St. Thomas More Catholic Church

Oxford In Literature And Other Media

The University of Oxford is the setting for numerous works of fiction.

Oxford was mentioned in fiction as early as 1400 when , in , referred to a “Clerk of Oxenford”.

By 1989, 533 novels based in Oxford had been identified and the number continues to rise.

Famous literary works range from by , which in 1981 was adapted as a , to the trilogy by , which features an alternate-reality version of the university and was adapted for and as a .

Other notable examples include:

Campaign Against The Protestant Reformation

More supported the Catholic Church and saw the Protestant Reformation as heresy, a threat to the unity of both church and society. More believed in the theology, argumentation, and ecclesiastical laws of the church, and “heard Luther’s call to destroy the Catholic Church as a call to war.”

His early actions against the Protestant Reformation included aiding Wolsey in preventing Lutheran books from being imported into England, spying on and investigating suspected Protestants, especially publishers, and arresting anyone holding in his possession, transporting, or distributing Bibles and other materials of the Protestant Reformation. Additionally, More vigorously suppressed Tyndale’sEnglish translation of the New Testament.

The Tyndale Bible used controversial translations of certain words that More considered heretical and seditious for example, it used “senior” and “elder” rather than “priest” for the Greek “presbyteros“, and used the term congregation instead of church he also pointed out that some of the marginal glosses challenged Catholic doctrine. It was during this time that most of his literary polemics appeared.

Stories of a similar nature were current even in More’s lifetime and he denied them forcefully. He admitted that he did imprison heretics in his house ‘theyr sure kepynge’ he called it but he utterly rejected claims of torture and whipping… ‘as help me God.’:298299

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THE LIVING MASS

Podcasting live from St. Thomas More Catholic Church

Dear Friend:

We are thankful to Almighty God that you have joined us for worship through the amazing gift of this podcast. You bless us by your presence and your prayers. We hope that one day you will be able to join us in the sanctuary for worship and fellowship. We take seriously and personally Christs great commission to His Church:

Later as they were eating, Jesus appeared to the eleven and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen. And He said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In My name they will drive out demons they will speak in new tongues they will pick up snakes with their hands, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not harm them they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will be made well.

Please donate to underwrite and expand our ministry to proclaim with Our Lady the Greatness of the Lord through the means of social communication. God has given us the tools to reach the world. We only need the will to do it, to the glory of God through Christ.

Rev. Julian P. Harris, Pastor

Rev. Alex J. Vargas, Associate Pastor

Parish Office

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Alpha Returns In January 2023

For those of you that haven’t gotten to participate yet, we are having another Alpha course at St. Thomas More. Alpha is a course for anyone looking to get back in touch with their Christian spirituality and explore faith topics more. It is not a heavy duty theology course, but rather is based on interaction with others who are also searching.

The opening meeting will be on Thursday evening, January 12, 2023, at 6:30 PM in Walden Hall.

There is no cost to attend. You are welcome to attend the first meeting with no obligation to attend the whole course.

Indictment Trial And Execution

In 1533, More refused to attend the coronation of Anne Boleyn as the Queen of England. Technically, this was not an act of treason, as More had written to Henry seemingly acknowledging Anne’s queenship and expressing his desire for the King’s happiness and the new Queen’s health. Despite this, his refusal to attend was widely interpreted as a snub against Anne, and Henry took action against him.

Shortly thereafter, More was charged with accepting bribes, but the charges had to be dismissed for lack of any evidence. In early 1534, More was accused by Thomas Cromwell of having given advice and counsel to the “Holy Maid of Kent,” Elizabeth Barton, a nun who had prophesied that the king had ruined his soul and would come to a quick end for having divorced Queen Catherine. This was a month after Barton had confessed, which was possibly done under royal pressure, and was said to be concealment of treason.

Though it was dangerous for anyone to have anything to do with Barton, More had indeed met her, and was impressed by her fervour. But More was prudent and told her not to interfere with state matters. More was called before a committee of the Privy Council to answer these charges of treason, and after his respectful answers the matter seemed to have been dropped.

Regardless of the specific charges, the indictment related to violation of the Treasons Act 1534 which declared it treason to speak against the King’s Supremacy:

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Beaufort House And Crosby Hall

As More’s royal duties frequently required his attendance at the king’s Thames-side palaces in both Richmond and Greenwich, it was convenient to select a riverside property situated between them for his home. In about 1520 he purchased a parcel of land comprising “undisturbed wood and pasture”, stretching from the Thames in Chelsea to the King’s Road. There he caused to be built a “dignified” red-brick mansion in which he lived until his arrest in 1534. In the bawdy poem The Twelve Mery Jestes of Wyddow Edyth, written in 1525 by a member of More’s household using the pseudonym of “Walter Smith”, the widow arrives by boat at “Chelsaywhere she had best cheare of all/in the house of Syr Thomas More.”

