the High Altar decked with reliquaries. These are the trophies of Christian victory. They contain the bones of saints whose souls now behold the Beatific Vision in Heaven. These mortal remains point us to the day when bodies and souls will be reunited to participate in heavenly glory together at the end of time. The liturgical colours of the Mass on this feast of All Saints are white and gold. White signifies the Resurrection, and the gold reminds us of the crown of eternal life that awaits everyone who dies in a state of grace.

On the following day the atmosphere is very different. Come into the church on 2nd November and you will find it shrouded in black and violet. The candles on the altars are unbleached. This sobriety of All Souls’ Day sets the tone for the rest of the month as we launch into a whole series of Requiem Masses for deceased parishioners, Fathers and Brothers of the Oratory, and for the fallen of the two world wars.

There can be a temptation to send everyone straight to Heaven when they die. Funerals can sometimes seem more like canonisation ceremonies for the deceased. This does a great disservice to the dead. Most of us when we die will need to be prepared before we can enter the Presence of Almighty God. The light is too dazzling, the fire of Divine Love too intense, for us to be able to bear it without some acclimatisation. We have to be purified of all remaining sin, and of the disfiguring effects of sin on the human soul. During life many of us construct layers of impenetrable defence to hide our vulnerability. This armour, and every other obstacle that obstructs the perfect communication of love, needs to be stripped away. We shall be in need of the prayers of our loved ones, not their congratulations.

The Church has always taught that the prayers of the living are of great assistance to the souls in Purgatory. Catholics have a very practical response to death. We do not waste time in wishful thinking, neither do we wallow in a shallow remembrance of the dead. We actually do something very positive for them. We show our love by accompanying them on their progress towards Heaven with our sacrifices and prayers.

One of the most difficult aspects of bereavement can be a sense of regret. Perhaps we feel that we could have done more to comfort a loved one, or possibly there are painful misunderstandings that remain unresolved. Thanks be to God we are able to express our affection beyond the grave, by praying for those whom we have lost, and especially by having Masses celebrated for them. A Requiem Mass is a very practical response to death. In a memorial service the intention is really to distract the congregation from the troubling reality of mortality with anecdotes about the subject. At a Requiem Mass we actually confront death head on. At the Altar, the merits of Our Lord’s Passion and Death are applied to the soul of the deceased, washing his soul in an ocean of Divine Love.

It is only when the Church informs us that a soul is definitely in Heaven that we can confidently stop praying for the person concerned. When a new saint is canonised, we then ask him to pray for us. In this sense, the Church is a society of mutual assistance. We in the Church Militant on earth assist the souls of the Church Suffering in Purgatory. Meanwhile, the saints of the Church Triumphant in Heaven help us with their intercession before the Throne of Grace.

What an amazing scene awaits us if and when, by God’s grace, we arrive in Heaven. We shall see Our Lady robed in majesty as Queen. We shall immediately recognise St Joseph and the Apostles near the throne of God. Our fellow guests at the Wedding Banquet of the Lamb will include those legendary heroes of the Faith, Ss Philip Neri, Francis of Assisi and Pio of Pietrelcina. Certainly there will be countless saints of whom we had never heard, who lived and died in obscurity, but whose holiness now shines brighter than a million stars. We should also expect some surprises. Every saint so different from the next; but each one a glorious living icon of Almighty God.

Monsignor Ronald Knox once talked about the curtains of Heaven being transparent. He meant not to suggest that we can see in, rather that the saints are able to look out. They see us ploughing along through the muddy and rocky furrows of this earthly existence, feeling our way with difficulty and occasionally stumbling into a ditch. And they are able to help us, not only by the light of their example which makes it easier for us to see what we should do, but also with their prayers – prayers that are wise and strong, whereas ours tend to be so feeble and blind.

