Took the above photo of the Brompton Oratory, looking along the lane to the side of Bonham's yesterday. There was almost an hour to spare between the morning and afternoon sessions of the auction, so I had a coffee and a cheese and pickle sandwich at the coffee house opposite Bonhams, then walked through to the Oratory, and had a look round inside it. It's a very handsome R.C. Church; almost a monument to High Victoriana - not my favourite period- heavy, pompous, and very sure of itself. But, like it or not, I had to admire the Oratory. Solidly well made and totally self confident (which sounds as if I'm admiring the very qualities I'm doubtful about - oh well- there's no accounting for, or even understanding our own, tastes !!!). I've spent most of the day in my workshop, tidying up and cleaning the stuff I bought at yesterday's auction (well some of it anyhow), and it's bedtime now, so I bid you all a very good night.
9 comments:
Hi Mike, What's the difference betwixt an oratory and a chantry?
Well, originally just what it sounds :- singing and speaking. A chantry was a sum of money to pay for a priest to chant prayers for a dead person's soul, and an oratory was a similar sum to pray for a dead person's soul (ora pro mea/nobis). In time it came to mean the plasce where these excercises took place :- a chantry/an oratory. Is this a leg pull ? I'm sure you'd already worked that out.
P.s. Thank you both again for a lovely weekend.
Love, Mike and Ann
Thanks for the clarification Mike and thank you for the very real pleasure of your company. It is so kind of you both to make the journey so regularly while I am not up to reciprocating.
So prayers are never sung in an oratory and never spoken in a chantry????? Is God concerned whether prayers are chanted or spoken???? Which manner of communicating prayers would be most effective??? Forgive the vacuity of such enquiries, I've probably missed some deeply significant spiritual point. I cannot comprehend why such different traditions have developed when all the Christian sects I know of employ both song and speech in their services of worship. On a personal note I would prefer to have kadish sung for me rather than said... but I don't expect it will affect the effectivness of the prayers nor my appreciation of the manner of their performance. Still deeply puzzled that holders of a faith which includes the wisdom that God is aware of the death of every sparrow should need to bother him about the recent transition of a fellow human. Why the choice of chant or speech? You say each was 'a similar sum'; could a good cantor charge more than a fair orator? I'm sure to the faithful these questions will seem as daft as my initial one.
More mysterious to me than the ways of God are the ways of his elect!
Hi Carl. These days the surviving Chantries and Oratories simply have these as the names of ancient buildings, and generally not a thought is given as to their original purpose.
In Greek and Roman days Oratory was studied as a component of Rhetoric. I remind you of this, as I think perhaps the questions with which you complete the previous comment are mostly rhetorical ones ?
Love, Mike.
P.s. 'And malt does more than Milton can
to justify God's ways to man'.
Good poetry -well verse anyway- by A.E. Housman.
But not good Theology.......
P.s. 'And malt does more than Milton can
to justify God's ways to man'.
Good poetry -well verse anyway- by A.E. Housman.
But not good Theology.......
Bless you Mike, While I confess the rhetorical question is the likeliest to have a clear answer, I was, in my own fatuous ramblings, attempting to elicit spiritual illumination.
I suspect that whatever our comments have suggested, the way to spiritual truths is to kneel in chantry and oratory freely intoning heartfelt prayer for all souls departed, present and yet to come... knowing that God's will shall be done despite our prayers or their absence...
'and all shall be well.'
Whether art, music or architecture (etc) is to your taste or not, you can still appreciate its quality! I've never been in Brompton Oratory, I must put that right.
No question about the quality of the architecure or the materials used for the building.
No question either that we enjoy some of these fine works because some priest implied that a rich man might find eternal benefit from funding such a project.
Equally no question that many such public benefits were donated from a heavy purse by a generous and grateful heart.
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