June 2018 Letter from the Provost

Last month the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York held an annual knees-up to raise money for its costume collection. Tickets for the event reportedly cost $30,000, and tables $250,000, and the publicity department is tasked with thinking up cautiously ‘controversial’ themes which will titillate fashion-correspondents without triggering the disapproval of the politically correct. This year’s was “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.” Outfits at the fancy dress party included a predictable rag-bag of angel wings, plastic pontifical rings and heavily-apparelled copes. One entertainer managed to balance a whole Nativity set on her head, and another announced that she had come as the Final Judgment scene from the Sistine Chapel. The media the following morning was particularly taken with a female performer who tottered up the museum’s imposing staircase wearing a shimmering mini dress and a precious-looking baroque mitre described by press agencies as a “pope hat”.

Inevitably, the Provost’s breakfast was interrupted by a telephone call from a reporter asking if the Oratory fathers were offended by a public spectacle of such irreverence. Having explained that most of the fathers had probably never heard of the Met Gala Party, he begged permission to finish his toast and promised to think of something to say as the morning went on. If the journalist had been hoping to hear an explosion of spluttering indignation as lime marmalade went down the wrong way at this end of the telephone line then she must have been disappointed, and she never bothered to ring back for a sound bite.

It wasn’t that the Provost did not try his very best to formulate a protest. He reminded himself that the Holy Mass is the foundation stone of Christian civilisation, and for billions of us around the globe the most sacred event that takes place upon this earth. Parodying the vestments of the altar in what is supposed to be a temple of high culture must surely count as “inappropriate” if anything does. And certainly there was something pitiable about the spectacle of people who like to think of themselves as rather cosmopolitan and sophisticated making themselves look so ignorant and boorish. One could easily imagine these aristocrats of popular culture all shaking their expensively-coiffured heads in solemn accord about the brashness of a certain world leader, without having stopped for a single moment to reflect on the vulgarity of an occasion into which they had seen fit to thrown themselves with such abandon.

The truth, however, is that the Catholic religion does not really ‘do’ taking offence. Perhaps this makes us quaint in a modern culture in which ‘safe-spaces’ and ‘no-platforming’ have become de rigueur, but Our Lord’s injunction to turn the other cheek, and the example of those heroes of the Faith like our holy father St Philip who refused to take themselves very seriously, mean that while sticks and stones might break our bones, name-calling and mockery do not generally have the power to provoke us to fits of outrage. Certainly it can be argued that when Our Lord saw the Temple defiled he made a whip and sent the money changers flying, but the fact that in the new dispensation we are all made living temples of the Holy Ghost through Baptism means that most Christians today probably understand that event in the Gospel primarily in terms of self purification with the assistance of God’s Grace.

It is of course possible that the Met’s PR team was hoping to stir up a publicity storm by inciting wild-eyed fanatics to rain down threatening condemnations on the editor of Vogue magazine. If this was the case, they obviously picked the wrong religion. The reaction of a practising Catholic is more likely to be the not so newsworthy response of patience and prayer. While acknowledging the crassness of the occasion, we cannot read the inner secrets of the hearts of the organisers and participants and would not wish to judge their motives as malicious. We can pray for all involved. Perhaps the realisation that they have so publicly associated themselves with such a massive style-fail will help them to take themselves a little less seriously. A good dose of humility is a necessary mix in the foundations for the blessings God wishes to build in all of our lives.

At the London Oratory we still use the traditional style of vestments which largely inspired the costumes at that party. Some of the older sets were bought with generous donations from Irish immigrants who were fleeing famine in the 1850s. Threadbare after centuries of use and therefore of negligible monetary value, they are nevertheless very much part of what St Philip called “the patrimony of the poor.” Worshipping God in such beauty and solemnity at the altar, we should pause to ask ourselves how much we do as a community and a parish to honour Him in the most needy in our city today. If we were neglecting this essential part of the Christian mission it would mean that our use of splendid vestments and vessels in church was at least as grotesque and potentially more offensive to Almighty God than anything on display at that Metropolitan Museum fancy dress party. Examining our consciences regularly and carefully, we shall probably find there is always much room for improvement.

Fr Julian Large

May 2018 Letter from the Provost

Reading the newspapers, even (perhaps especially) some of the Catholic ones, we could easily end up thinking that the Catholic religion is all about issues. Can women be priests? Should the Church give Her blessing to the use of artificial birth control? Should the divorced and remarried be allowed to receive Holy Communion?

          These are all matters of importance. If the Church is to be faithful to Her identity as the pillar and foundation of Truth, (1 Tim 3.15) then Her teaching must always be continuous and consistent with principles that She has upheld and taught since the age of the Apostles. However, these particular questions have already been settled long ago. In that sense they are non-issues and a woeful diversion of energy. If we allow the orchestrated controversies that are being fabricated around them to become the main focus of our engagement with the Faith, then how shallow and how impoverished our spiritual lives must become. It will mean that we have allowed the media, and those whitewashed sepulchres who use the media to peddle their own agenda of confusion and division, to set the narrative for our lives as disciples. What ineffective and useless disciples we shall then become, and how sad for us that we shall never experience that Christian joy and the serenity of heart which Our Lord promises to us when He says “Peace I leave you, my peace I give to you” (Jn 14.27) – a promise repeated at every Mass, between the Consecration and Holy Communion.

          In the Gospels we see how the disciples were thrown into turmoil by the crucifixion. Shattered by the terrible events of Good Friday, they were fearful and confused. Even when Our Risen Lord appeared in their midst, they thought that they must be seeing a ghost. But when He showed them His hands and His feet, and the truth of what had really happened began to sink in, then their joy was so overwhelming that they were dumfounded. After eating a piece of fish before their eyes, He then explained to them how – if only they had been listening at the time – He had already told them while He was with them that He must be put to death before rising from the dead.

          The disciples had been so taken up by events that they had not really listened to the word of God even when the Word Himself had lived with them and taught them. But their experience of the Resurrection would change all of this. From then on the Apostles would be anchored in their Risen Lord, and the serenity, courage and joy this gave to them meant that, having been huddled together behind locked doors for fear of the Jews, they would now go boldly into the lion’s den itself to proclaim in the Temple, of all places, the good news that Christ was risen. Neither the furies of the Synagogue nor the steel and might of the Roman Empire would daunt them.

          We, like the Apostles, have the benefit of experiencing the Resurrection. We have experienced it first hand in Baptism, when we were raised from spiritual death and made temples of the Holy Ghost. We experience it in the Sacrament of Penance which lifts us from our sins and restores us to the life of grace. Above all, we experience it in Holy Communion, where we encounter Our Risen Lord and He feeds us with His living Body.