Saint Philip Neri used to say that in times of great need, we should make ourselves like beggars, and visit as many churches dedicated to the saints as possible, to ask for their assistance. This is much easier in Rome than it is in London. Visiting St Philip’s Altar on All Saints’ Day, however, we find it laden with the relics of many saints. We venerate the bodies in which these saints achieved holiness, bodies that once contained hearts that were overflowing with purity, meekness and divine charity. Following the advice of St Philip, we should approach these saints like poor mendicants with empty bowls. Ask the saints to fill them, gaining for us all the graces that will secure us a place with them in Heaven.

Father Julian Large

October 2024 Letter from the Provost

Observing the world around us, we see a wonderful hierarchy, from the minerals of inanimate nature to the lower life forms of plants and bacteria, ascending through the animal kingdom, which surely reaches the height of its sophistication and genius in Jack Russell terriers. At the pinnacle of this material creation is man. Combining within his nature the physical and the spiritual, because he is a “rational animal”, man is like the hinge between this visible, tangible universe of matter and the realm of the angels, who are pure spirit. Above this whole created hierarchy we find the Creator Himself, He Who is pure, uncreated and infinite spirit.

Hierarchy is the principle by which God has chosen to order His creation. And so it is only expected that any well-run human society should be organised hierarchically. Our Lord Himself established His Church hierarchically, when He appointed Peter the chief Apostle.

Hierarchy, then, is something good and desirable. The only trouble is that in our fallen human nature we are tempted to jostle for position within this hierarchy. We like to be recognised, we long to be king of the castle and to benefit from the perks that accompany position. In our own blighted nation, governance is brought into disrepute by politicians who preach equality and “reform” while furnishing their wardrobes with freebies from political donors.

In the Gospels we find Original Sin getting the better of the disciples. In the ninth chapter of the Gospel of St Mark, Our Lord confides in His Apostles that He will be betrayed and put to death, and will rise from the dead after three days. Rather than concentrating on this extraordinary revelation which is at the very foundation of His mission to save us, they are distracted by a discussion of who among them will be top dog. Our Lord then gives to them, and to us, a new outlook which, in contrast to our worldly way of thinking, is spiritual and sanctifying: “If anyone would be first, he must be last and servant of all” (Mk 9:35).

Yes, in God's creation there is a very clear hierarchy. But it is a hierarchy in which the great ones serve the little ones. It is a hierarchy in which God Himself, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, humbles Himself in taking on our human flesh, washing the feet of the Apostles and dying the death of a slave for the salvation of sinners.

At this time of year, the Church focuses our attention on the Holy Angels. In the great hierarchy of being, angels are vastly superior to human beings. And yet God has ordained that in the economy of salvation the Angels should minister to us, as messengers, guides and protectors.

The glorious and powerful Holy Archangel St Michael himself listens to our prayers and flies to our assistance whenever we ask him to defend us in battle. Our Holy Guardian Angels, meanwhile, whose feast we celebrate on 2nd October, are so magnificent in their nature that exposure to their aura would blind our mortal eyes, and yet they have been commissioned to accompany us throughout our life on this earth. The Holy Angels delight in serving their Creator, and according to His will, they gladly minister to us. Let us never take this extraordinary blessing for granted.

We should also remember that it was the defiant cry of “non serviam” – “I will not serve” – that brought Lucifer and the angels who joined his rebellion (now demons) crashing down from Heaven. In his pride at his own status as light bearer at the throne of God and in his refusal to serve, Lucifer forfeited his privileged position forever, deprived himself of the glory for which he was created and was consigned to everlasting squalor and misery.

In Heaven there is a hierarchy where there is no jostling for position. The great saints put themselves at the bidding of us sinners, never disdaining our petitions for assistance. And the whole celestial host of angels and saints rejoice in hailing a female human creature as Mother of God and Queen. If we are serious about attaining a place within the heavenly hierarchy, we must look for every opportunity to humble ourselves in this life. Not counterfeit modesty – the sort of ostentatious humility that seeks attention is the very opposite of genuine meekness. Our holy father St Philip taught that we should learn to rejoice in our hearts when others are praised for our achievements, and we can be pleased when we do not receive the recognition that we might believe to be ours. Worldly acclaim counts for nothing in Heaven. Earthly honours end in a heap of ashes. We can either choose the way of service and be like Our Lord, the Holy Angels and the Saints; or we can take ourselves terribly seriously and make ourselves more like Satan.

