Oremus January 2019

January 2019 | Edition Number 243 | FREE

Westminster Cathedral Magazine

John said ‘Behold the Lamb of God!’.

The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus

RICHARD REDISCOVERED © National Gallery

Dr John Ashdown-Hill RIP Fr Daniel Humphreys

On 16 November 2018, a congregation of around 150 people gathered for a Memorial Service for the late Dr John Ashdown-Hill MBE FSA, the majority being members of the Richard III society, John having been a member of its Executive Council. It was for his painstaking contribution towards the finding of King Richard III’s mortal remains that he will be most fondly remembered. It had been thought that the body of the king, killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, had been thrown into the river Soar. John and others, however, believed that the king’s body had remained in its original burial place.

Finally in 2012 the body was discovered in its grave under a car park in central Leicester built over the Grey Friars Church, which had been dissolved and then demolished in 1538. Dr Ashdown Hill’s discovery of the king’s mtDNA sequence proved that the bones were indeed those of the last Plantagenet King of England. John uncovered an allfemale line of descent from King Richard’s elder sister, and Mitochondrial DNA was matched to Michael Ibsen, a Canadian cabinetmaker and direct descendant of Richard III's sister, Anne of York. Other good evidence included battle

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King Richard III, anonymous portrait

wounds and curvature of the spine, although not as much as Tudor historians suggested, in attempts to Richard’s reputation of King Richard. The mortal remains were reinterred in Leicester Cathedral on 26 March 2015, with Cardinal Vincent Nichols in attendance at that service.

At the memorial service for Dr Ashdown-Hill tributes were given which highlighted his tenacity in the search for King Richard, but also his wider scholarship and expertise in the history of England in the 15th century, rewarded by the award of the MBE from the Queen in recognition for his work. He was also a faithful Catholic, with close links to Clare Priory in Suffolk. In the original priory church there (now ruinous) several ancestors of Richard III lie buried – including Lionel, Duke of Clarence and Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March.

It was a pleasure to welcome those who gathered to give thanks for John’s life and to pray for his soul. Those in the know will not be surprised to learn that there were plenty of white boar broaches and white roses in evidence in the Cathedral that November afternoon. A fine tea followed in Cathedral Hall, which was enjoyed by all.

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JANUARY 2019

CONTENTS

Inside Oremus

Oremus Cathedral Clergy House 42 Francis Street London SW1P 1QW T 020 7798 9055 E oremus@westminstercathedral.org.uk W www.westminstercathedral.org.uk

Oremus, the magazine of Westminster Cathedral, reflects the life of the Cathedral and the lives of those who make it a place of faith in central London. If you think that you would like to contribute an article or an item of news, please contact one of the editorial team.

Patron The Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster Chairman Canon Christopher Tuckwell Editor Fr John Scott Oremus Team Tony Banks – Distribution Zoe Goodway – Marketing Manel Silva – Subscriptions Berenice Roetheli – Proofreading Eucharia Sule – Office Assistant

Cathedral Life: Past & Present Richard Rediscovered

by Fr Daniel Humphreys Cathedral History: An Avian Fly-Past

by Patrick Rogers Cardinal Heenan Revisited

by Fr Keith Sawyer Cathedral History in Pictures: A Celebration of Great Vespers

by Paul Tobin Painting the Town Red

by John Pontifex and Murcadha O’Flaherty

Features

Design and Art Direction Julian Game Registered Charity Number 233699 ISSN 1366-7203 Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily represent the views of the Editor or the Oremus Team. Neither are they the official views of Westminster Cathedral. The Editor reserves the right to edit all contributions.

Publication of advertisements does not imply any form of recommendation or endorsement.

Unless otherwise stated, photographs are published under a creative commons or similar licence. Every effort is made to credit all images. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission.

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Book Notice: Eileen Boland’s Stories of the Great War

by Jo Siedlecka 4 A Lot of Lotto 6&7 Chance, Fate or Providence? by the late Mgr Ronald Knox 8&9 A Memorial to the Oldest Ally

by Dr Stuart Blackie 10 & 11 Greening Trafford Park

by Young Christian Workers 12 Our Lady on Sunday

by David Fenton 14 & 15 Penzance: Priest and Parish

by Teresa Hunter 28 A Vision of Herrings

by John O’Neill 31

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Regulars From the Chairman 5 Monthly Album 18 & 19 Friends of the Cathedral 23 Cathedral Diary 24 & 25 In Retrospect 27 Crossword and Poem of the Month 29 St Vincent de Paul Primary School 30

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The painting on the ceiling of the Basilica of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome depicts the scene in St John’s gospel (1:35) where the evangelist recounts the calling of the first disciples of Jesus as initiated by John the Baptist. © AlfvanBeem

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JANUARY 2019

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BOOK NOTICE

Join the Companions ... and help us to keep publishing Oremus free of charge Although Oremus earns income from the advertising it carries, we rely on donations to cover our production costs.

The Companions of Oremus was established to recognise those who give generously to support us. Open exclusively to individuals, Companions’ names are published each month (see page 7). All members are invited to at least one social event during the year and Mass is offered for their intentions from time to time.

If you are able to support us by joining the Companions of Oremus please write to Oremus, c/o Clergy House, 42 Francis Street, London SW1P 1QW or email oremuscomps@rcdow.org.uk. Members are asked to give a minimum of £100 annually. Please mention in your email or letter how you would like your name to appear in the listing. If you are eligible for Gift Aid, please provide your name and address, including postcode.

Thank you for your support.

What Did You Do during the War? Jo Siedlecka In this centenary anniversary year of the end of the First World War, the Catholic Truth Society has republished war stories collected by Eileen Boland, who was married to the then CTS General Secretary. These accounts come from the first year of the War, when British involvement was mostly limited to the men of the Regular Army and the Territorial Force.

Many of the stories concern French clergy in uniform; the anti-clerical government there refused to exempt priests from military service, and so many were forced to serve in the trenches. Their witness did something to dissolve anti-clerical prejudice. By December 1914, just four months into the war, 87 Catholic priests and 127 nuns had been awarded the Légion d’Honneur by the French government.

There was the Abbé Lamy from Amiens who continued looking after his men in spite of five bullet wounds. When unable to walk any longer, he crawled on the battlefield administering the last rites and brandy to dying soldiers. An account in the Daily Chronicle described wounded solders 4

lying in the hall of a railway station in Paris waiting to be taken to hospital. One of them was a priest badly injured himself, who continued to hear confessions until he and his last penitent died together.

The booklet also describes many heroic parish priests and nuns who stayed through bombardment and occupation to serve those too elderly or sick to leave. Soeur Julie of Gerbeveller remained at her post as superior of the hospital when most of the population had fled and much of the town had been reduced to rubble. When the Germans started to pillage the church, she remonstrated with them and rescued the Blessed Sacrament. Later Soeur Julie and her sisters treated wounded German soldiers alongside French ones.

There are also stories which involve atrocities perpetrated by German troops in Belgium, some against priests and nuns. But many others recount incidents of Germans acting as fellowChristians.

Stories of the Great War, first printed in 1915, is part of the CTS OneFifty Heritage Series republished this year.

For more information see: www.ctsbooks.org/stories-of-thegreat-war/ Oremus

JANUARY 2019

FROM THE CHAIRMAN

The Administrator writes This being the January edition of Oremus and the first issue of 2019, I must therefore begin by wishing you all a very happy, peaceful and blessed New Year and I do so as Archbishop Michael Ramsay would have said ‘right gladly’. However, the fact that I am writing this on Tuesday in the second week of Advent makes these good wishes seem a little distant, but such are the demands of demands of the editor of Oremus that I am compelled to write with a January mind-set even before we have celebrated Christmas.

As I have written before, I love the season of Advent and Christmas coming as they do in the northern hemisphere in the midst of winter, but I also happen to enjoy some of the secular aspects of Christmas such as the decorated shop windows (not that I am a shopper), the Christmas lights and trees in our streets, the decorations seen in people’s windows and, of course, the special delights on the Christmas table. Whilst most of us are fortunate enough to enjoy some, if not all of these pleasures, there are many in our world, and in our city, who do not and it is our bounden duty to remember them and share with them if we can. We are not short of appeals for money at Christmas, coming from near and far, and I was very pleased to see the generous response to John Scanlan’s appeal on behalf of the Friends of the Holy Land. Nearer to home, could I suggest a gift, either of money or of warm clothing, to the work of the Passage or to the Crib Appeal for the Catholic Children’s Society.

Westminster Cathedral Cathedral Clergy House 42 Francis Street London SW1P 1QW Telephone 020 7798 9055 Service times 020 7798 9097 Email chreception@rcdow.org.uk www.westminstercathedral.org.uk Cathedral Chaplains Canon Christopher Tuckwell, Administrator Fr Daniel Humphreys, Sub-Administrator Fr Julio Albornoz Fr Michael Donaghy Fr Andrew Gallagher, Precentor Fr Rajiv Michael Fr Michael Quaicoe Fr John Scott, Registrar Sub-Administrator’s Intern Oliver Delargy Also in residence Franciscan Sisters of Our Lady of Victories Music Department Martin Baker, Master of Music Peter Stevens Obl. OSB, Assistant Master of Music Jonathan Allsopp, Organ Scholar Cathedral Manager Peter McNulty Estates Manager Neil Fairbairn Chapel of Ease Sacred Heart Church Horseferry Road SW1P 2EF

By the time you read this Christmas will have come and gone for another year and we will be looking ahead into the New Year so once again I wish you all a very happy New Year and may God bless and prosper all your hopes and intentions.

With every blessing and all good wishes

JANUARY 2019

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AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY

© The Royal Collection

A Lot of Lotto

Andrea Odoni, a portrait of 1527 when Lotto had recently moved to Venice

The National Gallery is staging the first-ever exhibition of portraits by the Italian Renaissance artist Lorenzo Lotto (1480-1557). Lorenzo Lotto Portraits brings together many of the painter's best portraits spanning his entire career from collections around the world. These include such masterpieces as the Bishop Bernardo de’ Rossi (1505) from the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples, united with its striking allegorical cover from the National Gallery of Art, Washington; and the monumental altarpiece of The Alms of St Antoninus of Florence (1540-2) from the Basilica Santi Giovanni e Paulo in Venice coming to the UK for the first time. In this painting Lotto not only inserted portraits of members of the commissioning confraternity, but also, highly unusually, paid poor people to sit for him.

Working during a time of profound change in Europe, Lotto was remarkable for depicting a wide variety of middleclass sitters, including clerics, merchants, artisans, and humanists. He portrayed men, women, and children in compositions rich with symbolism and great psychological depth. His works are characterised by expressive sensitivity and immediacy and are also known for their deeply saturated colours and luxuriant handling of paint. Born in Venice, Lotto travelled extensively and worked in different parts of Italy, most notably Treviso, Bergamo, Venice, and the Italian Marches. He spent his final years as a lay member of the confraternity of the Holy House at Loreto (1549-56).

In today’s terms, his disposition in the later decades of his 6

life would probably be described as clinically depressed. A melancholic empathy with his sitters is evident in his in late portraits.