          In the Acts of the Apostles, we read about St Peter going into the thick of the lion’s den, and preaching the Resurrection to the Jews in the Temple. He does not hesitate to accuse them: “It was you who accused the Holy One, the Just One, you who demanded the reprieve of a murderer while you killed the Prince of Life.” But Peter concedes: “You did not know what you were really doing.” (Acts 3.13-17) In other words, the Jews who had called for the release of Barabbas and the death of the Saviour had been the victims of a fake news campaign, whipped up by leaders and their spin-doctors whose motivation was anything but spiritual. Those priests could probably have recited the verses of the Scriptures by rote, but their politicking and worldliness had made the word of God a dead letter to them. Rather than penetrating into their hearts and souls and transforming them, the Scriptures had become a tool to be wielded in the service of human power and status. No doubt the people had listened to the reading of the Scriptures in their synagogues just as we listen to them at Mass. But their interest in them had remained superficial, and so they were easily hoodwinked and manipulated into committing the most terrible crime.

          Where do we look for truth? In our own time, a culture of political spin and prevarication has created a severe crisis of credibility in public life, to such an extent that this age in which we are living has been called the post truth era. We are overwhelmed with conflicting information from all directions, but where, and to whom, should we go for the truth? If we are looking for the truth that brings us serenity of heart, then the best place to look is probably not in the newspapers, or on the internet or television. We shall most certainly find it in abundance in the Gospel. The disciples on the road to Emmaus were despondent. They had seen the one whom they had thought would be the Saviour of Israel denounced as a rebel by the same fickle crowd that only days before had welcomed Him as a hero. But when Our Lord joined them on the road and began to open the meaning of the Scriptures to them, then their hearts began to burn within them. They knew that this was no fake news. It was the real thing. Their lives were transformed by it.

          We must ask Our Lord to open the Scriptures to us. We need to put down our newspapers and turn away from our television and computer screens. We need to place ourselves in His presence and to sit down and read in a reflective and prayerful way the life-giving words of Holy Scripture. A good place to start, to keep the power and joy of Easter ever fresh in our hearts, is in the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection, and the Acts of the Apostles. No fake news there. Just the pure life-giving and liberating words of Divine Truth. The more we allow this Truth to penetrate our hearts, the freer we shall become from the tyranny of spin and emotionalism which spawn so much turmoil in our society and can create a frenetic atmosphere within the Church.

          Having experienced the Resurrection in Baptism, may we always be anchored, like the Apostles, in Our Risen Lord. We must not allow the controversies and acrimonious debates that fly around us to be a distraction from the business of getting to know Him better, and giving Him room to speak in our hearts, and cultivating the quietness that will enable us to listen to Him. The Blessed Virgin, who “kept these things and pondered them in Her heart” (Lk 2.19) and Who remained united with Her Son during His Passion while others fled, is our model of the contemplative reading of the Scriptures.  Our holy father St Philip, whose apostolate coincided with a period of violent upheavals within Christendom, is our model of Christian joy throughout adversity.

          Let us pray for peace in the world, and peace in the Church. Let us ask Our Lady and St Philip, during this their month of May, to gain for us ever greater peace of heart, so that we might be more effective disciples.

Fr Julian Large

April 2018 Letter from the Provost

Since the earliest days in the catacombs, no image of Our Lord has appealed more powerfully to the Christian imagination than that of the shepherd – the good and gentle shepherd who guards and guides his sheep and eventually gives his life for them. To the Jews, this is also an image loaded with significance. From Moses feeding his flock when he came across the burning bush to David tending his sheep in the wilderness and the Prophet Ezekiel upbraiding the leaders of the Jewish people under the image of faithless shepherds who neglected their duties, the Old Testament is full of shepherds and shepherding. “The Lord is my shepherd, therefore shall I lack nothing” (Ps 22.1) is one of the most popular verses in the Psalms for both Christians and Jews, and it establishes the idea of a divine shepherd. When Our Lord identifies Himself as the Good Shepherd, and even calls Himself the gate of the sheepfold, (Jn 10) the implication is that He is not just one in a line of shepherds. The Good Shepherd is no mere divine employee: this Shepherd is God Himself.

          We, meanwhile, are not just some faceless flock. Our Shepherd calls each one of us by name. His gaze penetrates to the most hidden corners of our hearts. He knows our needs better than we can ever know them ourselves. We have a shepherd who is tireless in His efforts to bring us back into the sheepfold whenever we look like straying. The pastures where He leads us are the freshest and richest, and nutritious beyond imagination. He not only guides us with a steady hand, but He speaks to us, whispering to our hearts through the voice of the conscience. But the Good Shepherd does not leave us subject to the uncertainty of interior voices. Our wellbeing is far too important to Him for that, and His methods are always perfectly suited to our needs. He has therefore appointed the different offices of His Church’s hierarchy to participate in the shepherding of His flock. To Peter and his successors as popes He has given the office of chief shepherd on earth, with overall responsibility for the welfare of the flock and for ensuring the continuity of the Deposit of Faith entrusted to the Apostles. To the bishops in communion with the Supreme Pontiff He has given the task of teaching the flock and guarding the sheep from the spiritual wolves that threaten their destruction. As for the feeding of His flock, He has commissioned His priests with the administering of the Blessed Sacrament.

          We should be grateful that, down the ages, the Church has been blessed with countless dedicated and holy pastors – many of whom have given their lives for the flocks when it came to the crunch. At this very moment there are valiant shepherds enduring persecution and imprisonment in places like China and parts of the Middle East. The wolves that we must face today are many and varied. In some places the flock is hounded by communist police. In our own part of the world the threat comes more from the ever-extending tentacles of crackpot ideologies, and heresies which threaten to contaminate the life-saving milk of Catholic doctrine with deadly poison.

          This means that we need always to pray that God will bless His Church with good shepherds – bishops and priests who would shed their blood rather than compromise on any truth of the Gospel. Such conscientious pastors are never to be taken for granted. Our Lord warned us that there would also be time-servers who pocket the stipends and pile their plates with vol au vents at wedding receptions but who draw the line at wolves.  In recent times the Church has been blessed with a succession of clean-living popes, but the antics of some of those who filled St Peter’s shoes in the age of our Holy Father St Philip Neri would be enough to churn the stomach of a grown man. No-one in those days subscribed to the curious and modern superstitious view that popes are hand-picked by the Holy Ghost. Everyone knew only too well that popes were elected by fallible cardinals, whose fallen human nature made them as much susceptible to browbeating and bribery in highly politicised conclaves as they were to the promptings of the Paraclete. In such an environment we can be confident that the election of a great saint like Pope Pius V was the fruit of much prayer and fasting by Catholics who loved their Church and never gave up hope, even in an era of such rank corruption.

          As well as praying for good shepherds, we sheep must constantly examine our own consciences. “My sheep know me and they listen to my voice,” says Our Lord. His sheep are not the ones who traipse around the valleys looking for a shepherd who will tell them what they want to hear. Errant sheep are free to seek out errant shepherds if they so wish. No doubt, if we set our hearts on it, we could all track down a desiccated clerical beatnik who would tell us that it’s ok for young couples to go to bed together before marriage, or that God isn’t going to mind if we receive Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin. The trouble is that while the people-pleasing shepherds might seem to make life easier in the short term, their way is ultimately disastrous, and when the Good Shepherd returns on the Day of Judgment then the hirelings along with the sheep who have sought them out risk being counted with the goats and excluded from the Fold of the Redeemer for eternity.

