What more for a boy with everything?

Today, June 21, is the feast of St Aloysius Gonzaga, the Jesuit saint in whose honour the Oxford Oratory church is dedicated. The church was built in 1875 by the Society of Jesus and the youthful St Aloysius seen a very suitable patron for a church in a University town - even if at that date in 1875 Catholics were discouraged by the hierarchy from sending their sons to Oxford, and later on when that was approved, the church was seen as being for the townspeople rather than students who were expected to go to the Chaplaincy established in the 1890s.

There is an online account of his life and sanctity at Aloysius Gonzaga and a Jesuit account from IgnatianSpirituality.com at  St. Aloysius Gonzaga, SJ (1568—1591)

St Aloysius Gonzaga in Glory

Gian Battista Tiepolo

Image: Wikipedia

This evening I attended the Mass celebrating his feast day at the Oratory. As is the custom on this day the preacher was a Jesuit, and this year the choice fell on Fr Keith McMillan SJ. His sermon drew out the extent of St Aloysius' many connections to the rich and powerful, and that when the future saint told his father he ws destined for better things than his family and its inheritance could offer that thing was indeed Heaven. That indeed was the what more for a boy with everything.

St Aloysius in word and art

Earlier this evening I attended the Solemn Mass for the patronal feast of St Aloysius, the patron saint of the church and parish, at the Oxford Oratory.

The preacher was Fr Gerard Skinner and his sermon can be read at the post St Aloysius' Day
from the Oxford Oratory website. In his sermon he makes considerable reference to the painting below:

 Giovanni Francesco Barbieri Guercino 

 1591–1666 Bologna

Guercino’s altarpiece was commissioned for the Theatine church of Guastalla in 1650 by Duke Ferrante III Gonzaga (1618–1678). An angel holds a heavenly wreath over the saint’s head, while at his feet are a sheaf of lilies, representing chastity, and a crown, symbolizing the Marquisate he had renounced. 

Image:Wikipedia

Sermon for St Aloysius Day

The statue of St Aloysius in the Oxford Oratory as decorated for his feast day

Image; Oxford Oratory website

Here, from the Oxford Oratory website, is the text of the thoughtful and reflective sermon preached in the church on the feast of St Aloysius last month by the Master of Campion Hall: it can be read at St Aloysius' Day Sermon by Fr James Hanvey SJ

St Aloysius

Image: Oxford Oratory website

To think what might have been

As part of the Open Doors in Oxford weekend sponsored by the Oxford Preservation Trust there is an exhibition at the Oratory this weekend about the history of the church and of the Oratorian tradition.

Amongst the pictures on display was Joseph Aloysius Hansom original design for the church dated January 5 1872 as depicted in The Builder. Although I had heard of this design I had not seen it hitherto. The style was perpendicular, with an apse, shallow transepts and extended right to the Woodstock Road frontage where it had a tower copied from that of St Nicholas Newcastle upon Tyne (since 1882 the Anglican cathedral). This, based on the height of the figures in the drawing, would have been 147 foot high. had it been built it would have given the church a sentinel tower at the north end of the city centre comparable to Magdalen on the east. Indeed at about the same time Thomas Jackson's rejected proposal for the new belfry at Christ Church would have given another great tower on the south side.

I have not got the Hansome design availabe at present, but here is a picture of Newcastle cathedral tower to give an idea of just what we might have had in Oxford:

The tower of St Nicholas Newcastle, built in 1448.

Image: Photograph by Jacqueline Banerjee from
http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/churches/1.html

Hansom's design for St Aloysius in Oxford replaces the turrets with paired pinnacles, and the finial on the crown arches is smaller, whilst the tracery in the bell openings is more elaborate, but the source is clear and the design essentially the same. Hansom has two windows at a lower level, a figure of Our Lord flanked, presumably, by statue of the twelve apostles, and at ground level an asymmetrically placed entrance archway, with a smaller door to the north

The interior as proposed by Hansom had fan vaulting. A year later in 1873 he produced a version in Decorated style with a lierne vault which might have been rather like that of the chapel at Ushaw, which is by Hansom and Dunn

St Cuthbert's Chapel, Ushaw

Image: http://www.dur.ac.uk/b.m.hodgson/ushaw/

Another church interior with a somewhat similar effect is Giles Gilbert Scott's Lady Chapel at the Anglican cathedral in Liverpool:

Image: Liverpool Cathedral website

As it was the design was not carried out and the much less lavish church we have to day was built. There was a fine photograph of the laying of the foundation stone laid by Bishop Ullathorne on May 20 1873 , and of the interior as first built, before the reredos was installed, but with a banner and the statue of Our Lady still in the church both recognisable.

Looking at Hansom's design I felt more than a twinge of regret that his original design had not been carried out. Perhaps I should start lobbying to extend the scope of the very worthwhile Oxford Oratory Appeal ...