September 2016 Letter from the Provost

Close to Marble Arch there is a traffic island at the beginning of the Edgware Road. At its centre lies a stone disc engraved with the words “The site of Tyburn Tree”. It was here that, between 1535 and 1681, 105 Catholic priests and laity suffered the horrible ordeal of being hanged, drawn and quartered, all for remaining loyal to the Faith of their fathers. Gentrification of the area in the eighteenth century would obliterate all reminders of the public executions, with the gallows removed, and Tyburn Road and Tyburn Lane becoming Oxford Street and Park Lane.

         This intersection must be one of the noisiest and busiest corners of the city. Nearby, however, is a place of extraordinary tranquillity. In the early twentieth century a convent of Benedictine nuns was founded in the Bayswater Road. The crypt chapel of their convent is now filled with relics of the English Martyrs. There is even a replica of the gallows over the altar. Upstairs, in the public chapel, the sisters pray day and night before the exposed Blessed Sacrament.

         The memory of Tyburn Tree, then, is kept alive at Tyburn Convent. As the nuns keep vigil before the Sacred Host, they offer up a constant stream of prayers for the well-being and the conversion of our city and our realm. They have chosen the “better part” or “good portion” which Our Lord attributes to St Mary Magdalene in the Gospel. This “good portion” is the life of contemplation, lived at the foot of the Cross. We can be sure that if we make it to Heaven, we shall see just what extraordinary graces and blessings were secured for us, for the Church and for the human race in general by these lives devoted to prayer.

         In Baptism, we are elevated to a participation in the life of the Blessed Trinity. An essential part of this supernatural relationship with God is communication. We are invited to communicate our thoughts, our hopes and fears, our joys and sorrows, praise, thanksgiving and petitions to God, and in return He communicates His divine life to us in abundance. We should thank God for those who answer this calling in a way that is quite radical. All over the Catholic world there are communities of religious who pursue this “good portion” which is the life of contemplation. Normally we do not hear much about them. This is because they have been buried in seclusion so as to be in the constant presence of Almighty God. They die to this world so that the life of the Resurrection might take ever greater possession of their hearts and souls.

         In a fallen world which tends towards rebellion against the laws that God has written into nature, we can be grateful for those who do penance and intercede for His mercy. Holy Scripture tells us that sin deserves punishment, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church declares that there are sins that “cry to Heaven” for retribution (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n.1867). They include murder and injustice to the wage-earner. When such sins proliferate in our society we should thank Heavens for those men and women who mortify themselves on our behalf. In Marseilles in southern France there is an extraordinary community of nuns called the Religious Victims of the Sacred Heart, founded in the 19th century to make reparation for the sins of priests. What a great and important work that is.

         To the shallow and materialistic mind the contemplative life always looks like a waste of time. With the eyes of faith we know that when prayer is combined with penance and sacrifice it has great power before the Throne of Grace. The history of Jonah and Nineveh illustrates how fasting and prayer can save a civilisation from a sentence of destruction. Sodom and Gomorrah had no just citizens praying to God, and were utterly destroyed.

         It is God’s desire to bless rather than to punish. As the current Sovereign Pontiff has reminded us on a number of occasions, “God never tires of forgiving us. We are the ones who tire of seeking for His forgiveness.” Be grateful for those who ask for mercy on our behalf.

         Let us pray that God will continue to send vocations to contemplative communities. Of course, most of us are called to a different sort of life – more like Martha, with many practical and worldly duties and responsibilities. But we should also try to imitate Mary’s prayerfulness. In London it is not so difficult to find churches that are open during the day, so that we may walk in and rest in the presence of Our Lord. The Martyrs who celebrated and attended Holy Mass in attics and cellars would have rejoiced to see the day when sanctuary lamps burning in public would once again summon God’s children to adoration.

         It is possible to visit the chapel of the Martyrs at Tyburn Convent by appointment, and there to be inspired by the faith and zeal of the nuns as they tell the story of the dramatic events that happened just a short walk along the street. Then go upstairs to the church to spend some time in front of Our Lord enthroned over the altar. Do all of this and you will have experienced a taste of the “good portion” that Our Lord commends in Mary.

Fr Julian Large

August 2016 Letter from the Provost

Probably we were told when we were children that it is rude to call people names. Our Lord actually had a good line in nicknames. He referred to Herod as an old fox. We know from the Gospel of St Mark that He called the two brothers James and John “Boanerges” – Aramaic for “Sons of Thunder.” And in the Gospel of St Luke, we see how James and John merited and lived up to their nickname, when the Sons of Thunder plead with Our Lord to rain down fire from Heaven to devour the inhabitants of a Samaritan town that has just refused Him hospitality. Their reasoning: how dare these sectarian bigots insult the Lord of Creation? Surely the time has come to teach the world a lesson and to show sinners what lies in store for anyone who scorns the King of Kings and Creator of the universe?

The Master rebukes His disciples. Their zeal has made them bloodthirsty and they want to see retribution. Our Lord views things very differently. Yes, the time for fire will come. Our Lord warns us of the fire that awaits Dives in Hell, and many of us will have to be saved “yet so as by fire” (1 Cor 3:15) in the purification of Purgatory. But His mission on earth is not directed towards punishment and retribution. He has not come to precipitate that final conflagration which he has promised will consume the world at the end of time. He has come rather to light a flame of divine love in our hearts so that nothing and no one can ultimately destroy us. Now is the time of mercy and salvation.

John is the youngest of the Apostles, just a teenager. But what a cauldron of intense passion simmers within that youthful heart – a passion that is ready to boil over at the first provocation into wrath.

How very different is this Son of Thunder from the picture of John that emerges later on, the John who quietly rests his head on Our Lord’s shoulder at the Last Supper and who will stand in silence at the foot of the Cross. In fact, the nickname that Our Lord gave to John would not last for long. It was to be replaced by the title ‘Apostle of Love’. The word love, or charity, appears more in John’s Gospel and in his Epistles more often than anywhere else in the whole of the Old or New Testaments together. St Jerome tells us that in his old age John’s disciples had to carry him around to preach in Ephesus because he was so frail. They tired of listening to him preach the same sermon over and over again – all he would say is “Children, love each other!” When they asked why he must be so repetitive, he just replied: “Because it is the teaching of the Lord. If this only is done, that will be enough.”

