Our final Mass of term took place in SS Gregory and Augustine, which is undergoing some very positive renovations. The regular traditional Mass on First Fridays fell, this December, on the Feast of St Birinus, a feast unique to the Archdiocese of Birmingham. St Birinus brought the faith to Oxfordshire, basing himself in Dorchester on Thames, which was accordingly the seat of his diocese. Below is a medieval stained glass window showing St Birinus receiving his commission from Pope Honorius I, in Dorchester Abbey, which once housed his shrine. (At the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries it was an Abbey of canons regular, but it was saved by the residents of Dorchester to serve as a parish church.)A ten-strong schola sang the Mass to a very pleasing standard and repaired afterwards, in company with the serving term, to a splendid termly dinner in the house of the Senior Member.
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