Upon More’s arrest the estate was confiscated, coming into the possession of the Comptroller of the Royal Household, William Paulet. In 1538 it was considered sufficiently impressive to give as temporary accommodation to Louis de Perreau, Sieur de Castillon, the French ambassador to the English court the delicate matter of choosing a French royal wife for King Henry was under consideration.

In 1682 the property was renamed Beaufort House . It was demolished in 1712 and the site is now occupied by modern-day Beaufort Street.

Living The Real Presence Of Christ

We are a welcoming Catholic community called by God to live out the message of Christ in love and service to all people.

Our mission is to become the real presence of Christ through prayers, education, worship and service.

Sunday: 8:30 am & 10:30 am

Daily Mass:

Wednesday: 8:30 am or 9am

Every first Friday of the month from 9:00 am- 8:00 pm

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Daily Low Mass & Morning And Evening Prayer

Low MassMonday, Wednesday and Friday at 12:15 pmTuesday and Thursday at 5:30 pmSaturday at 10:00 amMonday to Friday at 8:30 amSaturday at 9:30 amEvening PrayerMonday to Friday at 5:00 pmDownload the Prayer Book Society of Canada’s Common Prayer mobile app here and then select the settings shown here for Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer so that the services display in the order the office is prayed at St. Thomass.

History Of King Richard Iii

Between 1512 and 1519 More worked on a History of King Richard III, which he never finished but which was published after his death. The History is a Renaissance biography, remarkable more for its literary skill and adherence to classical precepts than for its historical accuracy. Some consider it an attack on royal tyranny, rather than on Richard III himself or the House of York. More uses a more dramatic writing style than had been typical in medieval chronicles Richard III is limned as an outstanding, archetypal tyranthowever, More was only seven years old when Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 so he had no first-hand, in-depth knowledge of him.

More’s best known and most controversial work, Utopia, is a frame narrative written in Latin. More completed and theologian Erasmus published the book in Leuven in 1516, but it was only translated into English and published in his native land in 1551 , and the 1684 translation became the most commonly cited. More and the narrator/traveller, Raphael Hythlodaeus ” rel=”nofollow”> Raphael, and ‘speaker of nonsense’, the surname’s Greek meaning), discuss modern ills in Antwerp, as well as describe the political arrangements of the imaginary island country of Utopia among themselves as well as to Pieter Gillis and Hieronymus van Busleyden. Utopia’s original edition included a symmetrical “Utopian alphabet” omitted by later editions, but which may have been an early attempt or precursor of shorthand.

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Parish Outreach And The Continued Need For Food

Parish Outreach continues to help our neighbors in need of food. Our cupboards are getting bare so, if you are able, please pick up an extra can or 2 of food when you are shopping. Donations can be placed in the bins in the Narthex of the church. Remember the church is open each day from 9 AM to 6 PM.

Thank you and God Bless you!

Book : Dialogue Of Counsel

The work begins with written correspondence between Thomas More and several people he had met in Europe: , town clerk of , and , counselor to . More chose those letters, which are communications between actual people, to further the plausibility of his fictional land. In the same spirit, the letters also include a specimen of the and its poetry. The letters also explain the lack of widespread travel to Utopia during the first mention of the land, someone had coughed during announcement of the exact longitude and latitude. The first book tells of the traveller Raphael Hythlodaeus, to whom More is introduced in Antwerp, and it also explores the subject of how best to counsel a prince, a popular topic at the time.

The first discussions with Raphael allow him to discuss some of the modern ills affecting Europe such as the tendency of kings to start wars and the subsequent loss of money on fruitless endeavours. He also criticises the use of execution to punish theft by saying that thieves might as well murder whom they rob, to remove witnesses, if the punishment is going to be the same. He lays most of the problems of theft on the practice of , the enclosing of common land, and the subsequent poverty and starvation of people who are denied access to land because of .

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Book : Discourse On Utopia

Utopia is placed in the and More links Raphael’s travels in with ‘s real life voyages of discovery. He suggests that Raphael is one of the 24 men Vespucci, in his Four Voyages of 1507, says he left for six months at , Brazil. Raphael then travels farther and finds the island of Utopia, where he spends five years observing the customs of the natives.

According to More, the island of Utopia is

two hundred miles across in the middle part, where it is widest, and nowhere much narrower than this except towards the two ends, where it gradually tapers. These ends, curved round as if completing a circle five hundred miles in circumference, make the island crescent-shaped, like a new moon.

The island was originally a peninsula but a 15-mile wide channel was dug by the community’s founder King Utopos to separate it from the mainland. The island contains 54 cities. Each city is divided into four equal parts. The capital city, Amaurot, is located directly in the middle of the crescent island.

