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.

Showing US Seminarians round Newman's Oxford

Yesterday, for the third year running, I gave a tour of Newman's Oxford to seminarians from the St Paul's Seminary School of Divinity. The visit of twenty or so of them, led by their tutor, Fr Tom Margevicius, on a visit to London, Oxford and Birmingham to learn about Bl. John Henry and his thought has become an annual fixture, and is always a pleasant occasion at the beginning of a new year.

The tour is based around visiting Newman's two colleges,Trinity and Oriel, as well as his parish church of St Mary the Virgin. It is also an opportunity to saying something about Oxford life both in the early nineteenth century and today.

Despite the fading light of afternoon we managed to get round both colleges, their halls and chapels, including the Newman Oratory at Oriel. It also provides an opportunity to explain the thinking behind the Oxford Movement of 1833 and all it achieved.

After the tour we repaired to the Bear, which claims to date from 1242 as a hostelry, and boasts a unique collection of ties from institutions, clubs and societies for a pint and the opportunity to continue the discussion. I do not know if Newman frequented it at all - perhaps unlikely, but it is the Oriel pub.

The young men from St Paul are always good candidates for the priestly life and with a genuine willingness to learn about Newman and his life. I wish them and their colleagues well.

Showing US Seminarians around Newman's Oxford

As I did this time last year I spent this morning giving a tour to a party of seminarians from St Paul's Seminary School of Divinity in St Paul Minnesota. They are visiting England to study in particular the life and thought of Bl. John Henry Newman, and I was again asked to provide a guided tour of places associated with Newman in central Oxford.

We started after the mid-morning Mass at the Oxford Oratory and after an introduction as to life in Oxford in Newman's time I was also able to show them St John's College, with its links to St Edmund Campion, the backhanded compliment to the Oxford Movement that is the Martyrs Memorial of 1841 and the site of the Catherine Wheel inn where the Oxford Martyrs of 1589 were arrested on our way to Trinity.

Trinity College Chapel

Image: panoramio.com

Here I was able to show them the chapel, little changed since Newman made his first communion there as an Anglican in 1817, the hall and, having pointed out the windows of one of the rooms he is known to have occupied, finally we looked at Newman's memorial bust in the grounds.

From Trinity we went past the Sheldonian Theatre, scene of the moves to condemn the Tracts, the Bodleian and the site of Newman's lodgings in 1822 and where he heard of his election to the Oriel Fellowship. At St Mary's, currently starting a major set of repairs and renovations, I was able to talk about the place of that church in the life of Newman and the Oxford Movement, with its mixture of acadmic preaching and pastoral care as well as pointing out the south porch and its controversial design incorporating a statue of the Virgin and Child from the time of Archbishop Laud.

As last year the group was photographed in the shadow of Newman's pulpit, and I then took them across the High Street into Oriel, showing them the chapel, with the various Newman links, and concluding with a visit to what is now known as the Newman Oratory above the entrance, and now with its modern commemorative stained glass window by Vivienne Haig.

The Window in the Newman Oratory

Image: Oriel college website

This afternoon the seminarians are going to visit the College at Littlemore, and, after more lectures in Oxford, will then go to visit Maryvale, Ocsott and the Birmingham Oratory at the beginning of next week.

As with their precedessors last year they were a lively and interested group to show around, with plenty of questions about Oxford and Oxford life for me to answer. It was a great pleasure to meet a class of young men of obviously wide ranging gifts who are preparing to enter the priesthood in the near future. It was also very good to meet up again with Fr Tom who was leading the pilgrimage. Once again they were evidence of a confident and approachable Catholicism in the American mid-west.