Celebrating St Birinus at Dorchester

Today is the feast of St Birinus, the Apostle of Wessex, who baptised King Cynegils, and thereby converted the House of Wessex, and the bishop who was also the founder (? re-founder ) of the church at Dorchester on Thames. Last night I attended an anticipated Solemn High Mass in his honour at the Catholic church under his patronage in Dorchester.

The Baptism of King Cynegils of Wessex by St Birinus in 634

Painted by Sister Petra Clare, of the Benedictine Abbey of St Cecilia on the Isle of Wight. 
The icon is in memory of the former Parish Secretary, Liz Pinniger, RIP, a suppliant of Saint Birinus, and was blessed on Trinity Sunday, June 15th,  2014 by the Most Rev. Kallistos Ware, Metropolitan of Diokleia.

Image:stbirinus.co.uk

The Mass was celebrated in the Extraordinary Form by Fr John Osman the parish priest, with Fr Guy Nichols C.O. as Deacon and Fr Kenneth Macnab as Dub-Deacon. The preacher was the parish priest of Caversham.

This was assisted by the musicians who sang a Mozart Missa Brevis, and the whole took place in the exquisite church, which has been so lovingly restored and decorated by Fr Osman in recent years. 

Afterwards there was an opportunity to continue the celebrations in the Presbytery at the always enjoyable reception and to meet up with old friends, and make new ones.

Celebrating St Birinus at Dorchester

Yesterday evening I travelled with two friends to Dorchester on Thames for the High Mass in the traditional form to mark the patronal feast of the Catholic church of St Birinus. This was the first time I had managed to attend this annual occasion - in other years there always seemed to be a clash of commitments.

The church, established in 1849 and designed by William Wardell, and very much in the style of A.W.Pugin, is small, but has been exquisitely restored and redecorated in recent years. The parish website can be viewed at St Birinus Catholic Church.

There is an illustrated post from 2008 about the restoration of the church from the Medieval Church Art blog which can be seen at Dorchester Roman Catholic Church. Since then more has been done in the church to enhance its appearance.

The interior of the church of St Brinus

Image:aroundbritishchurches.blogspot.co.uk

St Birinus, who arrived in England in 634 and died in 649, is the Apostle of Wessex, and can be seenasbeing, in effect the founder of both the later diocese of Winchester and, by extension, that of Lincoln. It was at Dorchester that he established his bishopric, and the place with which he is always associated. There is a brief online account of his life at the webpage Birinus, and one from the website of Dorchester abbey at St Birinus' Story. The abbey, which was floodlit last night, contains a reconstructed shrine for St Birinus, and is a building full of medieval artistic and architectural treasures, and well worth visiting.

St Birinus receiving a cross-staff, nIII 2b, Dorchester Abbey, c.1250.

Image:vidimus.org © C.B. Newham

Before the Mass there was the blessing of a new statue of St Birinus in the niche to the left of the rood screeen, and adjacent to the icon of the saint baptising King Cynegils which is featured on the parish website.

The celebrant was the parish priest Fr John Osman and the deacon and preacher was Monsignior Andrew Wadsworth, now of the Oratory-in-formation in Washington DC.

To accompany the liturgy Haydn's Little Organ Mass was performed by the Saint Birinus Consort.

There is an account of this patronal feast at the church in 2011 from the blog Offerimus Tibi Domine which can be read at St Birinus Day and which shows the previous statue of St Birinus, and the text of the splendidly rousing recessional hymn we sang again last night.

Known for its high standards of liturgy and music the church had drawn a wider than usual congregation of people like myself who had gone to join in the celebration. Afterwards there was a reception in the presbytery and the opportunity to catch up with old friends and to meet parishioners and other visitors.

A lovely occasion, with beautiful and reflective liturgy and music in an equally beautiful and reflective church.

May St Birinus continue to pray for the priest and people of Dorchester and all who invoke his aid.

Forthcoming Extraordinary Form Masses in or near Oxford

I have received the following information from Dr Joe Shaw of the Latin Mass Society:

The Latin Mass Society Forthcoming Mass in the Extraordinary Form in the Oxford area. A brief reminder: tomorrow, Sat 2nd Nov, is All Souls' Day. There will be a Sung Requiem Mass in the Oxford University Chaplaincy at 3pm. The Chaplaincy is in Rose Place, off St Aldates in Oxford, OX1 1RD. It is very near the Westgate Car Park. Another Sung Requiem will take place in Milton Manor at 11am, accompanied by Chant and Polyphony from the Schola Abelis and the Newman Consort. Milton Manor is near Abingdon, OX14 4EN There will also be Low Mass at 9.30am in St Birinus, Dorchester on Thames, OX10 7JR and 12 noon Low Mass in SS Gregory & Augustine's, Woodstock Road Oxford OX2 7NS. Please do not neglect to pray for the Faithful Departed in November! Newly confirmed: There will be a Sung Requiem in St Benet's Hall on Saturday 23rd at 11.30am; all are welcome. St Benet's is in St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3LN. There will be Mass in Wardour Castle Chapel on Saturday 16th at 11am; There will be a Solemn Mass for St Birinus, in St Birinus, Dorchester on Thames, 5th Dec at 7.30pm. There will a Solemn Mass for St Lucy's Day, Friday 13th December, in SS Gregory & Augustine's, 6pm. *The annual candlelit 'Rorate' Mass in honour of Our Lady will take place at 7am in the Oxford Oratory on Saturday 14th December.

