Celebrating the Jubilee at the Oxford Oratory

Yesterday morning we held our celebration of the Diamond Jubilee at the Oxford Oratory.

The Mass setting was Mozart's Coronation Mass (composed, as I understand it, for the coronation of a statue of Our Lady and not for that of one of the Habsburgs), the offertory anthem was Parry's I Was Glad, composed for the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902, and the organist played Walton's Crown Imperial from 1937 as the voluntary at the conclusion, following the Domine Salvam Fac Reginam - a new setting of the piece by Edward de Rivera, the Director of Music.

There was a really splendid sermon about the Queen and vocation given by the Provost, Fr Daniel Seward, and following the Mass we joined with St Giles church for a joint parish party in their hall across on the other side of Woodstock Road. It was a good occasion to celebrate the ties we all had in common. Over the quiche and sausage rolls, not to mention the meringues, I found myself talking to a French student I know here in Oxford about the relative claims and merits of King Henri VII and King Louis XX to tbe the occupant of the throne of France. Well, I would, would n't I?

There is a report and some pictures of the party as well as the text of Fr Daniel's sermon in the post Diamond Jubilee Celebrations from the Oratory website.