Oscott and its life.

Just yesterday my email contained a great link to a new video about life in seminary. Oscott, or at least some of her students and staff, star in a short video put together by the Birmingham Vocations Team. It is accessible on the Year for Priests website, here. My limited technology knowledge prevented me form pasting it here on the blog, but you can click on to the actual website easily enough.

Don't forget the informative blog, eastangliaseminarians, who have this to say about the new video:

http://www.yearforpriests.org/Virtual.html

Click on the link above for a short video produced by the Birmingham vocations office about life in Oscott. It's been quite well put together I think, and provides parts of conversations with several seminarians, as well as film clips of liturgy and community activities which take place on a day to day basis. (Look out for the Fishers of Men hat-tip after the words, 'We live in a world that is very noisy...')

Now, mention of the blog leads me to remember the students of the Diocese of East Anglia, and I ask you to join with me in prayer for both the Bishop of East Anglia and his students for the priesthood: Michael, Luke, Padraig, Henry, Simon and Ben.

English Martyrs

A huge advantage of seminary life is you hear homilies (or post communion reflections) from guys who have a real talent for using words. I quote, here, one such reflection given on the feast of the English martyrs on 4th May. Though, eastangliaseminarians did write about the stone at Tyburn, these words evoke, for me, the horror of martyrdom, but also the compelling draw of the Faith which these gentle folk engaged within. You know who you are, but thanks for your words. Inspiring, I think you will agree:

“Look Meg! These blessed Father’s be now as cheerfully going to their deaths as bridegrooms to their marriage!” So spoke Saint Thomas More on 4th May 1535 to his daughter from the window of his cell in the Tower of London.

The blessed Father’s were 3 Carthusian priors, Saint’s Augustine Webster, John Haughton, Robert Lawrence, a Brigitine priest Saint Richard Reynolds and another priest John Hale and all of them were the first martyrs of the English Reformation. They died witnessing to the truth of the Catholic faith. For all had refused to sign the oath of Supremacy naming Henry VIII as “the only supreme head of the Church in England.

The blessed Fathers, wearing their white religious habits, were tied to boards and dragged through the filthy streets of London, in full public view, to the gallows at Tyburn. There, they were hung, one by one, disembowled, dismembered and in a final humiliation their body parts were displayed throughout London. When Saint John Haughton was having his intestines drawn out he said “O Jesus, have mercy on me!” and when his heart was being cut out his last words were “Good Jesus, what will you do with my heart?”

“What will you do with my heart, good Jesus?”

Herein lies the mystery of martyrdom for the blessed Fathers and the many other Catholic martyrs of the Reformation, young and old, rich and poor, religious and lay, men and women, did not intend to be killed. Priests training in Valladolid and Rome went back to England and Wales to serve, trying to avoid capture, aided by people who themselves did their utmost to foil detection. How do their deaths serve when their intention to service is snuffed out?

The answer lies in God’s eminence and the Kingdom of Heaven.

God’s eminence is found in Jesus’ own words in the Gospel: “I have come so that they may have life and have it to the full”.

In the ordinary existence of human life, it’s triumphs and defeats the Blessed Trinity’s extraordinary divine superabundant fruitfulness is permanently communicated. Jesus says “I am the gate of the sheepfold” and he means, as with his other statements “I am the Good shepherd”, “I am the true vine” that He, God, is the source of all that is life-giving for Jesus’ “I am” statements are simply statements of “God is” – “God is spirit”, “God is love”. So where there is justice there is God. And even when there is injustice, when men and women are murdered for their faith, God is there too. He fills the void – in peoples eyes they recognise what is true, loving and holy. And this is how God’s extravagant fruitfulness is communicated to the lives of others.

They come to see the Kingdom of heaven being made present now – God reigning in the lives and deaths of those who are witnessing to him. They can see the salvation of the kingdom of heaven coming in power through the martyrdom of Jesus’ disciples. They can recognise the brigands and thieves who come to steal, kill and destroy. The sheep hear the voice of the good shepherd and see the true sheepfold.