The picture is of Mass at Milton Manor, celebrated by Fr Daniel Lloyd of the Ordinariate.

Ascension Day

Today has been Ascension Day, a feast I prefer to observe on the traditional day rather than the transferred solemnity of next Sunday - though as I have always been drawn to the rich imagery of Ascension I do not objrect to keeping it all over again on Sunday. 

Personally I regret the decsion a few years ago to transfer the obligation to the following Sunday, and would wish, with all due respect, the Bishops of England and Wales to reverse their request for the transfer of the day to the Vatican.  Not only is the traditional day scriptural, it is also the day still observed in Scotland by Catholics, and by the other Christian communities in England and Wales. in a country where the Catholic Church represents a minority of the total population it does appear to be lacking in sensitivity to one's neighbours not to observe one of the main feasts of Our Lord on the same day as everyone else.

Fortunately one of the benefits of Summorum Pontificum has been the ability of priest to celebrate according to the calendar of the Missal as promulgated by Bl.John XXIII, and as aresult I was able to attend the Low Mass for the Ascension at the Oxford Oratory this lunchtime.

To continue the mood of celebration, after afternoon tea with a friend, I was able to go to a beautiful Missa cantata at SS Gregory and Augustine in north Oxford, which was celebrated by Fr Saward. Had I not done that I would have had the option of going out to Dorchester on Thames where there was a sung Hugh Mass at the church of St Birinus.

As it was we joined another friend to go to a celebratory dinner with others at a house in Headington, and maintained the mood of exultation by filling the car with the strains of the Hallelujah Chorus from the CD player as we drove through north Oxford.

 

The Ascension

El Greco, 1577 

The Prado

Image: Wikipedia

Last year I posted some reflections on this great painting by El Greco, and I am returning to the themes it contains. As a painting it could as well be designated the Holy Trinity, but I see it described in catalogues as being the Ascension.

Unlike othe paintings of the subject it has a dynamic that goes beyond the tableau vivante. It conveys in the exhausted physicallity of the Son the cost of winning our redemption, and indeed the dramatic surge of Ascension in terms that point to the fact that salvation was wrought in human flesh taken on in the Incarnation by the Divine. Christ in His flesh pleads His wounds to His Father on our behalf, the point Fr Saward stressed in his homily this evening.

St Birinus

St Birinus, whose feast it is today, was the missionary bishop who evangelised the mid-Thames valley and later the Kingdom of Wessex. He died in 649 0r 650. Originally buried at Dorchester on Thames his relics were later tranlated to Winchester, although there were relics and a shrine, of which part remains in a modern reconstruction, at Dorchester. This served as the site of the of a cathedral until 1072 when the cathedra of the united east-midland dioceses was established at Lincoln.

The former cathedral, which retained for some time pro-cathedral status, was refounded as an Augustinian priory, now known as Dorchester Abbey, and its surviving church is one of the most interesting examples of a medium-sized monastic building and its gradual eveolution. It has some wonderful medieval glass and carving, both on the building itself and in the fine selection of tomb effigies. In the modern reconstructed cloister walk is a fine display of twelfth century architectural fragments which was organised by my Orielensis friend David Kendrick.

The biography of St Birinus by Barbara Yorke in the Oxford DNB can be read here and David Nash Ford's account has more about local legendary associations. It can be read here.

The stress in the life of St Birinus upon his miraculous recovery of a Papal gift to him - a corporal which Pope Honorius I himself had blessed - can be understood as an expression of the unity of his mission with the see of Peter, and the monastic church at Dorchester is dedicated to SS Peter and Paul. The suggestion is that the King of Wessex gave him as an estate a site not only with a Roman origin and remains, but one which may well have still sheltered a residual British Christian community.
On a more prosaic, or whimsical, and even Chestertonian, note I believe I am right in saying that it was St Birinus who first noted the consumption by the Anglo-Saxons of ale or beer.

St Birinus is consecrated as a bishop
Medieval glass roundel in the north chapel of Dorchester abbey

Image: sacred-destinations.com

St Birinus preaching to the King of Wessex and his followers.

