# The Raccolta (1910)/Preface to the Sixth Edition

PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION
IN MEMORIAM— AMBROSE ST JOHN
AMBROSE St John was the younger of the two sons of Henry St John, and grandson of St Andrew St John, D. D., Dean of Worcester, of the ancient family of St John of Staunton St John, Oxfordshire. He was born June 29, 181 5, went to Westminster School, and afterwards graduated with Honours at Oxford. From Christ Church he entered the Anglican Ministry, and, after accepting a curacy under the Rev. Henry William Wilberforce, then incumbent of Bransgore, Hants, joined Dr Newman at Littlemore, where he remained till 1844.
He was received into the Church September 29, 1845, at Prior Park, near Bath, and accompanied Dr Newman to Rome, where the two converts were ordained Subdeacon together in the private chapel of Cardinal Franzoni May 26, 1847. Three days later they received the Diaconate at St John Lateran's, and the Priesthood the following day, Trinity Sunday. After a short novitiate they returned to England as Oratorians, and in the foundation of the Oratory in England by Father Newman Ambrose St John figures as his right hand at Maryvale, at Alcester Street, and finally at Edgbaston.
Bright and cheerful in aspect and manner, and many-sided in his accomplishments, Father St John devoted himself most assiduously to the service of God and his neighbour in the Oratory. He was a typical son of St Philip, indefatigable alike in the confessional and in the pulpit, and a true father, whether to the Italian organ-grinders or to the poor factory girls of Birmingham. Later on, at Dr Newman's request, he sacrificed himself to the exacting work of the Oratory School, founded in 1859, of which as Head-master from 1862, under the guidance of his Superior, he may be said to have laid the permanent foundations. His memory is held in grateful recollection by many old Oratory boys.
The translation of the Raccolta by Father St John was one of the first books of popular devotion issued by the Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory, and it supplied them with the congregational prayers, still in use in their church, for the Stations of the Cross, for the month of May, the Triduo and Novenas in preparation for the Feasts of our Lady, and similar devotions. The fifth edition of the book, brought out after Father St John's death, was printed in Birmingham by the direction and under the supervision of Cardinal New- man himself. Concurrently with the issue of the English Raccolta Father St John translated and published a work on Indulgences by the Abbate Dominico Sarra, Recorder of the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences and Holy Relics, ​ a handy popular treatise on the doctrine and use of Indulgences published by authority at Rome.
This Edition has been conformed to the latest Roman Raccolta approved July 23, 1898, and the Supplement, approved July 31, 1902; and contains also the Indulgences and decisions since recorded in the Acla Sanclce Sedis up to the present time.
The immediate occasion of Father St John's death was an act of neighbourly kindness, which led him to assist one very hot day as Deacon at the Festa of St Paul of the Cross, to which he had been invited by the Passionist Fathers at Harborne, his health being at the time very uncertain. He had recently translated from the German Dr Fessler's True and False Infallibility ', a work approved by the Holy See, which Dr Newman thought of great importance in the controversy which had arisen out of Mr Gladstone's Vaticanism ; the work had been done against time, and the effort, made in the midst of multifarious duties, had proved a great strain. The High Mass at Harborne was celebrated in a large conservatory, then in use as a tempo- rary church, and the sun, beating down through the glass, brought on a kind of sunstroke and brain fever, to which he succumbed. Dr Newman in replying to a letter of condolence says: " I do not like not to acknowledge your kind sympathy in my sorrow, but I am so pulled down that I cannot write without bringing on a flood of tears — not I trust from want of resignation, but from love of him I have lost, so I say only a few words. You who have undergone bitter losses will make allowance for me."
Their friendship is recorded in the concluding sentences of the Apologia, in which that work is offered as a memorial of affection and gratitude to the Fathers of the Oratory: "And to you especially, dear Ambrose St John, whom God gave me when He took everyone else away; who are the link between my old life and my new; who have now for twenty one years been so devoted to me, so patient, so zealous, so tender; who have watched me so narrowly, who have never thought of yourself if I was in question."
Father St John was buried in the private cemetery of the Oratorian Fathers at Rednal, and Cardinal Newman left strict injunctions that he himself should be laid in his friend's grave. A single head-stone bears their brief epitaphs. In the present issue of the Raccolta, brought up to date, the editor would claim for them and for himself, from all who use this book, a remembrance in their prayers.
R.G.B.
The Oratory, Birmingham,
November 2, 1908.