Congratulations to Fr Robert Byrne, CO

Fr Robert at his Silver Jubilee in 2010

Congratulations to Fr Robert Byrne of the Oratory, who has been appointed as the new Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Birmingham.  What a splendid appointment of a kind, pastoral and orthodox priest.

From the Archdiocesan website: 

Fr Robert Byrne said:

‘I am deeply honoured and humbled that the Holy Father, Pope Francis has appointed me as Auxiliary Bishop of Birmingham. His example will continue to inspire and shape my ministry in Birmingham, especially to serve the poor, the marginalised and those who may feel alienated from God and society.  In the spirit of St Philip Neri – the founder of the Oratory and a saint with a great sense of humour – I am committed to helping share the joy of the Gospel message with others.

‘I began my priestly ministry in Birmingham twenty nine years ago and I look forward to renewing my friendships and to making my home once again in this great city.  I have a great love for the Malvern Hills and the music of Elgar, so was particularly pleased when I learned that my ministry would include the pastoral care of the Worcestershire deaneries.

‘I have been richly blessed in these years by the people that I have met and the work that I’ve been asked to do – as a parish priest, in prison chaplaincy, and latterly as the Bishops’ Conference National Ecumenical Officer. I look forward to building upon this experience and to working closely with other Christians and people of all faiths and none.

‘I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my Oratorian community for their priestly example, friendship and support. I shall miss them greatly and also the parishioners of St Aloysius parish in Oxford.

‘Blessed John Henry Newman, the founder of the English Oratory has inspired me as a priest.  I hope in some way to be able to follow his example, particularly in the care and love that he showed for his priests and people.

‘I know I can count on the prayer, co-operation and support of the people, the religious and the priests of the diocese. I look forward to working with and learning from Archbishop Bernard and Bishops William and David.

‘I ask for the prayers of Mary Immaculate, Patroness of the Diocese, together with St Chad and Blessed John Henry Newman as I begin my new ministry as Auxiliary Bishop of Birmingham.’

Archbishop Bernard Longley said:

‘I am immensely grateful to Pope Francis for appointing Fr Robert Byrne Auxiliary Bishop of Birmingham.  From his time at the Birmingham Oratory and as Provost of the Oxford Oratory, Fr Robert has come to know our Archdiocese well.

‘Having worked alongside him in recent years as the Bishops’ Conference Ecumenical Officer, I know that he will bring considerable pastoral, theological and administrative skills to his new responsibilities as a bishop.  Above all I am grateful that he brings the spirituality of St Philip Neri, the founder of the Oratory, to enrich his ministry among us.

‘I know that everybody in the Archdiocese, and especially in his pastoral area of Birmingham and Worcestershire, will join me in asking for the prayers of Fr Robert’s fellow Oratorian, Blessed John Henry Newman, as he now prepares for his episcopal ordination in May.

‘I also wish to record my abiding gratitude to Bishop Philip Pargeter for continuing to serve the Archdiocese with great dedication in recent years and for the support and friendship he has so generously given me.’

To arrange media interviews please contact Maggie Doherty on 07760 251 954

Fr Robert Byrne – Biography

22 September 1956    Born in Manchester, the youngest son of Sidney and Monica Byrne

Education

St Bede’s College, Manchester
King’s College, London (BD and BD AKC)
Pontifical College of St Thomas Aquinas, Rome

1980 Entered Birmingham Oratory
1985 Ordained priest
1984-1988 Chaplain, St Philip’s College, Edgbaston
1990 Founder, Oxford Oratory
1993-2011 Provost
1990-1999 Parish Priest, St Aloysius Parish, Oxford
2000-2011 Secretary of the Permanent Deputation of the International Federation of the Congregations of the Oratory
1996-date Trustee and Governor of Oratory School
1988-date Prison chaplain


Fr Robert Byrne will become the titular bishop of Cuncacestre

This is a tremendously beautiful experience

I discovered this homily over at the LMS Wrexhan blog.  On March 1, 2014 Archbishop Alexander Sample of the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon celebrated a Pontifical High Mass in the Extraordinary Form at the Brigittine Monastery "Our Lady of Consolation" in Amity, Oregon. The Mass was the crowning celebration of a 3-day conference on Gregorian Chant and the role of sacred music in the liturgy. Filmed and Edited by Marc Salvatore.