          Our Lord’s sheep are those who always listen for His voice, and follow Him to His choice of pasture. They are the sheep that live on everything that comes from His hand, by way of teaching and sacraments. The good shepherds, meanwhile are those who accompany us and patiently help us to discern God’s will in our lives, sparing no effort to make the truths of the Faith accessible to us, and never dismissing those truths as irrelevant or too hard for modern life. The Good Shepherd reaches out His arms to lift us out of the mire of sin. He does not leave us there with the empty assurance that all is well.

          On Good Shepherd Sunday, please be sure to pray for vocations to the priesthood. Pray each and every day for your priests, bishops and Pope. Pray that, for all of us, there will be a decrease in the hireling spirit and a marked increase in the shepherding spirit, so that the Good Shepherd will recognize us as His own when He returns in glory to judge the living and the dead.

Fr Julian Large

March 2018 Letter from the Provost

Children’s drawings of Noah’s Ark usually depict smiling giraffes stretching their necks out of Mr and Mrs Noah’s well-appointed living quarters, while lions and sheep stand shoulder to shank and ready to sail on the deck. Such scenes of prelapsarian bucolic harmony surely belie the reality of those forty days and nights during which Noah and his family found themselves crammed into a creaking hull full of irascible and malodorous beasts.

          Thanks to Thames Water, the inhabitants of Oratory House were recently afforded an insight into what the sanitary conditions inside the Ark must have been like. The Provost returned from a few days on family business to find that, while it was pouring with rain in London, the Oratory Church, House and Lodge were in a state of severe drought. Days earlier, a shuddering of pipes and spluttering of taps had signalled the termination of any water supply. Every tank, cistern, sink and basin on the site was stone dry. Abandoning a great hole which they had begun digging in front of the church, Thames Water’s dynamic team of problem fixers downed-tools and went home on Saturday afternoon and it was only when pressed on the telephone in the early hours of Sunday morning that a spokesman disclosed that they had decided that the whole situation was none of their business and we would have to deal with it ourselves. Having engaged a private plumbing firm and with preparations underway to have the courtyard dug up at vast expense, we asked the congregation at the High Mass on the Sunday to pray for a solution. Deo Gratias, by the time Holy Mass was over, we were informed that Thames Water had discovered that their men had turned off the stop cock the previous week, and all that was needed was for them to rotate it in the opposite direction.

          MI5 has famously said that we are just “four meals away from anarchy.” The theory is that, deprived of the bare necessities, it would only be a day or two before our reasonably well-ordered society would be reduced to riots, looting and general chaos. Mercifully, things did not quite reach this stage in Oratory House. Although there were serious concerns about the more elderly and infirm amongst the twenty two souls in residence here, and for the thousands of parishioners (a number of them disabled), and the many employees in the music department who spend a good deal of time on the premises on a Saturday and Sunday, we all survived and, apart from considerable expenditure of resources on private plumbers and blood pressure medication, there were no fatalities. It probably helps that the more senior fathers are the products of educational establishments in which conditions during the immediate post-war years would be considered unacceptable in a modern prison. And anything which serves to toughen up the younger fathers and novices is all to the good. Apart from the obvious public health risk, by far the most unsettling aspect of the crisis was having to enter the Kafkaesque zone of attempting to communicate with Thames Water.

          During Lent, we priests often remind our flocks of the benefits of self-denial and mortification. In the light of eternity, we can be certain that the recent indignities to which we ourselves were subjected by the water board were not without value. They provided rich material for reflection on the suffering of those who face far more serious deprivations than anything we have had to endure – not only the housebound and other vulnerable people in the London and the Thames Valley who find themselves at the mercy of incompetent and indifferent public utilities officials, but also the many in this world for whom the lack of the most basic provisions such as clean water is not some temporary inconvenience but rather a more permanent and dreadful reality of daily life. It reminds us of the urgent need to pray for them, and to provide material and practical assistance to those who work to alleviate such poverty.

          In Lent, we are encouraged to embrace discomfort and self-denial, not for their own sake, but as a way of uniting ourselves with the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In our Baptism, we die with Christ and are buried with Him, before being raised from the waters of regeneration overflowing with the life of the Resurrection, and in that great sacrament we receive the vocation to keep dying to ourselves in the here and now so that the life of the Resurrection may take ever greater possession of our hearts and souls. In the days when nuns wore starched wimples they would teach the schoolgirls in their charge to “offer it up” when they complained of toothache or homesickness. In Lent, we offer up our voluntary sacrifices with the gifts of bread and wine at Holy Mass, so that they take on a supernatural value at the Altar. As we heard in a sermon preached in the Oratory Church at the High Mass on Ash Wednesday, “Fasting is a physical prayer that you offer up.” We should also ask for the grace to do the same with the sufferings and inconveniences which come to us unbidden, offering them up for the world, for the Church and for our own sanctification.

          Coming into the church on Good Friday, you will find the holy water basins empty and dry. This reflects the sense of desolation of Our Lord’s Passion and Death. At the Easter Vigil, we celebrate the Resurrection by soaking the whole congregation, priests and people, with a generous sprinkling of the new water blessed for the baptismal font. After recent events, the fathers are looking forward more than usual to singing Vidi Aquam.

Father Julian Large

February 2018 Letter from the Provost

One of the Oratory Fathers was recently approached by a guest at a local night shelter who announced that he had “a bone to pick.” When Father asked him what was up the guest replied: “That church of yours is freezing cold.” Father explained that, contrary to rumours that the lack of heating during the winter months has been due to misplaced parsimony on the part of the Provost, the Oratory’s boilers have finally reached the end of their life. The man at the night shelter became considerably less disgruntled when he heard that the inhabitants of Oratory House have been reduced to boiling kettles and pans of water for their daily ablutions while plans are made to install a new and more efficient system. “Sounds like we are all in the same boat then,” he said, “at least I can still thaw out my hands over the candles in front of that statue just inside the church door.”

Saint Anthony of Padua must heartily approve that the candles at his pricket stand are being put to such a practical use. As well as being one of the Church’s great miracle-workers and a “Hammer of Heretics”, St Anthony is a special patron of the disadvantaged. This is why, when he answers our prayers (especially for the restoration of lost keys, mobile telephones etc., but also for more serious requirements) we should reimburse him according to our means. All donations to St Anthony’s Bread are distributed to those in need. The banks of candles that we see blazing in front of his statue are a testimony to the faith of many Catholics in his intercessory power at the Throne of Grace. It is also fitting that their flames should occasionally lend warmth to the hands of those who have found themselves without the basic necessities of warmth and shelter.