Staged broadly chronologically, the exhibition starts with Lotto’s earliest portraits before exploring the work from his most significant periods in Bergamo and Venice and ending with the late paintings. Unusually for a National Gallery exhibition, objects related to those he depicted will also be displayed. Room I explores Lotto’s work from his time in Treviso (1503-6) and includes the Allegory (1505) from the National Gallery of Art, Washington and the spectacular Assumption of the Virgin with Ss Anthony Abbot and Louis of Toulouse (1506) from the Chiesa Prepositurale e Collegiata di Santa Maria Assunta, Asolo. Focusing on his Bergamasque period (1513-25), Room II contains the cleverly symbolic Lucina Brembati (about 1520-3) and The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine of Alexandria, with Niccolò Bonghi (1523) both from Bergamo’s Accademia Carrara; as well as the Portrait of a Married Couple (1523-4) from the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, which has been cleaned in preparation for the exhibition. Room III is dedicated to works produced in Venice (1525-49), such as the famous likeness of the Venetian collector Andrea Odoni from the Royal Collection (1527), the National Gallery’s own Portrait of a Woman inspired by Lucretia (about 1530-2) and the Portrait of a Young Man with a Lizard (1528-30) from the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice.

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AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY

Companions of Oremus

We are very grateful for the support of the following:

The final room celebrates the late work and includes the remarkably well-preserved and affecting Portrait of a Man with a Felt Hat (1541?) from the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, as well as the altarpiece of The Alms of St Antoninus of Florence (1540-2). Objects relating to the portraits show how the meaning of Lotto’s paintings extends from the sitter to their surroundings. He painted these not so much to reflect a given sitter’s opulence and wealth, but to help tell their story and reflect their identity. Among items on display are a carpet, sculpture, jewellery, clothing, and books.

Matthias Wivel, Curator of 16th-century Italian Paintings at the National Gallery, and curator of the exhibition, says: ‘Lotto’s empathetic approach to his sitters, his attention to detail and his willingness to explore new formats and ways of composing portraits all contribute to a body of work that is astonishingly varied and feels more direct, less filtered, than those of his contemporaries, notably Titian’s more elevated, idealised portraiture. Lotto portrayed people from an unusually wide variety of social backgrounds. His attention to clothes and objects in his paintings helps acutely to define the sitter’s identity, social status and aspirations; and the psychological interest he brings to his portraits is of the highest order – no two subjects appear similar and there is a sense of understanding what makes each sitter tick’.

The Director of the National Gallery, Dr Gabriele Finaldi, sums the artist up: ‘A contemporary of Titian, Lotto was one of the most original portrait painters of the Renaissance.

The scholars and merchants, artisans and clerics and the family groups he depicted are vibrant with personality and psychological depth. Five centuries on they come alive before us in all their human complexity’.

The Exhibition Lorenzo Lotto Portraits is in the Ground Floor Rooms at the National Gallery until 10 February 2019 and admission is free.

Mrs Mary Barsh Mrs Else Benson in memoriam Dr Stuart Blackie Mr Denis Board Anne Veronica Bond Richard Bremer Francis George Clark Daniel Crowley Ms Georgina Enang Alfredo Fernandez Fred Gardiner Connie Gibbes Zoe & Nick Goodway Mrs Valerie Hamblen Bernadette Hau Mrs Henry Hely-Hutchinson Mrs Cliona Howell Alice M Jones & Jacob F Jones Poppy K Mary Thérèse Kelly Florence M G Koroma Raymund Livesey Barry Lock Alan Lloyd in memoriam Clare and John Lusby James Maple Dionne Marchetti Mary Maxwell Pamela McGrath Linda McHugh Peter McNelly in memoriam Mrs C Mitchell-Gotell Abundia Toledo Munar Chris Stewart Munro Mrs Brigid Murphy Kate Nealon Raymond O’Sullivan Emel Rochat Berenice Roetheli Patrick Rogers RIP John Scanlan Mr Luke Simpson Sonja Soper Tessa and Ben Strickland Eileen Terry Robin Michael Tinsley Mr Alex Walker Christiana Thérèse Macarthy-Woods Jacqueline Worth Patricia M Wright and of our anonymous Companions

If you would like to become a Companion of Oremus, see page 4

© The National Gallery

New in Cathedral Gift Shop

The Volta Family, a portrait of 1547, towards the end of Lotto’s life JANUARY 2019

Oremus

We are pleased to announce an exquisite addition to the range of gifts available in Westminster Cathedral Gift Shop.

Cross pens are renowned worldwide for their design and quality and we now have for sale a luxury ball-point pen which comes with the Cathedral logo and in its own box.

This will make an excellent gift for a loved one on that special occasion.

Retail Price: £35.00

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LEARNING TO THINK

On Divine Providence Mgr Ronald Knox

Man is conscious, even when science is in its infancy, that natural effects follow natural causes. I have never been able to believe in that strange figment of anthropology, the savage who is supposed never to have grasped the idea of uniformity in nature, and attributes all occurrences whatever to the incalculable whim of his gods. If a volcano is in eruption, he may betake himself to prayer, but he also runs away; he knows that, in default of some miraculous intervention, the lava will flow downhill, not uphill. How does he know that, if he does not believe in the uniformity of nature? He does not sow wheat, and pray for barley to come up instead; he does not shoot flint arrows in to air, and pray for a deer to come and stop them; he watches, and depends on the habits of his animal neighbours. No, we all know, and we always have known, that effects follow causes, and follow them regularly; we all admit that (unless once and again miracle has intervened) the process of material nature has gone forward relentlessly, from cause to effect, ever since the worlds came into existence. In the strict sense, nothing happens; everything proceeds, and has always proceeded, according to schedule.

But though this process of natural law is, viewed in itself, a continuous stream, admitting no hair’s-breadth deviation, it becomes a chain of incidents, of catastrophes, where it crosses the lives of men. The earthquake, in obedience to mysterious principles which we have no power to trace, is bound to occur just at this particular moment, just at this particular spot; but at the moment when it occurs that spot may be in the middle of a desolate prairie, or in the heart of some great industrial centre. In the former case, it is just an interesting natural phenomenon; in the latter case it is an event; it has acquired a human interest; has played a significant part in the lives of intelligent beings.

I know that a silly habit has grown up in recent years of pretending that nature overshadows Man; that the destruction of a city means only an infinitesimal alteration in the death statistics of one particular kind of animal, quite unimportant as compared with the majestic upheaval that has caused it. This is cant and folly; there is nothing majestic about an earthquake unless there are men to know about it and to feel the consequences of it; there is no importance at all about a Mars-quake, if such things occur. The materialist may put up a case for saying that man does not matter; but if he proves his case it is quite certain that nothing else matters; he should be called an immaterialist for his pains.

There could have been nothing about the fall of the bridge at San Luis Rey to justify its commemoration in a novel, if nobody had been crossing when it fell. It is just because so many human lives are ended by the fall, all at one moment yet at a moment which is different for each, 8

that it becomes an event. There was nothing unusual about the storm which dispersed the Armada except the fact that an Armada happened to be on the seas at the time. Nor will the widow whose husband has been killed in an accident derive any consolation from a lecture on the law of centrifugal force. Man is not content to know merely how things happen; he must needs go on asking, even though he gets no answer to his question, why things happen. He must have an attitude on the subject; and there are three attitudes possible.

You may believe in chance, or in fate, or in Providence.

Belief (if you can call it a belief) in chance is necessary to the materialist; he can think in no other terms. For the ordinary man, belief in chance is a mood rather than a conviction; it sits on him lightly when he does not think much, and results in a vague optimism; when he thinks too much, it becomes a despairing refuge from thought. Belief in fate, which has logically nothing to recommend it, is a far commoner instinct. Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian, will tell you that a catastrophe happened to some figure in his story ‘when it was necessary that evil should befall him’; and, with precisely the same notion lurking in their minds, soldiers in the late War [World War I – Ed.] would refer to a death under the presumably theatrical metaphor, ‘his number is up’.

There is an obstinate feeling, at least among men who are accustomed to take risks, that their lives are somehow arranged beforehand; they cannot tell who makes the arrangement, nor why, nor even. Commonly, whether the arrangement is beneficent, or malignant, or merely neutral; but they will have it that the events of life are ruled by more than mere chance. This, I suppose, is why superstition always begins to step in where religion dies; the gambler has his mascots, and the fortune-tellers reap their harvest, and men believe, or half-believe, in their lucky or unlucky stars.

But the instinct of religion, normally, is something quite different. It attributes the events of life, the moments at which our careers come in jarring contact with the lawgoverned world around us, to a purpose deliberately formed by a personal will. Not necessarily a beneficent will; there is plenty of room, especially in primitive theologies, for the influence of evil spirits. But the religious view of history, even at its lowest, is not mere fatalism; it assumes purpose, and, in proportion as the religion becomes more vital and more operative, assumes a friendly purpose. Sometimes we find a belief in fate and a belief in Providence existing side by side, with some confusion of thought as the result; the powerlessness of the Almighty Zeus to go beyond the decrees of the fates is an instance in point – in the last resort, he can only stand beside the balance and pull the string, to let the fates automatically do their work.

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LEARNING TO THINK

But as love casts out fear, so belief in a loving Providence supersedes, in the end, belief in the dreadfulness of fate.

And the theology preached by our Lord adopts a perfectly uncompromising attitude: ‘Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father’. Not content with the assertion that a divine conspiracy of goodness watches over the destinies of men, our Lord will have it that the most trivial incidents in nature – the impact with which a sparrow flies against a telegraph wire – are all foreordained, are all part of a scheme. There is no unit of force in the Universe, however regulated according to the principles of natural law, which does not come directly from a sentient and a loving God. Historically, the influence of this teaching has been immense. For 1,900 years, men have lived by the belief that their fortunes were directly in God’s hands, and the Saints of Christendom and the great heroes of non-Catholic Christianity have uniformly been men who felt, from day to day, the influence of a divine purpose upon their lives.

And the Christian revelation goes further than this. Like all the effective religions of the world, it believes in petitionary prayer; in the power of human intercession to influence the purposes of Providence. Not in the sense, ordinarily, of suspending the action the action of natural laws; that would be miracle. What we mean, in the last resort, by ‘an answer to prayer’, is that from the beginning of time, before he set about the building of the worlds, God foreknew every prayer that human lips would breathe, and took it into account.

That, and nothing less, is the staggering claim which we make every time we say the ‘Our Father’.

Extracted from Caliban in Grub Street by the late Mgr Knox, published in 1930 in London by Sheed and Ward.

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© Hugh Llewelyn

Belief in a Providentially-ordered Universe does not necessarily involve any belief in the efficacy of prayer. It is possible to conceive of a world-order on which God should do what is best for each human being without reference to any desires stated or even entertained by us. Carior est illis homo quam sibi, wrote the satirist upon the vanity of human wishes – the gods love us better than we love ourselves; why, then, this impertinent affectation of trying to alter their purpose? But the converse is surely untrue – you cannot believe in the efficacy of prayer, as that is normally understood, in the Providential government of the world. If you are going to say, for example, that A can recover from his illness as the result of B’s prayers, you must surely imply that there is a Power sufficiently personal to be conscious that B is praying, and sufficiently powerful to decide whether the illness results in a return to health or not.

Mgr Knox’s grave in the churchyard of St Andrew, Mells in Somerset 9

A MONARCH IN EXILE

A Portuguese Memorial in Twickenham Dr Stuart Blackie KCHS In April 2018 there was a Requiem Mass and Dedication of two windows celebrated at St James, Twickenham for the Portuguese Dead of the First World War, the Principal Celebrant being Bishop John Wilson, Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster. The windows were designed by Caroline Benyon, Fellow of the Master Glass Painters and Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Glazers. She has previously won competitions to design and make windows for buildings including St Alban’s Cathedral, the Temple Church in the City of London and, last year, became one of two artists to design stained glass for St Paul’s Cathedral.

