Given at the Mass celebrating the 175th Anniversary of St Mary’s University on 26 June 2025.
St Mary's University has a long and complex history. Its very first steps were in Brittany in 1848 with 6 students, destined for religious life. But then, in 1850, Cardinal Wiseman and the Catholic Poor School Committee opened the College in Brook Green with a capacity for 40 male students. The legal trust, created 'in perpetuity', was formally established on 16 July 1851.
Then came the great contribution of the Vincentian Fathers, taking on the leadership of the College in 1899 and to whom we owe such an immense debt. In 1924, they moved the College here, to Twickenham, with a capacity for 150 students, even though the buildings were still incomplete. Since then, St Mary's has kept pace with the developing systems of education and its necessary supervision until full University status was granted on 23 January 2014.
Today, we reflect on this history both in terms of its educational vision and of our Catholic faith.
Everyone who goes to university does so, in the end, to seek to better themselves. Perhaps they may have a thirst for knowledge; they may have a love of learning; they may be wanting to extend their social networks or improve their career prospects. All of these are good reasons to invest – these days, quite literally – in a university education.
But more is to be said. In 1852, St John Henry Newman wrote The Idea of a University. There is so much that could be quoted from it, but here is just one example: ‘A university training is the great ordinary means to a great but ordinary end; it aims at raising the intellectual tone of society.’ In an era of individualism, the university is a powerful tool for the good of the broader community. And here that great aim is suffused with the fuller Catholic vision of the university.
A Catholic University is a place where an individual does not, and cannot, exist in a vacuum. At a Catholic University, the growth of the whole person is far more than his or her own benefit. It is a matter of pride to us all that St Mary’s is so well regarded for the pastoral care it offers to its students. It is a matter of fact that St Mary’s has made an immeasurable contribution to society and to the Church, from its earlier days when the training of teachers was to the fore, to the present time.
We can go further. Pope Benedict XVI did so at his historic visit here in 2010. Remembering his visit to this chapel, a little later he said these words: ‘Catholic universities, with their specific identity and their openness to the “totality” of the human being, can carry out a valuable task to further the unity of knowledge, guiding students and teachers to the Light of the world, "the true light that enlightens every man" (Jn 1:9)’
Here at St Mary’s, then, our intention is clear: that hearts and minds are to be shaped in the light of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Here, we pray, many may grow in their journey of faith, and in the knowledge and love of God.
It is, therefore, so right that at the heart of this day of celebration, we come to this beautiful chapel to offer our prayer to God in its highest form: in the celebration of the Mass. Here we make an offering to God of all that has been achieved. Here we heed God's holy Word so that our onward journey in the life of this University may be soundly rooted in the wonderous depth of all that God gives.
As each of the Readings we have heard makes clear, the Lord offers us sustenance, food for the journey we share.
In the First Reading, the care of a Father who keeps his promises comes to the fore. The forty years endured by the People of Israel in the desert make the longest of degree courses seem short in comparison. If some do indeed endure ‘wilderness moments’ of struggling to meet deadlines for assessments, publications, or administrative difficulties of one sort or another, we remember that in their wilderness, God’s chosen people encountered everything from drought to serpents and scorpions. Yet in the midst of it all, they were saved from hunger by the life-imparting manna; from thirst by the water streaming from the rock struck by Moses at Meribah. They were not abandoned; neither are we. Then as now, God is a Father of great faithfulness.
The Gospel reading, of the Feeding of the Five Thousand, needs little comment. Sustenance is offered to the crowd on a grand scale. We might reflect that the miracle came about in response to a very human reluctance on the part of the disciples. They had had enough; they didn’t have the strength, as they thought, to supply the needs of so many. Without Jesus, that may indeed have been so. But Our Lord is taking the disciples on a journey of their own, into greater trust in the power of God, and of his care for his people. It’s a road on which we too are invited to travel, in enduring faith and love.
But it is in the Second Reading that we find the depths of the faithfulness of God. For here is the earliest of the four accounts in the New Testament of the Institution of the holy Eucharist, probably written less than thirty years after the Last Supper. Here, we are assured that the nourishment we receive is not given in response to a one-off situation of crisis or hunger, but it is given as constant nourishment for body and soul, offered throughout our lives of faith. The Mass is, indeed, a sacred banquet in which we receive Christ in the holy Eucharist; we recall his Passion, our minds are filled with grace, and we are given a pledge of the glory that is to be ours. What a food that is for the journey, a journey into hope, a journey towards the fulfilment of the eternal happiness of heaven, opened to us by the saving sacrifice of Christ, made present at every altar whenever the Eucharist is celebrated.
And this is how we best celebrate our anniversary today, thanking God for the marvellous achievements of this University, the service given to so many, and asking that as our journey continues, so, too, will the Mass remain at its centre.
Throughout these 175 years, St Mary’s has been under the special patronage of Our Lady. The University bears her name, and its motto ‘Monstra te esse matrem’ (show yourself to be a mother), comes from the Marian hymn ‘Ave Maris Stella’, written more than a millennium ago. I am delighted that these words are to be heard at Mass today, set to music in a new piece by Sir James MacMillan.
So, I conclude with some words from this hymn. In the penultimate verse, we ask Our Lady ‘iter para tutum, ut videntes Jesum semper collætemur.’ (Prepare a safe journey, so that, seeing Jesus, we may rejoice forever). We give thanks that the journey of St Mary’s has, over all these years, been safely navigated. We ask Our Lady's prayers that our journeys, individual, corporate, ecclesial, may continue in faithfulness and come to a safe conclusion. That is, we pray, for the fulfilment of our hope of heaven, the ending of our journey, and the eternal enjoyment of the happiness of the presence of God for all eternity.
Amen.
✠ Cardinal Vincent Nichols
Archbishop of Westminster
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