Oxford University Catholic Chaplaincy

Term is approaching quickly, and we LOVE this podcast from a group of young Scottish Catholics which gives lots of tips for living your faith and your life to the fullest while at University. Whether you're a new student or a Chaplaincy stalwart, it's definitely worth a listen!
Introduction to the Catholic Life

CONGRATULATIONS to everyone who received the results they wanted today 🎊🎊🎊 The new academic year is approaching quickly, and we're looking forward to welcoming new faces to the Chaplaincy. On this results day, we are very excited to announce that the Chaplaincy now has a new website!
Please visit us over at www.catholicchaplaincyoxford.co.uk for details of Mass times, events, and news in the run up to Michaelmas 2018. Follow us also on Instagram and Twitter to see what goes on behind the scenes 👉📱🤗💕

"We never give more honour to Jesus than when we honour his Mother, and we honour her simply and solely to honour him all the more perfectly. We go to her only as a way leading to the goal we seek - Jesus, her Son." - Saint Louis Marie de Montfort
Happy Feast of the Assumption! For those still in Oxford, Mass at the Chaplaincy today will be at the usual time of 12:15pm.

Introducing Sr Myriam Harrod! 🎉🎉🎉
On the 22nd June, Feast of St Thomas More, our former Assistant Chaplain, Alex entered the noviciate at Stanbrook Abbey, receiving the habit and a new name. We thank God for the blessing of her vocation! Please keep Sr Myriam in your prayers as she enters this next stage in her Benedictine formation 🙏🙏

This coming Friday marks the Solemnity of Ss Peter and Paul - a Holyday of Obligation (and a meat Friday! 🎊) ***CHAPLAINCY MASS TIMES*** 8am (followed by free breakfast for students); 12:15pm See you there!

Remember! We’re down to Vacation Mass times from tomorrow onwards! There will be NO evening Masses from now until 0th Week, but we very much hope to see you at either 9 or 11am tomorrow🙏 Safe travels if you’ve already left for the Vac...Wherever you will be spending your Sunday, we hope you have a blessed time! ✈️☀️🙏

AMDG
‘A NATION HOLDS ITS BREATH’ Few season Finales have been awaited with such anticipation and with only a day to go before Thursday’s dénouement, speculation is mounting as to how this astonishing series is going to conclude. After 5 episodes in which nothing has happened, everything is pointing towards a nail-bitter, cliff-hanger of a close. No loose ends to tie up, no plot lines to resolve, no characterization to be rounded off but critics are sparing no column inches i...n surmising how Matt Potente [Ed. I thought he was an explorer] and his team will meet the public appetite for a reality event like no other. ‘It’s audacious, one just has to acknowledge that’, remarks Becs Brevity of the OUCC Production team, ’to believe that a whole nation will be sitting down in sitting rooms, having put the kettle on, in anticipation of what? Perhaps nothing more than a crowd of washed-out students traipsing across fields'. [‘And none of them will have brushed their hair’. Ed. ’No, indeed, Mum’] But that’s just the beauty of it and why it’s hats off to Matt Potente and his team for pushing Reality programming into such thrilling unchartered territory. Savour every moment, folks, because it’s going to be an agonisingly long wait before ‘Autumn Ambles’ returns to our screens. [ Ed. Thank God for small mercies!]
2pm departure from the Chaplaincy for a short local walk, with a celebratory pint/drink at The Punters for those who wish. LDS
See More

Finals are over, and the holidays begin! Well done to our Chaplaincy finalists! We hope you enjoy a well-earned break now ☀️🍰🍾 We’ll be praying for you as you discern where God is taking you next 🙏

We hope you can make it!! We’ll be heading to the meadows in little under 45 mins to celebrate the end of term together 🎉

Mass tonight will be in Somerville College - hope you can join us!

"Friendship and religion are not mutually exclusive, but inherently linked."
Living out our beliefs in a secular culture is often one of the most challenging aspects of Catholicism. CathSoc Secretary Mary deals with the topic wonderfully here - definitely worth a read!

It's time to celebrate the end of another academic year! Bring a dish to share, and a blanket if you have one, and we will head out to Christ Church Meadow after the 11am Mass for food and games in the sun!

AMDG Sorry not to have gone to Chartres at Easter ? Looking for a formative faith experience in an European context this summer? Interested in a spirituality of 'finding God in all things'?
MAGIS Central Europe is a meeting of young people (18-35 years old) mainly from Central and Eastern Europe who are interested in Ignatian spirituality. The program (delivered in English) offers an opportunity to share an unique experience at three distinct levels: individual growth, relat...ionships with God and others, and intercultural dialogue.
The central figure of the program is Jesus Christ. The purpose of the entire event is to help you meet Him, experience His unconditional love and discover His presence in your everyday life. Begins with a five day placement (spirituality or cultural or service) and concludes with a festival weekend. More info: www.magis2018.org
NB Registration is officialyl now closed but places remain available. Do let Fr Matthew know (matthew.power@jesuits.net) if interested asap. LDS
See More

If you are involved in volunteering, you might like to give some time to the following reflection. It relates to Pope Francis' recent remark that the corporal works of mercy keep us truly grounded in reality. And then see how two quotations from Fr Karl Rahner SJ, the Jesuit theologian, speak to you. Christ is to be met in the realities of life, and some of those realities will be difficult.
The reflection Exercise:
To bring to mind a recent experience you have had in volunt...eering.
Picture the person or the situation.
What did you notice then or notice now about the person/situation? What sense did you have, do you have, of their life and of who they are?
Why does it matter to you to have met that person, or encountered that situation? In what way might such an encounter be a grace for you, a gift of God? How are you richer for it?
The quotations from Rahner
AMDG
What does it mean to find Christ himself in his brothers [and sisters] in prison? Frist and foremost, it means a reverent humility in the face of this other human being, who is a child of God and a brother [and sister] of Jesus Christ, one who is called and beloved of God, one who is embraced by the power of divine love. We all know… that every human being still on pilgrimage through this life is called to salvation, beloved of God, and embraced by the grace of Christ…. We know that in every human being there is an eternal destiny in the making, coming to maturity through the trivialities of everyday life and common place humanity….
When we go to meet this wretched neighbour in the way that we should, when we care about him [or her] without any supporting feeling of instinctive, psychological conditioned sympathy, when we forgive even while feeling that we are being made fools of by doing so, when we really pour ourselves out without the reward of a feeling of satisfaction and without any return in gratitude, when our very encounter with our neighbour makes us unutterably lonely and all such love seems to be an annihilating leap into an absolute void, then that is really God’s hour in our life; that is when he is there. Assuming that we don’t turn back; assuming that it doesn’t get us down, that we don’t find ourselves some sort of compensation elsewhere, that we don’t complain, that we keep quiet about it and really accept and commit ourselves to the absence of ground under our feet and the foolishness of such love. Then it is God’s hour…
Quotations from Fr Karl Rahner, ‘The Spiritual Experience of Prison Ministers’ Mission and Grace III (vol. III) LDS
See More

Happy Feast of St Bede! This great saint of the British Isles can teach us much about our Christian heritage... and so can some more, slightly more unexpected, saints. Want to find out about some of them? Join us tonight from 7pm for 'Holy Unexpected' - a film made by local young professionals and students, not to be missed! https://www.facebook.com/events/197507129 2808184/

Join us in Uni Parks for some frisbee, football, and fun team sports! All welcome, and no skill required...! Bring your picnic and relax in the outdoors with friends.
***Meet at the Keble gate at 1pm*** Weather dependent... keep an eye on this event for Saturday's verdict!