From the Editor

Fr John writes

Dear Parishioners, Friends and Readers of Oremus As it happens, this edition of Oremus magazine contains several pieces with overlapping content. Continuing the coverage of Cathedral History, we look at the varying fortunes of our connections with Canada. For the first 40 years there seems to have been nothing and then the Baptistry received an altar in honour of St Anne (Canada’s patron saint). It is an ancient tradition to have an altar in a baptistry, but after only 20 years it was removed. Poor St Anne then remained unhonoured until Canada regained a connection through the Canadian Air Force Memorial above the Confessionals of the South Transept, when St Anne, now joined by and opposite to St Joachim, appeared in mosaic at the eastern end of the South Aisle. Do look out for them when next you are sitting in the confession queue. Meanwhile, the In Retrospect page reprints an article on ‘Catholic Canada’ from the 1922 Cathedral Chronicle, written in a somewhat ‘Church Triumphant’ style. During these two years of pandemic and intermittent lockdown when the opportunities for significant travel have been virtually non-existent, pilgrimage has dropped out of our normal Catholic experience, and so I have taken the opportunity to reproduce a piece written 15 years ago by the late Patrick Rogers, himself a keen traveller to marble quarries worldwide in his former role as Cathedral Historian. He writes of how different experiences on pilgrimage have shaped his spiritual understanding and I hope that reading what he has to say will rekindle your desire to seek God through pilgrimage. To go with his piece, I have included Jo Siedlecka’s notice of a new film about the events of Fatima. That is not only, of course, one of the world’s great pilgrim shrines, but also a mother house for the Franciscan Sisters of Our Lady of Victories who serve us so faithfully and unassumingly here at Clergy House and in the Cathedral. There is a certain contrast between the Book Notice on the back cover, which looks at Janine di Giovanni’s account of how Christians have come under increasing pressure to abandon their ancient settlements in a number of Middle Eastern countries, and the story on the preceding page of how a kidnapped and long-imprisoned Syrian monk is working to restore and rebuild not only a ransacked and desecrated shrine and monastery, but also to recreate a viable community to which exiled Christians might return, ‘Our country’, as he terms it. We should pray for God’s blessing on the work, since it embodies the theological virtue of hope in a region where that has so often been forfeited through violence. No shadow of Lent looms over February this year, so there is no need to look gloomy or tighten your belts yet – that will come in the March edition.

Westminster Cathedral

Cathedral Clergy House 42 Francis Street London SW1P 1QW Telephone 020 7798 9055 Email chreception@rcdow.org.uk www.westminstercathedral.org.uk

Cathedral Chaplains

Fr Sławomir Witon´ , Administrator Fr Brian O’Mahony, Sub-Administrator Fr Michael Donaghy Fr Hugh MacKenzie Fr Mike Maguire, Precentor Fr Vincent Mbu’i SVD Fr John Scott, Registrar

Also in residence

Franciscan Sisters of Our Lady of Victories: Sr Celeste, Sr Angelina, Sr Jesuina and Sr Fatima

Music Department

Simon Johnson, Master of Music Peter Stevens Obl. OSB, Assistant Master of Music Marko Sever, Organ Scholar

Cathedral Manager

Peter McNulty

Estates Manager

Neil Fairbairn

Finance Manager

Agnes Dabrowska

Chapel of Ease

Sacred Heart Church Horseferry Road SW1P 2EF

San Benedetto al Po in Trafalgar Square

The National Gallery

The Consecration of St Nicholas

The National Gallery is to bring a 16th-century altarpiece back to the chapel for which it was created, for the first time in over 200 years, through a new digital experience. Visitors to the Gallery will experience Veronese’s painting The Consecration of Saint Nicholas as it would have been seen in its original Italian church setting in 1562 by using virtual reality headsets. The free digital exhibition will be available in 20-minute ticketed sessions that are available from the Gallery's website from late January.

Through this innovative experience, visitors will be able to see the painting in its original chapel in the church of San Benedetto al Po, near Mantua, and explore the beautiful frescoes and architecture that once surrounded it. Visitors will be able to choose from one of two virtual guides who will lead them through the experience: our curator, Dr Rebecca Gill, who explores the painting and frescoes, or the historical figure of Abbot Asola, who commissioned the painting from Veronese and reveals the threat facing the monastery at the time. Virtual Veronese, which creates a 3D model of the chapel, began as a research and development project looking at how the Gallery can share research with a wider audience by using immersive technologies to explore new ways of telling its stories.

The Consecration of Saint Nicholas was commissioned in 1561 as an altarpiece to hang in San Benedetto, the abbey church of one of the largest and most important Benedictine monasteries in Europe. The church itself had been radically remodelled and enlarged in 1539 by Giulio Romano, Raphael’s prime pupil and himself a great painter and architect. The altarpiece remained in place until the 1820s, when it was removed from the church during the Napoleonic Wars. The painting shows St Nicholas’ consecration as bishop, as told in the Golden Legend. On the eve of the election of a new bishop at Myra, a voice revealed that a pious youth called Nicholas had been divinely chosen and would be the first to appear at the cathedral door in the morning.

Veronese depicts the entrance of the cathedral, where the senior bishop consecrates Nicholas, who kneels wearing a robe of emerald green, flanked by two older priests in white surplices. An angel descends with a bishop's mitre and crosier, proving that Nicholas has been chosen by God. The turbans worn by two of the witnesses show the story is taking place in Asia Minor. The consecration of St Nicholas is included in cycles of paintings of his life, but this is one of only two other independent images of the subject produced before the end of the 16th century. It seems to have been chosen to illustrate the importance of the call to the priesthood, and of God’s authority vested in a bishop. St Nicholas kneels at the lowest point of the deep ‘V’ shape formed by the figures. The brilliant green of his robe is included elsewhere, creating a pattern of colour which, with the repeated rich pink, blue and white, draws our eye around the composition. Tiny dots and brushstrokes of white and yellow suggest the striped gold fabric covering the shoulders of the senior bishop. Streaks of white and grey define the folds and form of the foremost priest’s brightlylit white robe. Veronese paints just enough detail and then allows our eyes to do the rest.

Giorgio Vasari, the 16th-century artists’ biographer, praised this painting highly in his Lives of the Artists. It was commissioned for the abbey church following the 1539 reconstruction, with Veronese agreeing on 27 December