Speaking of offering the Traditional Mass Archbishop Sample says, "This is a tremendously beautiful experience."  he says that as a bishop his thoughts were, "I am a bishop: I must know this rite."

"The reform (of the Second Vatican Council) had gone off track and needed to be reconnected with the Church's past, with Her Tradition; with the beauty of this liturgy. This liturgy is ancient, ancient!"

It's quite a long sermon but well worth listening to - if only for the novelty value hearing a bishop say in public what is the plain teaching of the Church about the Traditional Form of the Mass, about Gregorian Chant and the eastward orientation of the Mass.

The Holy Face of Jesus

 The Image

We celebrated a lovely Mass yesterday evening for the  Holy Face of Jesus. I was introduced to the Devotion by my friends who run the Cenacle - an on-line Catholic Books and Gifts store.

Prayers at the Foot of the Altar

This devotion is said to have the twofold purpose of Reparation for blasphemy and Reparation for the profanation of Sunday and Holy Days of Obligation.  Relevant indeed for our days!

The Offertory

 The Consecration

Start of Lent

Some Parish Lenten information.

Shrove Tuesday 4th March 

7pm Low Mass (EF) in honour of the Holy Face of Jesus.
Light refreshments afterwards.

***

Ash Wednesday 5th March

9.30am Mass with the distribution of Ashes (OF)

11am Distribution of Ashes for children and parents 

at St Catherine's Primary School

7pm Mass with the distribution of Ashes (OF)

***

Thursday 6th March (and each Thursday of Lent)

Stations of the Cross (St Alphonsus version)

Vespers for St Chad

 

I assisted at First Vespers and Benediction for the Feast of St Chad yesterday evening with the Oratorian Community in Manchester (one of five coped ministers assisting!)  As usual the Community there accomplished the ars celebranda with their usual understated panache - managing elaborate ritual with a noble simplicity and no-nonsense style.  The church has an excellent acoustic, so the chant and polyphony sounded very well indeed from the accomplished singers who assist there.  I didn't really have very much to do, so it was rather pleasant to soak up the atmosphere of prayer and reverence.  

I didn't get any photographs on the night, so those shown here were taken at other times. The Community is in the process of restoring the church, which has been neglected over the years. I pray that  the Good Lord will bring them the means to carry out this great work in an area where the presence of the beauty, love and hope of the Faith is so much needed.

It was lovely to hear the Prayer for England from the old manual of Prayers, which I often use myself:

O MERCIFUL God, let the glorious intercession of Thy saints assist us, particularly the most blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Thy only-begotten Son, and Thy holy Apostles, Peter and Paul, to whose patronage we humbly recommend this country. Be mindful of our fathers, Eleutherius, Celestine, and Gregory, bishops of the Holy City; of Augustine, Columba, Aidan and Chad who delivered to us inviolate the faith of the Holy Roman Church. Remember our holy martyrs, who shed their blood for Christ: especially our first martyr, Saint Alban, and Thy most glorious bishop, Saint Thomas of Canterbury. Remember all those holy confessors; bishops, and kings, all those holy monks and hermits, all those holy virgins and widows, who made this once an island of saints, illustrious by their glorious merits and virtues. Let not their memory perish from before Thee, O Lord, but let their supplication enter daily into Thy sight; and do Thou, who didst so often spare Thy sinful people for the sake of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, now, also, moved by the prayers of our fathers, reigning with Thee, have mercy upon us, save Thy people, and bless Thy inheritance; and suffer not those souls to perish, which Thy Son hath redeemed with His own most Precious Blood, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, world without end. Amen.

Let us pray.

O most loving Lord Jesus, Who, hanging on the Cross, didst commend us all in the person of Thy disciple John, to Thy most sweet Mother, that we might find in her our refuge, our solace, and our hope; look graciously upon our beloved country, and on those who are bereaved of so powerful a patronage; that, acknowledging once more the dignity of this holy Virgin, they may honour and venerate her with all affection of devotion, and own her as Queen and Mother. May her sweet name be lisped by the little ones, and linger on the lips of the aged and the dying; and may it be invoked by the afflicted, and hymned by the joyful; that this Star of the Sea being their protection and their guide, all may come to the harbour of eternal salvation. Who livest and reignest, world without end. Amen.

