Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Monday 11 January 2016

Relics travelling to Canterbury


My attention was drawn to this article in the latest edition of The Tablet about the loan of the reputed crozier of St Gregory the Great to Canterbury Cathedral during the meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion and also of a blood stained vestment of St Thomas Becket that is also going to be lent to the cathedral in December.

The article can be viewed, together with a photograph of the ivory crozier head, at Vatican loans Church of England ancient relics ahead of vital gathering

Maybe one should pray that these relics will remind the Primates of the Rock whence Anglicanism was hewn, and that they will be drawn by the Ordinariates or otherwise to seek reconciliation.

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