June 2021 Letter from the Provost

In our Triduo devotions during the three days leading up to the feast of our holy father St Philip, we are reminded in one of Father Faber's most brilliant hymns that our Saint's death in 1595 coincided with the celebration of Corpus Christi:

"Day set on Rome: its golden morn
Had seen the world's Creator borne
Around St Peter's square,
Trembling and weeping all the way,
God's Vicar with his God that day
Made pageant brave and rare!"

At the time of St Philip’s birthday in Heaven, God's Vicar was our Saint’s penitent, the formidable Clement VIII, who spent a good deal of his pontificate tormented by gout. It is quite possible, however, that the inspiration for this verse of the hymn came from a later successor to the Prince of the Apostles, whom the young Frederick William Faber had observed at close quarters while still an Anglican clergyman, during his first visit to Rome in 1843. In a letter to his brother, he described visiting St Peter's on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, and watching Pope Gregory XVI receiving Holy Communion: "On Thursday morning I went to the Pontifical Mass: its effect on me was just as much as I could bear; one moment was intolerable; the thousands in that tremendous building of course made a considerable noise, but when the canon of the Mass began all sank on their knees, and not a pin could have dropped unperceived, and (I had not been told of it before) when the Pontiff, his eyes streaming with tears, slowly elevated the Lord’s Body, suddenly from the roof some ten or twelve trumpets, as from heaven, pealed out with a long, wailing, timorous jubilee, and I fell forward completely over-come. One other thing touched me extremely: the Pope receives the Communion standing at his throne, and as they were bringing it up to him, when it came near, in one moment, without arranging his robes, without dignity, he threw himself down on the ground till it reached him, when he rose to receive it. While he stood praying before it, his beating and striking of his breast were so vehement that you could hear them all over, and he looked a saint.” In addition to this striking devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, Pope Gregory XVI possessed robust views and impressive directness. He roundly condemned slavery and forbade all Catholic participation in the slave trade, banned the construction of railways in the Papal States, and told Faber in a private audience on that 1843 visit to Rome that he must think of the salvation of his own soul and, laying his hands on his shoulders, prayed "May the grace of God correspond to your good wishes and deliver you from the snares of Anglicanism and bring you to the true Holy Church."

Whichever Supreme Pontiff may have been the inspiration for Father Faber's hymn, the date of St Philip's death could hardly have been timelier from the liturgical point of view. That the saint who often experienced ecstasies in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament and was afforded visions of Our Lord in the Sacred Host, and who had been so instrumental in establishing the Forty Hours Devotion (Quarant'Ore) in Rome, should have departed for eternity after receiving Holy Communion on the great feast of Corpus Christi is surely a sign of God's special favour towards His faithful servant.

The timing of St Philip's feast day is also a wonderful grace of Providence for the Church and a blessing for us. This year, our Triduo devotions began on Whit Sunday itself, so that we celebrated St Philip's day within the Pentecost Octave. We could not hope for a more fitting companion to guide us through the beautiful season of Whitsuntide than St Philip. The defining moment of his apostolate in Rome was that event which occurred on the Vigil of the Feast of Pentecost in 1544, when he was still a 28-year-old layman and was praying fervently in the catacombs of St Sebastian. The Holy Ghost appeared in the form of a ball of fire which entered his mouth and settled with some force in his heart. This Pentecost miracle, and the abiding presence of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity in such a unique manner within St Philip's breast, seem to have ruled his life from then on, and to have been at the root of his ecstasies in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. The heart palpitations that he experienced as a priest when offering the Holy Sacrifice were so violent and disruptive, and risked causing such admiration, that he eventually felt constrained to cease from celebrating Holy Mass in public altogether, and retired to his little private chapel.

Saint Philip always insisted that we should never desire such phenomena, which he found unwelcome and which were the occasion of considerable suffering and embarrassment to him. But we should certainly ask him to intercede for us so that we too are filled to capacity with the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and that we may manifest the fruits of the Holy Ghost in our lives. Through Baptism, we are already living Temples of the Holy Ghost, but we should pray for that divine Presence to be a steady consuming blaze in our hearts, rather than a flickering pilot light. And as the great feast of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ approaches, we ask the Spirit Who leads us into all truth to fill us with the same faith in, and devotion to, the Blessed Sacrament that we find in the life of our patron saint.

Father Julian Large

May 2021 Letter from the Provost

It has been asked whether the Oratory is visited regularly by a team of elves who appear during the night to prepare the church for feasts and ceremonies. The truth is that, in addition to our faithful sacristans, we are blessed with the assistance of a certain Mr Cross, a resident of Oratory House and long-standing Brother of the Little Oratory, whose talent for restoration work and creative ingenuity are invaluable beyond words. Many of you will be familiar with Mr Cross's discreet but commanding presence directing ceremonies in the sanctuary, where he brings to the Oratory's liturgical functions a sensibility for romanità not even seen in St Peter's Basilica itself since the great ceremonieri of the Venerable Pope Pius XII. In addition to coordinating the assembling of the decorations for our famous annual Forty Hours devotions, it is Mr Cross who climbs a high ladder to change the robes and crowns of the statue of the Virgin and Child at the altar of Our Lady, so that they are always in line with feasts and seasons. We also have Mr Cross to thank for our magnificently hand-painted Paschal Candles.

Belying the suspicion that seems to linger among some of our fellow countrymen that the patriotism of "papists" is not to be trusted, Mr Cross is a monarchist to the marrow of his bones. As a consequence of this, the decorations of the Oratory's Paschal Candle always include some symbolic allusion to the Royal Family, as well as the requisite Cross, Alpha and Omega, etc. The unveiling of this year's candle just before the Easter Vigil on the night of Saturday 3rd April revealed the arms the Duke of Edinburgh, which had been lovingly and painstakingly painted with heraldic precision to mark the year in which His Royal Highness was to have celebrated his hundredth birthday. Since the sad news of the Duke's death just six days later, this year's Paschal Candle will serve as an enduring mark of our respect and affection for a man who has served this realm and the Commonwealth with an heroic sense of duty ever since his gallant service as an officer in the Royal Navy in the Second World War, and who has been a rock of stability to our beloved Monarch.