This transformation from Son of Thunder to Apostle of Love is a good example of what happens when Divine Grace is able to penetrate into the depth of a soul. There is one thing that remains constant in John – his passion and zeal. But his youthful impetuosity and aggression are of little use to Our Lord. His capacity to love is of great use.

We all come into this world with strengths and weaknesses. And God is able to use everything – our strengths and our weaknesses – to make us saints. Very often our failures are of more use to Him than our successes, if only we allow our failures to teach us poverty in spirit and make us aware of our neediness before God.

John was transformed by contact with Our Lord. And through that contact – through friendship with Christ – his weaknesses were transformed into an heroic virtue which made him one of the greatest saints that ever lived. He can inspire us today to be apostles of love. Looking around us we see so much anger, division and recrimination. The world – our society – are thirsting for the charity of which we must be apostles.

Like John, we are invited to cultivate friendship with Our Lord. Bring to Him our weaknesses and failures, confess to Him our sins and receive the healing balm of divine forgiveness in the Sacrament of Penance. All friendships require communication, so we must rest in His presence with open hearts, making the channels of communication as wide and uncluttered as possible, and allowing Him to lead us to that wholeness and holiness for which we were created. During this Year of Mercy, Pope Francis has encouraged us to take a friend with us when we go to Confession. Encourage our friends to come back to this sacrament, so that they too may experience the transformative touch of grace.

Fr Julian Large

July 2016 Letter from the Provost

Until relatively recently, the Iraqi town of Mosul was home to a flourishing Christian community which was one of the most ancient in continuous existence, tracing its origins to the first century A.D. and maintaining the Aramaic language spoken by Our Lord. Since the war in 2003, and especially since the arrival of the Islamic State two years ago, much of the Christian population has been forced to flee and significant numbers have been murdered. Many survivors have apparently preferred to go into hiding rather than enter refugee camps where they face the prospect of further persecution. Any who remain must pay a heavy tax called the Jaziya.

         Last month, Islamic State henchmen turned up at a Christian house in Mosul demanding that the inhabitants pay the tax or leave. The mother of the family living there asked for a few seconds to collect the money, but they immediately set fire to the house, where the woman’s twelve year old daughter was trapped in a bathroom. The mother made an attempt to rescue her daughter, who was horrifically burned, but the little girl later died in her arms. The very last words that she said to her mother were: “Forgive them.”

         Although that girl was killed, she is the victor in this terrible story. Her response to hatred and appalling cruelty was love and forgiveness. The word martyr means witness, and with those two short words “forgive them” that twelve year old girl gave a clear and resounding witness to our holy Catholic Faith which we should hope will be remembered until the end of time as we know it, and which has surely earned her the crown of sainthood for eternity in Heaven, where she is now in a position to intercede at the Throne of Grace for her mourning family and her tortured homeland.

         We should reflect on the heroism and the simplicity of that girl’s witness. Our Lord tells us that those of us who would follow him must take up our crosses daily, but how tempted we are to avoid and evade the Cross in favour of comfort and respectability. We live in a society in which, for the moment at least, we are free to witness to our Catholic Faith. This is not something that we should ever take for granted. When we hear Christianity being bashed and rubbished, do we speak up and say: “Actually, I am Catholic, and my Faith is the most important and beautiful thing in my life?” or do we remain silent, perhaps even preferring not to be exposed as believing and practising Catholics?

         Christians living under the Islamic State who refuse to apostatise really have taken up the Cross on a daily basis. Remaining Christian in such circumstances means making huge sacrifices, and often the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives and the lives of their loved ones. What they suffer for the Gospel is a great witness to us and to the world of the power of grace to sustain us in the Faith.

         Please pray for the Christians of the Middle East, whose future looks very uncertain. The recent killing of that little girl is just one example amongst many thousands of such terrible events. The media has largely lost interest, and so these Christians are easily forgotten. As they are dispossessed and their families are killed, they look to us in disbelief as our western leaders concern themselves with more fashionable causes favoured by the secularist press.  Heaven forbid that we Catholics should ever forget our persecuted Christian brothers and sisters. As well as praying for them, we can also contribute financially to support them. Thanks to the generosity of our parishioners the Oratory has been supporting the charity Aid to the Church in Need, which works tirelessly to support Christians who have been driven from their own homes, and to bring their plight to the attention of the world.

         The name of that little girl who asked her family to forgive her killers in Mosul has not yet been released. Perhaps one day she will be formally canonised, along with other martyrs in the Middle East. Meanwhile, we can be confident that she is a martyr and a saint in Heaven, and in our private devotions we can ask her to pray for us. By her intercession, may we be filled with a love of the Faith which is as great as hers, and the courage to profess it with as much conviction and charity.

Fr Julian Large

June 2016 Letter from the Provost

Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological curiosity which describes a condition in which victims of oppression find themselves experiencing feelings of sympathy and even affection for their persecutors. It takes its name from a hostage situation in the capital of Sweden in 1973, when bank employees were held at gunpoint for six days. During this time they developed emotional attachments to their captors, declined to co-operate with attempts to release them and even kissed and hugged the hostage-takers when the siege ended, before going on to defend them during the trial. This sort of phenomenon is also known more broadly in the world of psychologists as “capture-bonding” and “traumatic bonding”. Apparently victims come to mistake any lack of abuse by their captors/tormentors as positive kindness. Captivity gives them an irrational sense of security and belonging, and they dread liberation into the wide world.

         Stockholm Syndrome is one of the more baffling vagaries of human nature, and it is as old as original sin. The serpent promised Eve that if she took the forbidden fruit she would be like God and would never die. Flattered by the attention, silly old Eve immediately forgot that she had already been created in the image and likeness of God and bestowed with the gift of immortality. In sinning, Adam and Eve subjected mankind to the tyranny of Satan. With our intellects clouded and the original harmony that existed between our mind, will and passions disrupted, we are easily convinced that imprisonment in vice is more fulfilling than the freedom that comes with virtue. The devil is the architect of a “Project Fear” which he uses to persuade us that slavery and darkness are preferable to freedom and light.