One window commemorates the humanitarian work of King Manuel II of Portugal during the First World War. In it, the Archangel Raphael, who healed the father of Tobit, surmounts symbols of the healing work of the King. The caravel in blue reflects support given by members of the Anglo-Portuguese Society.

The second window honours the nearly 12,000 Portuguese, Angolan and Mozambiquan dead of the War. These casualties occurred mainly on the Western Front and in East Africa.

In this window, the Archangel Michael, who drove Lucifer from Heaven, surmounts symbols of the War. The congregation included Manuel Lobo Antunes LVO, the Portuguese Ambassador, Field Marshal The Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank GCB, previously Colonel Commandant of the Intelligence Corps and Colonel Commandant of the SAS and currently Colonel of the Life Guards and Gold Stick to the Queen, Sir Vincent Cable, MP for Twickenham, Prince Sebastian of Luxemburg, the Rt Hon Ruth Kelly, representing St Mary’s University, Joana Gaspar, the Portuguese ConsulGeneral, Helen Pickering, representing the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, and the outgoing Deputy Mayor of Richmond and parishioner, Cllr Benedict Dias. The Portuguese choir of Camden Town parish sang beautifully and a Guard of Honour was provided by local veterans.

The ceremony was performed on the centenary of the Battle of Lys (7 - 29 April 1918). This battle, also known as the Fourth Battle of Ypres, was part of the 1918 German 10

Spring Offensive in Flanders. Originally planned by General Ludendorff, its objective was the capture of Ypres, forcing the British forces back to the Channel ports and out of the war. It was later calculated that, in this battle, the Portuguese Expeditionary Force lost 400 dead, with around 6,500 taken prisoner on 9 April, a third of its forces in the front line. At a previous event at the Cavalry and Guards Club, this battle was described to us by Major General Sir Sebastian Roberts, formerly commanding the Household Division and General Officer Commanding London District.

His family are members of the parish of St James.

Portugal has been known in this country as our ‘oldest ally’, a title which refers to the Treaty of Windsor, signed on 9 May 1386 and sealed by the marriage of King John I of Portugal to Philippa, daughter of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster. The country did not initially form part of the system of alliances involved in World War I and thus remained neutral at the start of the conflict in 1914 but ultimately, tensions between Portugal and Germany resulted in declarations of war, first by Germany against Portugal in March 1916.

The link between Portugal and Twickenham was established by King Manuel II, the last Portuguese monarch, who reigned for just two and a half years before Portugal declared itself a republic. Though he was the youngest child of King Carlos I and Princess Amélie of Orléans, he found himself unexpectedly on the throne of Portugal, aged just 18 years, when on 1 February 1908 the royal family was attacked by assassins. His father was shot in the head, dying instantly, and his brother, Luís Filipe, was also mortally injured and died very shortly afterwards.

At first, the new King received a great level of sympathy and support, primarily due to his youth and the tragic circumstances which put him on the throne. However, the political climate was unstable and there was a great deal of Republican pressure. The Republican party seized power and, on 4 October 1910, in what is now known as the Republican Revolution, overthrew the Portuguese monarchy; King Oremus

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A MONARCH IN EXILE Manuel would eventually live out the rest of his life in exile in Twickenham. There he devoted himself to humanitarian projects, including the British Red Cross, and endowed the Military Orthopaedic Hospital which is now the Hammersmith Hospital.

King Manuel and Queen Augusta Victoria worshipped in the parish of St James, Twickenham, from his marriage in 1913 until his untimely death in 1932 from a throat infection. Both the King and Queen were godparents to many Confirmation candidates during those years. Amongst other sacred objects, a salver and cruets were passed to the parish on his death.

In 1932, a stained glass window dedicated to St Anthony of Lisbon (commonly known as St Anthony of Padua) was installed. This complimented the 1925 window dedicated to St Edmund of Abingdon in memory of Canon Edmund English.

Both widows were donated by the King. After his death, the Queen donated the organ which he played to the parish and its headpiece bearing the Royal escutcheon may still be seen in the old choir loft. As well as being an accomplished organist, the King was an assiduous bibliophile.

After all King Manuel had done for the parish, the situation remained that the parish did not have any memorial to him. This was rectified by the current Parish Priest, Fr Ulick Loring. With the help of the Royal and Equestrian Order of St Michael of the Wing, a Portuguese order of chivalry founded in 1147, a plaque was unveiled by the Mayor of Richmond, Councillor Cecilia Hodges, on the 25th anniversary of the

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establishment of the Order in the UK, Michaelmas Day, 29 September 2009 and blessed by Bishop George Stack. The Portuguese Royal Family was represented on this occasion by His Royal Highness, the Infante Dom Miguel de Braganza, Duke of Viseu. The latter and the then Ambassador António Santana Carlos, laid a wreath in honour of the Portuguese War dead. The white marble memorial was inscribed with a carefully-worded epitaph in English referring to King Manuel as ‘His Most Faithful Majesty’, a title of long standing bestowed

by Pope Benedict XIV in 1749 on the King of Portugal. His faithfulness, as pointed out by Bishop Stack in his homily on the occasion, was the essence of King Manuel’s sacrifice for his country in 1910. As a Christian monarch, he realised that if he returned to Portugal, it would precipitate a civil war between the monarchists and the republicans. As he did not wish this on his own country, he chose to remain in exile. In recognition of this sacrifice, the Portuguese Republican Government granted King Manuel a state funeral in 1932 when he died.

The sense of history at St James and the contribution of King Manuel to the parish of Twickenham have resulted in this first official memorial in this country which recognises the contribution to the war effort by Portugal - albeit a century later.

St James, Twickenham was the home parish of our late Cathedral Historian, Patrick Rogers, the blessing of whose own memorial plaque in the church was recently reported in Oremus.

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YOUNG, GREEN, SANE

A Healing Garden in Trafford Park Young Christian Workers

Increasingly, mental health is closely linked to the whole question of the environment and communities we inhabit, a point that Pope Francis makes in Laudato Si’ in relation to social media: ‘Today’s media do enable us to communicate and to share our knowledge and affections. Yet at times they also shield us from direct contact with the pain, the fears and the joys of others and the complexity of their personal experiences. For this reason, we should be concerned that, alongside the exciting possibilities offered by these media, a deep and melancholic dissatisfaction with interpersonal relations, or a harmful sense of isolation, can also arise. It is this melancholy and anxiety that the YCW hoped to draw attention to and alleviate in its campaign. But it has also made the National Team of the YCW reflect on how it uses all of its resources – including the HQ – to create genuine and thriving communities.

Marc Besford, National Training and Development Worker, said: ‘We have analysed the responses to our online survey and the suggestions regarding how we can raise awareness about mental health. Therefore, out of this project, one of the things we are exploring is a practical scheme to transform the garden which surrounds 12

our HQ into a place of relaxation, peace and community for the workers, parishioners, young people in the area and all YCW members.

Our HQ is currently in the centre of Europe’s biggest industrial park, next to a busy daytime shopping parade, with effectively no communal green spaces to use. In many ways it can best summarised by Pope Francis’ description of our cities as: “huge, inefficient structures, excessively wasteful of energy and water [in which] neighbourhoods, even those recently built, are congested, chaotic and lacking in sufficient green space. We were not meant to be inundated by cement, asphalt, glass and metal, and deprived of physical contact with nature”.

We are hoping that the garden will become an oasis of tranquility and a space for reflection in the midst of a busy world. We would like to remind people that: ”Work should be the setting for rich personal growth, where many aspects of life enter into play: creativity, planning for the future, developing our talents, living out our values, relating to others, giving glory to God.” (Laudato Si, 127).

Another part of the garden project would include a growing garden and allotment, as this would be a unique opportunity to engage more deeply with former parishioners of the area, many of whom still regularly visit the

site and have expressed their support for and willingness to help with the proposals’.

St John Paul II reflected in his encyclical Salvifici Doloris on the topic of suffering, offering a hopeful view that there can be value, worth and purpose in suffering: ‘Whoever suffers from mental illness always bears God’s image and likeness in himself, as does every human being. In addition, he always has the inalienable right not only to be considered as an image of God and therefore as a person, but also to be treated as such’.

Kate Wilkinson, National President of the YCW, adds: ‘With our growing number of groups, we have plans to use our HQ more regularly for training and activities with you, our volunteers and young members. Alongside this project we are also looking at exploring other ways in which we can make a difference and use your passion and commitment to help young people who are suffering from mental health within your communities. As well as this, within the YCW we have plenty of former members who live locally and are looking for ways to help support our movement, including grounds maintenance and fundraising’.

You can read more about Young Christian Workers here: www.ycwimpact.com

© M J Richardson (cc-by-sa/2.0)

Over the past year, the organisation Young Christian Workers (YCW) has been running a national campaign called ‘MIND! The Gap’, which focuses on young people and mental health.

YCW gathered comments from over 1,000 young people across England and Wales and has been using this feedback to develop new initiatives in schools, parishes and workplaces to help raise awareness about this important issue.

In addition, YCW – which developed the well-known ‘See-Judge-Act’ method – has used the ‘Act’ stage to see what more can be done to address gaps in the support systems for young people.

Trafford Park, home to the YCW, is in the right-hand section of this aerial image; not much greenery there.

Oremus

JANUARY 2019

ART UPDATE

Panels Reunited The November Oremus drew to your attention the exhibition Mantegna and Bellini at the National Gallery.

Some have been to visit and enjoyed it, but do consider going again since, unusually, an additional item has been added. Two panels of a single painting by Andrea Mantegna have just been reunited for the first time in possibly 500 years. The upper section, The Resurrection of Christ (around 1492) has been in the collection of the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo since the 19th century, but was only recently reattributed to Mantegna. For the exhibition, the lower half, The Descent of Christ into Limbo (around 1492), was loaned to the National Gallery by a private collector.

© National Gallery

was established with The Descent of Christ into Limbo. It is believed the panels were painted for the chapel in the castle at Mantua, where Mantegna spent much of his life working for the Gonzaga family, although it is not known exactly when the pictures were separated. However, it was very common for Italian paintings of this date to be divided when their function changed, particularly if they were made for a religious context. Since the attribution to Mantegna in May 2018 The Resurrection of Christ has undergone restoration to remove 19th century varnish and repaint, before travelling to London to be hung above The Descent of Christ into Limbo, which was already in Room 2 of the exhibition.

The Resurrection of Christ being installed above The Descent of Christ into Limbo

The re-evaluation of The Resurrection of Christ came after the discovery of a small cross beneath the stone arch, which suggested it may have been part of a bigger panel.

Comparisons were made with several works before the link

Caroline Campbell, National Gallery Director of Collections and Research, reports that: ‘We are absolutely delighted that The Resurrection of Christ is now displayed as conceived, above The Descent of Christ into Limbo.

These are important works from Mantegna’s later career, so we are thrilled to be able to give visitors to the exhibition a first chance to see the works reunited’.

