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.


Friday 20 February 2015

EF Mass at Holy Rood


This lunchtime I attended the EF Mass at Holy Rood in Oxford.

The Mass had been organised between the new parish priest, Fr Stanislaw Gibzinski, and the Oxford Ordinariate group. The parish website can be seen at  Holy Rood, Oxford - Thames Isis.

The celebrant was Fr Daniel Lloyd from the Ordinariate.

By everyone's reckoning this was the first such celebration of the Tridentine form in nearly fifty years in the church. By the mid-sixties the variations of the interim rite were appearing and certainly this was the first Mass from the Missal promulgated in 1962 by St John XXIII since the introduction of the Missal of Pope Paul VI in 1970.

Although there was not an enormous congregation - although some people had made the effort to come from  other parts of the city - this was the first of a series advertised for Lent, and on Friday lunchtime, so it was a good base upon which to build.


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