Brisbane Oratory News
Holy Week and Easter Schedule
Holy Week and Easter Schedule for the Brisbane Oratory.
Holy Week and Easter Schedule 2018
Musical Oratory: The Seven Last Words
Sunday 25 March at 3:00pm, Mary Immaculate Church, 616 Ipswich Rd, Annerley.
Musical Oratory is an inspiration from St Philip Neri, who sought to use music to help encourage devotion and prayer. This lent, we would like to invite you to a special Musical Oratory featuring Haydn’s Seven Words of Christ, a string quartet based on the seven last words of Christ spoken from the Cross, which have been a Catholic devotion for centuries.
The composer Haydn was commisioned in 1786 to produce this musical piece for Good Friday devotions for the Holy Cave Oratory in Spain. This piece of music contains seven movements based on the seven words of Christ spoken from the cross, and traditionally each movement was preceded by a brief meditation. Restored to its original setting, we will intersperse the piece with brief meditations on these words of Christ.
As we enter into Holy Week on Palm Sunday, this is a good way to recall to mind and heart the Lord’s sufferings in those final days of Passiontide.
Musical Oratory begins at 3:00pm and we also invite you to join us for Vespers, which is the official Evening Prayer of the Church, at 4:00pm.
Big events happening at the Brisbane Oratory in 2018
Saturday May 26th this year will see the third anniversary of our establishment as an Oratorian community-in-formation by Archbishop Coleridge. We will celebrate this day, Saint Philip Neri’s feast day, with a Solemn High Mass at 7:00pm that evening (following the usual 5:30pm Mass), followed by a celebratory supper in the hall afterwards. Please mark your calendar! After May 26th, we will have therefore completed the minimum three years that a community must spend “in formation”, and we hope then to prepare our formal petition for establishment as a Congregation of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri to be sent to the Holy See. We will keep you informed as things progress.
We rejoice that the Brothers continue to make good progress towards their eventual, please God, ordination to the Priesthood. As a further step towards this, Brothers Tyson, Conor and Matthew will be instituted as Acolytes during Mass celebrated by Archbishop Coleridge on Monday 9th July at 7:00pm in Mary Immaculate church. All are invited. As always, please keep the Brothers in your prayers, and also please pray for the other men who, at this time, are discerning whether they are called to Oratorian life in our community.
Br Shawn receiving ministries from Archbishop Coleridge in 2016, soon to be followed by Brs Tyson, Conor and Matthew later this year.
The date has also been set for our major social and fundraising event for this year. We’ve had the dinners, and we’ve had a ball, and this year we’ll be doing both! Please keep the evening of Saturday July 28th free for the Oratory’s Vallicella Dinner and Dance, which will be held in the delightful setting by the river at Riverside Receptions, New Farm. More details will follow.
From the Moderators Message of the Oratory Newsletter. If you would like to read the rest, and even more, such as a reflection from Br Tyson on their time in Oxford, be sure to read the latest newsletter and don’t forget to subscribe!
New Developments at the Oratory
Our own progress towards official establishment by the Holy See has taken a step forward at the diocesan level in recent months, with a Memorandum of Agreement being signed between ourselves and the Archbishop. The Memorandum spells out various practical matters of the relationship between the Oratory, the parish, and the Archdiocese, and gives us the necessary permission to make more permanent moves regarding our Oratory house at Annerley. This is a significant step towards our permanent and perpetual establishment.
One of the projects that has been undertaken in the parish over the last little while has been the reassembling of all the parts of the second confessional in Mary Immaculate Church, and it’s reinstatement for use as a confessional.
The restored confessional
Most of the parts had been stored in the room adjacent to the choir loft. With the help of experienced tradesmen, the result is very pleasing visually, and now very practically helpful that two confessionals will be able to operate, especially at times when there are many people seeking the sacrament. The ministry of the confessional is an important part of our Oratorian work, and we are pleased to be able to make the sacrament of Penance accessible to people from near and far.
From the Moderators Message of the Oratory Newsletter. If you would like to read the rest, and even more, be sure to read the latest newsletter and don’t forget to subscribe!
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