Father Julian Large

September 2024 Letter from the Provost

A few years ago, the Oratory House provided wall space for a beautiful picture of the Last Supper by the Neapolitan baroque master Luca Giordano, whose work adorns the interior of the Oratory church in Naples. The painting belonged to a dealer, and the Provost had it hung in an obscure parlour in the vain hope that all memory of its current location might eventually evaporate. Unfortunately it was not long before it captured the attention of a discerning parishioner who made the owner a fair offer, and a sooty outline left by its frame on the wall is all that remains.

The Last Supper is surely one of the scenes most cherished by Christians of all denominations. For us Catholics it is the occasion on which Our Lord instituted the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, whereby we are united with His Passion and Death, and the Sacrament of the Eucharist. How blessed are we to have been given faith in this wondrous mystery and to gather as one body around the altar, praying “Thy Kingdom Come”, as we await and pray for His return in Majesty, when His glorious presence will fill the skies from East to West and He will judge the living and the dead. How blessed are we on this earthly pilgrimage to be nourished with food that is nothing less than His own living and risen Body. He transforms bread and wine into Himself so that we might in turn be transformed into His likeness. When we leave Mass as living tabernacles of His divine presence, we are sent out to transform the society around us.

If we are true to our Catholic Faith, then we should expect to find opposition to our mission. This last summer the inaugural ceremony of the Olympic Games, which was watched around the world, featured what appeared to be a grotesque and blasphemous parody of the Last Supper that was calculated to mock and insult not only Christians but every human being with any shred of decency. The peculiar depravity and squalor of that degenerate spectacle suggest that its inspiration was demonic.

We might think of France as the Eldest Daughter of the Church, and Paris is a city that has produced many great saints. However, during the French Revolution a naked prostitute was declared to be “the Goddess of Reason” and enthroned on the High Altar of Notre Dame Cathedral. And earlier this year the current President of the French Republic, who likens himself to Jupiter, marked the enshrining of the right to abortion in his country’s constitution with a ceremony that simmered with religious intensity. With an attempted air of Napoleonic imperialism, he announced: “Today is not the end of the story, it’s the beginning of a combat. If France has become the only country in the world whose constitution explicitly protects the right to an abortion in all circumstances, we will not rest until this promise is kept throughout the world.”

It would be strange if a society which has taken such a disastrous turn did not feel compelled to throw mud, or worse, at the Church. Indeed, we can be glad if the Church is an irritating thorn in the flesh of such a beast. Of course we shall be mocked and discriminated against for our Faith. Our Saviour Who was crucified did not promise us popularity and acclaim. He did, however, assure us that we shall forever be partakers in the glory of His Resurrection if only we remain faithful to Him.

In France, Deo gratias, all is not lost. We can praise God for the eighteen thousand young pilgrims who walked on the Paris to Chartres Pilgrimage earlier this year on the Feast of Pentecost, to show their love for Christ, and especially for His presence with them in all the Masses that were celebrated along the way, and for His Real Presence with them in the Blessed Sacrament. The offending scene at the opening of the Paris Olympics conjured up a fetid atmosphere of sterility and wretchedness – nothing could have manifested more starkly the despair that afflicts a society that has unanchored itself from its Christian foundations and from the source of all wholesome nourishment. Those many thousands of young pilgrims singing hymns on their way to Chartres, meanwhile, represent fruitfulness and hope in all their beauty.