         We can detect an early manifestation of Stockholm Syndrome in those Jews who were reluctant to allow Moses to lead them from bondage in Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey and who, after their release, pined for the three square meals a day with plenty of onions that they had enjoyed in captivity. In the New Testament Our Lord declares: “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” The Jews, oppressed by the pagan Roman invaders on one side and the tyranny of religious leaders who have turned the law into a crushing burden on the other, reply: “We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to anyone.” Our Lord has to explain: “Everyone who commits a sin is a slave to sin.” It is significant that it is within this context that He makes the explosive revelation: “Before Abraham was, I am”, recalling God’s revelation of His own Name (“I Am Who Am”) when He commissioned Moses to deliver His people from bondage in Egypt.

         Spiritual Stockholm Syndrome can afflict us in many ways. In an era in which there are so many stimulants within easy reach, there are numberless addictions which can have us enslaved before we know it. The Internet offers resources which, if used prudently, can enrich our spiritual lives. At the same time, if meditation on the Gospel is substituted with the devouring of every morsel of Catholic “news”, then our hearts can soon become dungeons of despondency, cluttered with the dead bones of ecclesiastical political intrigue. We need to allow ourselves to be freed from this if we are to flourish into that for which we have been created. If we have made idols of our anxieties and fears, then we need to pray for the grace to smash them so that unfettered we can proceed in hope and joy.

         The Holy Door of this Jubilee Year of Mercy is a potent symbol of the liberation offered by the Gospel. Unburdened of the guilt of sins and refreshed with Sanctifying Grace in the Sacrament of Penance, we may also be freed from all temporal punishment due to sin by means of the indulgences attached to the Holy Door by the Sovereign Pontiff. The conditions are Confession, Holy Communion and prayers for the Pope, and we also need to pray for the grace of detachment from all sin if we are to gain a “plenary” or complete indulgence for ourselves or for a Holy Soul in Purgatory. If we have not yet taken advantage of this blessing, we should do so. Holy Doors have been erected all across the country to make it as easy as possible.

         Imaginative readers might be wondering if considerations of Stockholm Syndrome are relevant to this month’s referendum on our future relations with the E.U. The Provost would not dream of inflicting his antediluvian political views on the Catholic public. The Bishops of England and Wales have encouraged us to pray to the Holy Ghost for guidance, and have proposed a good prayer for us to use as we prepare to cast our votes:

         “Lord, grant us wisdom that we may walk with integrity, guarding the path of justice, and knowing the protection of your loving care for all. Amen”.

Fr Julian Large

May 2016 Letter from the Provost

Open our Bibles at the opening verses of Genesis, and there we find the spirit of God hovering over the very beginning of creation. Some versions of Scripture refer to this spirit as a roaring wind, others as “the power of God”. In Monsignor Ronald Knox’s 1950 translation of the Old Testament this spirit is described in evocative terms of “the breath of God” stirring over the waters of the deep.

         This image of the “breath of God” recurs in Scripture. A little further on in Genesis we are told: “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” And in the Gospels we encounter this creative power of the breath of God in action once again, when Our Risen Lord breathes on His Apostles and says to them: “Peace be to you.... Receive my spirit.” (Jn 20:19-22)

         He breathes His Spirit on them and into them to restore them and to build them up. The Apostles had abandoned Him in His hour of greatest need, but now He brings them the peace which comes with knowing that our sins are forgiven and we are loved by God. Easter morning was brimming over with the freshness and the power of that same breath of God which hovered over the waters of the deep at the beginning of creation – a restorative, life-giving breath that brings life and courage to the soul. It is very much present and active in the world today, despite all attempts to suffocate it.

         When Our Lord breathed His spirit into the Apostles, He instructed them that He was ordaining them with a very specific mission: “Whosoever sins you remit, they are remitted. And whosoever sins you retain, they are retained.” (Jn 20:23) In this moment, we witness the institution of the Sacrament of Penance. Our Lord breathes His spirit into the Apostles so that they, the same sinners who abandoned Him during His Passion, might not only be made whole themselves, but that they might breathe the healing balm of forgiveness into the hearts of all sinners who repent and confess.

         That spirit of healing is breathed into all priests, in every generation, when they are ordained in the Sacrament of Holy Order. To sinners is given the power to forgive sins, to lift the anxiety and sense of isolation that accompanies guilt and to build up the Church. Serving in a church in the centre of a great city means that the Oratory fathers have the privilege of giving absolution to many people who might not have used the Sacrament of Penance for many years or decades. In the confessional we experience the wondrous power of God’s grace in action at close quarters, on a daily basis. Every time a penitent opens his or her heart in the Sacrament of Penance and asks for God’s forgiveness, all of the freshness of that first Easter morning is breathed into a soul, bringing health and wholeness.

         Of course, we priests go to confession ourselves, and so we realise how difficult it can be to articulate our own sins in all honesty, humility and frankness. But it is worth it, each time, to receive not only forgiveness, but to be refreshed and strengthened by the touch of the breath of God. The same breath of God is active in all of its creativeness and power in the other Sacraments. During the Holy Mass, when the priest utters the words of consecration, the stillness of the Church is filled with God’s Presence as Christ comes to the altar in His Living Body and Blood to feed us.

         In our Baptism we were each clothed with a white garment. In ancient times this robe was worn for a whole week before being taken off on the Saturday following Easter, after which the new Christians were sent out into the world in civilian dress to spread the Gospel. As the Baptismal robe of cloth was laid aside, they were admonished to treasure and guard the white robe of Sanctifying Grace with which their souls had been invested. If this white robe of grace which we receive in Baptism is cast off through mortal sin, then it is extremely urgent that it should be restored to us in the Sacrament of Penance. Without this, we cannot receive Holy Communion and we face everlasting separation from God in hell. If our sins are venial, the robe of grace remains intact, but loses its lustre. This is why all of us can benefit from immersion in the fuller’s soap that is offered in the Sacrament of Confession.