It is hard to imagine the Catholic religion without candles. En route to her first Parliament on a bright January morning in 1559, Elizabeth I was received at the entrance to Westminster Abbey by the Abbot and community of the monastery which had recently been restored in the reign of her half-sister the good Queen Mary. The monks had come to greet their new monarch carrying flaming beeswax tapers. The new queen, whose every word and gesture were being scrutinized for signs of what to expect from the new regime, is said to have dismissed them briskly with the words “Away with those torches – we can see you well enough without them.” As the Italian saying goes, se non è vero, è ben trovato. What is indisputable is that the extinguishing of lights before statues, relics, altars and tabernacles that followed ushered in a new spiritual ice-age that did not really begin to thaw until our own Father Faber led the charge in fanning the devotional life of this country back to a golden blaze in the middle of the nineteenth century.

This month we celebrate Candlemas, the great Christian festival of light which marks the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem and the Purification of His Blessed Mother. The mystical significance of the Christ Child’s Presentation in the Temple was not lost on Simeon, the pious senior citizen who had been assured by the Holy Ghost that he would not die before setting eyes on ‘the Christ of the Lord’. Simeon’s Canticle, the Nunc Dimittis, is sung by the Church each night at Compline, and expresses all of the longing of the Old Testament for the universe-changing event which Simeon witnessed unfolding before him: “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace … for mine eyes have seen thy salvation … a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel.” (Lk 2.29-32) At Candlemas we process with candles to celebrate this inextinguishable light that has come into the world. The faithful are encouraged to take their blessed candles home because these sacramentals bring us blessings and supernatural protection when we use them with devotion.

Ash Wednesday this year falls on 14th February, and throughout Lent we look forward to the lighting of the greatest candle of all, the Paschal Candle, which represents our Risen Lord Himself. The ocean of light that pours into every corner of the Church as the candles of the congregation are lit from the Paschal Candle at the beginning of the Easter Vigil fills the Christian heart with joy as we see how faith and hope have gained the definitive victory over sin and death. During the singing of the Exultet, the deacon praises the bees for producing the wax “to build a torch so precious”.

If the light of candles in church signifies the salvific illumination that comes with faith, the heat generated by their flames reminds us that our Catholic faith must always be enlivened by charity. Indeed, without charity, faith is cold and dead and cannot be pleasing to Almighty God. This is why the extra prayer and fasting that we undertake during Lent must be accompanied by almsgiving and/or other charitable works. And for these to be meritorious, we need to examine our consciences to make sure that we are living in charity with those around us. The Sacrament of Penance is a great help in this area of our spiritual lives, not only in gaining absolution for us when we have failed in charity, but also in securing for us the supernatural help we need to forgive and to love when this does not come easily.

If we can raise sufficient funds in time, it is hoped that the Oratory's new boilers will be installed during the summer months, in time to make the church more hospitable again next winter for worshippers and for anyone who comes in search of peace, shelter and warmth. Meanwhile, we should each of us be working on making our hearts a blazing furnace of charity.

Fr Julian Large

January 2018 Letter from the Provost

On the Feast of the Epiphany the scene at the Crib is completed, with the arrival of the wise men, or Magi, in Bethlehem. We should all make an effort to visit the Crib. It can be tempting to think of the Crib as something primarily for children. In a sense it is, but Our Lord tells us all: “Unless you become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of God.”

At the Manger, we all become like children, and at the Crib, our own eyes should sparkle with wonder as we behold the tenderness and the intimacy of the Holy Family, as Jesus, Mary and Joseph bid us to come closer. At the entrance to the Crib, we are invited to leave behind the encumbrances of worldly sophistication, and to rediscover simplicity and meekness.

The first outsiders to arrive on the scene were shepherds, summoned by an angel. This is a reminder to us to make room for the needy and the heavy-laden in our lives. The shepherds have privileged access to the manger, showing us who are the real V.I.P.s in the Kingdom of God. At Epiphany, however, we celebrate the arrival of dignitaries – wise men or Magi. And these grandees also have a lesson for us, because in our contemporary age, when piety is often considered to be outdated and unsophisticated, and when the adjective ‘pious’ is more often than not used in a pejorative sense, these elegant gentlemen of learning and wisdom set us a beautiful example of piety. Seeing the star that leads them to the King of Kings they rejoice exceedingly. Arriving at the place of His dwelling they fall down on their knees and they adore Him.

This adoration that the Magi offer to the Christ Child leaves us in no doubt about His identity. This child is no mere human child, however great. The adoration which the Magi give to the Christ Child is the highest form of worship which can be given to God alone. It is the same sort of worship – adoration – that we offer to the Blessed Sacrament. And we should imitate the piety of the Magi whenever we come into a Catholic Church. When we see a light burning that indicates that the Sacred Host is in the Tabernacle, we should always genuflect, if we are able to, before taking our place. If the Blessed Sacrament is exposed for adoration, we make a double genuflection, on both knees. These outward signs of piety are important. The fact that Our Lord’s real and bodily Presence remains hidden under the signs of bread and wine means that through carelessness we may easily become forgetful of this wondrous mystery. Cultivating the habit of piety in His Presence helps us to maintain the proper interior dispositions.

Over Christmas, there were many thousands of people attending the various functions celebrated in the Oratory Church. It is always a joy to welcome visitors. Sadly, every Christmas there are also instances of irreverence involving the Blessed Sacrament when it comes to time for Holy Communion. The cause of these incidents never seems to be malice, but rather carelessness and ignorance. And the truth is that when the people have lost their sense of the sacredness in relation to something as awe-inspiring as the Blessed Sacrament, then it is probably we priests who should shoulder the blame. If we clergy cease to be pious, the we can hardly be surprised if the laity end up losing sense of the sacred.

So please pray for your priests, that God will increase our piety. A priest spends so much time in proximity to the altar that there is always the peril that he will be become overly familiar with the mystery of mysteries that takes place within his own hands, and lose sight of its majesty. No doubt this has always been a danger. At the Crib we find shepherds and wise men adoring, but where are the priests? Perhaps they are too busy with their politics in Jerusalem to accompany the Wise Men and adore the Word Made Flesh.

As we kneel at the Crib this Epiphany, we should pray, all of us – priests and people alike – for the gift of piety. It is piety that makes this universe beautiful. When the nonbeliever looks at the cosmos, he might well feel hopelessly dwarfed and crushed by its magnitude. When a pious man looks at the stars then he, like the Magi, is filled with wonder at the work of God. When the pious man observes the material universe in its splendour and complexity, he is inspired to praise the Creator Who humbled Himself to unite Himself with the frailty of our human flesh. For the believer, the magnificence of the cosmos is an invitation to commune with the God who created it and who gave us the capacity to appreciate His work.

As we kneel at the Crib, we should reflect on the gift of Himself that Our Lord gives to us in the Blessed Sacrament. May we always make sure that when we do receive Holy Communion it is in a state of grace, restored to us if necessary in the Sacrament of Penance. And may we always approach the altar with the utmost humility, awe and wonder.

