Taizé Prayer

Taizé Prayer times:

April 3rd
April 17th
May 1st
May 15th
May 29th
June 12th
June 26th

All at 7pm in the chapel.

Latin Mass Society

Latin Mass Society— Saturday 14th May, 11.00am Newman Society and Juventutem Pilgrimage from Abingdon Abbey to Oxford and at 3.00pm—Mass (Extraordinary form) at The Oratory followed by supper.

Easter Pilgrimage to Walsingham

Easter Pilgrimage to Walsingham. “Do you have faith in your feet?” 16th – 24th April, 2011. For more information about Student Cross visit the website: www.studentcross.org.uk

Homily from the Newman Society Mass, 8 February

AMDG
Homily by Fr Daniel Seward (Cong Orat)
for the Newman Society’s termly Mass, 8th February 2011
Oriel College
Our Cardinal has now been beatified. So it’s important for us to ask: what is a saint, and why should we want Newman to be raised to the altars of the Church? To have a saint of our own is not just a feather in our cap, or even an excuse to promote the different causes to which Newman devoted his life. It is about much more that that: the Church beatifies and canonizes men and women from among her number in order to glorify their sanctity. Holiness – that is what it is all about. The saints show us that heroic sanctity is possible and necessary for us as Christians. They remind us of that call to holiness which is addressed to each of us, and they encourage us on our journey towards that perfection for which God has created us. Whatever the value of Newman’s theology, or his prose, or the interest of his many letters; all this is as nothing in comparison with the importance of his holiness – the extent to which he imitated Christ in his earthly life.
St Philip used to say that we should never marvel at what the saints do, but rather at what God does in His saints. So here is the first qualification for holiness. If a person is merely a human marvel, that is no doubt a good thing, but it is not enough. He must point us beyond Himself to the God who is the source of all holiness. So to make someone a saint is not the equivalent of giving them the Nobel Prize or a kind of celestial knighthood, it is done for the glory of God alone.
The deep wish to do God’s will and to pursue holiness marked out John Henry Newman from a young age, in a way that he saw very clearly to be a mark of Divine Providence. The Calvinist religion in which the young Newman began his spiritual journey attached great importance to God’s grace but very little to personal holiness. Yet his inner conversion at the age of fifteen was accompanied by an unusual conviction that God was calling him to a celibate life. St Paul said, “The world as we know it is passing away. I should like you to be free of all worries. The unmarried man is busy with the Lord’s affairs, concerned with pleasing the Lord”. So the young Newman, while still a Protestant, made that sacrifice of himself in witness to the transience of this world and the endurance of the kingdom of heaven. Celibacy is certainly not the only route to holiness of course, but for Newman, it was part of his conviction that God had a mission for him, a definite service, a work committed to him not given to any other.

Cathsoc Committee 2011

President: Lorna Forrester (Mansfield) lorna.forrester@mansfield.ox.ac.uk

Vice-President: Markus Plewa (St. Hilda’s)

Secretary: Claire Mitchell (New College)

Treasurer: Marystella Ramirez-Guerra (St. Anne’s)

Charities’ Officer: Hana Tsuruhara (Lincoln)

Ecumenical Secretary: Thomas Reilly (Blackfriars)

Social Secretary: Matthew Robinson (Hertford)

Publicity Officer: Bryan Beom Sohn (St. Edmund Hall)

CathSoc on Facebook

CathSoc—the facebook group has been revived. The link to the facebook group is: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2202196120

Prayers for Peace in Sudan

Voting in the referendum begins today and you can easily find reports and commentary about the referendum from most news organisations. As the voting process continues over the rest of the week, we’d like to ask you to keep the people of Sudan in your thoughts and prayers during this time.

Some prayer suggestions: you may find reflections provided by US-based Jesuit Refugee Services to be useful (http://jrsusa.org/Prayers_Detail?TN=DTN-20101216111903), and the official Prayer for Peace in Sudan follows below (also at http://www.cafod.org.uk/content/download/117980/1291976/version/4/file/Sudan+peace+prayer.pdf)

——-
Prayer for Peace in Sudan
Lord Jesus, you said to us;
“I leave you peace. My peace I give you.”
Look upon us your sisters and brothers in Sudan
as we face this moment of referendum.
Send us your Spirit to guide us.
Give us the wisdom we need to choose our future
where we will know your true peace.
You call us out of slavery, oppression, and persecution
so that we may have life in abundance.
Grant us peace with one another.
Give peace among ethnic groups.
Help us to work together for the good of all.
We ask this in your name, Jesus our Lord.
Amen

Mary, Queen of Peace, pray for us.

Official prayer of the 101 Days of Prayer for Peace in Sudan. Approved by the Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

SVP Celebrates the 30th Anniversary of Dorothy Day’s Death

A Celebration of the Life of Dorothy Day on the 30th Anniversary of her death

The OU SVP is promoting an evening of celebration of the life of the great US Catholic campaigner for social justice and for peace, Dorothy Day this Saturday, the 27th November, beginning at 7:00pm.

The CAFOD group will be providing one of their outstanding soups to begin with. Susan Clarkson from the Oxford Catholic Worker (the organisation founded by Dorothy Day in the US) will be speaking and there will be a film about the life of this inspirational figure in the 20th Century Catholic movement for social justice.

Christian Life Community (CLC)

Christian Life Community (CLC) Contact tom.pass@some.ox.ac.uk
Part of a global network of groups for faith-sharing, and discernment in the Ignatian tradition.

Lectio Divina

Lectio Divina Contact andrea.pass@magd.ox.ac.uk
Prayerful reading of the scriptures. Wednesday 8.00pm, Old Palace

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