Many Masses have been offered at the Oratory for the repose of the Duke during the last weeks, and various of the Fathers have also celebrated Holy Mass for Her Majesty the Queen, whose solitary figure at her husband's funeral in St George's Chapel will have touched the heart of every decent human being who witnessed it. It was reported that the Duke had planned his own funeral meticulously, and as Anglican services go it was solemn and beautiful, and one of the most refreshingly unwoke public events of recent times (or semi-public, as it was in fact technically private but broadcast). There were no cheesy poems, pop songs or preening celebrities, no sermon or eulogy, and most surprisingly of all no representative of the nowadays ubiquitous female clergy. Instead, there were just psalms, prayers (in old-style English), Holy Scripture (from Ecclesiasticus, which Catholics include in the canon of the inspired word of God, but which the Church of England counts as apocryphal) and good old-fashioned hymns. The Duke proved himself to be as elegant in death as he always was in life.

No doubt a devout Catholic could have taken issue with the Duke on subjects such as freemasonry and population control. Most of us will be united, however, in our gratitude for the immeasurable contribution he made to the good of this country throughout his life, and for making us laugh. Po-faced goody-goodies among the commentariat might have disapproved at his "gaffes" when he made comments that were politically incorrect. The rest of us knew that it was just his brilliant and irreverent sense of humour, which he used with masterful dexterity to prick pomposity, dispel boredom and dissolve stuffiness on public occasions. Unlike many of his generation, the Duke remained untainted by the bizarre fashions and ideas of the 1970s, and utterly uncontaminated by the toxic sentimentalism of "Cool Britannia". Incapable of virtue-signalling, he did not jump to attention to hashtags, and never subjected us to the embarrassing spectacle of an elderly man taking the knee in deference to the latest manifestation of coordinated outrage. For this he is to be all the more loved and respected.

When next you look at the Paschal Candle in the Oratory Church, be grateful to Mr Cross who painted it, as well as to the bees who provided the wax. And please say a prayer for the repose of the soul of the late Duke of Edinburgh, and one for our Sovereign the Queen. May God save her and keep her.

Father Julian Large

April 2021 Letter from the Provost

There is something of a consensus amongst scientists that the origin of this universe as we know it lies in a great explosion in which space began to expand from a single point – the theory known as the Big Bang. Many will try to convince you that this discovery disproves the account of Creation that we find in the Holy Scriptures, and relegates any belief in a creating God to the dustbin of history. What these apostles of atheism have lost sight of, and what most of those taken in by their propaganda do not realise, is that the man who is credited as the father of the Big Bang Theory was a devout Christian and a very committed Catholic. He was in fact a Catholic priest from Belgium, Father Georges Lemaître.

         In 1933, Father Lemaître travelled to America to address a seminar attended by Albert Einstein in California. After Fr Lemaître had explained his theory, Einstein is reported to have stood up and applauded, and then said: “This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened.” For Fr Lemaître, the Big Bang was just one manifestation of the ingenuity of God's creative genius. It was a discovery which deepened his Catholic Faith.

         On Easter Sunday, we celebrate an event infinitely more magnificent even than the Big Bang. We stand in awe and wonder and profound gratitude before the event of Our Lord Jesus Christ's Resurrection.

         The truth is that the Big Bang and the creation of this universe in itself really cost God nothing. The Almighty Creator could have fashioned a hundred million universes like ours instantaneously and with no effort at all. All He has to do to create is to will something, and whether He wills the existence of the feather on a sparrow or a whole cosmos is equal to Him.

         The Resurrection, on the other hand, cost Him a great deal. In the Incarnation, God the Son took on our frail human flesh and came into a fallen world. The Lord of lords made Himself vulnerable in a world in which jealousy and cruelty abound. On Good Friday, we are given the opportunity to meditate on just what a price the Creator of mankind was ready to pay in order to become the Saviour of mankind. Artists have depicted angels weeping and howling with indignation at the dreadful sight of their Creator and King being mocked, scourged and nailed to a cross.

         Unlike the Big Bang, then, the Resurrection cost God very dearly. However, it was a price that Our Lord paid willingly out of love for you and for me. And there are similarities between the Big Bang and the Resurrection. Einstein was enthralled by Father Lemaître's assertion that the power of that primeval explosion known as the Big Bang is still pulsating energy into the universe today, in the form of cosmic rays. Likewise, the Resurrection is still pulsating its power into the world today. In Holy Week, countless souls are lifted up from the death of sin and restored to the life of the Resurrection in the Sacrament of Penance.

         The grace conferred in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony remains live and active throughout the life of a married couple, enabling them to meet the challenges and opportunities that come their way, just as long as they remain tuned in to the Presence of Our Risen Lord in their marriage.

         In the Sacrament of the Sick, the souls of the suffering and fearful are raised up and filled with hope in the general resurrection of our bodies that will happen at the end of time. In the Blessed Sacrament, Our Lord feeds us with His living Body, making Holy Communion the most perfect encounter with the Resurrection that we can experience on this earth.

         Looking at the history of the Church, we see how, when her lustre has been tarnished by the venality and waywardness of her shepherds, faith in the Resurrection has raised up new generations of saints to bring refreshment and renewal to her sacred mission. Of course, the power of the Resurrection is not restricted to the visible confines of the Church and her Sacraments. The countless baptisms that normally take place at Easter Vigils around the world testify to its potency to raise up new Christians from the mire of unbelief, superstition and false religion, and to incorporate them into Christ’s Mystical Body.

         Intriguing and persuasive as it may be, the Big Bang remains a theory. A scientific consensus only holds sway for as long as it remains unchallenged by a more compelling explanation. Even if it stands the test of time, most scientists seem to agree that this universe and time itself will come to an end. The Resurrection, in contrast, is not a theory but a fact. Its effects are in their youth and will endure into eternity.

Father Julian Large

March 2021 Letter from the Provost

On the First Sunday of Lent, we heard the Gospel account of Our Lord's forty days in the desert. Our Lord was led by the Spirit into the wilderness “to be tempted by the devil”. But why should this be? Why should the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Who can neither sin nor be deceived, allow Himself to be subjected to temptation?

If we reflect on the temptations that Our Lord endured, we shall see that they are the very same temptations which the Church often encounters in Her earthly mission. “Command that these stones be made bread”, the devil suggests. Just think of the popularity the Church might enjoy and the influence She might exert if only She gave up insisting on all of that wearisome preaching about conversion from sin and devoted Her every resource to social activism. Imagine how much more authentic She would look to our contemporaries if only She were to sell all of those precious vessels of the altar and elaborate vestments and to make a well-publicised gesture of handing over the proceeds to good causes. The media would certainly congratulate us on having finally woken up to the real needs of modern man. Surely we are missing a trick?