Fr Julian Large

December 2017 Letter from the Provost

On Christmas day we celebrate the moment when God came to us in human flesh. This mystery and event of the Incarnation made possible the sanctification of the physical world which is our home. The Holy Land is truly holy because it contains the stones which were trodden on by the feet of the Word made flesh. Its trees lent Him shade and its waters quenched His thirst. The remains of an ancient feeding trough from Bethlehem are venerated as a precious relic in Rome because they formed part of the holy manger in which the Blessed Virgin laid Her infant Child. When He was an adult the touch of the hem of His garments would stem the flow of blood, and He would consecrate simple substances of water, bread and wine to be used as instruments of healing and salvation. As far as we know, planet earth itself has a unique status in the material universe as a magnificent monstrance which radiates glory into the distant reaches of the cosmos. This is because the Church’s mission has ensured that the Word made flesh Who comes to us on the altar at every celebration of Holy Mass is reserved day and night in tabernacles around the globe.

          The nativity of the Incarnate Word two thousand years ago in Bethlehem also facilitated the sanctification of time. Perhaps Christmas is that season of the year when many of us become most acutely aware of the passing of time. When we were children, the countdown to 25th December was so agonizingly slow that it seemed to take forever. As we grow older, each Christmas day arrives more rapidly than the last, and is over so quickly that we can easily neglect to reflect on its significance. If this is the case then it means that we need to make some adjustment in our life, because we have allowed time to become our enemy rather than a friend.

          The Church’s ‘liturgical time’ is designed to save us from such spiritual and temporal impoverishment. If the skeletons of Christmas trees that start appearing on pavements on Boxing Day are a sign that for many of our neighbours Christmas has been and gone, for Catholics it has really just begun. The ‘octave’ granted to Christmas in the liturgical calendar extends the beautiful celebration of Our Lord’s Nativity over a full eight days. In the Roman Canon of the Mass we continue to praise God for “that day when Mary without loss of Her virginity gave the world its Saviour” every day from Christmas Eve until 1st January.

          The Christmas octave is also rich in feasts. If we understand them properly, they do not distract from our celebration of the season but rather illuminate the Mystery of the Nativity and its significance for the Christian life. Boxing Day is the feast of St Stephen, whose martyrdom reminds us that Christ’s message of salvation is not always welcomed in the world but that there is a great reward in Heaven for those who suffer for the Faith. Before being stoned, Stephen sees the heavens open and “the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” The feast of St John the Evangelist on the 27th is a good opportunity to reflect on the prologue to the fourth Gospel, which describes the Incarnation in theological terms as the Eternal Word through Whom all things were created becoming flesh and dwelling among us, and as the Light of the World Who alone can dispel the darkness of sin. The feast of the Holy Innocents on the 28th illustrates how the King of Kings came in meekness, so that earthly kings remained free to take Him or leave Him: the Magi would kneel in adoration, while Herod sought to murder. When our rulers disdain the kingship of Christ, the innocent and vulnerable inevitably suffer. The feast of St Thomas Becket the following day teaches us that Christ the Prince of Peace calls us not to make compromises with the spirit of the world in order to obtain a false peace. Our Lord offers us a peace “such as the world cannot give”, but to acquire this peace will often require sacrifice and courage. On 1st January we celebrate the feast of the Mary, Mother of God, Whose trusting obedience played such a crucial role in facilitating the Incarnation. We can consecrate the New Year to Her, and entrust ourselves to Her intercession and protection.

          We should make the effort, then to keep the Christmas season holy, in the company of the great saints who feasts enrich the Christmas Octave. In this noisy, angry world we need to make time for silence so that the Christ Child can speak to our souls and fill us with His peace. Two millennia after His birth in Bethlehem, He asks to be born afresh in our hearts today.

Fr Julian Large

November 2017 Letter from the Provost

When we were baptised, we would have been clothed in a white robe. For children this christening gown is sometimes an ancestral heirloom, passed down in the family from generation to generation. As modern parents insist on postponing the baptisms of their offspring for ever more frivolous reasons, gowns that were created for Edwardian babies often seem in peril of bursting at the seams when occupied by the strapping limbs of incipient toddlers.

          After the Baptism itself, the child is covered in another white garment, such as a shawl or a bonnet. This is a visible sign of an invisible reality. It symbolises the life of grace which now animates the soul of the Christian. In Baptism a great change comes over us. Before Baptism, God looks on us and He sees that we are made in His image, with a mind and a will. After Baptism, He sees that in addition to this image which belongs to us by nature there is a supernatural likeness. We call this ‘Sanctifying Grace’. It is what we are talking about when we talk about someone being in a ‘state of grace’, and it bestows on us a participation in the very life of the Blessed Trinity.

          Fresh from the waters of supernatural regeneration, the newly baptised Christian is enjoined to carry his baptismal garment without stain throughout his life until reaching the judgment seat of Jesus Christ. This reminds us that the outcome of our particular judgment – the judgment that occurs immediately after our death when our soul finds itself before Our Lord Jesus Christ – will depend on whether we are in a state of grace when we die. If, pray God, we are, then our eternal destiny will be everlasting blessedness in Heaven, very possibly after a period of purification in Purgatory. If, heaven forbid, we are not in a state of grace, then Our Lord has warned us in St Matthew’s Gospel of an eternity of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

          Reading the twenty second chapter of St Matthew’s Gospel, we might be unsettled by the treatment given to the wedding guest who sits himself at table improperly dressed and is subsequently thrown out, having been bound by his hands and feet. Surely it is not his fault if he could not afford to kit himself out in a morning coat at Moss Bros? The message of this Gospel obviously refers not to outward appearances but rather to the interior state of our souls. The wedding banquet is a symbol of Holy Communion, when we, as members of the Church which is the Bride of Christ, receive Our Living, Risen Lord at the altar rails.

          Following the Gospel, the Church has always taught that we must be in a state of grace before we receive Our Lord in Holy Communion. This means that if we have committed a mortal sin – a sin that is called ‘mortal’ because it kills the life of grace that is infused into us in Baptism – we must first have that grace stored to us in Penance. If we were knowingly and deliberately to receive Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin, then we would commit a further grave sin of sacrilege.

          Sceptics sometimes mock Catholics for treating the Sacrament of Penance as a sort of spiritual laundrette. Actually, the deep-cleansing that takes place in a top-of-the range German washing machine is quite a good analogy for what happens in Confession, where the stains of sin are removed from the white robe of our Baptism, and it is restored to brilliance and newness. The grace that is infused into us in the Sacrament of Penance gives to our souls a dazzling splendour which is beautiful to the eyes of God the Father, because it is the very life of His Son.

          The white christening robe reminds us that it is always important to be in a state of grace before receiving other Sacraments. Children making their First Communion and Confirmation also dress in white, which symbolises the state of grace received when they were made living Temples of the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Baptism, and restored, if lost, in the Sacrament of Penance. Traditionally brides also wear white for their weddings, reminding us how crucial it is for both parties to be in a state of grace to benefit from the blessings being bestowed in that great Sacrament.

