Appeal for urgent necessary work
Special announcement
The October mass due on Friday 4th 2024 has been moved to St Nicholas, Chandos Street, Winchcombe. This is due to the recent heavy rain making the car park and pathway to the chapel very wet. The next Mass at St James’s chapel will be the spring of 2025.
Parishioners will know that Mass takes place at 11am on the First Friday of the month when we can be sure of good weather. The chapel is now closed for winter.
Our first Mass in 2024 will be on Friday 3rd May at 11.00am.
This year, on the Feast of St James, Holy Mass was concelebrated by Fathers Joby, Tony and Paul with a congregation of fifty people from four of the surrounding churches. The atmosphere was truly beautiful and all were able to appreciated the special atmosphere in a candle-lit place which spoke of the continuity of our faith over the centuries. Refreshments were enjoyed afterwards in the lovely grounds.
The beautiful interior
Many parishioners of St Nicholas will have visited this church in previous years and been enchanted by its antiquity and setting. It is hoped that people from across our three parishes will find this beautiful old church when we reopen late Spring 2023.
Building work that needs to be attended to has been discussed and this will be taken in hand, following further consultation with Clifton and the involvement of our Health & Safety/Buildings Manager.
Background and history
St James Church is a small, two-cell Norman chapel, restored to Catholic use at the end of the nineteenth century when ornate carved stone decoration was applied internally. The chapel forms part of an important historic group with PostlipHall and its medieval tithe barn. This Norman chapel, reputedly founded by William de Solers about 1139, was used as a farm building for several centuries.
It was restored for Catholic use in 1890-91 for Mr and Mrs Stuart Forster, Catholic converts and friends of Cardinal Manning who had acquired the adjacent Postlip Hall. The chapel was re-consecrated by Bishop Clifford on 16 June 1891. The chapel, built of local stone with a stone-slated roof, is a two-cell structure, consisting of a Norman nave and chancel with a seventeenth-century bell turret with ball finial above the chancel arch, and a northwest sacristy added in 1890-1 at the time of the building’s restoration and return to Catholic use. Late Perpendicular east and west windows have been inserted but a small original Norman window with widely splayed internal jambs remains on each side of both nave and chancel. The Norman south doorway has chevron mouldings at right angles on the arch, with ball enrichments in the hoodmould above, star diapering to the abaci and lintel, a recessed tympanum ornamented with overlapping fishscales and jamb shafts with scalloped capitals. The doorway itself has a later three-centred arch. The interior, with exposed stonework pointed in grey cement, retains its Norman chancel arch with chevron, star and billet decoration.
The Chapel is Grade 1 listed; this means building permission is required for demolition, extension or alteration in a way that will affect its character as a building of special architectural or historic interest.
Religious use: the Chapel is consecrated and used occasionally for masses, often held on or near St James’s Day (July 25th).
It should be noted there are no services on the site. Access is through the grounds of Postlip Hall and limited parking is available, courtesy of Postlip Hall. There is an established right of way to the grounds of the Chapel. Access for those with disability is limited.
We have this statue of St Cecilia at Postlip.
Reflection on the sculpture
Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Cecilia. Little is know about her life. Born in Rome in the late 2nd Century AD, she suffered martyrdom circa 230AD under Roman Emperor Alexander Severus (reign 13 March 222 – 22 March 235). According to legend, despite her vow of virginity, her parents forced her to marry a pagan nobleman named Valerian. During the wedding, Cecilia sat apart singing to God in her heart, and for that, she was later declared the saint of musicians. When the time came for her marriage to be consummated, Cecilia told her husband that watching over her was an angel of the Lord, who would punish him if he sexually violated her but would love him if he respected her virginity. According to legend, when Valerian asked to see the angel, Cecilia replied that he could see the angel if he would go to the third milestone on the Via Appia and be baptised by Pope Urban I. Out of love for his wife, he followed her advise and then saw the angel standing beside her, crowning her with a chaplet of roses and lilies.
Today’s marble sculpture of Saint Cecilia by Stefano Maderno, executed in 1599-1600, shows Cecilia extending three fingers with her right hand and one with her left, testifying to the Trinity: one God , three persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). The sculpture beautifully conveys a heaviness which recalls the weight of a body no longer living. Note also the thin but very noticeable slash in Cecilia’s neck, the mark of her beheading.
Stefano Maderno’s sculpture is said to replicate the way that Antonio Bosio (born in Malta in 1575, he was the founder of Christian archeology in Rome and the first scholar to apply the study of ancient Christian texts to a systematic investigation of the Roman catacombs) described the Saint at the moment of her discovery: ‘namely on her side, uncorrupt, clothed in drapery, and with her veiled hair turned eerily towards the ground’. This fostered a legend that our sculpture was modelled on the very corpse of St Cecilia herself. However, it has since been concluded that the statue is Maderno’s own composition, inspired by the words of Bosio as well as studies of ancient sculptures.
by Father Patrick van der Vorst
St James (source Britannica Encyclopaedia)
St. James (born, Galilee, Palestine—died 44 CE, Jerusalem; Roman Catholic feast day July 25; Eastern Orthodox feast day April 30) was one of the Twelve Apostles, distinguished as being in Jesus’ innermost circle and being the only apostle whose martyrdom is recorded in the New Testament (Acts 12:2). In Roman Catholicism, St. James is the patron saint of pilgrims, soldiers, veterinarians, pharmacists, and people with arthritis. He is also the patron saint of Spain, Galicia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Seattle.
James and his younger brother, St. John the Apostle, are designated Boanerges (translated in Mark 3:17 as “Sons of Thunder”), perhaps referring to their characteristic fiery zeal (Mark 9:38 and Luke 9:54), though the etymology and meaning are uncertain. With Saints Peter and Andrew, James and John were the first four disciples whom Jesus called (Mark 1:16–19) and whose question (“Tell us, when will [the destruction of the Temple] be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?”) sparks Jesus’ eschatological (pertaining to the end-time) discourse in Mark 13.
As a member of the inner circle, James witnessed the raising of Jairus’s daughter from the dead (Mark 5:37 and Luke 8:51), the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2), and Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:33 and Matthew 26:37). James and John asked Jesus to let them sit, one at his right and one at his left, in his future glory (Mark 10:35–40), a favor that Jesus said was not his to grant. James was beheaded by order of King Herod Agrippa I of Judaea.
According to tradition, James traveled to Spain to preach the gospel before returning to Judaea and becoming a martyr. This tradition also claims that his body was taken by boat to Galicia, a region in northwestern Spain, and buried there. In the early 9th century his tomb was purportedly discovered in what is now Santiago de Compostela, and a church was built on the site of his tomb. In the Middle Ages his relics attracted Christian pilgrimsfrom all over Europe.
A common representation of St. James that emerged during the Crusades (1095–1571)—when Spain was a stronghold of Moorish rule—was that of Santiago Matamoros (Spanish: St. James the Moor-Slayer). He was depicted on horseback and brandishing a sword—iconography that served to inspire Christian knights in battle against the Muslim Moors. (Similar depictions of Santiago Matamoros were used during the Spanish conquest of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries.) St. James has also been depicted as a pilgrim.
In 1884 Pope Leo XIII issued a papal bullproclaiming that the relics at Santiago de Compostela were indeed those of St. James. After centuries of decline, beginning in the 14th–16th centuries with the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation, the pilgrimagetradition to Santiago de Compostela was revitalized toward the end of the 20th century and became known as the Camino de Santiago(Spanish: Way of St. James). In the 21st century the tradition has continued to grow, and the shrine of St. James has attracted thousands of pilgrims annually from all over the world.