Church rather poorly

Fr Gary Dickson at Collar and Tie has a thoughtful post on the Church being sick - and of, course, the remedy She must take to get better.

Some of his thoughts echo my own in my post from last Friday, such as this:

Authentic, Christ-centred pastoral care is to hold fast to agape; it is “to do the truth with charity” (Eph.4v15). We urgently need to learn how to present the truth in ways which demonstrate understanding of why a person has made the choices they have made while we proclaim the Truth in tones and attitudes that are inoffensive yet clear and certain. Sadly, during my time in seminary the great “discovery” in pastoral care was “grey areas”. To paraphrase what we were told: “Yes the Church teaches this or that, but it cannot be applied in all situations” -which means that in some situations God’s truth has to be adapted (or give way altogether) so that we may give non-judgmental, unconditional positive-regard to the person, their needs, and their ability to respond to the Truth.

Among other things, he focusses on the liturgy:

In regard to liturgy, we thought great things were being achieved by increasing the amount of scripture read at Mass; by bringing the laity into ecclesial ministries, and by giving way to cultural adaptation. Each of these has proved damaging. Bringing in more scripture only swamped us with it, so that many folk leaving Mass cannot tell you what the readings were about; increasing lay ecclesial ministries only brought about a loss of focus on the authentic vocation of the laity as the leaven in the world, while cultural adaptation only engendered a liturgy attuned to man and his changing way of life.

Iv'e said before how we seem to have a collective blind spot about the condition of the Church. As Churches, seminaries, monasteries and convents close there is no sense of crisis about any of this. To use the sickness motif, it seems that we've accepted the Church is in terminal decline and can only now receive palliative care; make the patient comfortable and manage the decline.  

However, the Church cannot be a terminal case! She may be sick (and in various times and various parts has suffered and recovered from any number of serious maladies) but She remains sound at Her core. This is Our Lord's own promise. But then, part of the problem is that we have "educated" ourselves into not really believing that the Gospels contain any of the actual words of the historical Jesus (a strange phrase to coin for the purpose of generally undermining any actual historical validity, but that's an old trick of the Devil's). Along with this we've talked the miracles out of existence and teaching, dogma and liturgy have all undergone a similar relativistic dumbing down.  This leaves us with nothing substantial to offer, no unique selling point; a theology of nice that with all the staying power and charm of a gummy bear.

We are always told by the medical profession these days that a positive outlook is very important for the recovery of a sick patient. They must believe they can get better - and the evidence says that we don't believe that.  Part of the recovery must be the recovery of a sense of who we are and that what we have to offer is valuable - indeed necessary - to the world.  I have heard the Popes of my lifetime, each in their own way preach this wholesome remedy but while the person of the Pope has often been welcomed, his message has not been taken on board.  This goes for Pope Francis as much as for Pope Benedict and Blessed Pope John Paul II.

Let's give up the gummy bears for Lent (and forever) and start taking some real medicine.

Blessed 

Pope John Paul II:  

“Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”

Pope Benedict:

“Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom? . . . No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation. And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life. Amen.”

Pope Francis:

In many places, the problem is more that of widespread indifference and relativism, linked to disillusionment and the crisis of ideologies which has come about as a reaction to any-thing which might appear totalitarian. This not only harms the Church but the fabric of society as a whole. We should recognize how in a culture where each person wants to be bearer of his or her own subjective truth, it becomes difficult for citizens to devise a common plan which transcends individual gain and personal ambitions.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols

Following on from my post about the frequency of receiving Holy Communion (not just for those who are remarried after divorce) I was interested to read the comments of Cardinal Nichols. In an interview after being created Cardinal, which can be read here, Vincent Nichols in answer to a question about  those separated and remarried,  said:

We have to go back and look again at place of the Eucharist in relation to the whole life of church and spiritual life of any person or couple. And make it possible that somehow the identification between receiving Eucharist and being a faithful Catholic isn’t as important it is now. When I was growing up, there was a more reserved approach to the Eucharist. It made demands on us. To receive the Eucharist was the high point. There must be ways in which people can live a very fruitful life in the church even if for the public reasons we all understand they might not have access to the Eucharist.