Our Lord's answer to Satan is masterful: “It is written, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”. The truth is that the Messiah could easily have produced enough bread to feed Himself, and sufficient food and resources to feed, clothe and house humanity for the rest of history. But in itself, such a magnificent miracle would have done nothing to combat the self-centredness that has been the blight of the human soul and of the human race since the Fall. Any “Great Reset” of society based on purely human efforts to create an earthly utopia can only end in further social disintegration. All efforts to “build back better” which ignore the reality of Original Sin and the need for God's healing and restorative supernatural grace, and which disdain the laws which the Creator has written into human nature and handed to Moses amid thunder and lightning on Mount Sinai, are hell-bound from conception.

Certainly, care for the needy and solicitude for the disadvantaged are touchstones of the authenticity of our Christian religion. Without them, our profession of faith is as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Fasting and prayer are an integral part of our Lenten observance, but in the absence of charity they become a grotesque parody of religiosity. Almsgiving is really the queen of Lenten precepts, because charity is what gives sweetness to the incense of our prayers and makes them pleasing to God. Our Lord's response to the tempter, however, reminds us that He has come to do something far more wonderful than turning stones into bread. He has come into the world to transform human hearts from hearts of stone into hearts that are vibrant and overflowing with divine love, in order that we might be moved to share the bread that we have with others. At Mass He does something far more marvellous than turning stones into bread when He transforms bread into Himself. This is so that in consuming the Blessed Sacrament, we might be transformed more perfectly into His likeness.

Man lives not by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. This month we shall celebrate the feast of St Joseph solemnly with a High Mass and in the presence of the Apostolic Nuncio, to mark this year dedicated to the most holy foster father of Our Lord. Nowhere in the Sacred Scriptures is any word spoken by St Joseph ever recorded. He is presented to us rather as a listener, who obeyed the word of God with perfect trust. We should ask St Joseph to accompany us through this Lenten season and to help us to discern what the word of God is speaking to our hearts. The urgent message of the Lenten liturgical texts is “Metanoia”, or profound conversion.

When we are dismissed from our churches at the end of Mass, we are sent out into the world to build the Kingdom of God around us. If we come to Mass in humility, with a recognition of our own neediness before God, if we bring with us our contrition for sins committed and ask for God's forgiveness and assistance, then we shall leave the church transformed and energised by the encounter we have had with God at the Altar in Holy Communion. In the Catholic view, we are all poor and in need of God’s forgiveness. It is this aspect of conversion, repentance and obedience to the word of God that the devil finds so irksome. He knows that even if we devote our whole lives to philanthropy and humanitarian endeavour, we are still his if only he can persuade us to remain in our sins. We must call the devil's bluff. It is once our sins are forgiven and we are on the road to renewed and continuous conversion that our efforts to do good have the power to build the Kingdom of God on earth, and to count towards salvation.

Father Julian Large

February 2021 Letter from the Provost

"Father, what will it be like when we die?" This is a question that priests are used to being asked by both children and adults. A priest is probably just as good a person as anyone to ask. In addition to their theological training on the "Last Things" – Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell – most priests probably have a certain amount of face-to-face experience of death, from tending to members of their flocks in their last moments on earth. One of our great worries at the beginning of the Great Lockdown last spring was that it would be difficult to see those who were gravely ill in hospitals. As it turned out, nursing staff have been excellent about alerting us to the presence in their wards of Catholics in need of sacraments, and in kitting us out with contagion-proof clothing. As Catholics, we should each of us pray every day for the grace of a "good death", with our sins shriven, fortified by the Sacraments and, ideally, with someone to pray with and for us as our souls prepare to meet Our Lord at the moment of Particular Judgment, when our eternal destinies are sealed.

To that increasingly weird and wonderful creature whom German theologians like to call ‘Modern Man’, death is the ultimate affront. For those scientists and social engineers who have convinced themselves that they can save humanity without regard for the laws which Almighty God has written into nature, death can only be an awkward reminder that we cannot compete with the Creator. No scientist or medic has ever yet conquered death, or ever will. In some of the whackier parts of America there are institutions that, for vast sums, will freeze and store human bodies in the conviction that they will soon find a technique to bring them back to life. For a lesser fee one can pay to have just the head frozen, presumably in the expectation that it may one day be attached to the body of a donkey or a goat. To make such quackery sound more scientific, they have given it the name "Cryonics". The truth, however, is that man does not have the gift of life in his possession. He may take life, but he can never revive what he has killed. Christian burial is a testimony to our acknowledgment that our mortal flesh returns to the soil from which God created Adam in Genesis. The Latin word for ‘earth’, or ‘ground’, is ‘humus’. Death is humbling. It reminds us that we are not really in charge.

We might smile at the thought of Silicon Valley oligarchs looking forward to eternity among the frozen veg. But as Catholics we cannot afford to be glib about mortality. Bereavement is one of the most acute psychological agonies a person can suffer, and grief is quite capable of producing physical pathologies. Death is the ultimate divider, which separates us from our loved ones and violates the human being at his most fundamental level as an entity, by sundering body and soul. All of this indicates that at the source of death is that great divider himself, Satan. Our Holy Catholic Faith teaches us that death was never part of God's plan for the human race at all. It is the most radical and terrible consequence of that rebellion of our first parents, when they allowed themselves to be tempted by the devil.

As a stark reminder of our mortality, the ashes which we receive on our heads on Ash Wednesday with the words "Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return", are typical of the Church's realism in the face of death. Unlike the modern world, She does not try to conjure death away and out of sight by means of distraction and euphemisms. She confronts it head-on and unapologetically. But the ashes are not merely a memento mori which serve to put us in our place as sinners destined to decomposition in the dust. The whole Lenten season which is launched with this ashing is a preparation for Easter, when the Church celebrates with utmost solemnity Our Lord's definitive and glorious triumph over death in His Resurrection. In Lent we unite ourselves with His Passion through self-denial, so that on Easter Sunday we may participate most fully in the joy of His Resurrection.

We cannot escape death. But in His Resurrection, Our Lord has overcome the lasting power that death might have had over us. He came precisely to reverse the effects of the fall, so that what has been separated as a consequence of Original Sin – our bodies from our souls, and our loved ones from us and from each other – may all be reunited in eternity at the Throne of Grace. Descending into the waters of Baptism, we have already died with Christ and been buried with Him in the tomb. We emerged from those waters of regeneration full of the supernatural life of His Resurrection. Thanks to the Resurrection, and to our insertion into this Mystery in our Baptism, life has the last word over death.