God spoke and there was life – Each and every word of God is a deed of fruitfulness – Each and every deed of God is a word of fruitfulness – Each and every martyr speaking through the deed of their death is a word and deed of God and is fruitful.

And yet the English Martrdoms ended in 1680. What of testimony, through death, in our own times?

It requires a speaking and doing in our lives which mirrors the death of the martyrs – the primary Christian witness or so-called white martyrdom whereby one dies to those things that obscure God. Things that obscure God are the empty attractions and affections of selfishness, self-aggrandisement and cynicism. Our own modern day oath of supremacy. Dying to these attractions and affections are like tiny knife cuts – they cause wounds that hurt. This dying takes a courage that is only possible for the friends of Jesus who offer, as Pope John Paul II said, “the gold of their freedom, the insence of their ardent prayer and the myrrh of their most profound affections”.

In other words it means making Saint John Haughton’s prayer ones own: “Good Jesus, what will you do with my heart?” In doing so God’s eminence floods the kingdom of heaven such that others may perhaps say of us in hope: “Look! Those blessed fathers be so cheerfully going to their deaths as bridegrooms going to their marriage”.

10km and 30km

I am not sure if you have had the opportunity to sponsor our fine runners here at Oscott, but if you have not, then do please send donations to

Oscott Action for Justice and Peace
Oscott College
Chester Road
Birmingham
B73 5AA

We are running 10km on Tuesday as a sponsored jog around our grounds. There seems no definitive distance around the seminary, but it is rumoured to be about 1mile. We are, therefore, running 7 times around ensuring we have surpassed the minimum necessary to complete 10km. I might add, incidentally, that when I say 'we', we are talking in the royal sense. If that makes any sense, at all.

Talking of 'we', royal or otherwise, I am very pleased indeed to announce my successor as Dean of Seminarians to be Michael Collis. He of eastangliaseminarians blogging fame. They have announced a secret coup of the seminary in due course! Hah, their plan has been foiled. Don't write, on a blog, what you don't wish the world to know. Come on, guys, it's not rocket science. Hats off to the chaps, though. There are four of them here, and each and every one of them is running the 10km on Tuesday. Meaning they will, of course, be too exhausted to engage in any form of coup.

On a far more serious note. I was distressed to read of further attempts by the Vietnam authorities to undermine Catholicism in the their country. They attempted to prevent people travelling to Hanoi to join in the golden anniversary celebrations of the Redemptorists. Read more about it, from Independent Catholic News, here. The authorities forced the drivers of coaches bringing Catholics into the Capital to turn around and go home, forcing those who wished to continue the journey to walk 30km into the city. It will not surprise you to hear that they marched on. Well done to them. God bless them, always.

We have three seminarians at Oscott from Vietnam, Linh, Thai and Long. Remember them in your prayers. Each of them far from home and so very committed to the Faith. It is to help with Justice and Peace in our world that we are engaging in a sponsored run. The money raised will help local and international charities, but it is not just about the money. It is also about raising awareness and encouraging others to live out the faith, and sometimes that includes doing something. It was Eleanor Roosevelt who said; when you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.

Blogging

Spent an interesting morning blogging around the sphere - is that even making sense? The best of the lot, for me, was eastangliaseminarians with an interesting post on What IS the Priest? Also worth a look was lovingit found via catholicmomof10journey. Lovingit is described as: Ella and James Preece are a Catholic couple living in Kingston Upon Hull in Yorkshire in the UK. This is our blog. Particularly good to read was The Death of The Catholic Church. Cannot say that I agree with James' conclusions, at all, but a good read nonetheless. I rather wish I had more time to spend blogging as finding sites as interesting as theirs is something of a joy. Still, we enjoy the gifts we have, yeah?

Lenten Reading

Those pesky boys at eastangliaseminarians have beaten me to this post! I had planned to wax lyrical on the merits of St Francis de Sales classic, Introduction to the Devout Life. At Oscott, we have begun a communal reading of this excellent spiritual reading during the season of Lent. That is, to say, we are reading it individually on a daily basis to a communal plan, in order that we will individually and communally benefit. Go read my brothers' in Christ version of the account; it's better and offers a free sample each day throughout the season.