- Happy Birthday
Happy 3rd Birthday Pippo
A smiling dog - especially for Br Richard
- Lent Talks
Spirituality and the Fathers of the Church
In this series of talks and reflections we will see how various ways of spirituality developed in the first 500 years of the Church. It was a time of persecution and growth, as well as the era when doctrines about the person of Christ were debated and settled, and sacramental and monastic life consolidated. We will [...]
- Stations of the Cross
Stations of the Cross
Every Friday in Lent
5.45pm
- Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday
17th February
Day of Fasting and Absintence
Masses with the Distribution of Ashes:
7am and 12.30pm (no lunchtime Benediction)
5.15pm Solemn Mass
In the first centuries of the Church it was the rule that public sinners received ashes upon their heads, and sat at the church doors asking for the prayers of those going into the church, as they [...]
- Blessed Sebastian Valfrè
Bl. Sebastian Valfrè (1629-1710)
Priest of the Turin Oratory
Saturday 30th January
Third Centenary of his Entrance into Heaven
In the year that we look forward to the beatification of John Henry Newman, we celebrate the third centenary of the first of St Philip’s sons to be raised to the altars, Bl. Sebastian Valfrè of the Turin Congregation. This [...]
- Newman on Assenting to Mysteries
Some Help in Assenting to Mysteries of Faith
from John Henry Newman’s
An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (1870)
Sunday by Sunday Christians solemnly declare, “I believe in one God”, and a whole set of dogmatic statements which follow from that. The grounds for this statement of faith seems radically inconsistent with the grounds we have for [...]
- Galileo and the Oratory: Science and Faith
Come si vadia al cielo, e non come vadia il cielo
How to go to Heaven: not how the heavens go
It seems a fight that has been going on for centuries; science in the blue corner of the ring and religion in the red corner, and the crowd cheering for their man and booing the opponent. [...]
- New Statue of St Philip
Statue of St Philip Neri
We have been extremely fortunate to have received a beautiful statue of St Philip. It is from the old church of our Lady St Mary and St Philip, Radcliffe in north Manchester. Fr Manock, the parish priest, has built a new church, with a new shrine to St Philip, and he has generously given [...]
- Beatification of Cardinal Newman
Beatification of John Henry, Cardinal Newman
of the Oratory
The Holy Father, Benedict XVI, has formally approved a miracle granted by God at the the intercession of the Ven. John Henry Newman.
Deacon Jack Sullivan, from Boston, USA,was healed from a serious debility of the spine after asking the intercession of Cardinal Newman in 2001.
“The prayers of Christ’s faithful all [...]
- Year of the Priest 2009-2010
Year of the Priest
19th June 2009 - 11th June 2010
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the entrance into heaven of the patron saint of parish priests, St John Mary Vianney (Cure d’Ars). The Holy Father, Benedict XVI, has declared this year to be dedicated to the priesthood, from the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, [...]
The architect was a favourite of the
Jesuits, Joseph Aloysius Hansom, the
inventor of the cab that bears his name.
The church he designed is 14th century
French Gothic in style, but the plan
is typical of a Jesuit city church –
a broad nave, prominent pulpit and a
short sanctuary with the altar near
and in full view of the congregation.
It is 186ft. from east to west, 112ft.
from north to south and 100ft. from
the floor to the inside of the vault.
The structure is brick faced inside
with moulded terracotta and outside
with Warwick Bridge stone. Sir Nikolaus
Pevsner in his introduction to the ‘South
Lancashire’ volume of his ‘Buildings
of England’ series wrote that the Holy
Name ‘is a design of the very highest
quality and of an originality nowhere
demonstrative…….Hansom never again did
so marvellous a church.’
In the sixteenth
century the Spanish saint, Ignatius
of Loyola founded an order called the
Society of Jesus or Jesuits, who were
a powerful force for the reform of the
Catholic Church. They often built large
churches in cities where their influence
could be effective through preaching,
the confessional and parochial work.
They were invited to come to Manchester
by the Bishop of Salford, Rt. Rev. William
Turner in the late 1860’s. The foundation
stone of the Holy Name was laid in 1869
and the church opened on 15th October,
1871.