Fourteenth century glass in the east window of Dorchester abbey

Image: ecclsoc.org

Copyright: C. B, Newham

The exquisite mid-nineteenth century Catholic church in Dorchester dedicated to him, and its continuing programme of restoration and redecoration, initiated by the parish priest Fr John Osman has been featured in other posts on this blog, but the parish webite at St Birinus, Dorchester gives more information.

If Dorchester Abbey is well worth visiting for its medieval features, then a visit should, no must, be combined with one to see both the wonderful work executed recently in St Birinus but also to attend Mass there - the corporal in use may not be a gift from the Pope, but the liturgy is. St Birinus would approve.

Fr Elliott's First Mass

From the New Liturgical Movement's The Ordinariate Comes to St. Birinius, Dorchester-on-Thames here are pictures of Fr David Elliott's first Mass on Corpus Christi Sunday, about whigh I posted in A quiet weekend of piety.

Photos © Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

Lenten array - a further observation

It occurred to me last night that in my researches on the Lenten array for my posts Passiontide veils and Lenten array and Vexilla regis prodeunt no-one appeared to make the point, which indeed had not fully dropped as a penny in my failing wits until then, that it is not just, as is argued, that the Lenten array is ashen in colour, but rather than unbleached linen is of such a texture and hue as to be reminiscent of sackcloth and of ashes, the ancient symbols of repentence. Thus it is not just a case of forswearing the use of silken hangings for the altar but of the church as a building as well as a community repenting in sackcloth and ashes during Lent and Passiontide.

The Lenten array at the Catholic church of St Birinus Dorchester on Thames

Image:Lawrence Lew on Flickr

Once the thought came to my mind I realised that I do not think I have seen the point made in print - though it doubtless has been - so I thought I would share it with anyone who might be interested.

Heraldry Society visit to Dorchester

Today I joined members of the Oxford University Heraldry Society on a visit to Dorchester on Thames.

Dorchester has a remarkable history. The bishopric established there in 634 by St Birinus began the conversion of Wessex and the mid-Thames valley. Had it remained the centre of the power of the Kings of Wessex, who, faced with Mercian pressure to the north, moved south to Winchester, it has been suggested it might have become the capital of England when the House of Wessex unified the kingdom three centuries later. Why St Birinus brought King Cynigils there for baptism, a journey of some twelve miles, and settled at Dorchester may well be explained not just by the fact that it had Roman remains which afforded shelter, but possibly or probably a continuing Christian presence. In addition there is evidence that long before the Romans what is now Dorchester was a Neolithic cult centre. The bishopric, with some intermissions remained there until 1072 when it was transferred to Lincoln, and the former cathedral re-established as an Augustinian priory of the Arrouaisian congregation.

Dorchester is a beautiful and charming small town, which has an old fashioned quality rare in modern England, but more than that, a sense of the numinous to those who reflect upon its history

Our first visit was to the abbey church. Here, despite preparations for a choral concert this evening, we had a guided tour of this extremely interesting building. Dorchester is a somewhat unusual survivor of a medium-sized monastic church from the middle ages - not on the scale of Tewkesbury or Sherborne, or those which became cathedrals. It has retained some wonderful specimens of medieval art - carvings, glass, tombs and brasses and wall paintings - some of the last only being recovered in the recent restoration. We also looked at the fine display of architectural fragments in the reconstructed cloister walk. This display was largely the work of a friend and fellow Orielensis, David Kendrick.

One thing that irritated was that the information boards in the abbey all referred to 'monks' being there in the period after 1072 until the Dissolution - but Dorchester was served by Augustinian canons - do they think their visitors so stupid that they cannot understand the subtle difference of nomenclature and function? It would be simple enough to explain.

Something that had appeared since my last visit to Dorchester was a rather fine reconstruction of the monastery as it might have been in the fourteenth century by Dominic Andrew - for his work look at www.archeoart.co.uk

We then moved over to the Catholic presbytery for tea and cakes on the lawn courtesy of Fr Osman, the parish priest, before visiting his wonderful church of St Birinus. Built in 1849 its website is St Birinus, Dorchester. In recent years Fr Osman has undertaken a marvellous work of restoration in the Puginesque church, and has enhanced it with much care and thought. Not least amongst this has been introducing a decorative scheme of heraldry reproducing the arms of benefactors of the abbey which still survive there or are recorded in Heraldic Visitations together with others from the recusant period as well as more recent contacts.

These were all described to us by Fr Mark Elvins OFM. Cap., Warden of Greyfriars in Oxford, and the inspirer of the revival of the Heraldry Society. As a pointer he used a crozier once owned by St Frideswide - well, one that once belonging to a statue of St Frideswide that was stolen some time ago from Greyfriars in Oxford. As we were leaving, Fr Elvins, who was providing me with a lift asked me to hold the crozier. Friends will not be surprised to learn that I immediately turned my cravat into a wimper with which to hold it.