End of term

This morning I went along to the final symposium organised by Azusa Pacific University in Los Angeles for their visiting students in Oxford, three of whom I have been teaching this term through the OPUS programme.

The symposium was held in the Old Library at the church of St Mary the Virgin. This was built in 1320 and, together with the Old Convocation House which forms the lower storey of the building, is the oldest University (as opposed to college) building not only in Oxford but probably in Europe. It is thus the predecessor of Duke Humfrey's library and the Bodleian, and, once a trifling little dispute with my own college of Oriel which ensured the library was closed for a generation or so ... was resolved in the late fourteenth century through the benevolence of Archbishop Arundel, the first functioning University library in Oxford.

At the symposium the students speak about their experience of living and studying in Oxford, and its impact on their own faith and beliefs. As on the previous time I attended such a meeting, this term's group had obviously enjoyed and gained from their term here.

Azusa has a specifically Christian ethic and the students obviously adhered to that and this was reflected in what they said. I have taught students from Azusa for several years and they are always intelligent, conscientious and likeable people with much to offer. I wish them , and my other students from this term well in the future, and hope to hear how they progress.

The website of the University can be seen at their website Azusa Pacific University.

 

The Old Library in use for a conference

Image:jri.com

Showing Seminarians around Newman's Oxford

This afternoon I spent an enjoyable time giving a guided tour of Newman's Oxford to 19 Seminarians ans their tutors from the St Paul Seminary School of Divinity in the United States. this was, I think, the fourth year I have given such a tour for these groups of young men, and I am always impressed by their quality as candidates for ministry. I gather that their School is the largest such foundation in the US and clearly successful. Its website can be viewed here.

I guided them from the Oratory through Trinity, and Newman's life as an undergraduate in 1817-21, then through the Bodleian to St Mary's where he was Vicar from 1828 until 1843, and where we took the now customary group photo by the pulpit, and then across the High Street to Oriel to see that hall where he took his Fellowship examinations in 1822, and the chapel and the outside of the Senior Common Rooms and Library he used whilst a Fellow until 1845.

Afterwards we returned to the Oratory and then met up at the Eagle and Child, the pub frequented by C.S.Lewis, J.R.R.Tolkien and the Inklings for supper, and an opportunity to relax and talk. 

This is always an enjoyable tour to give and I wish all the seminarians well in their studies and for their future ministry.

Campion country

Today is the feast day of St Edmund Campion, who was martyred on this day at Tyburn in 1581 along with St Ralph Sherwin and St Alexander Bryant. I posted about St Edmund last year in St Edmund Campion.

Although he was both born in London, in 1540, and died there, it is the area around Oxford which holds many of the most important associations with Campion and with his ministry in 1580-81.

A member of St John's College and then as an Anglican deacon, chosen to deliver one of the addresses of welcome to Queen Elizabeth I on her visit  to the city and university in 1566, he was eventually to return to the area. At Stonor near Henley he had printed his Decem Rationes - probably written at Mount St John in the North Riding of Yorkshire earlier in 1581 - and, with typical panache, left copies of the tract in the pews of St Mary ther Virgin for the commencement service of that summer and was speaking to Oxford students when he was persuaded, fatefully, to return to Lyford Grange in Berkshire that July. His subsequent capture at Lyford was followed by his public parading as a captive to London through Abingdon.

John Hunwicke preaching in Latin

The official language of the University of Oxford is still Latin, and each January there is a Latin Sermon preached before the University in the Church of St Mary the Virgin - Newman's church from 1828 until 1843.

Last Sunday the preacher was John Hunwicke, a former Anglican priest and member of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, and for many years a teacher of Classics at Lancing College. He is not unknown to many readers of this blog I suspect. For those who have not seen it his sermon, complete with a translation, can be read by following this link: Legite plura...

With acknowledgements to the website of Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham