The Little Oratory meets every Monday evening at 6.30pm in St Patrick’s Rectory for prayers and recreation. This men’s group follows in the tradition started by St Philip Neri, who gathered men together for spiritual exercises and sermons. All men are welcome.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace.
“We ought to pray God persistently to increase in us every day the light and heat of His goodness.” (St Philip Neri)
The feast of Blessed Salvio Huix Miralpéix of the Vic Oratory in Catalonia.
After twenty years in his Oratory, he was made a bishop, first in Ibiza and then in Lleida. It was here that, in 1936, he was imprisoned by the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. He ministered to his fellow prisoners, and when offered freedom in exchange for renouncing the Faith, he refused.
When he and twenty other prisoners were taken for execution, having dug his own grave, Blessed Salvio asked to be killed last so that he could bless the others as they died. One of the militants shot him in his right arm to stop him doing so, but he carried on blessing the prisoners with his left. He was at last shot, receiving the palm of martyrdom.
Blessed Salvio, pray for us!
We are grateful to Fr Richard Duncan of the Birmingham Oratory for blessing a series of prints by Innocente Alessandri depicting the Life of St Philip Neri, copies of which have been framed in St Patrick’s Rectory thanks to a kind benefactor.
There will be a blessing of graves at Mount Vernon Cemetery on Monday 6th November at 3pm. We will meet by the chapel and move to your family graves for individual blessings.
Pictured: the blessing of Canon Hannan’s grave at Grange Cemetery on All Souls’ Day. Edward Joseph Hannan was a priest of St Patrick’s for thirty years from 1861-91 and did much to establish it as a new parish church. He is remembered for his tireless ministry to the local poor and support for young men through the Catholic Young Men’s Society and its associated groups (including the Hibernian Club). Requiescat in pace.
The feast of St Charles Borromeo, an early supporter of the Oratory and friend of St Philip Neri.
When the nascent Oratorian community in Rome came under threat of ecclesiastical censure, St Charles spoke in its favour, and even attempted to draw St Philip to his own city of Milan to start the Oratory there. Though this never came to pass, St Charles founded the Oblates of St Ambrose, a society of secular priests modelled on the Oratory.
St Philip admired St Charles for his love of God and service to the Milanese people, especially his heroic ministry to plague victims during an epidemic in 1575-78. The two saints were, in different parts of the Lord’s vineyard, fellow workers in the renewal of the Church.