The only serious threat to this new life is self-centredness, through which our enemy the devil may find an entrée into our hearts, and the old Adam of sin is able to reassert his presence within us. Lent is our opportunity to lay siege to self-centredness, so that the supernatural life of the Resurrection is able to take ever greater possession of our hearts and souls. Through prayer we enthrone God at the centre of our lives, through almsgiving we put the needs of others before our own comfort and satisfaction, and through fasting we die to ourselves so that we might have life in all its fullness in Christ. The answer to that question "What will it be like when we die?" is "It depends." What it depends on is how much we becoming used to dying to ourselves now. This Lent, let us ask for the grace to conform ourselves with the death of Jesus, so that we may participate in the glory of the Resurrection at Easter.

Father Julian Large

January 2021 Letter from the Provost

The unveiling of the Oratory Crib took place during the First Mass of Christmas at midnight. This helps to emphasise that the Christmas season only really begins on Christmas Eve and continues for the first weeks of January, through Epiphany, to the commemoration of the Baptism of Our Lord. Normally our Crib is always in St Wilfrid's Chapel, which with the lights turned low takes on the atmosphere of a cave. This Christmas, in deference to the Orwellian "social distancing" requirements still demanded by the bureaucratic powers that be, our Crib has been erected in the airier surroundings of the chapel of St Mary Magdalen.

One of the aspects of the Crib which captures the attention of the many children who come to pay their homage to the Infant Jesus is the large collection of models of animals that stand around the entrance to the makeshift stable. The addition of a pale pink curly-tailed piglet two years ago elicited a polite but firm rebuke from an adult purist who protested on the grounds that Jewish dietary regulations would have made the presence of such a creature in Bethlehem highly unlikely. In the most impressive "Presepi" of all, however, in Naples, one would be hard pressed to find a Nativity scene that did not include a butcher with a string of pork sausages around his neck, in addition to barbers, wine merchants and South American football heroes, while in Africa zebras and giraffes are often to be found grazing around the Manger, so perhaps we need not be too rigid in our observance of historical accuracy.

There is, after all, no explicit scriptural foundation for the presence of any animals at the Nativity. However, since St Francis of Assisi set up the first Crib in the hill town of Greccio in 1223, with a real ox and a live ass lent by a local landowner, animals have been an indispensable part of Nativity scenes. The ox and the ass deserve a privileged position at the Manger, the loyalty of these particular beasts having been contrasted with the fickleness of God's own chosen people at the beginning of the Prophecy of Isaias: "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not understood" [Isaias 1:3]. The Fathers of the Church recognised in this verse a prophetic reference to Bethlehem, where the Christ Child would be placed in a feeding trough. The attentiveness of the ox and the ass at the Manger serve as an example to us, reminding us that the little Child presented to us in the Gospel is the Lord of all creation Himself, Who has come to feed His people with His own Body in Holy Communion and is worthy of our adoration.

The Crib should inspire us to be grateful for animals, which provide us with a wonderful testimony to the creative genius of Almighty God. The dominion which God grants man in Eden, when He bestows on Adam the authority to give names to "all the beasts of the earth," and to "all the fowls of the air, and all the cattle of the field" [Genesis 2: 19-20], brings with it great responsibilities. Every living creature that God has made somehow has its role to play in creation, which we disdain at our peril. The contribution of even the humble bee to the healthy functioning of the earth's ecosystem and our own survival within it is significant to a high degree. The Church even recognises the bees’ contribution to Her liturgy in the Exsultet, sung by the deacon at the Easter Vigil, in the kudos She gives to bees for providing the wax that will be fashioned by human hands into the Paschal Candle.

Saint Francis is not the only saint renowned for his tenderness to animals. Our own St Philip merits a mention in the modern Catechism for the gentleness with which he treated them [CCC 2416]. He could not stand to see them ill-used, crying out to someone he saw step on a lizard, "Cruel fellow! What has that poor animal done to you?" and seething with indignation at the sight of a butcher injuring a dog with one of his knives. Saint John Henry Newman declared: "Cruelty to animals is as if man did not love God...there is something so dreadful, so satanic, in tormenting those who have never harmed us, and who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power."  His Eminence's aversion to visiting London in later life was apparently allayed by the prospect of visits to the London Zoo in Regent's Park.

In the Crib, we see a wonderful illustration of a divinely ordained hierarchy glorifying Almighty God. The animals give that glory just by being themselves, because they fulfil their purpose in creation merely by existing. The shepherds, the Magi and St Joseph, along with the Angels, glorify God by having co-operated with grace in making a free, conscious and meritorious decision to adore the Christ Child. They provide an example to us, who have been created to know, love and serve God in this world in order that we might participate in His glory in Heaven. The Blessed Virgin, meanwhile, is granted a uniquely elevated place in this created hierarchy because She, a purely human creature, consented to become the Mother of God and will be crowned Queen of the Angels in Heaven. And finally, there in the humble feeding trough, attended by ox and ass, adored by the shepherds, the Magi, St Joseph, the Angels and His Mother, is the Creator Himself. As we visit the Crib this Epiphanytide, let us remember to thank God for the animals, and resolve to learn from them how to fulfil the higher and most glorious purpose for which God created us.

Father Julian Large

December 2020 Letter from the Provost

One of Father Faber’s legacies at the London Oratory is an extensive library on the lives of the saints. A good number of these volumes were written by the Oratory Fathers themselves, in a series which began with Father Faber’s own biography of St Wilfrid, the Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Northumbria and one of our house’s patrons. The feast of another great missionary, whose life and apostolate overlapped with that of St Wilfrid, is celebrated on 3rd December. Saint Birinus was a Frankish monk who became the first Bishop of Dorchester in the 630s and is venerated as “Apostle to the West Saxons” for his conversion of the Kingdom of Wessex to Christianity. The most prominent monument to this saint is the beautiful Catholic church of St Birinus in Dorchester-on-Thames, magnificently restored and embellished by the parish’s present incumbent.