M. Cristina Rodeschini, Director of Accademia Carrara comments: ‘The end of a restoration project is always a moment of satisfaction, and this is true to an even greater degree following the extremely delicate work on Andrea Mantegna’s The Resurrection of Christ. The interest of the public, who were able to follow the work every step of the way in one of the museum galleries, made this an exemplary project. The decision to lend it to the National Gallery in London, upon completion of the restoration, is the worthy culmination of an inspired journey of research’.

Mantegna and Bellini continues at the National Gallery until 27 January.

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13

KEEP SUNDAY SPECIAL!

Notre Dame Du Dimanche, Our Lady of Sunday David Fenton

In a serene location, in the grounds of a retirement home on the outskirts of Saint-Bauzille de la Sylve, one finds one of the least known sanctuaries, authenticated by the Church, of Marian visions in the 19th century. The sanctuary is situated in the parish of Saint-Benoît Val D’Erau in the diocese of Montpellier. This area of France, the Languedoc, has more vines under cultivation than the whole of Australia and California put together.

The parish priest had only arrived in April, did not know Auguste, was sceptical and suggested that he should keep quiet about what he thought he saw. But Auguste was adamant that he should carry out the lady’s wishes. He erected a temporary wooden cross and commissioned a steel one from a forge in Montpellier which was to arrive before the month was up. The parish priest refused to bless it, although Auguste carried out the other tasks, taking his family on the requested pilgrimages. Word spread, and when he returned on 8 July early in the morning there was a crowd of some 500-600, some believers, some curious, others sceptics and nonbelievers. His friends were worried that nothing further would happen and he would be held up to ridicule, but Auguste was confident that the lady would return.

A sharp gust of wind seemed to knock his pick-axe from his hand and his hat came off with a jerk. He looked up and saw the vision two yards in front of him and extended his hands, his eyes fixed and his face pale, in a trance. This time the Blessed Virgin was in gold raiment, holding a rosary in her left hand, and moved swiftly to a place above the metal cross

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© David Fenton

It was Trinity Sunday 1873, when Auguste Arnaud, 30 years of age, married with two children, was tending his vines early in the morning. He had to do this on a Sunday as he had other responsibilities to his patron during the week. He found himself confronted by the vision of a lady in white with a small mitre-shaped crown on her head. He asked: ‘Who are you?’ She replied, in the local patois, ‘I am the Blessed Virgin.

Do not be afraid. You have the disease of the vine [phylloxera, which attacks roots, was widespread at the time]. You missed the patron saint [Saint-Bauzille]. Go on Thursday, his day, and hear Mass at Saint-Antoine, and today make a procession to Notre Dame de Grace at 3pm and make pilgrimages in the cantons of Montpellier, Gignac and Lodève. You should erect a cross with a Virgin at the bottom of the vineyard and make procession there every year. Go to your father and the curé and tell them what they must do. I shall return in a month to thank you’.

Notre Dame du Dimanche at the site of the first apparition with the Virgin installed by Auguste. In a moment he was again two yards away, having seemed to traverse some 40 yards across the vines in a flash without tripping up, in some form of levitation which appeared to the assembled crowd to defy the laws of physics. They could not see the Virgin but some testified to a cloud of mist in the area of the cross ‘Il ne faut pas travailler le Dimanche [You should not work on a Sunday].

Happy are those who believe, unhappy are those who do not.

Come here in procession every year. Let them sing canticles’.

She then blessed the crowd with her right hand and ascended into the sky. Auguste said in a weak voice to his father when he came out of his trance: ‘Let the people sing’. So the crowd sang the Magnificat and other canticles in devotion.

Oremus

JANUARY 2019

KEEP SUNDAY SPECIAL! The bishop and the vicar general were not keen on phenomena of visions of the Blessed Virgin and did nothing to investigate further the happenings at Saint-Bauzille. However a new Bishop, Mgr de Cabrières (later a cardinal), came the following year and was much more enthusiastic about such phenomena and set up a commission of enquiry under three senior clergy and the parish priest. They grilled Auguste for four hours on the first day on site and in the presbytery and then again over several days, asking the same questions to check for any inconsistencies in his story, but there were none.

Other witnesses to his character and from the crowd were also carefully examined. One priest close to the dossier concluded: ‘C’est plus solide que La Salette, c’est aussi solide que Lourdes’ [It is more sound than La Salette, it’s just as sound as Lourdes].

Mgr de Cabrières announced that he believed the visions were genuine and the cross erected by Auguste was blessed on 15 June 1877, with the bishop giving permission to the curé to set up a small sanctuary in October 1979. A chapel was built and three statues of the Virgin were placed at the sites of the apparitions.

In May 2018 year a new Association, with membership by subscription, was established. Its aim is to promote the wellbeing of the Sanctuary of Notre Dame du Dimanche, to look after its fabric, and in particular to prepare for the 150th anniversary of the apparitions in 2023. It can be contacted at: Les Amis de Notre Dame du Dimanche, 11 Place de la Pradette, 34230, Saint-Bauzille de la Sylve.

Notre Dame du Dimanche faites que notre âme soit une belle vigne, preservée de la maladie des soucis trop matériels, debarrassée de la mauvaise herbe du péché et porteuse de fruits éternels.

Our Lady of Sunday, grant that our souls may be a pleasing vine, safe from the sickness of material concerns, unencumbered by the weed of sin, but the bearer of eternal fruits.

David Fenton lives and worships in London, whilst retaining links with Australia and rural France.

© David Fenton

Despite difficulties following the 1905 Concordat of the French State concerning religious properties, the sanctuary has survived to the present day, with pilgrimages on 8 June and 8 July, with Mass, Rosary and torchlight processions. Auguste Arnaud lived until he was 92, seeing the death of his wife and three of his six children. With the permission of the Préfecture, he was buried in the grounds of the sanctuary on 10 February 1936, at the feet of the Virgin he loved so much and served so faithfully, as the inscription on his grave puts it.

Over 100 people attended Mass on 8 June last year in a new hall behind the retirement home, coinciding with the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, although the Mass celebrated was that of Mary, Mother of God.

The chapel at the Sanctuary JANUARY 2019

Oremus

15

THE CATHEDRAL IN FLIGHT

Birds of Silent Song Patrick Rogers There are more birds portrayed in Westminster Cathedral than any other animal. Many of these have symbolic meanings or carry a message bot others are just, well … birds. To start with there is the eagle, the symbol of St John the Evangelist, the youngest of the apostles. This appears above right in the great blue mosaic on the arch above the Sanctuary, at the base of the 30-foot high crucifix at the end of the nave and in marble at the foot of the figure of St John on the pulpit.

The Blessed Sacrament Chapel contains a variety of symbolic birds. In a niche on the right before the entrance is a phoenix, said to rise from its own ashes and the symbol of the Resurrection. Opposite is a peacock, symbolising both immortality and the all-seeing eyes of God. In fact there was often confusion between these two birds which, since the phoenix is a mythical creature and eye-witness accounts therefore rare and unreliable, is perhaps not surprising. There is another peacock on the floor of St Joseph’s Chapel, four more beside the altar in St Paul’s, one in the Lady Chapel and eight at the top of one of the little columns supporting the pulpit.

Staying in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, the next bird we come to is a pelican with three young, this time in gilt bronze at the top of the entrance arch. It is the symbol of sacrifice, since the bird was said to feed its offspring with blood from its own breast. The origin of this understanding was probably the staining of the pelican’s feathers with regurgitated fish. A second pelican is to be found at the top of the tabernacle. At the other end of the Cathedral are two more pelicans, rather plump and well-fed ones, in flight above the tower lift entrance.

The peacock flaunts its tail feathers on the floor of St Joseph's Chapel 16

St Francis, with his flock of birds, is a more recent addition to the Cathedral aviary

Probably the most commonly portrayed bird in churches is the dove, since it carries so many messages. In the apse above the altar of the Blessed Sacrament Chapel it symbolises the Holy Spirit. On the arch dividing the apse from the nave the 12 doves are the 12 Apostles, while on the right just after the entrance to this chapel you will see Noah’s dove (remarkably like a wood pigeon), carrying an olive branch and symbolising peace between God and mankind. The last birds in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel are two hoopoes in a basket carried by, I think, Shem, as Noah and his family leave the ark. Whilst not explicitly symbols in themselves, here they represent the survival of all living creatures.

Moving up the aisle towards St Joseph’s Chapel now, St Nicholas, patron saint of mariners among others, is to be found in a niche on the right accompanied by a wren, the message here being simply that this is a memorial to the wartime head of the WRNS. St Joseph’s Chapel itself has four doves in a basket at the top of the great purple column.

These were modelled on those above the priest’s entrance in the Byzantine church of Santa Sophia (Holy Wisdom) in Constantinople (now Istanbul). The basket shows that they are sacrificial. More doves appear further up the aisle, this time on four blue medallions hanging from electric chandeliers in the Chapel of the Holy Souls, with four more across the nave in the Chapel of Pope St Gregory the Great and St Augustine. These chandeliers were modelled on Byzantine jewellery.

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JANUARY 2019

THE CATHEDRAL IN FLIGHT

Look up to your left, St Lucy

St Gregory has his own, rather nice, personal dove – the Holy Spirit, of course – whispering into his ear. It is said that his secretary once pulled back a curtain to reveal the saint being given divine inspiration in this way. I am afraid that the doves next door in St Patrick’s Chapel are rather more mundane, 28 of them, all with very large feet, at the top of the little columns below the windows. And so we come to St Andrew’s Chapel, a positive aviary. The dove high above the altar and crucifix must represent the Holy Spirit, but there are another 33 message-free birds under the arches. Being no ornithologist, I can only say that those above St Andrew all look like pigeons and doves while those opposite, above the altar, include three kingfishers, two jays, a moorhen and a green woodpecker. But I am sure someone else can do much better than that. Past St Paul’s Chapel now, and Our Lady’s father, St Joachim, is in the niche to the right with a pair of sacrificial doves in a basket. A little further on, the window arch above the confessional contains St Peter and St Mary Magdalene with another dove amidst the green foliage and a cock on the building beside St Peter – a reminder of his denying Our Lord thrice before the cock crowed.

Our second aviary now is the Lady Chapel. On the left is an alert robin above the flower-studded garland which is really a rosary. Moving on, we have a diving swallow and then a blackbird feeding three hungry nestlings. A lark (I think) flies in the arch to the left of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour with two blue tits to her right. Another swallow is above St Dominic with his rosary while below, in the little pictures recounting Our Lady’s life, we reach the Annunciation with the dove of the Holy Spirit swooping down above the Angel Gabriel. Two more doves are below the Pietà and a chaffinch perches high up above St John. Moving into the apse, as Jesus is presented in the Temple Joseph is behind him carrying a basket with two sacrificial doves. A little later two swallows (the bird of consolation) fly behind him and Mary as they anxiously discover their 12 year-old disputing with the doctors of the Law. Either side of the altar are the Old Testament prophets Daniel and Ezekiel, each with two domestic geese.

Since both prophets warned of approaching danger, this could be an allusion to the geese of Rome which alerted the soldiers of the sleeping garrison to the approach of the Gauls.

Above the altar in the Lady Chapel the Tree of Life rises above the living water from which a goosander (perhaps) is about to drink. In the tree are a magpie, a blackbird, another black bird with a pink head (which my bird book refuses to recognise) and a dove. To the right, the window arch below St Agnes contains two more doves, that below St Lucy has four blue tits with a pair of jackdaws underneath, while just one blue tit appears in the arch below St Justina. In the rosary above the windows are first a swallow, then a wagtail and finally a magpie, while over the passage to the Sacristy is a very grand peacock. Lastly, the Coronation of Our Lady on the entrance arch is surmounted by a dove.

