Greetings from Oxford!



Blacfriars, Oxford



I am alive despite my prolonged silence in the blogosphere! My house has been without internet (and continues to be so) till tomorrow, but I have managed to find a computer here at Blackfriars.

I have settled in well and have explored the wonderful city of Oxford on a daily basis, made all the more pleasant by the recent warm and sunny weather we were blessed to have in the last week. I have also enjoyed my induction programme and have met some truly lovely people. By far the greatest aspect of being in Oxford is the opportunity I have to attend Mass each evening at Blackfriars with the Dominican friars; my whole day points to the Mass and Vespers which follows and it truly gives me joy. I will keep you all in my prayers as I continue my studies here in this wonderful city. It does feel like an awfully long time since I properly studied and in fact I don't have my first lecture till next Monday (?)! Needless to say, I am very excited!

So these days have been a period of joy, excitement but also a degree of uncertaintly with what is to come. God has graciously led me to this point and has opened numerous doors for me, so I pray that I may confidently walk the path ahead and tackle with prayer and complete trust in the Lord anything that I may encounter. Of course, I rely on your prayers as I so often state. It is easy to ask for people prayers at times and it can seem all too casual; however, it means a lot to me to have people praying for me. I know people do and I do my very best to pray for those who pray for me, even though I may not know their names. This, of course, extends to the heavens where I know many saints recognised and unrecognised by the Church on earth pray for me each and every second of my life. How challenging it is for us to realise this on a daily basis, but how necessary it is. We are never alone and we are never unloved. If we are united to Christ and see as he sees and love as he loves, we cannot help but notice all the blessings we have in life. God is good.

As many of you are aware, I have a deep love for the person of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. I was kindly asked to write for Westminster Cathedral's monthly magazine, Oremus, an article on Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. I was also generously named 'Blogger of the month' by the magazine, to which I am perpetually indebted. I hope to put up the article on this blog for those of you who are unable to get to Westminster Cathedral. If you are able, I urge you to pick up a copy because the formatting of my article by the Oremus team, in my opinion, is superb. My thanks again goes to those who edit and publish the Oremus magazine.

I hope over the next couple of years, which I shall be spending in Oxford, I will be able to continue to write on this blog. As many of you are aware, the frequency of my posting has contracted quite considerably from my early days as a blogger. Without causing offence to anyone who blogs on a daily basis (and as an almost daily reader of blogs, I am grateful for those who do in fact post daily), over the years I feel I have matured a bit and even though there are many 'juicy' and controversial news articles that I could comment on, I feel that rarely are two voices presented and it is all too easy to attack a particular bishop for this, that and the other. Of course, criticism is sometimes due and bloggers can be a force for good. All too often, blogs become polemical and even though it can be perceived by some to be a bit of fun, for many others it can present an ugly side of what the Church can become. It is our duty as members of Christ's body to build up that body and to foster communion, not destroy it. Sometimes it means suffering in silence and holding back ones views. I have a rule of thumb in life which was passed on to me by a good priest friend of mine, which is that if something annoys me--be that in my day to day encounters or indeed on the blogosphere--then wait three days and see if it annoys me still, in which case it may be good for me to voice my concerns. Those three days enable my firery passions to settle and permit reason to make sense of the situation. So, many things do annoy and frustate me such as liturgical abuses, priests, religious and lay, not listening to bishops or bishops not listening to the faithful and so on; however, I don't feel the need to comment on it in public, though at times I may. Blogging is a great way of tracking your development as a human being, or at least it has been in my case; perhaps this is because of my age? Certainly I would not have thought three years ago that I would have an interest in ecumenical dialogue (namely with the Eastern Churches) and would be involved in Jewish-Catholic dialogue! I do find the latter quite difficult still but I hope through study and through face-to-face encounters with the Jewish people, particularly through the Emerging Leaders Delegation which the Vatican (and it's Jewish counterpart) runs and of which I am in the privileged position of being a member, I hope to contribute to a greater understanding between the Church of Christ and the people of Israel.

So, this blog post diverged quite a bit from the originial heading, so I offer you my apologies! I will leave it here for now.

Onwards and upwards!

Benedicite.