It has to be confessed that a search through that thick forest of hagiography in the Oratory library yields little material on St Birinus. But the fact that most of the details of his earthly life seem to have been lost in time does not diminish the brilliance of his achievements or the power of his intercessions for us at the Throne of Grace. What we do know about his mission provides rich material for inspiration and encouragement. One miracle that is recounted tells how, on setting out by boat on his missionary endeavours, he suddenly remembered that he had left behind some prerequisite for Mass. At once he jumped overboard, swam back to land to retrieve what he needed, and was lifted back into the boat as dry as he had been before disappearing over the side. This miracle led to the conversion of the pagan crew.

Birinus’ mission was carried out in a time of particular turmoil and intrigue within the Church. When he left Rome to begin his mission, the incumbent of the See of Peter was Pope Honorius I. This pope had some marvellous qualities, but the memory of his pontificate has been forever tarnished by one grave failing: he was one of those popes, mercifully few in history, who have allied themselves with heretics. Contrary to the Catholic teaching that in Christ there are two wills, human and divine, Honorius allowed himself to be associated with those who argued that Our Lord only possessed one divine will. This constituted an assault on the perfect human nature of the Word Made Flesh. While the Holy Ghost’s protection of the Church prevented him from ever proclaiming this gross error ex cathedra, his fence-sitting on the matter led to the singular embarrassment of a Pope being posthumously anathematized by name at the Third Council of Constantinople in 680.

When an elected successor of St Peter, the rock on whom Our Lord founded His Church, becomes wobbly on doctrine either by omission or commission, then one can only imagine that this must be like a virus attacking the central nervous system of the Body of Christ on earth. Along with the scheming and division that heresy always engenders, it can only afflict the whole organism with devitalisation and debilitation. But young Birinus did not allow himself to become devitalised or debilitated by this malady deep within the Church. Instead, he left his cell in Rome and launched out on his mission to convert the pagan northerners with a heart on fire with supernatural Faith, Hope and Charity. Like that water that did not even dampen his clothes when he jumped into the sea, error and intrigue had no hold on him.

If Rome at this time was a hotbed of political manoeuvring and theological conflict, England presented its own challenges. Paganism was still deeply entrenched, and it would be centuries before the different kingdoms would be united in one realm. Undaunted by the hostility of the heathens, however, Birinus travelled tirelessly, preaching and consecrating churches. In converting the Kingdom of Wessex he ploughed the rich earth of this region and planted a vineyard which would yield magnificent harvests in the golden age of King Alfred. Birinus laid the foundation for the cultural and religious flourishing that characterised Anglo-Saxon England.

Fourteen hundred years later, we might be tempted to ask what have we to show for those achievements? We find ourselves in a post Christian society, in which life and death decisions are made without any deference to the laws that the Creator has written into human nature. The Ten Commandments, which God revealed to Moses amid thunder and lightning on Mount Sinai, are disdained by our politicians, some of the most prominent of whom have been educated at establishments that were originally dedicated to great saints. Has the Christian patrimony that made this country and Europe civilised not been squandered, almost to the last penny?

This is why we need to pray to St Birinus. We should pray to him for hope – the same supernatural virtue of hope that inspired him to leave his beautiful monastery on Rome’s paradisiacal Caelian Hill and to make the arduous journey to the northern wilds in search of souls. The truth is that there have been many occasions when the land cultivated and planted so diligently by St Birinus and the other saints of his age seems to have been reduced to the condition of a devastated vineyard. There would be the wanton vandalism of the Viking raids, and the scorched-earth destruction of the Reformation and the centuries of persecution that ensued. The history of our realm teaches us that no stretch of drought has ever been able completely to suppress the green shoots of new life, and that every famine has been followed by a new era of renewal and spiritual flourishing.

At this time of year, we prepare to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child into a world that was in the grip of pagan superstition. No sooner had this Light arrived than Herod would attempt to extinguish its presence in his massacre of the Innocents. Our Lord’s earthly mission would lead Him along the way of Calvary to His Passion and Death. The Resurrection, however has the last word over lies, evil and death. It might well feel in our own day as if a new dark age is swirling in around us like a heavy black fog. Saint Birinus has been there before us. Ask that his prayers, and those of Our Blessed Mother, and all those holy confessors, bishops and kings, all those holy monks and hermits, all those holy virgins and widows, who made this once an island of saints, will gain for us the hope and the zeal to bear witness to the coming of the Christ Child this Advent.

Father Julian Large

November 2020 Letter from the Provost

On the great feast of Christ the King we celebrate the universal sovereignty of Our Lord Jesus Christ. These days there is a tendency to soften this doctrine of our holy Catholic religion. We are told that the sovereignty of Christ is something to which our own hearts and consciences, and perhaps also our families and our homes, must be made subject. This is all very true and excellent. But it is only half the story. What we do not hear so much is that as Creator and King of the Universe, Our Lord has the perfect right to rule over nations and over the whole of this world. At His first coming, Our Lord veiled the majesty of His sovereignty in poverty and vulnerability. As He tells Pilate in the Gospel appointed for the feast of Christ the King, “If my Kingdom were of this world, my servants would certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews.” Of course, had He wished to, the King of Kings could easily have established His rule over this world by force. His mission, however, was to win our hearts with His meekness and His teaching, and to die for us on the Cross in order to free us from the power of Satan, so that we might share supernaturally in His Kingship in Heaven, and play our part in extending His Kingdom on earth in the here and now, fed with and strengthened on His most holy Body and Blood in Holy Communion. We also have the promise, from Our Lord’s own lips that the next time He comes His Kingship will display itself not so much in meekness but rather in power and majesty, as His Presence fills the skies from East to West, and the sounding of the angelic trumpets divides the saved from those who have separated themselves from His rule. The former will enjoy the Beatific vision in Heaven, the latter will be cast into the everlasting fires of hell.

The message of the feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King is that we Catholics must not fall into the trap of privatising our religion. Certainly, we are to ensure that our homes and churches are havens of piety and modesty in which our families are nourished in the life of grace. But we also have to be missionaries in a society which is in many ways in open rebellion against the laws which God Himself has written into nature. This might mean writing to our MPs urging them to protect the life of the unborn or to defend the sanctity of family life when such basic principles are under attack from anti-Christian lobbying and legislation. For some young Catholics it will mean biting the bullet and involving themselves in politics with a view to keeping the Christian voice alive in Parliament. This requires nerves of steel in an environment in which unfashionable views are likely to encounter barrages of obstruction, mockery and even hatred, but Our Lord never promised us that building the Kingdom of God on earth was going to be a walk in the park.