Our last bird in the Cathedral is on a tree in the Crypt, watching St Peter trying to walk on the water. And the total? One hundred and sixty-three, of which at least 44 are symbolic, 18 more carry a message and the rest are just … birds.

St Gregory receives divine advice JANUARY 2019

Oremus

The late Patrick Rogers was the Cathedral Historian and published this article in the April 1999 edition of Oremus magazine.

17

MONTHLY ALBUM

Glasses Raised

© St Mary Magdalen School

Parishioners came together for a party in Cathedral Hall to say farewell to Fr Andrew Bowden, who leaves the College of Chaplains to become Assistant Priest at New Southgate. That area of North London is not wholly unknown to him, as he lived and worshipped in Enfield parish before his seminary studies in Rome at the Venerable English College. Clergy House residents lose a sociable colleague, whilst Cathedral worshippers are grateful for a priest who has guided new members into the Church through the RCIA programme and others into matrimony through Marriage Preparation.

Well-behaved members of the congregation 18

Not at all Sheepish

It Wouldn’t be Christmas without It

Advent sees children from schools across the diocese gather in the Cathedral for two services in support of the Catholic Children’s Society. Bishop Paul McAleenan, with Mgr Phelim Rowland, bravely ignored the famous advice of the American actor W C Fields not to appear with animals or children, but were rewarded with continent behaviour by the animal stars of the show, perhaps slightly to the disappointment of the children?

All the Fun of the Fair

The morning Sunday Masses of the Second Sunday of Advent ended with the exhortation to go in to the Christmas Fair, pictured, and many did. The everincreasing quantity of stuff that had been arriving at Clergy House Reception over recent weeks was transported over, displayed, picked over and bought as desired. The Friends note elsewhere in Oremus the good profit that was made, which depends on much generosity on all sides, from helpers and visitors alike.

Oremus

JANUARY 2019

MONTHLY ALBUM

Lucy, all Lit Up

Gabriel in Action

SVP School’s Take on the Nativity Those who come to pray in the Cathedral on weekday afternoons around the end of November onwards are familiar with rehearsals for SVP School’s Nativity Play. As an hourlong musical production, it is quite a feat, with the whole school involved one way or another, from the youngest upward. Seen here is the Angel Gabriel moving the story forward whilst the choir sings in support.

Do not try this at home!

The Cathedral welcomed the Swedish community and its guests again for their celebration of Sankta Lucia. The Ambassador spoke and referenced both cold Swedish winters and a wider climate of uncertainty in this last year.

Then the Cathedral Special Choir sang from the sanctuary whilst, at the west end of the Cathedral, preparations started for St Lucy’s procession. All, we are relieved to report, went well and the buckets of water, strategically placed, were not required. The lights went out, the song started and the magic kicked in.

The Brigade in Force

Fire Officers, guests and a Salvation Army Band on the Piazza

The candles work their magic JANUARY 2019

Oremus

Officers of the London Fire Brigade, their families and guests, packed the Cathedral for their Carol Service and although it was a damp evening there was plenty of socialising on the piazza beforehand, with the inevitable plethora of pictures being taken. Not illustrated is the interior of the vintage fire engine, where officers were explaining the period equipment to serious children.

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ASSESSING AN ARCHBISHOP

Cardinal Heenan Revisited Fr Keith Sawyer

Cardinal John Carmel Heenan was Archbishop of Westminster from 1963 to 1976 and is buried by the pillar next to the pulpit in the Cathedral. As a priest who regularly hears confessions just beyond the pulpit, I am therefore conscious of his tomb and thus of his contribution to the life of the Catholic Church in Westminster and beyond. For practical purposes, I shall refer to him as JCH in this article.

JCH was born in 1905 in Ilford, which at that time was in Westminster diocese, Brentwood emerging only in 1917. It was for Brentwood diocese that JCH was ordained in 1930. His two-volume autobiography makes interesting reading, but unfortunately for us stops at his enthronement in Westminster in 1963. Volume I goes through his early life, studies and priesthood to his ordination as Bishop of Leeds in 1951, then Volume II takes us through Leeds, Liverpool (as Archbishop) and thence back to Westminster. I am sure there will be some priests who remember JCH personally, though as he died over 42 years ago that number will not be enormous. If I had gone to St Edmund’s College, Ware, which was then the Westminster seminary (as some Northampton students did), I would have seen him in person, but going to St Mary’s College, Oscott outside Birmingham I saw much more of his friend Archbishop George Patrick Dwyer, who preached at his funeral and was, hopefully but not realistically, tipped as his successor.

In his first volume JCH gives quite a lot of comment about his early vocation and the role of his mother in supporting this. I’m sorry, Mrs Heenan, but I find it hard to warm to you and I hope we shall meet in heaven and be able to laugh at my

20

dislike of your motherly ways! But, unlike my own parents who knew very little about Catholic priest, their training or lifestyle, I do feel JCH’s mother should have kept back a bit. Still, times change and whereas I would have liked more parental involvement in my seminary and priestly life, JCH perhaps may have thought: ‘Mother, again’.

I slightly disagree with JCH in his appraisal, written in the 1960s, of seminary students at that time. He makes the point that in his day, both at Ushaw College, Durham or at the Venerable English College, Rome, students expected to be ignored by the staff; whereas in the 60s he claimed they wanted to be loved. I think this is a trifle cynical. We all, priests, church students, whoever, have a right to be appreciated. We do not give that up just because we wear a clerical collar.

Equally, when I was at Oscott in the 70s, I did not particularly expect much acknowledgment from the staff, some of whom I was glad to keep clear of!

As a young priest, JCH went on a fact-finding visit to Russia, looking specifically into prisons. Having done some considerable prison chaplaincy myself, I warm to him in that mission. I read that when he was parish priest at Manor Park, he used to visit bereaved families at Christmas, especially those bereaved in the last year, making the comment that the first Christmas would be bleak.

Inspired by that, I remember visiting a widow in Slough in 24 December 1982, to be told that she had gone to Bingo! Then I visited an Indian family, who were having a party and plied me with wine. We all then went to Midnight Mass, they in a car and me on my moped. JCH wrote another book, The People’s Priest, which generally could be seen as warm in its

outlook, outlining at least when it was written what a good priest should be like. Times change; and perhaps JCH’s vision would not be fulfilled now. I think this is sad.

Mgr David Norris, JCH’s secretary, wrote of him that the Cardinal was the only cleric who could hold the Catholic Church together in the years after Vatican II (1962-65). By 1965 JCH was at Westminster, President of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales and a Cardinal, and clearly in a position of responsibility. I think he rose to the occasion, though I am sure some Westminster priests would disagree with me. But he set himself the incredible task of visiting all his parishes over the course of time.

He was perhaps a trifle conservative in matters of catechetics and those who went to Corpus Christi College, Bayswater may not perhaps remember him with great affection.

JCH obtained permission for older priests to continue to say the Tridentine Mass when the Revised Rite came out in the late 60s. Whilst that may have been the right decision then, I wonder if he would have supported the continuation of that now and the formation of younger Catholics in the Tridentine rites. The original indult was presumably for the good of priests who were quite old in 1960 something.

1967 saw the passing of the Abortion Act, and some claim that JCH was hoodwinked into downplaying any Catholic opposition, on the grounds that such would make it a Catholic versus non-Catholic issue, whereas in reality it was for the whole country to decide. There will probably be areas in this behind the scenes which we do not, perhaps will not ever, fully know about. 1968 then saw the encyclical Humanae Vitae and Oremus

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ASSESSING AN ARCHBISHOP

revealed across the Catholic world how sad Catholic disagreement on the issue of birth control could be.

Mgr Norris’ judgment, that JCH could hold the Catholic community together, seems here to be correct and, despite occasional outbursts, Catholics in this country remained loyal, if not fully in agreement. JCH’s directives were, in the main, to follow a conscience open to the Holy Spirit.

Archbishop Dwyer said at JCH’s funeral that he just got on with being a priest and never experienced the difficulties some priests do, perhaps especially those who left, and David Norris wrote much the same in his Dictionary of National Biography contribution on JCH. The realisation that one might have to give up tears a priest apart and it remains a matter of speculation how JCH would handle any particular situation. At the end, his clear wish was to be buried in the Cathedral where people could pray for him and not down in the crypt where his predecessors form a largely-forgotten club. As a result, his tomb is something most penitents and confessors pass each time we come to the Cathedral, and perhaps not only should we pray for the repose of his soul, but equally ask him to pray for us.

One of the practical points I relate to in his second autobiographical volume is that, as Bishop of Leeds, he seems to have hoped that Catholics would call all priests and bishops ‘Father’, in other words not bother, at least in conversation, with ecclesiastical titles. With some humour he writes of visiting a class in school: ‘Good morning, My Lord. Are you well, My Lord?’ I think he would have wanted less formality, but then and perhaps now it takes a lot for this vision to become embedded. I suspect JANUARY 2019

Oremus

The image of Cardinal Heenan on his Obit card

that Pope Francis would go along with this, however, and in that JCH was well ahead of his time.

I think JCH was a good priest and bishop. He was of his era, and it could not really have been otherwise. The present generation of Catholics, priests and bishops will have different perspectives. I do think he was inhibited by the Catholic culture of home and school, seminary

and parish; and had he grown up 50 years later he would have been different. But he did a good job for the Church, especially as leader after Vatican II, and I cannot help but feel, rereading his writings, that he tried to be objective and self-critical when necessary. We pray as Catholics: ‘May he rest in peace’. I am sure he is and can only humbly suggest that in the peace of heaven he may add his prayers for us all.

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CATHEDRAL HISTORY

Cathedral History: A Pictorial Record Great Vespers Paul Tobin In the picture, Bishop Basil of Sergievo of the Russian Orthodox Patriarchal Church is seen giving the homily at the conclusion of the Great Vespers. From left to right, seated, are Bishop James O'Brien, Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, Archbishop of Westminster (20002009) and Bishops George Stack and Alan Hopes, now Archbishop of Cardiff and Bishop of East Anglia respectively. In white cottas are the Private Secretary to the Cardinal, Mgr Mark O’Toole (now Bishop of Plymouth) and Cathedral Administrator, Mgr Mark Langham, now at the Catholic Chaplaincy to the University of Cambridge.

In the February 2004 edition of Oremus, John Jaques MBE, KHS described the event: ‘On Saturday 17 January, to mark the opening of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, the Cathedral, for the first time in its history, was witness to a truly magnificent event: Bishop Basil of Sergievo, of the Russian Orthodox Patriarchal Church, was invited to celebrate Great Vespers. He was supported by his choir of the Cathedral of the Dormition and All Saints of Ennismore Gardens, Knightsbridge.

The Administrator gave a warm welcome. The beautiful Liturgy was solemnly sung in English and Russian.

It was a real pleasure to see HE the Cardinal back amongst us again. We were honoured to have with us the Lord Mayor of Westminster, Cllr Jan Prendergast and the Russian Ambassador, HE Grigory Karasin. Prince Michael of Kent sent his best wishes for the occasion which he was sorry to miss. Also present, representing HE Archbishop Gregorios of Thyateira and Great Britain, was Bishop Theodoritos of Nazianzos and HE Metropolitan Seraphim represented HE Pope Shenouda III. The Armenian Primate, Bishop Nathan Hovhannisian, was also present, as were representatives from the Anglican, Methodist and other confessions. With HE the Cardinal in the Chancel were Bishops O’Brien, Stack and Hopes, together with the Provost and a number of the Cathedral Chapter and Chaplains.