          The image of the marriage feast holds great importance for all Christians. Once baptised into the Church, we are members of the Bride of Christ. At Mass, we all stand together as we pray towards the East ‘Thy Kingdom come.’ We, the Church, are the Bride, awaiting the return of the Bridegroom Whose presence will fill the skies from East to West when He comes again in majesty and power to judge the living and the dead. We wait for that day in joyful expectation. We do not know when it will be. It could be soon, or it might be many millennia in the future. Meanwhile it is our job to beautify the marriage garments of the Bride of Christ with our humility, our chastity and our charity, so that when He does return He finds His Bride radiant and prepared.

Fr Julian Large

October 2017 Letter from the Provost

Curiosity might have killed the cat, but it also brought salvation to the house of the tax-collector Zacchaeus. In the 19th chapter of St Luke’s Gospel we see how the whole world wanted to see Jesus of Nazareth, the miracle-worker who taught with greater authority than any of the priests or the professionally religious. There was such a crowd that Zacchaeus, who was “of low stature”, did not seem to have a chance. But what Zacchaeus lacked in height he made up for in his capacity to climb. And so he ascended the sycamore tree, in the hope of catching a glimpse of the Saviour. Something wonderful then happened. Our Lord raised His eyes, He fixed His gaze on Zacchaeus, and He addressed him by name: “Zacchaeus! Come down from that tree immediately. I have to stay at your house this evening.” Salvation came to Zacchaeus’ soul, and his life would never be the same again. According to some traditions, the despised publican went on to become the first bishop of Caesarea and to be venerated as a great saint.
          Many things considered, it might surprise us that Our Lord should single out Zacchaeus to be his host for the night. The Gospels emphasise God’s special concern for the poor, and make our solicitude for the needy a prerequisite for entry into Heaven. But St Luke tells us explicitly that Zacchaeus was a rich man. Tax-collecting was a highly lucrative business and this little fellow was one of the bosses in the tax office. Very probably he wore expensive clothes and lived in a well-appointed mansion with staff to cook his breakfast and iron his sheets. We might imagine that it would have been a more poignant gesture of humility, simplicity and solidarity with the destitute for Our Lord to choose to have taken up residence for the evening in a poor man’s dwelling. If He had been accompanied by a press team, no doubt it would have guided him in the direction of a more modish cause, perhaps some popular victim of Roman oppression.
          From a worldly point of view, Jesus’ choice of Zacchaeus’ mansion as a suitable venue to rest His head was, indeed, a public relations gaffe. The puritans in the crowd “murmured” and complained that He had chosen to avail Himself of the hospitality of a sinner. Zacchaeus, it seems, was outside the peripheries of what was considered to be fashionably marginal. He was the first century equivalent of a modern day Eurosceptic or global warming denier – someone beyond the pale of those considered worth being seen ministering to by the bien pensant of the day.
          But man’s ways are not necessarily God’s ways. Mercifully for Zacchaeus, Our Lord did not think like a politician or a spin-doctor. Virtue-signalling was of no interest to Him. He was not looking for a photo-opportunity, but for a soul to save and a disciple to recruit. He actually made it look as if He had come to Jericho precisely to seek out this rich little publican.
          So what is the message for us? The truth is that Zachaeus was suffering from the worst type of poverty there is: spiritual poverty. Tax-collecting on behalf of the occupying Roman forces was a dishonourable way of making a living. Much of Zacchaeus’ fortune would have been built on ill-gotten gains. But it seems that, in his large house, waited on by his servants, Zacchaeus was living with the nagging discomfort of spiritual destitution. Perhaps the voice of his conscience had been telling him for some time that, despite all of his creature comforts, he had yet to find real happiness and fulfilment. God made us to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in Heaven, after all. If we attempt to fulfil our human aspirations on the material level alone, then the result can only be interior malnutrition in this life, and ultimately the agony of eternal separation from God in hell.
          What spiritual poverty there is around us today. We see unmistakable evidence of it in the ugliness and brutality of so much contemporary art, which can sell for millions and which will have an enduring value in centuries to come if only for the authentic statement it makes about this age through which we are currently living.
          We have to make a distinction, however, between spiritual poverty and poverty in spirit. Spiritual poverty is amongst the greatest of evils, destructive to the human soul as famine and plague are detrimental to the body. Poverty in spirit, on the other hand, counts among the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” The man floundering in spiritual poverty may admit to no desire for God or salvation, as he tries to convince himself of his own self-sufficiency. In contrast to this, poverty in spirit is an acknowledgment of our need for Almighty God. And it is the fact that poverty in spirit takes root in Zacchaeus’ heart that salvation comes to his house.
          The puritans were focused on Zacchaeus’ transgressions, and contemptuous of his politically-incorrect status. What interested Our Lord, however, was not his sins but his potential for goodness. And as a result of Our Lord inviting Himself into Zacchaeus’ life, and Zacchaeus’ acceptance of that invitation, what a transformation we see. The dreaded tax-collector promised to give half of his property to the poor, and to repay anyone he cheated four times the amount. Note that Zacchaeus only promised to give half of his estate away. Very likely he remained a rich man. But the important thing is that his attitude to his possessions had changed completely. Now he would lively honestly and see to enhancing the lives of the disadvantaged. Through poverty in spirit, his spiritual poverty was changed into beauty of soul. Society would benefit from this transformation.
          So rich little Zacchaeus, who possessed so much gold in this world, now wears the golden crown of a saint in Heaven. To those blessed with material wealth, the converted Zacchaeus shows how to use it. Do not wallow in complacency and the delusion of self-sufficiency, because you will not find real happiness in this life, and certainly not in the next. Purify your souls by confession and penance, because it is when we are in a state of grace that almsgiving takes on a supernatural value which benefits the soul of the benefactor in eternity. Cultivate poverty in spirit, and give generously for the love of Christ.

Fr Julian Large

September 2017 Letter from the Provost

Last month the Church basked in the rays of Our Lady’s glorious Assumption into Heaven. Next month we renew our devotion to the Holy Rosary, and give thanks for the graces that this devotion has secured for us individually, and especially for the protection and flourishing of the Kingdom of God on earth which it has secured down the centuries. The Feast of the Most Holy Rosary on 7th October marks the definitive sea victory over the Turkish Fleet which threatened calamity and enslavement to western Christendom at the Battle of Lepanto on that date in 1571, a victory which Pope St Pius V attributed to the praying of the Rosary.

This month of September is also permeated with the sweet fragrance of the Blessed Virgin’s presence throughout the month’s liturgical calendar. On 8th September we celebrate the feast of Our Lady’s Nativity, exactly nine months after Her Immaculate Conception on 8th December. St Peter Damian called the Blessed Virgin’s birthday “the beginning of salvation and the origin of every feast,” because it marked the arrival in this world of the Immaculate Ark of the Covenant from Whom the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity would take on the human flesh in which He would die for our sins and conquer death in His Resurrection.