One way in which most of us will participate in extending, or defending, Christ’s Kingship is, of course, by exercising our franchise in elections.  It is usually a sign of gross conceit when clergymen tell their flock how to vote, and people in this country have a healthy instinct to do the exact opposite of what they are told to at the ballot box by men of the cloth. Priests are in the business of saving souls, and are wise to avoid involvement in party politics as far as possible. At the same time, it is the duty of all of us to inform ourselves about the policies of the various parties asking for our votes, and to ask ourselves which manifesto, on balance, contributes best to the building of the Kingdom of Christ on earth, and to discern which policies constitute contraventions of the Divine and Natural Law.

As this letter rolls of the press, the United States of America will be on the verge of one of the most contentious general elections that the western world has ever seen. It has been said that what happens over there comes here, and so the outcome is obviously interesting for us. A journal Stateside recently suggested that the rise of Catholics in pursuit of high office these days might pose a threat to the secular status of the American Constitution. The first thing that needs to be said in answer to this is that separation of church and state in America means that no denomination is to be given preference, and that religious tests for public office are prohibited. It does not mean that one’s faith and convictions are not allowed to inform policy. Certainly anyone who is Catholic (or Christian) in a meaningful sense of the word could never separate the pursuit of the common good from the conviction that God has sovereign rights over the whole of His Creation, and that the administration of government and justice have to be conducted in accordance with the Natural Law in order to have legitimacy, and indeed to lay claim to being rational. It must also be born in mind, however, that many of the Catholics active in public life in America today have been nurtured in the Uncle Ted school of Catholicism, named after its unofficial but highly influential president of recent decades, Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, who until his degradation from the clerical state in the summer of 2018 on a list of indictments which did not include heterodoxy, was greatly revered and feted by the Washington elite. The motto on the badge of this academy is “Relativize and Prevaricate”, and rather than posing a threat to the secularist Roe v. Wade status quo, its alumni tend to be fellow travellers, if not zealous apostles, of the Culture of Death.

Come election time, thoughtful Christians on both sides of the Atlantic will investigate the voting records and opinions of all candidates seeking their votes. On close examination, alas, some of the candidates who are most keen to trumpet their Catholic credentials, and even rattle their Rosary beads on camera, will turn out to be unelectable. There are many “issues” which concern us as Catholics, but high among them must be freedom to practise our religion, the sanctity of marriage and, of course, protection of the unborn child. As the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops emphasised in its 2019 document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, published to help Catholics in their choice in this year’s election, “The threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself.” No country can claim to be a champion of the vulnerable and needy, or indeed civilised, if it allows the murder of innocent children.

Ultimately, of course, no human agency will solve all the problems of this world, or be successful in creating a perfectly just society. Only Our Lord can do this, which is why we must always be solicitous for His interests, and be willing to sacrifice ourselves in the establishment of His Kingdom on earth. May His Mother, the Queen of Heaven, intercede for the best possible outcome in the American election.

Father Julian Large

October 2020 Letter from the Provost

When hearing the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard (Mt 20:1-16), it is quite possible that our initial reaction is one of indignation. After all, why should the Johnny-come-latelies who have only arrived in time to do an hour of work in the cool of the late afternoon receive exactly the same wages as those who have been slogging away for the whole day under the glare of the sun? Surely any child can see that this is unfair?

From a purely worldly point of view, perhaps the labourers who had put in a full day would be justified in feeling slightly disgruntled. What we need to realise, however, is that the vineyard that Our Lord is talking about is not just any old vineyard, but rather an allegory for the Kingdom of Heaven, where different values apply. Neither is the landowner in Our Lord’s parable any ordinary landlord. He is, of course, God. And God’s ways are not our ways. Yes, of course the latecomers are lucky to receive a full day’s worth of payment. The truth, however, is that the really fortunate ones in the parable are those who have enjoyed the wonderful privilege and dignity of working honestly in a good and safe environment for a boss of such remarkable generosity and integrity. Who knows where the latecomers have been idling, or what they have been up to, for the greater part of the day?

God’s mercy is so immense and unfathomable that there are those who scrape into the Kingdom of Heaven during the last moments of their lives. Thankfully the many confessionals around the Oratory church do not have ears to hear or tongues to talk, but if they did then no doubt they could tell tales of lifelong burdens of guilt being lifted and dissolved in the Sacrament of Confession, all with the space of time it takes a priest to pronounce the three short words, “Ego te absolvo”. The puritanical temperament seems to find this vexing, as if it all makes forgiveness too easy for hardened sinners. But a Catholic will always find the return of any lost sheep to the fold to be a cause for celebration. There is nothing that gives us more joy than the account of a deathbed conversion. On seeing the obituary of a dissipated old roué, or even a politician whose life has been devoted to promoting the culture of death, a decent Catholic will pull out his Rosary beads and immediately start working to gain indulgences, in the hope that the deceased escaped eternal damnation by opening his heart to God’s mercy in those last moments, and to settle any outstanding debts of temporal punishments due for sin, in order that another soul may be unencumbered and released on its journey from Purgatory into Heaven. Conscious that we are all sinners, we must never begrudge the graces given to others, but rather rejoice whenever and wherever God’s mercy is manifested.

Those of us who are converts to the Catholic religion will be particularly aware of the magnificent workings of God’s grace. Once we are in a State of Grace, we can of course merit more graces, because we are animated with the life of Christ within us. The initial grace that calls us to conversion and incorporation into the Mystical Body of Christ, however, and the grace that calls us to repentance if ever we sin mortally, is always undeserved, and a mark of God’s gratuitous love – something that must never be taken for granted, and for which we must always be grateful.

From the worldly or puritanical perspective, converts might seem to have too an easy time of it. It may be objected that, after a life unburdened by the obligations that govern the life of “cradle” Catholics, we arrive late in the day to receive the same spiritual benefits as those who have striven to observe the Church’s precepts for a lifetime. For a convert, however, it is those who have been nourished within the one true fold of the Redeemer since childhood who are the most blessed. We who have spent too much of our lives in an irreligious wasteland, or feeding on sparse fragments of divine truth mixed in with the poison of error in some other denomination, can only wish that we had been led into the nutritious pastures of Catholic doctrine and the Sacraments, and into communion with the successor of St Peter, much sooner.