We should take inspiration from their zeal and dedication. Pray that our faith in Our Lord's presence, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the Blessed Sacrament is deepened, and that this faith may bear great fruits of hope and charity in our daily lives. It is said that the devil's greatest trick is to keep himself hidden, because then men will cease to believe in him. That gives him a definite power over us. But in our day God is allowing the evil one to reveal himself in his ugliness. That gives us power over him. We need not, must not, become discouraged. We know where and with Whom the final victory lies.

Father Julian Large

August 2024 Letter from the Provost

Saint John the Baptist is such an important saint that he has two feast days – the feast of his nativity, on 24th June, and the feast of his martyrdom on 29th August. Usually the feast of a saint marks the entry of his soul into its eternal reward. The Blessed Virgin and St John are the only saints whose birthdays on earth are marked with solemn festivity. So what is so special about St John the Baptist? The answer, really, is just about everything. First of all, John’s mother Elizabeth was a cousin of the Blessed Virgin. Considerably older than Our Lady, she was certainly past the age of childbearing and was considered barren. As with Our Lord, John’s conception is pre-announced and his name is given by an angel, in this case while his father Zachary was performing his priestly duties in the Temple. The angel informed Zachary that Elizabeth will bear a son whose name must be John and he will go before the Lord in the spirit of Elias, turning many hearts to God and preparing for the coming of the Lord (Lk 1:5-17).

“In the spirit of Elias”. God had promised through the prophet Malachias: “Behold I will send you Elias the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Mal 4:5). Saint John is really the very last of the great Old Testament prophets. And the Church has always taught, without defining it as a dogma, that while Our Blessed Lady was sinless from the moment of Her Immaculate Conception, John himself was made immaculate when Mary was pregnant and visiting Elizabeth, and John leapt in Elizabeth's womb on this first encounter with the Word made flesh. If there were a league division of saints, then, St John would appear somewhere at the top of the first division. His holiness and stature are all the greater owing to his profound humility. The whole of Judea will flock to the Jordan to hear him preach and to participate in his ritual baptism. But he is insistent that his whole raison d’être is to prepare the way of one who is infinitely greater than himself. And so he declares: “He must increase but I must decrease” (Jn 3:30). John will decrease to the point of shedding his blood for the Gospel.

We should never confuse humility or meekness with human respect. We commit the sin of “human respect” when we say things we should not say (or perhaps more often than not, we do not say things we should say) in order to please our neighbour. For example, we are with our Catholic friends. The conversation turns to forthcoming elections and, they all say that they intend to vote for a politician whose voting record indicates that he favours abortion, a crime against the sanctity of innocent life which cries to Heaven. We say nothing, because we do not wish to play the party-pooper, to stand out as different or, horror of horrors, to be accused of being “judgmental”. And so, at the end of the conversation, everyone is left with the impression that we are in agreement with them, or at least have no objection.

 It probably has to be admitted that the clergy have always been susceptible to the sin of human respect. When the Pharisees and Sadducees – the ecclesiastical aristocracy of Jerusalem – turn up to observe John baptising the Judeans in the Jordan, he calls them a “brood of vipers” and sends them packing (Lk 3:7). Valuing their position and privileges, they have left it to him to call out Herod for his adultery, an undertaking that will lead to his beheading. John is not prone to human respect. In fact, he does not care what anyone thinks of him. He knows that his job is not to get rave reviews in the Jordan Telegraph. His divinely ordained mission is to call sinners to repentance, to “make straight the way of the Lord” (Is 40:3). Had the Sadducees as a caste survived the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. it is quite likely that we should find them today acquiescing by their silence in the secular religion of “Pride”, and turning a blind eye to supposedly pious politicians who give their support to legislation that facilitates the violation of innocent human life. It is impossible to imagine the Baptist doing so.

As we approach the feast that marks the martyrdom of St John, perhaps we should pray that there will be a decrease in the sin of human respect within us, and that the spirit of John the Baptist will increase in the Church, so that in this age of confusion Her prophetic voice may be clear and unambiguous in the service of salvation and sanctification.

Father Julian Large