At the close of Great Vespers, Bishop Basil delivered a very thoughtful homily on the nature of Baptism, this being the 22

Vigil of the Baptism of Our Lord in the Eastern Calendar. He touched upon a death and a resurrection with in us that leads to a new beginning, and the relevance of that insight was not lost on those of the congregation who for so long have hoped and prayed for Christian Unity. There then occurred one of those unexpected moments which one instinctively knows to be of historic importance. HE the Cardinal, after warmly thanking Bishop Basil, his assistants and the Russian choir for their memorable singing (which incidentally he touched upon again later at a private reception hosted by the Society of St John Chrysostom) then walked over to Bishop Basil and to the delight of the congregation and to spontaneous applause, warmly embraced Bishop Basil who, in turn and with obvious affection, returned the brotherly greeting. We sensed at that moment something significant had happened. There had been a shift in the order of things. A new dawn? I think so. Certainly a new beginning.'

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THE FRIENDS OF WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL

A Fair Over, A Walk Taken, A Book Read something to see by the water,’ he writes. ‘It might be a bright green mat of moss around the source on some bleak moor in Devon…or pale purple drifts of Himalayan balsam under a Kentish oak wood, or fragile blue gentians in Upper Teesdale’.

Post-Christmas Fair Recuperation: A Walk in the Park

Christina White Two days after the Christmas Fair I took the opportunity to walk to the railway station via a local park. The Christmas Fair weekend had been spent largely in darkness; we headed into work in the early hours on both the Saturday and Sunday, followed by a full day setting up and a full day selling. We staggered home both days exhausted – this was not for the fainthearted. By Tuesday I was in dire need of daylight, and indeed sunshine, and for once the London weather obliged with the sort of winter morning that refreshes the spirit. It was such a good feeling to step out across the frosted grass and breathe fresh air, at last.

By coincidence a proof copy of Christopher Somerville’s new book Ships of Heaven: The Private Life of Britain’s Cathedrals, landed on my desk the same morning. Christopher is better known as a writer of walks, of all varieties, for the Times, and I found a book of his – Fifty Best River Walks of Britain – at the last SVP book sale in Cathedral Hall. Christopher understands the need to encounter both natural and urban environments first-hand; to walk the river banks and Cathedral closes of the British Isles.

He must be a wonderful walking companion. I flicked through his river walks book whilst selling Christmas puddings in the Hall. ‘There is always JANUARY 2019

Oremus

I confess that I turned to Ships of Heaven and to the chapter on Westminster Cathedral with a little trepidation. Christopher is not a Catholic and would he get the grandeur and the poverty which somehow the Cathedral simultaneously conveys? He gets it, beautifully. I found his descriptions of the Cathedral very moving and it was rather satisfying to see the Friends noted for their fundraising. I shall not quote extensively, but it will be lovely to hear Christopher talk about his visit here and his visit to other cathedrals when he comes to Cathedral Hall in April next year. This was a very personal journey around the cathedrals of these isles and it promises to be a memorable evening. Please book your ticket early. He writes: ‘I finish my circuit of the chapels and return to the cathedral nave, my head buzzing with hues of marble and flashes of light, with images of pride brought low, of saints and the saved, of the supreme love and anger of God. Excessive emotions in glass and stone that I need to sit and unpick in a quiet corner, out of the lights and colours’.

Christopher has dedicated his book to ’..all the cathedral volunteers up and down the land, without whose generosity and hard work the Ships of Heaven would very soon run aground’. It is such an appropriate acknowledgment. As the New Year begins I would like to add my thanks to all the Cathedral volunteers who help the Friends, with a very special mention for the Catholic Grandparents’ Association, the Filipino Club and, individually, Linda McHugh, Zoe

Goodway and Patrick Gormley, without whose help the Christmas Fair would simply not have happened. At the time of writing we raised over £7,000 with funds still coming in. If you have unwanted Christmas presents and ‘appropriate’ winter gifts, do bear us in mind for the year ahead.

There are still tickets available for the wonderful Abbey tour on 10 January. The Dean retires this year so this will be his last tour for the Friends.

Please join us. Happy New Year.

Forthcoming Events 10 January 2019: A private evening tour of Westminster Abbey with the Dean, the Very Rev Dr John Hall, followed by a visit to the new Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries and a drinks reception in the historic Jerusalem Chamber. Please meet outside the Abbey at 4.30pm for Evensong at 5pm. The event will end at approximately 8.30pm.

Tickets £50.

11 April: An evening with Christopher Somerville, writer and journalist from the Times on his new book Ships of Heaven: The Private Life of Britain’s Cathedrals. He has dedicated a chapter to Westminster Cathedral. The talk will take place in Cathedral Hall. Doors open at 6.30pm. Talk at 7pm. Tickets £10.

Contact us • Write to: Friends’ Office, 42 Francis Street, London SW1P 1QW • Call: 020 7798 9059 • Email: friends@ westminstercathedral.org.uk Registered Charity number 272899

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JANUARY

2019

St Vincent (feast day 22 January), protomartyr of Spain, was a deacon in the third century. Together with his Bishop, Valerius of Saragossa, he was apprehended during a persecution by the governor Dacian. Valerius was banished, but Vincent was subjected to fierce tortures before ultimately dying from his wounds. Developed accounts of his suffering show him in prison, laid on a floor strewn with broken pottery. But through it all his constancy remained unmoved (leading to his jailer's conversion) and he survived until his friends were allowed to prepare a bed on which he died.

His fame spread rapidly throughout Gaul and Africa, where St Augustine preached several sermons for his feast.

The Month of

January

Holy Father’s Prayer Intention: Evangelisation That young people, especially in Latin America, follow the example of Mary and respond to the call of the Lord to communicate the joy of the Gospel to the world.

Tuesday 1 January

SOLEMNITY OF MARY, THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD OCTAVE DAY OF THE NATIVITY OF THE LORD 10am, 12.30, 5pm Mass 11am-12.30pm Confessions

Wednesday 2 January

Ps Week 1 Ss Basil the Great & Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops & Doctors Normal timetable resumes

Thursday 3 January

The Most Holy Name of Jesus

St Vincent of Saragossa, tiles seen in Lisbon

Friday 4 January

Friday abstinence

Christmas feria

Saturday 5 January Christmas feria

Sunday 6 January

THE EPIPHANY OF THE LORD Choral services resume 10.30am Solemn Mass (Men’s voices) Victoria – Missa Alma redemptoris mater Palestrina – Stella quam viderant Magi Victoria – Magi viderunt stellam Organ: Tournemire – Fantaisie (L’Orgue mystique VII) 3.30pm Solemn Vespers and Benediction Palestrina – Magnificat primi toni Palestrina – Orietur stella Organ: Dubois – Marche des rois mages 4.30pm Deaf Service Mass (Cathedral Hall) 4.45pm Organ Recital: Anthony Gritten (Royal Academy of Music)

Monday 7 January

Ps Week 2

Christmas feria (St Raymond of Penyafort, Priest)

Christmas feria

Thursday 10 January Christmas feria

Friday abstinence

Christmas feria

Saturday 12 January

Christmas feria (St Aelred of Rievaulx) 4pm Extraordinary Form Mass (Lady Chapel) 6pm Adult Confirmations at Mass (Bishop McAleenan) © LivioAndronico

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Feria All day NHS Blood Transfusion Service (Cathedral Hall)

Wednesday 16 January Feria

Thursday 17 January Friday abstinence Feria The Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity begins 5pm Sung Vespers at St Paul’s Cathedral 5pm Said Vespers, then 5.30pm Said Mass

Christmas feria

The Triumph of the Name of Jesus, Church of the Gesù, Rome

Tuesday 15 January

Friday 18 January

Wednesday 9 January

Sunday 13 January

Monday 14 January Ps Week 1 Feria Weekday Lectionary Year I Readings from now on

St Anthony, Abbot

Tuesday 8 January

Friday 11 January

Victoria – Missa O magnum mysterium Handel – And the glory of the Lord Palestrina – Tribus miraculis Organ: Cochereau, tr. Filsell – Toccata (Symphonie improvisée) 3.30pm Solemn Vespers and Benediction Buxtehude – Magnificat octavi toni Marenzio – Tribus miraculis Organ: J S Bach – Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (BWV 684) 4.45pm Organ Recital: Jonathan Hope (Gloucester Cathedral) Christmas Time ends

THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD White Flower Appeal today on the Piazza 9.30am Family Mass 10.30am Solemn Mass (Full choir)

Saturday 19 January

Blessed Virgin Mary on Saturday (St Wulstan, Bishop) 6pm Victoria Choir sings at Mass

Sunday 20 January Ps Week 2 2nd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME 10.30am Solemn Mass (Full choir) Palestrina – Missa Aeterna Christi munera Palestrina – Iubilate Deo universa terra Palestrina – O sacrum convivium Organ: Tournemire – FantaisieParaphrase (L’Orgue mystique IX) 3.30pm Solemn Vespers and Benediction Lassus – Magnificat primi toni Oremus

JANUARY 2019

© © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro / CC BY-SA 3.0

DIARY

DIARY AND NOTICES Sunday 27 January

Victoria – Alma redemptoris mater a 8 Organ: Franck – Pastorale 4.45pm Organ Recital: Richard Cook (Worcester Cathedral)

Ps Week 3 3rd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME 10.30am Solemn Mass (Full choir) Vaughan Williams – Mass in G minor MacMillan – A new song Macmillan – Ave verum corpus Organ: Bairstow – Allegro giocoso (Sonata in E flat) 3.30pm Solemn Vespers and Benediction Mundy – Magnificat tertii toni Tallis – O nata lux Organ: Elgar – Allegro maestoso (Sonata in G) 4.45pm Organ Recital: Jonathan Allsopp (Westminster Cathedral)

Monday 21 January St Agnes, Virgin & Martyr

Monday 28 January

© Didier Descouens

St Thomas Aquinas, Priest & Doctor

St Agnes, at the font of the church of the Frari, Venice

Feria (St Vincent, Deacon & Martyr) 5pm St Paul’s Cathedral Choir sings Evensong 6pm Said Mass

Wednesday 23 January

St Thomas Aquinas, by Carlo Crivelli

Tuesday 29 January

Feria

Feria

Thursday 24 January St Francis de Sales, Bishop & Doctor Anniversary of the Episcopal Ordination of Cardinal Vincent Nichols (1992) All day NHS Blood Transfusion Service (Cathedral Hall) Friday 25 January Friday abstinence THE CONVERSION OF ST PAUL THE APOSTLE The Octave of Prayer ends

Saturday 26 January Ss Timothy & Titus, Bishops 6pm Confirmation Enrolment at Mass JANUARY 2019

© National Gallery

Tuesday 22 January

Oremus

Wednesday 30 January Feria

Thursday 31 January

St John Bosco, priest Key to the Diary: Saints’ days and holy days written in BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS denote Sundays and Solemnities, CAPITAL LETTERS denote Feasts, and those not in capitals denote Memorials, whether optional or otherwise. Memorials in brackets are not celebrated liturgically.