One of the casualties of the coronavirus disruption has been the enquiry class for converts, which we have only just resumed after several months’ hiatus. If you know anyone who is interested in learning more about our Catholic Faith and what it means to be incorporated into the one true fold of the Redeemer, then please do encourage them to come along. As numbers are restricted owing to the boring precautions we have to take at the moment, they should enquire first by telephone at Oratory House (02078080900). We meet at 8pm on Wednesday evenings.

Father Julian Large

September 2020 Letter from the Provost

It is sometimes said that if all the pieces of wood that are venerated around the world as relics of the True Cross were put together, then there would be enough material to build a Spanish galleon. Fake News. In the preface to his excellent historical novel Helena, Evelyn Waugh debunks this canard: “It used to be believed by the vulgar that there were enough pieces of this ‘true cross’ to build a battleship,” writes Waugh; “In the last century a French savant, Charles Rohault de Fleury, went to the great trouble of measuring them all. He found a total of 4,000,000 cubic millimetres, whereas the cross on which our Lord suffered would probably comprise some 178,000,000. As far as the volume goes, therefore, there is no strain on the credulity of the faithful.”

It took some three centuries after the Crucifixion for the Cross to become an object of veneration. In the year 312 AD the pagan Roman Emperor Constantine looked up to the sun and saw a cross of light above it. The words “In this sign you will conquer” were written in the sky. He was about to engage in a terrible battle with his political rivals on the outskirts of Rome, and the outcome was far from certain. Obeying what he understood to be a heavenly portent, he had the Cross marked on the shields of his soldiers and was victorious. Hitherto a symbol of the most shameful death, the Cross became a mark of honour, which men carried into battle as their standard and kings wore over their heads on royal crowns. Constantine’s triumph over his enemies meant that Christianity would become the official religion of the Roman Empire. The Roman world embraced the Cross, and the era of what would become known as Christian civilisation had dawned.

The feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on 14 September celebrates the beginning of public veneration of the Cross soon after this victory. The Cross on which our Saviour died was miraculously discovered in Jerusalem by Constantine’s mother St Helen on this day in 326; and on the same date two churches, built at the site of Calvary by Constantine, would be dedicated. Saint Helen carried a portion of these relics back to Rome to keep in her palace, which would become the basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. In addition to this, the feast also commemorates another military victory, that of the Emperor Heraclius over the Persians, which led to the return of the main relic of the True Cross to its shrine in Jerusalem in 628.

Our chief reason for observing this feast, however, is not to celebrate mere military victories. It is to rejoice in the “great work of love” by means of which death was conquered on the tree of the Cross. It is from being soaked in the precious and soul-saving Blood of Our Saviour that the Cross attains its power.

The Cross, then, is the symbol and, in part, the source of our salvation. “In this sign you will conquer.” By this sign our enemies are put to flight. By this sign we gain victory over the world, the flesh and the devil. By this sign the Church in Her Sacraments marks us as the property of Christ and protects us from evil. The sign of the Cross is used countless times in our lives by the Church, beginning in our Baptism when we are marked on numerous occasions with the Cross (over our forehead and heart, to consecrate our mind and will to the service of God, over our forehead once again to show that we have been redeemed from the power of the devil, and in the holy anointings which give us spiritual strength and unite us to Christ, the Anointed One).

In the Sacrament of Confirmation, our anointing with Chrism in the sign of the Cross marks our enrolment into Christ’s army. We must never be ashamed of this royal banner of our King. We should make the sign of the Cross often, and with great devotion. Signing ourselves with the Cross and saying “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” is the means that the Church has given us to ‘tune in’ to that frequency on which we communicate with the Blessed Trinity. We should make sure that we have a blessed crucifix in at least one room in our homes. This serves not only as a reminder of the price of our Redemption, but also as a powerful protection against the work of the devil, whose presence and activity is all too prevalent in the world around us today.

During this month of September, let us ask Our Lord to give us the strength to embrace the Cross in our daily lives. May Our Blessed Lady, whose Nativity we celebrate on the 8th September, accompany us with Her intercession and encouragement along every step of the way of the Cross which is our one and only route to the fullness of life in Eternity.

The Oratory’s relics of the True Cross carry the seals and certificates from the Basilica of Santa Croce which indicate that they are part of the priceless treasure which St Helen carried to Rome in the early Fourth Century, and which she had discovered at the site of Calvary by means of miraculous signs. They are venerated on Good Friday and, indeed, on most Fridays of the year outside of Eastertide, after the evening Mass.

Father Julian Large

August 2020 Letter from the Provost

It is difficult to describe what a relief it was to see our congregation again when public Masses resumed at the beginning of July. Arriving at the Oratory to assist at Holy Mass for the first time since March to find the church swathed in red tape and what the “hi vis” jacket brigade love to call “signage”, parishioners might have been forgiven for assuming that they had stumbled in on a crime scene. However, not even the arrows enforcing one-way systems, nor the reek of disinfectant, nor even the bossy printed leaflets about what to do and what not to do, could alloy the happiness that the fathers experienced in seeing so many familiar faces, and some new ones, after months of lockdown and separation. It had been strange beyond words to celebrate Holy Mass, and even the Holy Week and Easter ceremonies, in our great church with the doors locked and surrounded by a vast sea of empty seats. As Catholics we are members of the Mystical Body of Christ. The supernatural life that animates this Body might, in itself, be invisible but this supernatural and invisible reality unites us into a single living organism which is a very visible expression of the incarnational nature of our holy religion. We need to be together on Sundays. Welcome back.

One of the strictures that the fathers have imposed on themselves in order to allow for the deep cleansing of the church between Masses is brevity in preaching. It was just as well, then, that the Gospel appointed for our first Sunday back together really spoke for itself: “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy burdened, and I will refresh you” (Mtt 11.28). Long months of imprisonment and isolation have brought considerable burdens to a large part of the population – burdens of anxiety, loneliness, in some cases sickness and bereavement, along with grave concerns about livelihoods and impending poverty. Whatever burdens press us down in the way of apprehension or grief, our Lord opens wide His arms and invites us to share them with Him. He assures us that we are not alone. He carries with us whatever burdens we bring to Him and promises never to abandon us.