         If it is perhaps a while since we went to confession, we should resolve to do so soon, and allow the breath of God to restore us to that dazzling condition to which we were elevated in Baptism.

Fr Julian Large

April 2016 Letter from the Provost

Not long ago His Holiness Pope Francis became the first successor of St Peter ever to visit a Waldensian Temple, during a gita to Turin. On behalf of the Catholic Church, the Sovereign Pontiff requested forgiveness from the Waldensian community, descendants of a proto-Protestant movement condemned for heresy in 1215. The pontifical apology was “for the non-Christian and even inhuman attitudes and behaviour that we have showed you.” On hearing this Eugenio Bernadini, the pastor of the Waldensian community in Turin, looked pleased as Punch, and the Italian press reported with enthusiasm on the conviviality of the get-together. Some weeks later the Waldensians convened a synod at which they discussed what to make of the Pope’s gracious overture. After deliberation, the Synod replied to the Holy Father in no uncertain terms: “Dear Brother in Christ Jesus, the Synod of the Evangelical Waldensian Church accepts with deep respect and not without emotion your apology … but this new situation does not allow us to step in the place of those who testified with their blood or the other Protestants suffering for their faith, and to forgive you.”

         This withholding of forgiveness in response to the Holy Father's apology was interpreted by some Catholic commentators as churlish. However, rather than adding pressure to already bruised feelings by calling the Waldensians monumental party-poopers, perhaps we should see in their sober response a recognition of significant differences between the Catholic understanding of ‘the Church’ and non-Catholic views on ‘church’ – differences which might make it possible and meaningful for the Catholic Church to apologise for events that happened many centuries ago, but which probably make it unthinkable for denominations such as the Waldensians to offer forgiveness for inconveniences endured by their own spiritual ancestors.

         The Catholic Church identifies Herself as the Mystical Body of Christ. Enlivened by the Holy Ghost, and united on earth in every generation under the successor of St Peter, She is an organic whole in a similar way to that in which a human being is a single living unity. All of Her members who are in a state of grace are animated by the same supernatural life force infused in Baptism, and Christ is the Head of this Mystical Body. During a lifetime it is possible that all of the cells of a human body will die and be replaced several times, while we retain a continuity of memory and identity from cradle to grave, which means that we remain the same person. This explains why it is possible to prosecute and punish someone for a crime committed decades before. Cell regeneration never seems to have been accepted as a mitigating factor in a court of law. Similarly, in the Church, generations are born and die, to be replaced by new members, but the Church retains Her own memory and sense of identity because of the supernatural life that animates Her and binds Her members on earth, in Heaven and in Purgatory into a living whole. This also makes it possible for the Church to acknowledge some responsibility for the actions and words of Her members in times past.

         This understanding of the Church explains a significant difference between the act of Faith for a Catholic and for a Protestant. An old-fashioned Protestant of the best sort will tell you that he believes in Pentecost, for example, because it is recorded in the Bible. The Catholic Church, however, teaches us about Pentecost because She was there when it happened. It was her own birthday, and the festivity of it all is still fresh in Her memory, as is the fact that at the time She told Herself to make a note of it in the Scriptures that She was then in the process of writing. She teaches Our Lady’s Assumption with equal conviction. For some reason She did not get around to writing any explicit account of that event, but She remembers it and rejoices in it as if it happened yesterday.

         Leaving aside any questions about the merits of the abundance of apologies that has been proffered in recent decades, we can at least see how it is possible for a pope to apologise for actions or attitudes of certain Catholics in past centuries. One can only imagine that, in centuries to come, the appalling abuses and betrayals that have sullied the wedding garments of the Bride of Christ so nastily in our own time will furnish future popes with plenty of material for apologising. The Provost knows next to nothing about Waldensian ecclesiology, but assuming that these particular separated brethren do not share our ‘high’ understanding of the Church as Mystical Body of Christ united on earth under the successor of St Peter, we should also understand why they might feel unable to accept any apology on behalf of deceased predecessors. Rather than being ungracious, it seems that the Waldensians were just being honest, God bless them.

Fr Julian Large

March 2016 Letter from the Provost

The emotive force of the Church’s liturgy is at its most potent during the Easter Vigil. Before Mass, the atmosphere of desolation evoked by the commemoration of Our Lord’s death and burial on Good Friday still shrouds the church in pitch darkness. The kindling of the Easter fire at the entrance gives the first hint that something has stirred in the Tomb. The congregation then follows the flickering light of the Paschal candle into the church, where an awed silence is punctuated by the deacon’s threefold chant of Lumen Christi, which elicits a resounding Deo Gratias. 

         Meanwhile, the candles of the faithful are lit from the Paschal flame, so that light gradually spreads in every direction, carrying with it the news that Good Friday was not the end of the story. Arriving in the sanctuary, the Paschal candle is enthroned on its candelabrum, and the deacon addresses to it the ancient hymn of praise known as the Exsultet. This traces the history of God’s salvific interactions with His people, from the fall of Adam up to this “truly blessed night, worthy alone to know the time and the hour when Christ rose from the underworld”. Like the disciples whose hearts burned within them on the road to Emmaus while our Risen Lord “interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself”, we are then led lesson-by-lesson through the salient events of the Old Testament under the illumination of the Pascal candle. With these readings completed, the intonation of the Gloria in Excelsis triggers an explosion of bells, the air swells with the thundering of the organ and the building is flooded in an ocean of light. The Church can contain her joy no longer: Christ is risen; death has been conquered.

