On Thursday July 11th 1833 a young french priest, Prosper Guéranger restored monastic life to France after its destruction at the French Revolution, by founding a small Benedictine community in the hitherto deserted Priory of Solesmes. A turning point in the life of the young priest Guéranger and an important moment for the history of the Church in France.
On the following Sunday the young John Henry Newman, on hearing a Sermon preached by John Keble in Oxford reached a turning point in his life and an important moment for the history of the Church in England. In his Apologia Newman wrote “Sunday, July 14th, Mr. Keble preached the Assize Sermon in the University Pulpit. I have ever considered and kept the day, as the start of the religious movement of 1833".
The seeds of the Oxford movement were sown and Newman began the first steps towards his conversion to Catholicism. And this in not just the same year nor the same month but only three days after Prosper Guéranger sowed the seeds of what would lead to a European monastic revival stemming from the restored priory of Solesmes.
These two great men, Newman, who has been called a pioneer and prophet of the Second Vatican Council and Guéranger, whom Pope Paul VI described as the “Father of the Liturgical Movement” met each other in the Birmingham Oratory in September 1860 and shared their ideas about their common area of interest Tradition and the writings of the Fathers of the Church.