What Happens and When

Public Services: The Cathedral opens shortly before the first Mass of the day; doors close at 7.00pm, Monday to Saturday, with occasional exceptions.

On Sunday evenings the Cathedral closes after the 7.00pm Mass. On Public and Bank Holidays the Cathedral closes at 5.30pm in the afternoon.

Monday to Friday: Masses: 7.00am; 8.00am; 10.30am (Latin, said); 12.30pm; 1.05pm and 5.30pm (Solemn, sung by the Choir). Morning Prayer (Lady Chapel): 7.40am. Evening Prayer (Latin Vespers* sung by the Lay Clerks in the Lady Chapel): 5.00pm (*except Tuesday when it is sung in English). Rosary is prayed after the 5.30pm Mass.

Saturday: Masses: 8.00am; 9.00am; 10.30am (Solemn Latin, sung by the Choir); and 12.30pm.

Morning Prayer (Lady Chapel): 10.00am. First Evening Prayer of Sunday (Lady Chapel): 5.30pm.

First Mass of Sunday: 6.00pm.

Sunday: Masses: 8.00am; 9.00am; 10.30am (Solemn, sung by the Choir); 12 noon; 5.30pm; and 7.00pm. Morning Prayer (Lady Chapel) 10.00am.

Solemn Vespers and Benediction: 3.30pm. Organ Recital (when scheduled): 4.45pm.

Holy Days of Obligation: As Monday-Friday, Vigil Mass (evening of the previous day) at 5.30pm.

Public Holidays: Masses: 10.30am, 12.30pm, 5.00pm.

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament: This takes place in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel every Monday to Friday following the 1.05pm Mass, until 4.45pm.

Confessions are heard at the following times: Saturday: 10.30am-6.30pm. Sunday: 11.00am1.00pm; and 4.30-7.00pm. Monday-Friday: 11.30am-6.00pm. Public Holidays: 11.00am1.00pm.

Sacred Heart Church, Horseferry Road SW1P 2EF: Sunday Mass 11.00am, Weekday Mass Thursday 12.30pm Funerals: Enquiries about arranging a funeral at the Cathedral or Sacred Heart Church, Horseferry Road, should be made to a priest at Cathedral Clergy House in the first instance.

Throughout the Year Mondays: 11.30am: Prayer Group in the Hinsley Room. 6.30pm: Guild of the Blessed Sacrament in the Cathedral Tuesdays: Walsingham Prayer Group in St George’s Chapel 2.30pm on first Tuesday of the month; 6.30pm: The Guild of St Anthony in the Cathedral.

Wednesdays: 12.00pm: First Wednesday Quiet Days on the first Wednesday of every month in the Hinsley Room.

Thursdays: 1.15pm: Padre Pio Prayer Group at Sacred Heart Church. 6.30pm: The Legion of Mary in Clergy House.

Fridays: 5.00pm: Charismatic Prayer Group in the Cathedral Hall – please check in advance for confirmation.

Saturdays: 10.00am: Centering Prayer Group in the Hinsley Room. 2.00pm: Justice and Peace Group in the Hinsley Room on the last of the month.

25

RED WEDNESDAY 2018

Damp, but not Dampened

The people, the band, the screen, the rain

John Pontifex and Murcadha O'Flaherty Campaigners across the UK took part again in Red Wednesday, with cathedrals, churches, schools, colleges and universities all seeing or going red as part of a campaign to stop religious persecution. The initiative, which is organised by Aid to the Church in Need in association with Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), shines a light on oppression of people of all faiths and calls for action to protect those who suffer for their belief. In London, iconic buildings and landmarks included Marble Arch, Lambeth Palace and the Houses of Parliament all floodlit in red as people braved damp weather to join a candle-lit procession to Westminster Cathedral.

As the crowds came into the Piazza, the eclectic band Ooberfuse sang their iconic number We believe in you, composed after a visit to Erbil (Iraqi Kurdistan) with ACN. In front of the cathedral, Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, Assistant Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Great Britain, spoke out against persecution by Muslim extremists. He said: ‘I stand here today condemning their evil actions as totally un-Islamic and unacceptable and I stand in solidarity with Christian communities around the world who are persecuted, and especially those who are suffering at the hands of those who are my brethren, my fellow

26

Muslims’. He added: ‘And I also stand here in solidarity with all the other faith communities wherever they are who are persecuted, including other Muslims who are persecuted around the world’.

During a live video link with Aleppo (Syria), people in the Piazza saw Syrian Christian Antoine and his wife and child, who are being supported by ACN. Antoine described how he was held

by Daesh (ISIS) for 62 days, and been tortured, before making a miraculous escape. The event concluded with Cherie and Hal from Ooberfuse leading the crowd to sing a beautiful version of Amazing Grace.

Earlier that day, the Red Wednesday red bus had criss-crossed the streets of London, starting at Southwark Anglican Cathedral, and stopping at St George’s Cathedral, Southwark, St Paul’s Cathedral, All Souls’ Church, Langham Place, St Martin-in-the-Fields and Trafalgar Square, before winding up at Parliament Square where a gathering took place with speeches and an opportunity for people to meet Parliamentarians. Other locations across the UK floodlit in red including St Chad’s, Birmingham, Norwich, Portsmouth and Wrexham Cathedrals.

Meanwhile in Scotland, St Mirin’s Catholic Cathedral, Paisley went red, whilst in the Scottish Parliament there was a Red Wednesday event including

a presentation of ACN's Religious Freedom in the World 2018 Report.

ACN’s Head of Fundraising and Marketing, Patricia Hatton commented: ‘Our warm thanks go to all those who came out in the rain yesterday for this, the third year of the Red Wednesday campaign. We are asking people of all faiths and none to speak up for ourselves in the UK and for the silenced and suffering communities around the world’. Other countries participating included France, where the Grand Mosque of Paris and the Great Synagogue of Paris went red, as did the Rialto Bridge and the Basilica of the Salute, in Venice. Further afield, in the Philippines, 47 cathedrals and 29 basilicas were also floodlit red.

The Cathedral illuminated, poignantly underlining the words above the West Doors: Per sanguinem tuum salva nos – Save us by your Blood Oremus

JANUARY 2019

FIFTY AND ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

In retrospect: from the Cathedral Chronicle St Paul told Christians not to mourn as those who had no hope. The psalmist says: ‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints’. It is in this spirit that we have celebrated Cardinal Bea’s Requiem. He was a man of God. I am thinking not of his achievements but of his priestly character and life. What a man is matters more than what he does. He was a man of intense prayer and, therefore, of great peace of soul. I stayed with him often both before and during the Council and had every opportunity of observing his rule of life. It was a lesson to see him at his prie-dieu, to see the regularity of his time for meditation.

He was always busy and became a much-travelled man, but his habits of prayer were unshakeable. I am quite sure that it was his spiritual life more even than his outstanding gifts of intellect that led to his success in the supreme task of his life which began only in old age. Popes Pius XI and XII did not choose him as confessor only because he was learned. They knew that he was also holy and fearless. You need to be fearless to correct the faults of a Pope …

I doubt if he really appreciated the delicacy of the religious situation in England. I am quite sure that he never fully understood the outlook of the English Catholic community. Thus, when the Archbishop of Canterbury was to make his official visit to the Pope, Cardinal Bea wanted to lodge him and his fellow bishops in an hotel. He and his advisers could not see how important it appeared to English Catholics that their Anglican friends should be guests of the English College in Rome. The Cardinal – and perhaps this is true of most Catholics abroad – did not realise that the warmth of personal relations between us and our friends is in no way diminished by the peculiar historical difficulties which only time can lead us to solve. from an address by Cardinal Heenan at a Requiem Mass for Cardinal Bea, Wednesday 4 December 1968, in the Westminster Cathedral News Sheet, January 1969

The memory of these events of the past year will not easily pass, but no doubt they will be eclipsed by the solemnity of the thanksgiving celebrations when a just and lasting peace shall be concluded, please God, within the next few months of the New Year. It is to be hoped that this thanksgiving will not be merely a passing one, however JANUARY 2019

Oremus

fervently solemnised with all the splendour of Catholic ritual, but enshrined in some permanent monument. The Council of the Catholic Women’s League has resolved, we understand, that their Joan of Arc shrine in the Cathedral shall be completed by the League in thanksgiving for victory and peace. And in the same mind a project for a national Catholic monument is likely to be put forward.

But should a national monument be decided upon, London is naturally the place for it; and whatever form this may take, at present we can imagine no better one than the completion of the decoration of the Sanctuary in the Cathedral, for in no more appropriate place could we enshrine our lasting thanksgiving for victory and peace.

The Cardinal recently paid a flying visit to Paris at the invitation of the Knights of Columbus to preach in the Madeleine on America’s Thanksgiving Day (28 November).

His Eminence was to leave Paris on the Friday evening, but, as a writer in our of our weeklies tells the story, on calling upon the Ambassador, Lord Derby said in parting: ‘And, of course, you are coming to my reception tonight’.

His Eminence postponed his return accordingly, and with Cardinal Amette, who had also been invited, attended the reception at the Embassy given in honour of the King, who was then in Paris. The splash of the gorgeous scarlet of the two Cardinals catches the imagination, but, by all accounts, the reception was certainly as dramatic in its scenes as vivid in its colours – as when the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris was presented to the King of England and, for the first time, to the President of his own Republic!

The attendance at the Midnight Mass, as was expected, proved to be a record one. Before 12 o’clock practically every seat in the Cathedral was occupied, many people having to stand during the whole service. About 1,700 received Holy Communion. Although the ceremony was shorn of much magnificence in the unavoidable absence of the Cardinal Archbishop, it was nevertheless a great and happy one. The congregation, among whom khaki-clad men formed a large proportion, evidently felt deeply the happiness of the moment. from Varia in the Westminster Cathedral Chronicle, January 1919 27

A CURIOUS CONNECTION

A Canon for Cornwall Oremus subscribers live in a wide variety of locations, such as Fr Philip Dyson, the parish priest of Penzance (and more). As it happens, the editor of Oremus was Fr Philip’s successor-but-one as vicar of the C of E parish of St Matthew, Ponders End in Eastern Enfield. News of Fr Philip being made a Canon of Plymouth Cathedral inspired parishioner Teresa Hunter to write about priest and parish for the Catholic Herald. a property in Derbyshire, to provide a haven for clergy fleeing the French Revolution. That venture failed and bailiffs seized the church, which was only saved at the eleventh hour when the Bishop of Plymouth stepped in and bid £4,950 at auction.

Today the parish is thriving, with a strong musical tradition encouraged by Canon Philip, including hosting a biennial music festival, which attracts talent from far afield.

Zipping between the mother church in Penzance, Sacred Heart and St Ia in St Ives and St Joseph’s, in Hayle, to fulfil the Sunday Mass schedule means a busy life, for a hardworking, good-humoured, 73 year-old. Our Lady, Star of the Sea, in St Mary’s, on the Isles of Scilly is also part of this far-flung parish.

The congregation comprises mainly farmers and fishermen, with a good smattering of retirees. During the summer months, Mass attendance doubles to more than 600, as families arrive for sun, sea and sand. Fr Philip says: ‘There is always something going on in our busy parish, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I am a Yorkshireman, and my mother brought me up with the attitude, if something needs doing, then get on and do it’.

Like many coastal areas, West Cornwall is not without its challenges, particularly relating to drugs, alcohol and mental health. But these are not new to Canon Philip, who spent years serving in Somers Town in Euston. He says: ‘Cornwall is a poor county, and work for young people in the West is scarce.