         Mindful of the transformative effect of the Resurrection on the disciples, the Church’s aim is that, through her liturgy, each of us should be brought to a personal encounter with our Risen Lord. On Good Friday we see the Apostles and many of the disciples dispersing in terror as the religious and political authorities combine forces to destroy the Messiah. St Mark is so desperate to flee the Garden of Gethsemane when the soldiers arrive that he leaves behind his clothes and disappears naked into the night. Enheartened and grace-filled after the Resurrection, however, St Mark would go on to found the Church in Alexandria, where according to tradition he so rattled the pagans with his fearless preaching that they put a rope around his neck and dragged him through the streets until he was dead. There is no record of him trying to run away on that occasion. Meanwhile, St Peter, who in the Gospels is so often found trying to deflect Our Lord from the way of the Cross, would open wide his own arms to be crucified in Rome.

         When self-doubt troubles us, we might be tempted to tell ourselves that these disciples enjoyed the obvious benefit of the physical presence of our Risen Lord, while all we have to go on is testimony, which is not the same. This is to underestimate the nature and the power of the Church’s sacramental life. The purpose of the liturgy is not merely to stir up emotions using the drama of finely choreographed theatre. The baptismal water blessed at the Vigil has been invested with the power to transform us just as radically as the experience of the Resurrection changed the disciples. At the font we are truly united with Our Lord’s death and burial, so that we emerge overflowing with His Risen Life. In the Sacrament of Penance we are raised up from the death of sins committed since baptism, and restored to the freshness of life eternal. In the Holy Mass we offer ourselves with the sacrificial gifts of bread and wine, so that when they are in turn transformed into His Body and Blood, we are united mystically with His self-oblation on Calvary. It is then in Holy Communion that we are given the most sublime and transformative encounter with the Resurrection, when He feeds us with His risen living body.

         Challenged by secularisation and other menaces within our society, it can be a temptation for Catholics to retreat from engagement with the world, and to live the faith ever more privately, in the hope of being left in peace. The example of the disciples after the Resurrection should save us from such defeatism. The Apostles who had previously huddled behind locked doors “for fear of the Jews” walked voluntarily back into the lion’s den, preaching the Gospel daily in the Temple, gaining many converts, and accepting the consequences in the knowledge that life in Christ has the last word over persecution and death. Transformed by our own encounters with our Risen Lord in this Easter’s liturgy, may we be similarly emboldened.

Fr Julian Large

February 2016 Letter from the Provost

In The Great Divorce, a short allegorical short novel dealing with the soul’s entry into eternity, C. S. Lewis describes an extraordinary scene. Approaching in a procession, a woman is preceded by luminous spirits who scatter flowers, and she is surrounded by boys and girls. The narrator explains that if only he could write down the notes of the musical setting that accompany their song, “no man who ever read that score would ever grow sick or old.” As the woman comes closer, he realizes that she seems to be clothed “in the almost visible penumbra of her courtesy and joy which produces […] the illusion of a great and shining train that accompanied her across the happy grass.” Dazzled by her “unbearable beauty”, and awe-struck by the thousand liveried angels who accompany her, the narrator asks his guide: “Is it? … is it?”

         Reading thus far the Provost assumed, perhaps with the narrator, that this magnificent woman could surely only be one person: the Queen of Heaven. But the response that the narrator receives from his guide reveals an even more wonderful truth: on earth, this regal figure was in fact one Sarah Smith, who lived in Golders Green. Extraordinary in Heaven, her earthly life could not have been more ordinary, at least as far as outward appearances went. The young men and women who accompany her are the children whose lives were enhanced by her kindness, including the butcher’s boy who carried meat to her back door. She had become a mother to them in such a way that “they went back to their natural parents loving them more.” Taking in the scene, the narrator is then taken aback when he realizes the retinue includes scores of animals. “Did she keep a sort of zoo?” he asks. The answer: “Every beast and bird that came near her had its place in her love. In her they became themselves. And now the abundance of life she has in Christ from the Father flows over into them […] there is joy enough in the little finger of a great saint such as yonder lady to waken all the dead things of the universe to life.”

         Lewis illustrates a truth which provides rich material for meditation: that behind the veneer of everyday appearances, there exists the vast and extraordinary universe of the spiritual and the supernatural. Because this realm remains invisible to the naked eye, it is quite possible that our vision never extends beyond the world of shadows and semi-blindness that presents itself to our senses. To penetrate the surface and to begin to see reality in its fullness, we need Faith.

         As part of His sacred mission to redeem mankind, Our Lord laid aside His glory. He did this so successfully that many thought that the carpenter’s son from Nazareth must be mad to believe that anyone would accept Him as the Son of God. On the Gospel appointed for the Second Sunday of Lent, however, we see how He revealed a glimpse of His true glory to Peter, James and John, in His Transfiguration on Mount Tabor. This vision of the Messiah radiating brilliant light and talking with Moses and Elias while the Father’s voice declares from Heaven “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him” (Mt 17:5), was perhaps given to encourage and sustain these three chosen disciples through the terrible trials that will follow during in His Passion. It also serves the purpose of sustaining us in Lent, reminding us that the end of our Lenten observances is glory – both in beholding the glory of the Beatific Vision in Heaven, and in participating in that glory now.

         The season of Lent provides us with the practical means to readjust our vision. In fasting, we temper the tyranny of our appetites, which so easily blind us to the spiritual realities that lie beyond the reach of our senses. In self-denial, we unite ourselves with Our Lord’s sacrifice on the Cross, and we die to ourselves, so that the supernatural life of the Resurrection which was poured into us in Baptism might take ever greater possession of our hearts and souls. In almsgiving and works of charity, we remind ourselves that our neighbour bears the image of God on his soul, so that in ministering to the needy we pay great honour to God Himself. In deepening our prayer life, we widen the channels of communication, so that God is able to communicate His Divine Life to us in abundance.

         If we are not careful, our vision can become permanently fixed on what is happening in front of us, so that the more significant background becomes so blurred that it disappears, and we end up living in a world of unreality or half-reality. Lent is the perfect opportunity to adjust the focus. If we make the most of this holy season then, with God’s grace, we shall be able to participate in a marvellous way in the glory of Our Lord’s Resurrection on Easter Sunday.

