We We are very blessed to be able to celebrate Small Compline in Nazareth House each week, but are rather swallowed up in its vastness. Now, with the return of Newman Hall to the loving care of the Oratorian Fathers, I hope and pray that the Little Oratory created by the provost, Father Sebastian from an ambulance garage, may once again become a place of weekday Orthodox prayer and worship, accessible to students and young people, once the parish has moved out of town to its much-anticipated new place of worship.
Father took a bare brick building, and with sensitivity and an eye for detail transformed it into a beautiful chapel, with an altarpiece made from repurposed fragments from a Victorian Catholic Church in Bridgend, with beautiful painted archangels enshrined within the gothic wooden tracery.
The seven lamps flickering above the altar, the candles burning on the votive stand, the icon of Our Lady of Walsingham with its votive lamp, and the flowers always adorning the Oratory, showed that this was a much loved place of constant prayer and devotion.
Through the kindness and support of the then chaplains, the Little Oratory became the hub for our own chaplaincy (not connected to the “University Interfaith Chaplaincy”!) for our student parishioners.
I was reflecting this morning on what an important place this little chapel occupied in our parish life from the time of our move from the Greek Church until the Oratorian Fathers left the chaplaincy.
Our first Cathays Liturgy was in the Little Oratory, before our move into the church, across the carpark, several weeks later, but despite the move, the Little Oratory continued to be a much loved place of prayer for us, actually becoming our parish base during the covid lockdown and the subsequent period, replete with icons on their analogia, and always smelling of beeswax and Greek incense!
The Kursk-Root icon of the Mother of God was received and venerated within its walls, and even when Sunday Liturgies were celebrated in the chaplaincy building, the services of the Hours and our feast day Liturgies were celebrated in the Little Oratory with the accompaniment of buzzing bees in the flower border outside the door, the scent of lavender and the sound of the much missed chickens – so loved by the children!
We celebrated a wonderful Christmas there, with Father Sebastian insisting that Christmas lunch must be in the refectory of Newman Hall, opposite, with its wonderfully traditional Christmas tree and candelabra on the tables – a candlelight trapeza to never be forgotten. Parishioners chewing memories of the summer and autumn great feasts with their early Liturgies in the Little Oratory, with the herbaceous borders heavy with dew, and a little nip in the air, as we went to have a parish breakfast in the library.
Fridays saw the celebration of Small Compline, and Saturdays the chanting of Great Vespers, followed by a shared supper, with Magnus lurking, ready to steal homemade bread during confessions. Such an odd feline!
I particularly appreciated the Little Oratory as a place of monastic prayer, especially vespers on Sunday afternoon, when quiet descended after a busy day, and at night, when Magnus would give me feline company until he got bored of Psalms and went away intending nighttime prey, rather than pray.
For those of us who know and love Walsingham, the Little Oratory, with its brick walls and beautiful altarpiece reminded us of the Holy House.
Some Cardiff parishioners will remember the icon of Our Lady of Walsingham, commissioned by Dr Wolff, that previously faced the door. Though the icon moved to St Alban’s with the Oratorian Fathers, we look forward yo making the Walsingham Akathist to the Mother of God a constant prayer in the Little Oratory, once more, praying that it may once again become a Holy House to the Mother of God in Cardiff.
In sharing the news of the return of Newman Hall to Oratorian care, Father Sebastian titled the news ‘Second Spring at Newman’, and I was very much minded of the words from the Song of Solomon, the basis for a Psalm antiphon in the Latin Vespers of our Lady, especially given that the Little Oratory was so very obviously a place devoted to the Mother of God, of which the prophetic verses figuratively speak…
“For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.”
When her sacred icon returns to the Little Oratory, we look forward to gazing upon the beauty of that countenance!
