The Virtual Oratory

The Virtual Oratory connects people in a virtual house of prayer inspired by the patron saint of joy, Philip Neri, guided by the writings of John Henry Newman, and under the supervision of Fr. Hal Weidner, CO.

What We Do

Oratorians are lay people, priests, and brothers. On this site you will be invited to explore resources and news  being a virtual community of prayer, an open contemplative community, sharing prayer with anyone seeking God.

Philip Neri, said Newman, came to save people IN the world, not from it. So without being monastic or cloistered, we are contemplatives at the service of others.  

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 Fr Hal begins another year at Wesleyan. Fr. George is still with hospice. They had a good meeting this spring.

Ann Andreas will help Fr. Hal with the fall news so that people can catch up with us. Some have been asking if they can send Fr. Hal to the beatification of Newman next year in England but he prefers that something be done to help with the re-founding of the Oratory. He has been reading Newman since  1960 and writing and publishing on Newman since the 70s so it is wonderful enough just to know that Newman has been honored by God and the Church this way...a real answer to prayer. Fr Hal's work on Newman has appeared in Review for Religious, Catholic Digest,and Liguorian publicantions. As books was editor and wrote the introduction to Oxford University Press THE VIA MEDIA by John Henry Newman and Praying with John Cardinal Newman found on AMAZON. 

 (hit on that Amazon link above for the reference).

This was the lurid cover for Thomas Merton's Bantam paper edition of his autobiography. We have come a long way in our understanding of contemplative prayer from this fantastic graphic meant to sell a very spiritual book to people waiting in bus stations!

Special: August 9

St Edith Stein

in notes... 

What is new?

The Gospel for August 22 is a challenge because of the folks who want to repeal the 14th Amendment!  Poor Lincoln. Assassinated and now this.

For a lighter side, poor Paul VI. The great cape, yards of silk for mitred folks, was made non-olbligatory and practically disappeared. What bishop could get a diocesan finance council to bless an expenditure like that when it has no liturgical or theological significance. Well, among certain clerics it is back...at least until the dry cleaning bills show up in an audit. Another funny is the maniple...you have to be practically a schismatic reactionary to remember what a maniple is. But they have revived too some in brocade, gold thread and lace. Of no liturgical significance whatsoever, they are a fad among clerics who did not have to write the check to pay for them or maintian them. I can remember when they passed away as an item and how relieved the priests were since they were a vestigial item, one more thing to bother with. Now the younger set who might do well in Kabuki if they had been born in Japan are learning how to pin them on. Rome is burning and this is worse than fiddling. I do not think that when serious people were talking about tidying up and correcting some post Vatican II oddities they had in mind restoring silly things. But as a matter of fact, though I do not care for Kabuki much, I do like Chinese classical opera so I can understand some of the attraction though why they want it in church I do not know. There! I said it.

This week of August 1 the Sundays section has a post for August 8 and the 15th. The one on the 8th is very practical...it is about funeral planning. The 15th is a celebration of Mary, Feast of the Dormition/Assumption. Please do look at the funeral one for sure.

Nicholas Lash has a great quotation from Newman and that is found under Words. It is Newman's prediction that a great convulsion might help to change redtapism in the Church. The redtapism is Newman's coinage.

Readings sent to Fr David are in Notes, Sunday has a reflection on Mary.

Notes has more from the books Fr. David Valtierra used. They are presented as resources for here and now and for the future.

The Good Samaritan...is the Gospel for July 11 and there is under Newman a selection from one of his sermons on whether we have been successful Good Samaritans. He says no!

Under NOTES Fr. David Valtierra provides the selections HW gathered from his copy of Dante....

See under Newman the official prayer for his liturgical office as a Blessed.

Quotation from Newman! See Notes.

See Sundays and Luke 9.

Notes continues with reading selections from 89-90.

Sunday Luke 9 on fear and the cross, the living out of the paschal journey.

Notes!

A few weeks before he died Fr David sent me somethings including a notebook of Japanese paper that I used during my sabbatical 1989-90. I compiled it as a letter book with all kinds of things in it including some kanji and drawings. I will put selections from it with the dates under notes. It is part of a search for a house of prayer that would be a place for religious dialogue based on practice.

Sundays

The Feast of Corpus Christi gets some notes...abysmal selections from two parish bulletins...and then some  things from the bulletin of St Francis of Assisi parish, Middletown, CT.

Father David died last Friday, May 21, 2010.  Under notes, I hope you will find a post with some of the things he wrote down from a William Sloan Coffin lecture forty years ago.

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The finishing touchs are being applied to the complicated process for Fr. George to come to Middletown, CT, to continue the foundation of an Oratorian congregation. More to follow.

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The VIRTUAL ORATORY will be back in regular motion. That is new.

 The blog site you might visit also.

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The chief purpose of the Christian life say the Orthodox saints is to acquire the Holy Spirit...so  please look in on the Sunday section.

 Blog speaks to Blog... fatherhal.blogs.wesleyan.edu  

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