Fr Julian Large

January 2016 Letter from the Provost

On the Feast of Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception, the Sovereign Pontiff opened the Holy Door of St Peter’s Basilica. The unsealing of the Holy Door is a potent symbol of the opening of a Year of Jubilee, when God’s mercy flows in torrents in the form of Holy Indulgences and graces merited from pilgrimages to the Holy City and any of the great number of churches around the world which have been granted a Holy Door of their own. This Jubilee Year has actually been designated as a "Year of Mercy". At an official press conference in Rome, Archbishop Rino Fisichella outlined the purpose of 800 "Missionaries of Mercy", who have been granted extraordinary faculties to forgive sins which are normally reserved to the Holy See. As Archbishop Fisichella listed these ‘reserved sins’, it was sobering to note that most of the most heinous crimes in the book are specifically clerical offenses: they consist of priests absolving accomplices in sins against the Sixth Commandment, bishops consecrating new bishops without papal mandate, and priests breaking the seal of the Sacrament of Penance, as well as profanation of the Blessed Sacrament and physical violence against the Roman Pontiff. Meanwhile, the Holy Father gave an interview in which he promised that he will himself engage in a concrete “work of mercy” initiative on one Friday each month for the next year. One deed already accomplished has been his personal decree allowing priests of the Society of Pius X to grant absolution in Confession.

         We might ask why a "Year of Mercy" should be necessary. After all, any Catholic with a half decent knowledge of history knows that, despite the disinformation nurtured by centuries of anti-Catholic propaganda, the Church has been a witness to and a dispenser of God’s mercy for two millennia. Recent experience of themed years in the Church’s calendar might also have left us feeling less than enthusiastic. A Year of Faith was proclaimed with great promise in October 2012, and then flopped like a failed soufflé a few months later when the oven door was opened during the baking process and Pope Benedict XVI announced his abdication.

         If this is how we been feeling, then we should pray to the Holy Ghost that such negative sentiments be banished far from our hearts and replaced with some evangelical zeal. We have entered a brutal period of history, when the world is groaning for healing. There is a sense of hopelessness abroad, and there are signs of a growing acknowledgment of the fact that our society has lost its way. In these increasingly desperate circumstances, the Church’s Gospel of charity and mercy is a good brand. It has potential to capture the imagination of people who are bewildered and anxious. Besides this, the Gospels convey a sense that, as long as we keep in mind that sin is the greatest of evils, mercy really cannot be emphasized too much. Those who provoked Our Lord’s wrath were the unmerciful, and especially those of the unmerciful who held office in the religious hierarchy.

         Of course, every Holy Year is really a year of mercy. The word ‘Jubilee’ is believed to have its root in the Hebrew jobel, denoting the ram’s horn whose sounding summoned the ancient Israelites to a holy year in which debts would be remitted, slaves liberated and prisoners released.

         The fact that a major aspect of a Christian Jubilee Year is the promotion of the Plenary Indulgence which can be gained every day of the year reminds us that we are able to act as instruments of God’s mercy to the Holy Souls in Purgatory, who are liberated from the suffering of Purgatory by means of our prayers and sacrifices. For the current Jubilee the Holy Father has decreed that the Plenary Indulgence is attached to prison chapels, and has exhorted prisoners to raise their hearts and minds to God every time they cross the threshold of their cells because the mercy of God “is also able to transform bars into an experience of freedom”. The housebound, sick and elderly may obtain the Indulgence through uniting themselves with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on television or radio.

         To understand what is meant by mercy, we need to have some grasp of the nature of sin. The primary aspect of sin is that it is an offense against God’s majesty, and in justice it deserves punishment. A secondary aspect of sin is the damaging effect that it has on the soul. Many modern people have difficulty in reconciling the first aspect with their belief in a loving God, while the second aspect seems more accessible as an idea. We can take heart in the realization that, while the Pharisees were fixated on the first aspect and were all too eager to participate in the application of punishment, Our Lord showed Himself to be more concerned with the second. In the accounts of his dealings with sinners in the Gospels, He treats sin as an obstacle to be removed so that the image of God in a person’s soul may be burnished into a gleaming supernatural likeness. Thus liberated and enlivened, a person will soon come to see for himself the evil of sin, without anyone having constantly to make it the major topic of conversation.

         In this Holy Year of Mercy, we should be merciful with ourselves by making good use of the Sacrament of Penance, so that filled to overflowing with the Sanctifying Grace that was first infused into us in Baptism, we are re-energised in our mission to build the Kingdom of Heaven on this earth. Share the Gospel of Divine Love with our family and acquaintances, by talking with them about the blessings on offer in this extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy. Maybe ask a lapsed Catholic friend to accompany us on a pilgrimage to a church with a Holy Door in our local diocese, and on arrival gently encourage our companion to join us in the line for Confession. May God’s mercy abound in our lives in 2016 and beyond.

Fr Julian Large

December 2015 Letter from the Provost

The destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70 must have seemed to its inhabitants like the end of the world. And, in a very real sense, it did mark the end of a world. Jews who survived the massive slaughter were enslaved and dispersed, and the razing of the Temple meant that Judaism as a religion that offered sacrifice came to an end. The priestly caste of the Sadducees ceased to exist.

History is littered with the ashes of cultures that have ended in ruin. As St Augustine lay on his deathbed in 430, his diocesan see of Hippo was under siege by the Vandals as the Roman Empire crumbled. The fall of Constantinople a thousand years year marked the end of Byzantium. In Western Europe, the French Revolution and the Great War were different stages in the death of an Ancien Régime.

On all of these occasions it must have seemed to those caught in the eye of the storm that the world was ending. And, in reality, each of these events did mark the end of a world order. The truth is that cultures and civilisations rise and fall. Perhaps the greatest sign of hubris in any society is the presumption of invincibility. However mighty and magnificent any merely human civilisation might appear, its foundations are always shot through with the fault lines of human frailty. When we lose our sense of the reality of Original Sin, and we begin to ignore or even deny our need for God, then the results can only be calamitous.

