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.


Thursday, 26 September 2013

Commemorating Fr Faber



Today is the the 150th anniversary of the death of Fr F.W. Faber C.O. He was 49, and had been in poor health for some time before his death. Nonetheless he had established the London Oratory and been a prolific writer of devotional books as well as of hymns.

The New Liturgical Movement website has the text of a recent address by Fr Anthony Symondson SJ to mark the anniversary.  It can be read at A Tribute to Fr. Frederick William Faber.



Fr Faber as a young man
This is a rather different image than in the surviving photographs of him in his last years
 Image:nunraw.blogspot
The present Provost of the London Oratory, Fr Julian Large C.O., has also been writing about Fr Faber and the commemoation of his death. His excellent letter to the parishioners on the subject of his great predecessor can be read here


Given Fr Faber's devotion to St Wilfrid, which I have written about before in St Wilfrid and Fr Faber, it seems very appropriate that Oratorians from Oxford, the University where Faber was a student, should be about to take on the administration of the church of St Wilfrid in York, in the county where he was born.



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