Another tribute to Fr Elvins

A friend has sent me the link to another tribute to Fr Mark Elvins, who died earlier this year, and about whom I wrote in Fr Mark Elvins R.I.P., and also in  The Funeral Mass for Fr Mark Elvins.

This  additional tribute to Fr Mark and also to the late Slains Pursuivant of Arms, Peter Drummond Murray, can be viewed here.

The Funeral Mass for Fr Mark Elvins

This morning I attended the Funeral Mass for Fr Mark Elvins, O.F.M. (Cap) which was held at Oxford Greyfriars. I wrote about him the other week in my post Fr Mark Elvins R.I.P.

Not surprisngly there was a large congregation drawn from his family, friends, from other religious communities including the Conventual Franciscans who have found a new home nearby in East Oxford, academic friends from his time as the last Warden of Greyfriars PPH in the University, members of the Order of Malta and of the Constantinian Order of St George - of both of which Fr Mark was a member - and parishioners from the surrounding area.  Alongside the Capuchin community the concelebrants included diocesan clergy from the dioceses of Birmingham and Arundel and Brighton, from the Dominicans and the Oratorians in Oxford and from the Ordinariate. The principal celebrant Fr Paul Coleman O.F.M.(Cap) drew attention to this range of contacts in his homily which pointed to the range of Fr Mark's interests and he spoke particularly of his concern for the poor, and especially for the homeless, and for Palestinian Christians.

After the Mass and commendation Fr Mark's body was taken from the church and will be buried tomorrow at the Capuchin house at Pantasaph in Flintshire.

The generous reception afterwards in the very attractive garden at Greyfriars - part of the priory I had not visited before - was an opportunity to meet up with old friends and meet new people. Although a funeral is bound to be an occasion of mourning - and many of us will indeed miss Fr Mark very much - it had a proper sense of thanksgiving for a life well lived, a true pilgrimage in Faith. To that extent it was enjoyable to be there, and one of those funerals at which one sensed the person for whose soul we were praying would have enjoyed seeing his old friends gathered together.

May he rest in peace.

Fr Mark Elvins R.I.P

I was very saddened, although not surprised, to hear this morning of the death of Fr Mark Elvins, OFM. He has been ill for the last year and more, but, even though one knows that a person's death ios fairly imminent there is always asense of surprise when one hears the news.  There is an online biography of him here.

Brought up in Canterbury and Lincoln he studied at St Stephen's House in Oxford and became an Anglican deacon, only to develop what he described as"Roman fever"; sent by his Bishop on a sabbatical to be talked out of it he read in the works of Newman arguments he found unaswerable and was received on Christmas Eve 1968 into the Catholic Church. 

After study at the Beda he was ordained for the diocese of Arundel and Brighton, serving at Arundel itself, including being Chantry Priest to the Duke of Norfolk. He was subsequently at St Mary Magdalene Brighton (Fr Blake's post about his death can be seen here )- where he establishe dthe parish's 365 days a year soup run to the homeless. After being priest at Henfield he entered the Capuchins, being professed in 1999. He served the Order in Preston before returning to Oxford as head of Greyfriars. His Franciscan habit topped by a matching brown beret was a distinctive feature on the Oxford Catholic scene.

I first met him at a Lent Quiet Day he conducted at the Oxford Oratory, and then when he initiated the revival of the Oxford University Heraldry Society. I also got to know him further in the attempt to establish St Bede's Hall as a successor to Greyfriras Hall - an institution he had sought to maintain against the plans of others - and through the Franciscan Studies Centre's lectures here in Oxford.

A man of great charm and good humour, erudite and entertaining, someone with whom I occasionally met up and spent an afternoon with in the Oxford pub the Bird and Baby (the Eagle and Child to give it its proper name). It was there that I saw him last, in the summer last year. He was philosophical and calm about his cancer, which at that time was in remission. It was a convivial occasion for what turns out was our farewell.

I said the Rosary for him this afternoon and invite others to pray for the repose of his soul. May he rest in peace.