The Gospels record Our Lord’s own prophecy of the end of the world. This does not relate merely to the fall of a civilization or world order, but to the end of time itself, when the Messiah Whose Nativity in a stable we celebrate at Christmas returns in Glory and Judgment. In an instant all of those questions which generate so much gas in interfaith dialogue workshops will receive an answer. Whether we are Christian, heathen or atheist, no-one will be able to deny that Jesus Christ is God the Son, and King of all Creation. On that day of reckoning, justice will be seen to be done on a universal scale, and the bodies of the dead will be reunited to join their souls in Heaven on in Hell. The Church Militant on earth, along with the Church Suffering in Purgatory, will be subsumed, purified and glorified in the Church Triumphant in Eternity.

Is the Second Coming imminent? Actually we entered the End Times when Our Lord Ascended into Heaven, and at every Mass we anticipate His return in glory when, united in facing to the East from whence His presence will appear and fill the skies, we pray “Thy Kingdom Come.” But the exact time of the Second Coming has not been revealed to us. Yes, the world is particularly unstable and violent at the moment. Yes, in theory, man now has the technological capacity to destroy this planet several times over; and yes, our current leaders seem to be especially feeble and platitudinous in the face of the dangers that threaten us. But for all we know, the human race might have just left the starting post of its history, with many millennia to come.

What we can probably say, with a little more confidence, is that the prognosis for our own society is not looking so healthy. In recent decades our culture has been busy hollowing itself out from the inside, with laws appearing on the statute books that contravene the Commandments that God gave to Moses amid thunder and lightning on Mount Sinai. Holy Scripture teaches, and the Church repeats in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, that there are sins that cry to Heaven for punishment. The fact that our Parliament has been discussing the legalisation of “euthanasia” is a sign that that we live in a culture that is contemplating moral suicide. When sins that cry to Heaven become enshrined in the legislation of the land, then perhaps it is time to fasten our seat belts and brace ourselves for chastisement.

The recent terrorist attacks in Paris have reminded us of the fragility and the vulnerability of our own society. God never wills evil to happen. That would go against His very nature. But He does sometimes permit evil. And when He permits it, we can be sure that He is sending us a message. In those events in Paris, and in all of the other terrible things that are happening around the globe today, He is surely calling us to our senses. He is calling the world back to Him. As hatred, violence fear and confusion threaten to engulf humanity, He is calling us to look up to the arms of Our Lord Jesus Christ outstretched in love on the Cross. It is on the Cross, and in the Crucifix, that we find the solution to everything that is happening around us. That Cross is the Throne of the Prince of Peace. And it is only through taking up the Cross in our lives that we shall conquer evil and establish peace. The Cross is the threshold we must traverse to arrive at the Resurrection. The Cross is the invincible banner that ensures Christian victory.

In our Baptism, the priest traces the sign of the Holy Cross over our hearts, and we are filled with Sanctifying Grace. In our Confirmation, we are anointed with oil and commissioned as officers in the war against evil. This is a war in which there are no civilians. St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians reminds us that this is not just a war against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities and spiritual wickedness in high places.

It is a sobering reality of life in Europe today that we live alongside people who are plotting to maim and kill us. The constant threat of terrorism reminds us that the thread that connects our bodies to our souls is delicate and could be severed at any moment. So what can we do to protect ourselves? Well, the one thing that matters ultimately – whether we die in our own beds or at the hands of a religious maniac- is that when our time comes we are in a state of grace. So the first thing we should do if we are conscious of any mortal sin on our soul is to go to Confession. Then we can go back out into that dangerous world without fear, with the Cross of Christ emblazoned on our hearts, and Our Lord enthroned in our souls.

Every significant occasion now has its hashtag and its logo. There was a tragic pathos about the “Je Suis Charlie” slogan that was the response to the terrorist attacks in Paris in January. After the more recent attacks, the logo that appeared all over social media was “Pray for Paris.” Is this is a small sign that people are coming to their senses? At the Oratory we prayed for Paris. Holy Mass was offered for the souls of those murdered, and for the recovery of the injured. This Christmas, Masses will be offered for the well-being of our own realm and the safety of our loved ones. May the reign of the Prince of Peace be established universally in this wounded and dangerous world. May Our Lady of Victories intercede for us.

Fr Julian Large

November 2015 Letter from the Provost

Catholics wondering how honest they have to be when filling in their tax returns receive a clear answer in the Gospel. A delegation sent by Pharisees and Herodians once asked Our Lord if it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar. Their intention was to push Him between a rock and a hard place. Were He to say no, then they could denounce Him to the Roman authorities for sedition. If He answered yes, the result would be hysteria from the puritanical Jewish zealots.  Our Lord pulled the rug from under all of them by requesting a coin and asking: “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They could only answer “Caesar’s”, to which He replied: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” (Mt 22:15-22, Mk 12:13-17, Lk 20:21-26)

However much we might mistrust the government, and even if some of us might question the morality of income tax in principle, as law-abiding subjects we have to pay our dues like everyone else. On the dreadful Day of Judgment it will be the emperors of this world who will have to answer for how these revenues have been spent.

The truth is that Our Lord was not particularly interested in that coin, or in the image that was engraved on it. What interests Him is the image that every human being, including Caesar, carries on his soul. “Let us make man in our image”, says God in the first chapter of Genesis. This image of God lies in our immortal soul, and is to be found in our capacity to know and to love. It is this divine image that makes every innocent human life inviolable and sacred to God, from conception into eternity.

When we lose sight of this wondrous reality, the results can only be dire. The human race in ‘the West’ seems to have been going through an identity crisis for some decades. That weird and not so wonderful creature whom twentieth-century theologians categorised as ‘Modern Man’ has been conditioned to think of himself as nothing more than a developed ape, with the consequence that the animal part of human nature – the emotions – often trumps over reason. In this climate, we should learn to recognize and to welcome any signs that the prevailing cult of sentimentalism has not yet become a fully-ensconced tyranny. The recent defeat of the Assisted Dying Bill in the House of Commons is one such indication. Many self-appointed policy-formers, in collusion with much of the media, have been successful in creating the impression that legalized ‘mercy killing’ is an inevitability in a modern secular society. The fact that there are still enough people in our elected Parliament who recognize the intrinsic difference between a suffering animal and a terminally ill human being to block such a bill has given heart to those who care about the sanctity of human life.

