Word of Life - Bishop David Oakley - 2021-12-20

Word of Life - Bishop David Oakley - 2021-12-20 Preparing for the Feast of the Holy Family with Bishop David Oakley The feast of The Holy Family is a day in which we focus on Jesus, Mary and Joseph and always falls after the feast of Christmas on the last Sunday in December. The feast calls us to contemplate the family through prayer and reflection of the Scriptures. We keep in our prayer the vocation to marriage and family life, couples who are discerning marriage, those who have recently married, those celebrating special anniversaries and all the joys of family life. Bishop David Oakley shares that this Feast of the Holy Family reminds us of the importance of the family in salvation history and in the life of the Church today.  Bishop David Oakley is Bishop of Northampton.  David James Oakley was born on 28 November 1955 in Stourbridge. He is the eldest of five children to Joyce and Fred Oakley. The family moved to Birmingham when David was seven years old. After school, he worked in a well-known department store and entered Oscott in September 1974.Fr Oakley was ordained priest on 5 July 1980 and has served in several parishes within the Archdiocese of Birmingham. He has always suggested that the parish is his natural habitat. Fr Oakley studied catechetics at the Maryvale Institute and was awarded a MEd degree. He was appointed Pastoral Director and Procurator at Oscott in 1994. During this time he researched a PhD thesis in Pastoral Theology, which was later published. As Parish Priest at Maryvale, Fr Oakley directed the diocesan Department for Parish and Family Catechesis, developing resources in collaboration with CaFE. At the same time, he undertook licentiate studies in the Pontifical University of St Patrick’s, Maynooth and was awarded the STL degree. He served as the twenty-third Rector of St Mary’s College Oscott – a seminary in Birmingham for training priests for ministry in England and Wales. He was ordained the thirteenth Bishop of Northampton in the Cathedral of Our Lady Immaculate and St Thomas of Canterbury on Thursday 19 March 2020. For a more detailed biography, visit the Diocese of Northampton’s website.