The Feast of the Holy Name of Mary just four days later commemorates another great intervention of the Blessed Mother of God in worldly affairs, when Her intercession secured the victory of the Christian army under the Polish King John Sobieski over the Turks at the Siege of Vienna in 1683. In gratitude to the “Liberatrix of the west”, Pope Innocent XI extended the feast of Her Holy Name to the Universal Church. In these days of anxiety and uncertainty when we see tensions escalating between states, internal disquiet within nations and grave threats to life and liberty, we do well to have constant recourse to Mary, Queen of Peace, Who on so many occasions has rescued Christendom from the brink of catastrophe, and Who has promised us that ultimately Her Immaculate Heart will prevail.

In the realm of personal prayer, St Philip Neri was one of those saints who encouraged devotion to the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary as a means of intimate and immediate access to Our Lord and Our Lady. One of his favourite prayers, which he used frequently and taught to his disciples to pray, was the beautifully simple formula “Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God, pray to Jesus for me.”

On 15th September, we join Our Lady at the foot of the Cross for the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. No one participated in Our Lord’s Passion like His Holy Mother, Who endured the torment of seeing the flesh that She had lovingly bathed and clothed during His infancy torn, beaten and pierced. No words could ever express the torment that must have racked that Mother’s heart as She witnessed the incarnation of Divine Love scorned and tortured to death.

From the Cross Our Saviour entrusted all of us to the maternity of His Mother, when He told Her “Woman, behold thy son,” and then said to His beloved disciple “Behold thy mother.” And our Mother teaches us how to participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. She who freely cooperated in our salvation when She told the Angel Gabriel “Be it done unto me according to thy word” experienced in a terrible but meritorious manner the consequences of that ‘fiat’ in the desolation which She offered in union with Her Son on Calvary in an act of self-sacrificial love on behalf of sinners. Our Mother teaches us to offer all of our joys and all of our sorrows, all of our hopes and fears, everything we have and everything we are, with the bread and the wine during that part of the Holy Mass known as the Offertory, so that we might be mystically and truly united with His Death when the bread and wine are transformed into His Body and Blood at the Consecration. If, through mortal sin, we have cast off the white robe of Sanctifying Grace with which we were vested in Baptism, then She leads us by the hand to the embrace of God’s mercy in the Sacrament of Penance, so that with our wedding garments cleansed and restored we may receive Her Son’s Risen Body in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

We are never alone, then, at Mass. It is in fact before the Altar that we are closest, in this life, to our heavenly Mother. If we are unable to attend the Holy Sacrifice because of distance or decrepitude, or whatever restraint, ask Her to take us under Her mantle and lead us with Her to the foot of the Cross, and then unite ourselves spiritually with the Holy Sacrifice wherever it is offered at that moment across the globe. May Her intercession at the throne of Grace obtain peace for this world and, for Her children, protection and all blessings, as we pray constantly with our holy father St Philip “Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God, pray to Jesus for me.”

Fr Julian Large

August 2017 Letter from the Provost

A senior Catholic prelate attending an Evangelical conference in London not long ago was asked to give testimony to his Faith and to talk about his vocation to the priesthood. He recounted how when he was a child his family would go on holiday to resorts along the northern coast of Wales (no doubt to the same beaches which would later be excavated by the Provost’s bucket and spade on summer excursions when he was still in short pants and red plastic sandals). The first thing the prelate-to-be’s mother did after dropping the luggage off at the hotel was to search the town for the local Catholic church. Once that location had been established, and a visit made to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament and Mass times noted, then the business of paddling in the chilly Irish Sea and climbing Llandudno’s Great Orme could begin in earnest. But the local Catholic church, and the Presence of Our Lord Jesus there in the Tabernacle and in the offering of Holy Mass, always remained at the heart of the holiday. The determination and quiet devotion of that Catholic mother tilled and fertilised the ground in which the seeds of a priestly vocation, planted in her son’s heart, would eventually germinate into a life of service to the Kingdom of God on earth.

         We are now at the height of the holiday season, when many of our parishioners leave London in search of relaxation, to be replaced in the pews by visitors from far and wide who often enter the Oratory church shaking the rain off umbrellas borrowed from local hotels. The Church encourages leisure, and in Her instructions regarding obligatory Mass attendance She actually enjoins us, on the prescribed days, to shun work that prevents us from worshipping God and also to avoid activities that hinder relaxation of mind and body. Those with the resources that allow them to go away on holiday should thank God for this opportunity of refreshment and restoration, and give a thought for those who are not so blessed.

         Tourists holidaying in London never have far to go in order to find Catholic churches in which to fulfil their Sunday obligation. Those of us travelling further afield have to organise ourselves more carefully to ensure that we are able to fulfil ours. However, the communications miracle that has taken place in recent years means that it is usually quite easy to track down churches through judicious use of search engines on the Internet. Google ‘Kuala Lumpur’ and ‘Mass times’ together and quite a few options are bound to appear.

         The obligation to attend Holy Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation is a precept which is rooted in the Third Commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy. Catholics are bound to obey this precept “on pain of mortal sin”, which means that if we miss Mass without grave cause we may not receive Holy Communion again until we have been given absolution in the Sacrament of Penance. Current discipline also allows Catholics to fulfil their Sunday obligation by attending any Catholic Mass (liturgically it does not have to be the Mass ‘of the Sunday’ – it might, for example, be a nuptial Mass at a Catholic wedding) on a Saturday evening. Grave causes which exempt us from the obligation include illness, childcare, looking after the sick and necessary travel. Also, if we find ourselves in the depths of the wilderness far from a Catholic church and with no reasonably attainable means of reaching one, then no obligation applies.

         Different authorities are likely to provide varying interpretations of what constitutes ‘necessary travel’ on a Sunday or a Holy Day of Obligation. The fathers of the London Oratory are famed throughout Christendom and beyond for their cheerful dispositions and lightness of touch, ever careful as they are never to break a bruised reed or to extinguish any dimly burning wick. And so it is likely that we would take as lenient an approach as conscience allows with anyone confessing to having missed Sunday Mass because they were travelling to a holiday destination. Threats of everlasting hellfire are not something to be brandished lightly.

         Rather than weighing up whether our travel plans let us off the hook as far as Mass attendance is concerned, however, we should better reflect on what the Holy Mass really means to us, and on how central this unique and priceless treasure of our Catholic religion is to our lives. Since the earliest days of our Faith the Sacrifice of Calvary, presented anew at every celebration of Mass, has been the foundation and the heart of Christian worship, especially on Sunday, the ‘day of the Lord’, which has been forever hallowed by Our Lord’s Resurrection and as the day when the whole Mystical Body of Christ has always gathered together in visible unity to give thanks and praise as He comes to the Altar to make satisfaction for sins and to feed us with His Living Body.