This wondrous image of God in the human soul which is a part of human nature and therefore common to all, has of course been disfigured by sin. In coming to redeem us, Our Lord intends to restore it to perfection. In addition to the image of God which belongs to our nature, He also comes to elevate us to His supernatural likeness. We receive this in the Sacrament of Baptism, when Sanctifying Grace is infused into our hearts and we are raised up to a participation in the life of the Blessed Trinity.

The greatest treasures in the hoard of a coin collector are those issues which are rare and beautiful. A dedicated connoisseur will sacrifice much to acquire a prize that is unique. To God, each and every human soul is unique and infinitely precious. Our Lord was willing to give every drop of His Precious Blood on the Cross, not just for the human race as a whole, but for each one of us individually. In so redeeming us, He takes possession of us, elevating us to that Divine Likeness which is a share in His own life.

Most of us probably pay our taxes without much enthusiasm. We render to the Inland Revenue what we are required to by law. Heaven forbid that we should ever become so begrudging in the tribute that we render to God. If our spiritual lives are reduced to avoiding mortal sin and grudgingly obeying commandments and rules (“Father, which parts of the Mass do I have to be present for to fulfil my obligation?” is a classic instance of treating-God-like-the-taxman) then we end up spiritually impoverished. The benefits which earthly governments provide in return for taxation are sometimes of dubious value. In return for our hearts and souls, Almighty God promises us untold riches and everlasting happiness with Him in Heaven. Let us render ourselves to Him generously and without reserve.

Fr Julian Large

October 2015 Letter from the Provost

Deo gratias, there is always a steady stream of couples arriving at the Oratory to make enquiries about marriage preparation. London universities and the employment provided by local shops and hospitals ensure that these enquirers come from a wide range of cultures and backgrounds. However, one factor that many do seem to have in common is that, by the time they have decided to be married, they are already living together. It would serve no purpose to be seen to become hot under the clerical collar about this. That which according to the Gospel is clearly gravely sinful has, in the view of most of our contemporaries (including many of those who have been through the Catholic school system), become the norm.

The priest has the responsibility of informing such a couple that his role is to help them to prepare as thoroughly as possible for the wondrous blessings that God will rain down on them in the Sacrament of Matrimony. He probably needs to explain from scratch the nature of a Sacrament – how each Sacrament has been instituted by Our Lord Himself as an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace, and how the sign actually brings about the grace that it signifies. In exchanging marriage vows, a couple will become one flesh in a covenant overflowing with divine grace. And it is in the “marital act”, when husband and wife unite physically as one body, that this bond is consummated and made indissoluble. This covenant provides the context of faithful commitment and stability that God desires for the procreation and nurturing of children.

Most young people who care to have anything at all to do with the Church today are looking for authenticity. Nowadays there is little social pressure to have a religious wedding, so if a couple does turn up seeking marriage in a Catholic church, then we should assume that they are open to exploring and living according to the Catholic understanding of marriage.  Once they realize that, if the vows they will exchange on the big day are to have the “feel” of authenticity, it is essential that they are not already living as if they are “one flesh”, then they are usually willing to make the required adjustments in their life. The considerable inconvenience that this often involves on a practical level helps to focus their minds on the momentousness of the decision they have made to marry in the Church, and brings home the supernatural character of Holy Matrimony. To benefit from the life of grace, they first of all need to be in the State of Grace. Once they understand how Holy Matrimony as a state of life is nourished and supported by the other Sacraments, then, with the help of Confession and Holy Communion, they are able to make the most of what the Church has to offer spiritually as they lay the foundation for a new life in the months leading up to their marriage.

The appetite for authenticity on the part of young couples thus provides priests with an invaluable opportunity. But it also presents a challenge. Gross scandals involving abuse of status and betrayal of trust in recent decades have made many sensible and good people understandably reluctant to take the ecclesiastical hierarchy seriously as a voice of moral authority. In these circumstances, priests can hardly be surprised if, when extolling the beauty of virginity and holy purity, or explaining the sinfulness of cohabitation and contraception, the response from the audience is the glazed expression that denotes disconnection.

This is when that weird and wonderful phenomenon that Teutonic theologians love to call “the lived experience of the people of God” can really come into its own. If we are gullible enough to believe what is communicated through much of the media, then we might feel compelled to concede that supporting traditional Catholic wisdom on marriage means committing ourselves to a lost cause. The actuality on the ground, however, is that the Oratory parish (and the same must be true of many Catholic parishes) contains a good number of young Catholic couples and families who are actually making a very serious effort to do things the “Catholic way”, and who have embraced the Church”s doctrine on chastity and marriage. Once sceptical newcomers are introduced to the “lived reality” of this priceless human resource, they find a culture which they probably assumed had gone the way of the Dodo in the 1960s. And when they see the fruits that come through the sacrifice and virtue involved in the authentically “Catholic way” of marriage and family life, they find themselves hard-pushed to deny its attractiveness.

Of course, that wider family that is the Catholic parish will also include members who have not been called to marriage, and those whose lives have been blighted by the hardship of break-ups and other complications. The Church on earth is not an “elect” of the righteous who have attained perfection. We are all of us sinners, and the Church is a field hospital in which we each come to receive healing and to assist in the binding each other’s wounds. A healthy parish is one in which kindness, humility and friendship attract sinners to repentance and onto the gold-paved road to sanctification. But it is still the young families with children who will always be the most precious jewels, on the human level, in a parish’s crown. The “lived reality” of their witness is more eloquent to the beauty of the family than any sermon. Their existence proves that it is possible to build and sustain a Catholic culture in today’s world.

Proclaiming the viability of the Christian family and Christian married life with credibility and resonance is perhaps the greatest challenge facing the Synod of the Family which takes place in Rome this October. Much supernatural assistance is required. During this month of the Rosary, let us offer many prayers to Our Lady Queen of the Family with this intention.

Fr Julian Large