Many go away to college and don’t come back. The work that is available can be seasonal and weather dependent’.

Parishioners, though, are involved supporting the community through local food banks, street pastors and breakfast projects.

For Canon Philip loneliness is one of the biggest problems facing society today. He worries about its impact on the young. Dealing with a number of sudden deaths involving young people recently has not shaken but strengthened his faith: ‘They are always very sad, but the deaths of young people make me more convinced than ever, that this is not the end. There is something more to come’.

The announcement of his appointment as Honorary Canon by the Bishop of Plymouth came during a Celebration Mass led by Archbishop of Southwark, Peter Smith, at Immaculate Conception, Penzance, marking its 175th anniversary. To echo its history down the decades, the choir sang the Te Deum, in honour of the first communities, who also sang the Te Deum when the church was first opened. Canon Philip commented: ‘My being appointed a Canon is a great honour for the entire parish and the work we do in the wider community. In many ways, we are an unusual parish, with sea on three sides. Our geography is both a joy and a challenge’.

The development of thriving Catholic communities this far west, in a notoriously non-conformist, even anticatholic society all began in 1840, a decade after Catholic Emancipation, with the arrival of Fr William Young of the Missionary Oblates of the Immaculate Virgin. The town was an unlikely prospect, with barely a dozen Catholic families, yet he was inspired to build a magnificent church, which remains the largest in Cornwall. Anne Shipman, who has written a history of the parish, noted: ‘Our church is peopled by a cast of colourful characters, including saints, sinners and shipwrecked sailors. It opened on 26 October 1843, with a High Mass attended predominantly by protestants. Conversions soon followed, and Penzance grew rapidly with the coming of the railways, bringing in more Catholics’. Its survival was fragile in those early years and was nearly lost when another of the Oblates, Fr William Daly, mortgaged it in 1848, to buy 28

© Teresa Hunter

Fishermen were the first disciples called by Jesus, according to the gospels, and his example inspires and encourages those serving coastal communities today. Fr Philip Dyson has been running Holy Family Parish, in the far west of Cornwall for 12 years. The ‘wild west’, as he calls it, may be famous for shipwrecks, smuggling, Poldark and scenery, but looking after four flourishing congregations is anything but a holiday.

Canon Philip in the refurbished Lady Chapel Oremus

JANUARY 2019

CROSSWORD AND POEM

Ex ore infantium Francis Thompson

Didst Thou kneel at night to pray, And didst Thou join Thy hands, this way?

And did they tire sometimes, being young, And make the prayer seem very long?

And dost Thou like it best, that we Should join our hands to pray to Thee?

I used to think, before I knew, The prayer not said unless we do.

And did Thy Mother at the night Kiss Thee, and fold the clothes in right?

And didst Thou feel quite good in bed, Kissed, and sweet, and thy prayers said?

Thou canst not have forgotten all That it feels like to be small: And Thou know'st I cannot pray To Thee in my father's way – When Thou wast so little, say, Couldst Thou talk Thy Father's way? – So, a little Child, come down And hear a child's tongue like Thy own; Take me by the hand and walk, And listen to my baby-talk.

To Thy Father show my prayer (He will look, Thou art so fair), And say: 'O Father, I, Thy Son, Bring the prayer of a little one.'

And He will smile, that children's tongue Has not changed since Thou wast young!

To submit a poem whether by yourself or another for consideration, please contact the Editor – details on page 3.

JANUARY 2019

Oremus

Alan Frost: November 2018

Clues Across 1 Widespread serious shortages of food (7) 6 London district, within the sound of whose bells Cockneys are born (3) 8 ‘----- eleison’, ‘Lord, have mercy’ (5) 9 Follower of political theorist who said religion was ‘the opiate of the people’ (7) 10 Mother-in-law of Ruth, in the OT book (5) 11 Type of poem Wordsworth used for his classic [1802] On Westminster Bridge (6) 13 Light feature in Gothic churches, decorated by plate tracery (6) 15 ‘Venerable’ Dark Ages theologian/writer of Ecclesiastical History of the English People (2.4) 17 ‘When we have shuffled off this ----- coil’, Shakespeare’s metaphor (Hamlet) for dying (6) 20 Improbable weapon with which David slew Goliath (5) 21 Morning, noon and evening celebration of Gabriel’s appearance to Mary (7) 23 ‘Christ in -----’, in the Uffizi Gallery, painted by 5 Down (5) 24 ‘O God, O Holy ---, O Immortal ---’, from the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy (3) 25 Eric -------, rock guitarist not from a diocesan parish (7) Clues Down 1 Early Pope whose body was exhumed for a posthumous trial (8) 2 Emmanuel ------, President of France (6) 3 Philip ----, Saint who founded the Congregation of the Oratory (4) 4 Indulge in a seasonal sporting activity (5) 5 Agnolo --------, 16thc. Florentine artist (8) 6 ‘------ the Man’, Pilate presenting Christ to the crowd (6) 7 Technology in electronics communications derived from wireless fidelity (2-2) 12 Marriage between man and woman within certain social group (8) 14 Saint and bishop who rebuilt Worcester Cathedral, feast day 19 January (8) 16 Device for controlling horse or path it is ridden along (6) 18 John, Earl of Shrewsbury, who sponsored Pugin in the neo-gothic revival (6) 19 ‘Cry ----- and let slip the dogs of war’, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (5) 20 Tourist district of London where St Patrick’s Church is located (4) 22 One of Spain’s greatest painters (4)

ANSWERS Across: 1 Famines 6 Bow 8 Kyrie 9 Marxist 10 Naomi 11 Sonnet 13 Window 15 St. Bede 17 Mortal 20 Sling 21 Angelus 23 Limbo 24 One 25 Clapton Down: 1 Formosus 2 Macron 3 Neri 4 Skate 5 Bronzino 6 Behold 7 Wi-Fi 12 Endogamy 14 Wulfstan 16 Bridle 18 Talbot 19 Havoc 20 Soho 22 Goya

Little Jesus, wast Thou shy Once, and just so small as I? And what did it feel like to be Out of Heaven, and just like me?

Didst Thou sometimes think of THERE, And ask where all the angels were?

I should think that I would cry For my house all made of sky; I would look about the air, And wonder where my angels were; And at waking 'twould distress me – Not an angel there to dress me!

Hadst Thou ever any toys, Like us little girls and boys?

And didst Thou play in Heaven with all The angels that were not too tall, With stars for marbles? Did the things Play Can you see me? through their wings?

And did Thy Mother let Thee spoil Thy robes, with playing on OUR soil?

How nice to have them always new In Heaven, because 'twas quite clean blue!

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ST VINCENT DE PAUL PRIMARY SCHOOL

Saints in Mosaic – St John Vianney, the Curé d’Ars Esey (Year 6)

I find the Cathedral a holy place to pray to God. It is a very quiet place for people to listen to the word of God and communicate with him in prayer. I started visiting the Cathedral properly when I was in Nursery at St Vincent de Paul School and have noticed more about the building as time has gone on. I visit the cathedral with my Mum and I realise that the mosaics have their own special place.

I think of what incredible things they are and of the mosaic artists who have created them.

The mosaic of St John Vianney that I am focusing on is in a strictly private place. It is behind a pillar, hidden from the people.The only persons who can see it are the priests and the servers on the sanctuary. St John is the saint of parish priests. In the mosaic, he is wearing a purple stole.

When he was a priest, he was most famous for listening to confessions in the Sacrament of Penance, hidden away just like his mosaic is hidden in the Cathedral. When John Vianney was a little boy, he had to keep his faith hidden because of a revolution that was taking place in France.

St John Vianney found it very difficult to study to become a priest. In the mosaic, he is wearing the priest’s collar that French priests wore in the 18th century, which is two black stripes of material with a white background.

I prefer the French collar as it is more of a posh collar then the priests of today wear. The Curé d’Ars in the mosaic is holding a crucifix for people to venerate like priests do on Good Friday. St John Vianney thought a lot about Jesus on the cross, because he thought it was a sign of the everlasting love of God and that Jesus died on the cross to destroy sin and death. In the mosaic, the priest’s head is surrounded by a halo. It is made of gold tessarae.The edge of the the halo has a red band. Red is the colour of sacrifice. St John Vianny’s sacrifice was that he sat and listened to people in confession without complaining for hours.

The mosaic of the Curé adorns the sanctuary of Westminster Cathedral, and was designed by Christopher Hobbs in 2016. I think it is good that the Cathedral has new mosaics, since we can learn more about different holy priests and what they did. The mosaic of St John Vianney is going to inspire the priests of the 21st century to say Mass very prayerfully and beautifully. The simple French farm boy who became the Curé d’Ars. 30

Oremus

JANUARY 2019

A VISION OF HERRINGS

Reconnecting and Recharging John O’Neill

© US Government

Around the hull of a beached boat something was glistening in the yellow half-light, pinpoints of silver. I suddenly realised that these were herrings which had fallen to the quayside. Not quite manna in the desert; but a sense of abundance swept over me. Taste and see that the Lord is good. I felt wrapped in life’s fabric. Discovering the gleaming fish in the fog was a childlike moment of recognition.

Glistening Atlantic herring, the inspiration for a new way to teach Vectors

Last midwinter I spent some time with a cousin on his farm in Ireland. If I expected the tiny span of daylight between sunrise and dusk to be virtuously filled with prudent good stewardship around the ice-bound farmyard, I was wrong.

Richard’s mornings were spent at the kitchen table reading Tolkein. Everyone who came to the door would be given a mug of tea and an update of developments in Middle Earth.

The numbing cold took me back six months to a June trip to the other side of the world. Each morning the sky was a glacial powder blue dome beneath which my mental baggage so carefully carried from London seemed sadly inconsequential.

Perhaps I could build in more spontaneity to the daily round, release some untapped energy? At school, teaching vectors on a Friday afternoon would no longer be arrows on a board, no, it would be climbing on chairs and tables with lengths of coloured tape exploring the classroom’s spaces.

And if students went home saying: ‘What Sir did today was great’, then isn’t that the reaction God wants of us each evening: ‘What the Lord did today was great’.

I was used to a daily commute to a school staffroom, a structured world of task and reward, of symbolic walls and gateways. Feeling exposed and caught out, my thoughts turned to the woman with a haemorrhage, cured by touching the Lord’s garment. Now in Ireland the unresolved questions returned: where am I haemorrhaging, I wondered. Is it my sense of joy in creation, for example, that is slowly being lost?

What would it mean for me to touch the fabric of the Lord’s garment? Staring moodily at the farm dog, I didn’t seem any closer to a revelation.

One evening around midnight [only the Irish regard midnight as ‘the evening’ Ed.] Richard proposed we go down to the harbour, ‘to see the herrings’. I must have looked less than keen because he said: ‘No excuses. You’ve neither chick nor child to worry about’. So we reached the flood-lit little harbour where a relay of trucks was being loaded with the night’s catch. ‘Give us a hand here, Gandalf’, someone shouted at Richard. As he obliged, I wandered down to the swelling sea. The psalmist’s Leviathan (Ps 104:26) could have been very close. Pillars of fog hung over the ink-black water, the moon shone in suspended droplets and dark patches of ice, the lighthouse flashed.

JANUARY 2019

Oremus

31

TAB

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32

Oremus

February 2017