Each city has not more than 6000 households, each family consisting of between 10 and 16 adults. Thirty households are grouped together and elect a Syphograntus . Every ten Syphogranti have an elected Traniborus ruling over them. The 200 Syphogranti of a city elect a Prince in a secret ballot. The Prince stays for life unless he is deposed or removed for suspicion of tyranny.

Student Union And Common Rooms

The , formerly better known by its acronym OUSU and now rebranded as Oxford SU, exists to represent students in the university’s decision-making, to act as the voice for students in the national higher education policy debate, and to provide direct services to the student body. Reflecting the collegiate nature of the University of Oxford itself, OUSU is both an association of Oxford’s more than 21,000 individual students and a federation of the affiliated college common rooms, and other affiliated organisations that represent subsets of the undergraduate and graduate students. The OUSU Executive Committee includes six full-time salaried sabbatical officers, who generally serve in the year following completion of their Final Examinations.

The importance of collegiate life is such that for many students their college JCR or MCR is seen as more important than OUSU. JCRs and MCRs each have a committee, with a president and other elected students representing their peers to college authorities. Additionally, they organise events and often have significant budgets to spend as they wish . Not all colleges use this JCR/MCR structure, for example ‘s entire student population is represented by a combined Students’ Union and purely graduate colleges have different arrangements.

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Prayer And Care Requests

To submit prayer requests, simply click the button below and complete the form to ensure that a person is included, either on the weekly intercessions list to be prayed for daily at Mass, and/or in the private prayers of our prayer and care team. The form also includes an opportunity to request follow-up if you or someone you know would benefit from a clergy call or visit.

Communism Socialism And Resistance To Communism

Having been praised “as a Communist hero by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Karl Kautsky” because of the Communist attitude to property in his Utopia, under Soviet Communism the name of Thomas More was in ninth position from the top of Moscow’s Stele of Freedom , as one of the most influential thinkers “who promoted the liberation of humankind from oppression, arbitrariness, and exploitation.” This monument was erected in 1918 in Aleksandrovsky Garden near the Kremlin at Lenin‘s suggestion.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia‘s English translation described More as “the founder of Utopian socialism“, the first person “to describe a society in which private property … had been abolished” , and a thinker who “did not believe that the ideal society would be achieved through revolution“, but who “greatly influenced reformers of subsequent centuries, especially Morelly, G. Babeuf, Saint-Simon, C. Fourier, E. Cabet, and other representatives of Utopian socialism.”

Utopia also inspired socialists such as William Morris.

Many see More’s communism or socialism as purely satirical. In 1888, while praising More’s communism, Karl Kautsky pointed out that “perplexed” historians and economists often saw the name Utopia as “a subtle hint by More that he himself regarded his communism as an impracticable dream”.

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Trinity Square And Gardens

After the abandonment of Tower Hill as a site for public executions, Trinity Square and Gardens were laid out in 1797 by as the setting for , completed a year earlier as headquarters of the .

In the 1880s, a section of the London Underground was constructed beneath Trinity Square Gardens. In the first decade of the 20th century small buildings, courts and yards bordering Trinity Square were cleared to make way for the construction of the Port of London Authority headquarters at . Begun in 1912 and completed in 1922, the Grade II* building is now a Four Seasons hotel which opened as such on 26th January 2017.

The , was unveiled by Queen Mary on 12th December 1928. To avoid overshadowing this, the Grade II* Second World War section is In the form of a sunken garden and was unveiled by HM The Queen on 5th December 1955 while that commemorating merchant seamen killed in the 1982 Falklands War was unveiled on 4th September 2005 by the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Alan West.

His Eminence Thomas Cardinal Collins

• Date of Birth: Jan. 16, 1947
• Ordination to the Diaconate: May 14, 1972
• Ordination to the Priesthood: May 5, 1973
• Ordination to the Episcopate: May 14, 1997
• Born in Guelph, Ontario
• Ordained to the Priesthood in Cathedral of Christ the King, Hamilton, Ontario, by Most Reverend Paul Reding
• Ordained to the Episcopate in Cathedral of Christ the King, Hamilton, Ontario, by Most Reverend Anthony Tonnos
• Installed as Bishop of Saint Paul, Alberta, June 30, 1997
• Installed as Archbishop of Edmonton, Alberta, June 7, 1999
• Apostolic Administrator of Saint Paul, Alberta, March 26, 2001 November 9, 2001
• Installed as Archbishop of Toronto, Ontario, January 30, 2007
• Elevation to the College of Cardinals: February 18, 2012

Cardinal Thomas Christopher Collins was born and raised in Guelph, Ontario, where his father was the circulation manager of the Guelph Mercury and his mother was a legal secretary. He is the only son and the youngest of three siblings. His childhood home was situated behind The Church of Our Lady, where he attended and served morning Mass.

While studying in Rome, specializing in sacred scripture and the Book of Revelation, he received his Licentiate in Sacred Scripture from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in 1978 and a Doctorate in Theology from the Gregorian University in 1986.

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

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