There is no better occasion to share these burdens with our Lord than in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. During the Offertory, we are invited to offer up with the bread and the wine all of our sacrifices and sorrows, our hopes and joys – in fact everything we have and everything we are – on the paten and in the chalice, so that when the words of Consecration are spoken, we are truly united with His Sacrifice on Calvary. He is able supernaturally to make use of whatever we bring Him, for our own sanctification and for the building up of His Kingdom on earth. In the Sacrament of Penance, meanwhile, we open the doors of our hearts to Him so that He is able to relieve us of all burdens of guilt and sin, in order that we may look forward to receiving Him in Holy Communion with the assurance that our souls have been well and truly disinfected and restored to the pristine wholeness which we received in Baptism.

Like most things that happen today, the Coronavirus has proven to be a force for division in an already fragmented society. While many seem delighted for the powers and principalities of this world to monitor and direct each and every aspect of their lives, others find the intrusions of the ever-expanding reach of the nanny state objectionable on principle. Newspeak phrases like “social distancing” and “contact tracing” conjure up visions of Orwellian dystopias and exude the whiff of sulphur. Worst of all is “modelling best practice”, pronounced with such cloying relish by the bureaucratic martinets who tend to run everything at management level these days. Looking at the scrupulous precautions that the Oratory fathers are currently taking in the church in the face of Coronavirus, some of our more sceptical parishioners have asked rather cheekily if we have swallowed the latest incarnation of Project Fear hook line and sinker. A word of explanation is due. Whether we truly believe that face masks etc. are really useful, one of our major concerns is to make those who come to the Oratory feel as safe as possible in the current strange climate in which the advice of “experts” often seems to be so contradictory and changeable. A good number of the faithful who worship with us have spent months hermetically sealed in at home being bombarded by the media with terrifying prognoses of apocalyptic scenarios unfolding on the streets around them. Coming to Mass will be the first time that some will have dared to venture out, and in this highly-charged atmosphere we should all of us show solicitude and thoughtfulness towards those who feel nervous and even fearful about coming to church. For this reason, if for no other, we ask everyone to take the tedious instructions seriously and just be glad that we have been allowed to unlock the doors at all.

The last time the government of this realm took away our freedom to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass it took three centuries for it to be restored. We can be grateful that this recent hiatus lasted just three and a half months. Let us implore our Blessed Lady Assumed into Heaven to intercede for us so that the current circumstances will soon change, in order that we can deposit all the red tape, “signage”, and the bossy printed instructions, in the dustbin where they belong.

Father Julian Large

July 2020 Letter from the Provost

The word miracle comes from the Latin miraculum, which is an object of wonder. One of the purposes of Our Lord’s miracles was to cause amazement in the minds of the beholders. His miracles demonstrate that He has power over the created order. They give Him credibility, so that when He makes claims which indicate His divinity they have to be taken seriously.

The multiplication of a few loaves and two fish into a feast that fed five thousand was a miracle so effective at causing wonder that the crowds who witnessed it and benefitted from it wanted to crown Him as a king. It might surprise us that He declined this opportunity of establishing His Kingdom on earth and made for the hills. After all, we Catholics honour Our Lord as Christ the King, with universal sovereignty over the whole of creation. Why should He not have accepted a throne that was owed to Him, and allowed these people to subject themselves to His reign?

The answer is that their appreciation of this miracle was as yet too shallow. For them, His supernatural powers promised prosperity for Israel. Never again hunger, or the fear of famine. No more poverty. This wonder worker seemed to offer an instant solution to every social problem.

Their attitude might well remind us of the temptations that came to Our Lord during His fast in the wilderness. They came directly from the devil. “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread,” said Satan, before promising Our Lord all the kingdoms of the earth if only He would bow down before him. Our Saviour’s answers to the devil were sublime: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God,” and “it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only’.”

This riposte remains as valid today as it did then, and it is one that the Church, constantly tempted by Satan, must always keep in mind in Her dealings with the powers of this world. “What sort of God is it that allows the world to go hungry?” is the demand with which we are so often assailed. The answer must be “Yes, of course God could multiply a few crumbs into a banquet vast enough to feed the population of this planet many times over. But such a miracle in itself would do nothing whatsoever to remove greed from a single human heart, or to dispel the selfishness that causes injustice.”

The truth is that Christ came into the world to perform a much greater work than turning stones into bread. He came to transform us, by changing hearts of stone into blazing furnaces of Divine Charity, so that those of us who are His disciples will lead the way in sharing what we have with those who have nothing, and building His Kingdom through our obedience and sacrifices.

It is only when there is universal obedience to the laws which God has written into nature that we can ever hope to see a solution to poverty, hunger and all injustices. When God’s laws are ignored in favour of purely material interests then the results can only be catastrophic. Communism promised bread for everyone. The reality was not only queues that stretched outside the bakeries for miles, but moral and spiritual starvation on a dreadful scale.

The crowds who wanted to crown Our Lord after His multiplication of loaves would no doubt have been happy for Him to build a kingdom in alignment with their own values. There is a lot of this attitude around today. It is present amongst those within the Church in those who insist that the Church’s raison d’être is essentially social activism. We find it in those who denigrate the church for her teaching on the use of contraception, on abortion and euthanasia. Faced with such opposition, it is easy for those of us who are responsible for preaching the Gospel to cave in, or to evade giving a clear answer. Perhaps it is naively imagined that if we are seen to be willing to compromise on the hot topics of the day then the media will give us a break and finally acknowledge that we can all work together in creating a brave new world in which scruples about the Commandments which God gave to Moses amid thunder and lightning on Mount Sinai have been conveniently sacrificed on the altar of secularist consensus.

The Mystical Body of Christ on earth cannot do business with the world on such terms. This is because Her primary concern is always the salvation of souls. To be true to Her identity as the Bride of Christ, She must teach what She has always taught, in perfect continuity with the Deposit of Faith that was entrusted by Our Lord to His Apostles.

The Church sees in the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes a meaning which is profoundly sacramental. Just as the transformation of water into wine at Cana prefigures the transformation of bread and wine into Our Lord’s Body and Blood in the Sacrifice of the Mass, so the feeding of the five thousand points to another wondrous aspect of the Blessed Sacrament. It shows how Our Lord’s one and undivided Body – the same Body that Ascended into Heaven and sits now at the right hand of the Father – is able to feed so many millions of men and women, in all generations and in every part of the globe, at the Altar. We must pray that the restrictions currently in place in this time of pestilence will soon be amended so that Our Lord may again feed millions of people around the world in Holy Communion. Our Lord changes bread into Himself so that we might in turn be transformed when we receive Him, and then set about transforming this broken, wounded world around us.

Father Julian Large