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!

What is new?

One pithy quote from Pope John XXIII for Sunday III of Lent. Then there is a surprise recommendation in Notes...Christopher Buckley's Supreme Courtship. 

In NOTES there is a money quote from a book of essays HW read last year. The quote emerged in another blog and so you are offered it here.

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LENT is new, of course!

The shift from a personal program of penance to a communal preparation for the renewal of our baptismal promises still requires attention. 

The RCIA, meant to initiate unbaptized adults is still being mangled by including baptized Christians from other traditions.

It takes decades and sometimes centuries for a Council to catch on. And so we see that challenge in our own time.

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There are little goodies scattered about and more to come shortly...(Jan. 22, 2010)

The really good news is that Fr. George Busto becomes a US citizen on Monday 25 January, 2010. Congrats to him and his loving family and to us in the USA who will greatly benefit from his new citizenship. 

Sad News...

On November 30th David Golek emailed me from Jerusalem that his father, Abraham, had died. His widow, Josette, is as was Abraham, a very special gift in my life. She was born in French Algeria and laughed speaking of  what bigots French Catholic Algerians were and she loved Catholics. During the war with Iraq over Kuwait, gas masks in hand she read I Corinthians 13. Abraham was a survivor of Auschwitz. I met the Goleks in Jerusalem on my shoe string of shoe strings sabbatical. He was my wisdom figure who helped me keep faith in dialogue...Martin Buber's I-Thou was still an option for him despite all kinds of enemies who tried to kill him. 

There is more I can say and I should write up a Golek page and post it. But this for now. 

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In WORDS there is a paragraph about a seasonal book of meditations and essays on...WINTER!... Even if you live where winter is more a change of only ten degrees, the interior winter we all face will be easier to bear after reading these essays. 

ADVENT is NEW, of course...check out Sundays!

Under Notes...there is an old book called Born Catholics published in 1954 by the great firm of Sheed and Ward...and featuring mini essays by such people as Caryll Houslander, Jean Charlot, Antonia White, Maisie Ward, Hilaire Belloc. It is quite possible to draw lines from the concerns of these cradle Catholics through Vatican II to today. The same challenges prevail or even get worse!

The essays are well written, well edited, charming, original, and will give you a taste for a certain kind of literate Catholic that has not disappeared even yet...

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

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Published this year, Sister Wendy Beckett's Encounters with God, In Quest of the Ancient Icons of Mary, could be under Notes, it has been part of my reading, but of course it fits in its own category on Mary, Mother of God. So you will find a couple of visual treats. 

SUNDAYS takes a look at the cross...for Sept 13 and Sept 14th the Feast of the Holy Cross. There is a surprising quotation from Newman on hope vs resignation (he thinks we should choose resignation!). And I recommend my blog sight once again fatherhal.blogs.wesleyan.edu

Under St Philip and on the eve of the feast of the birth of Mary, a painting in the Oratory Church of Rome, has been posted. Dear PW, a good friend of Philip in our time, recommended him. He was a bit obsessed with his health and depressed a lot but spent decades of painting lively, colorful, humane, story telling pictures. 

Some new things in Notes...Poet Mary Oliver gets another poetry book selected...it is called Thirst. There is a sample. A book on music...in the 20th century yet, Alex Ross The Rest is Noise...gets noted. There are 20th century contemplative musicians and Ross, music critic for The New Yorker is very perceptive about them. It is an award winning book and may be in your public library. 

The writer, Fr Hal, is back so the computer problems are less...will he be MORE productive??? There is, of course, Sunday reflections, and an added section in Newman on his depression and suffering in the Church. 

The Dormition...Assumption of Mary is under Sundays. This is the feast for August 15th...a BIG both East and West share...

B