         The price of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is Our Lord’s own Precious Blood, poured out for sinners in an action of pure and perfect love. In times of persecution, Christians have risked life and limb to make themselves present at this Sacrifice (quite literally in the case of those English martyrs who were brutally dismembered while still alive for celebrating, or facilitating the celebration of, Mass). These heroes of our Faith did not quibble about whether the perilous circumstances in which they lived absolved them from an ‘obligation’ to go to Mass. They sacrificed their safety, their livelihoods and sometimes life itself for the privilege and the joy of attending Holy Mass. The English Martyrs would have rejoiced to know that one day their fellow countrymen would be able to attend Mass again freely, and we can be confident that they implore us now from Heaven never to take this greatest of blessings for granted.

         The truth is that, in this life, our love for Jesus and our love for the Mass are really inseparable. It is in the Mass that His Sacrifice of love is made present to us just as truly as it was present to Our Lady and St John as they wept at the foot of the Cross in Jerusalem two thousand years ago. It is at Holy Communion that we encounter Him and receive His living, risen Body, giving us a union with Him which is more profound and perfect than any union we could ever experience with any other person whose love we cherish. If our friends happen to notice that we are willing to go to great efforts to attend Mass, even at considerable inconvenience to ourselves, then this is surely an effective witness to what should be the most precious and beautiful gift in our lives as Catholics.

         When reflecting on the importance of the Mass in our lives, it might help to consider an analogy. Imagine a newly married couple, whose circumstances in life mean that, for the time being, they are only able to meet and spend time together at weekends. After a while, even those weekly meetings begin to be interrupted by sports events, and social engagements which they make independently of each other, so that the occasions spent in each other’s company become fewer and further between. Once this situation has arisen, it is a sure sign that there is something seriously amiss in that marriage – something that needs to be addressed quite urgently. If we find that our attendance at Holy Mass is becoming an afterthought in our lives rather than a priority, then this is a sure sign that something needs to be addressed in our relationship with God.

         When we are making our travel plans for this summer, perhaps we should ask ourselves: do we really need to travel on a Sunday, and do we really want to go somewhere where there is no Catholic church and no opportunity to go to Mass? Think of the vocation that was nurtured in a young boy’s heart on the northern shores of Wales, all because of a mother’s devotion to Our Lord Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, even on holiday.

Fr Julian Large

July 2017 Letter from the Provost

After the consecration of the great pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs boasted that they had ritually sacrificed 80,400 men in the course of four days. Some of those who were killed would have been criminals, but most were completely innocent. In Aztec society, handicapped children were segregated at birth and nurtured in relative luxury, until the next solar eclipse when they were the first to be led up the steps to the altar of sacrifice.

         With the coming of Christianity, this religiously-sponsored slaughter came to an end. Luckily for the prospective victims of the Aztec priests, the Christian missionaries who arrived in the wake of the conquistadors brought with them the lifeline of the Gospel, and set about converting the Aztecs to the Catholic Faith.

         The Church has always acknowledged that there are elements of truth interwoven through the beliefs and practices of other religions. Inasmuch as the Aztecs recognised the religious value of sacrifice, we have to admit that they were on to something. But the torrents of human blood cascading down the slopes of those Mexican temples illustrate what grotesque consequences an incomplete, or lopsided, interpretation of religious truth can lead to.

         We Catholics, like the Aztecs, have the bloody sacrifice of a person at the foundation of our religious cult. But there is quite a significant difference. Those pagans knew that no amount of mere human blood would ever satisfy the appetites of their capricious and gluttonous deities. If the sun were to continue rising every morning, and if the crops were to survive until harvest, then the slaughter would just have to go on forever.

         On the Cross, however, we find a Sacrifice that need not – could not, in fact – ever be repeated; because on Calvary it is God the Son – the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity – Who offers Himself to the Father in a single sacrificial act which is once and for all. He offers Himself in love for us. Because He is a Divine Person, the infinite value of that Sacrifice is capable of atoning for the sins of the whole human race. Just one drop of His Blood would have been more than enough to redeem every human being ever created. The water that eventually gushed from His pierced side on the Cross was a sign that there was no blood left in His Body. He had given every last drop of it, for us.

         July is traditionally the month of the Precious Blood. The Feast of the Precious Blood was appointed for the first Sunday after June 30th by Pope Pius IX, the last day of June being the date on which the insurgents of the Roman Republic were expelled from Rome in 1849. Pope John XXIII raised this feast to the level of First Class, shortly before it was abolished altogether by his successor in 1969.

         The greatest English apostle of devotion to the Precious Blood was the London Oratory’s own Father Faber. He established the Confraternity of the Precious Blood in London in 1850, with rich indulgences granted personally by Bl. Pio Nono. Within ten years more than thirty eight thousand members had enrolled all over the world. Members of the Confraternity would be encouraged to offer their own sacrifices and penances in union with the Our Lord’s Precious Blood to gain blessings for the Church and the world.

         We might be forgiven for assuming that Father Faber’s first encounter with devotion to the Blood of Our Lord must have occurred during his travels on the Continent as a young man. In truth, however, he would have already been familiar with the idea from the literature of our home-grown evangelical preachers and poets. It was William Cowper (1731-1800), whose poetry and hymns were a formative influence on Faber, who wrote the lines:

There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Emanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.

         This Protestant poem helps us to understand the symbolism of the Catholic Rite of Baptism, when the new Christian, fresh from the waters of regeneration, is clothed with a white shawl. He has been made pure and spotless – washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb. The priest says to Him: “See that you carry this white garment without stain before the judgement seat of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that you may have eternal life”; and we only realise the gravitas of this vocation when we remember that the price of this white garment was Our Lord’s Blood, poured out for us on Calvary.

         Likewise, whenever we are washed clean of our sins in the Sacrament of Penance, we should remind ourselves that the price of this ablution is the Precious Blood that flowed from Our Lord’s wounds. Let us give thanks for this from the bottom of our hearts.

         Where the Church parts company with the Protestants is in Her teaching that, while the Sacrifice of Calvary is once and for all, that very same Sacrifice is presented anew to God every day on the Altar. Just as God did not intend to restrict the Redemption that He worked on Calvary to those who happened to be witnesses, so has He ordained that all people, throughout all ages and in all places, may present themselves at this same Sacrifice by attending Holy Mass.

         Invocation of the Precious Blood has the power to banish temptation and to send Satan fleeing. Through the merits of the Precious Blood, our prayers of petition take on great power before the Throne of Grace when they are accompanied by sacrifice and penance. Not long ago the Confraternity of the Precious Blood was revived at the London Oratory, and gathers in Our Lady of Dolours Chapel at 6.45pm on Saturdays.

         On the Feast of Corpus Christi, we rejoiced in Our Lord’s gift of Himself in the Blessed Sacrament. During this month of the Precious Blood, we meditate on the cost of that gift. The white robe of our Baptism is the sign that we have been washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb. May we carry that priceless robe unspotted before the judgement seat of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Fr Julian Large