Monsignor Mark Langham sadly passed away on the 15th of January 2021. He was a remarkable priest, who over thirty years of his ministry served in London, Rome, and since 2013, as the Catholic Chaplain at the University of Cambridge, where I feel very privileged to have known him over the past few years. My words are but a meagre contribution, but hopefully capture something of the energy and joy of our dear Chaplain, who will be sorely missed.
Full obituaries can be found at the following links - here from the Anglican Centre in Rome, and here from the Diocese of Westminster.
I remember arriving at Cambridge for the first time as a nervous Fresher just before lunch time on a Saturday, and leaving Fisher House after Mass that same evening with an overwhelming sense of relief that everything would be just fine. With his characteristic warmth and enthusiasm, Fr Mark had welcomed me with a grin as a fellow escapee of our Diocese of Westminster, and it really felt like being welcomed home. In a University where one’s confidence and self-worth are shredded apart at every supervision, where it is so easy to be anonymous among hundreds of students, Fr Mark celebrated our every achievement, kept track of all our various antics, cared for us deeply, and never failed to call us ‘absolute stars’ for the smallest of accomplishments.
Many have written of Fr Mark’s homilies, and indeed it was his words, sharp wit, and flowing wine which guided us through the terms. He never failed to take our minds off impending deadlines – whether it be through his weekly tenuously-linked joke at the end of Compline encouraging us to move our conversations to the Bar, slipping M&S chocolate rolls (and puzzles) into the library in exam term, or convincing us that we were the perfect person to do whichever task or role needed filling. I’ve only got Fr Mark’s impressive ability to get people to sign up for things to thank for my closest friends. I recently came across the sign-up sheet for the 2020 Oxford and Cambridge pilgrimage to Lourdes, and noticed he had written ‘Don Marco – Magdalene’ on the list – and felt a great sadness that this never came to be. Despite the myriad of other hats he wore (and by that I mean the ecumenical and diocesan ones, not just the ones in the legendary Fisher House fancy dress cupboard), he made sure to be there at our chaotic committee meetings, listening kindly to all sorts of suggestions, relenting to some (the disco lights come to mind), keeping us all in line, and detailing his visions for the all-night Fisher Dinner party. Fr Mark loved a good celebration, and while we were cramming for exams in the library, he was expending equal amounts of energy next door in his office, creating Clip Art posters and ordering decorations, which he would then attempt to carry across to the library cupboard, hoping we wouldn’t notice an inflatable Mark the Shark or Chase the Clownfish balloon. I hope the bubbles are freely flowing up there.
Fr Mark shared in and helped us to mark the rhythms of Cambridge life, blessing and eating whatever lentils and under/overcooked stews we had rustled up, dining at Formals with us after College Masses, happily snapping away at events, and giving us endless snippets of practical advice as to how to live out our faith. He cultivated a friendly, outward-looking community of passionate Catholic students, one grounded in prayer and centred around worshipping together, yet one also able to sit around the TV watching Eurovision and have a good laugh. My happiest memories at Fisher House are those of friends being received into the Church or receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation, fully joining the great universal Catholic family, and I know what an enormous impact Fr Mark had on so many of our journeys of faith. One of my favourite tropes that would feature in Fr Mark’s homilies was the image of Heaven breaking through into the mundanities of our daily lives, peeping in through a conversation with a friend, reflected in beautiful nature (or a certain Basset Hound), or bursting through into the liturgy of the Mass. It’s incredibly upsetting that I’ll be returning from my Year Abroad to a Fisher House without Fr Mark, but I’ll keep looking for those moments; moments which remind us of the unfailing love of God which he always pointed us towards and so exemplified in his ministry.
Fr Mark had a great devotion to the martyrs, and often encouraged us to call upon the Cambridge martyrs for assistance, for these were people who walked the same streets, spent their evenings in the same libraries, and knew the trials and tribulations of student life. I can’t help but thinking of Fr Mark’s phrase in his last email to us, ‘I am a firm believer of the Communion of Saints’, and hope that we can take comfort in the thought that he too now joins this heavenly crowd of Cambridge Catholics – rooting us all on from the side of our Lord as we go about our lives.
Rest in Peace, Fr Mark, may we one day meet again.
A photo of a self-portrait of Fr Mark he uploaded onto the blog he used to run at Westminster Cathedral - if he deemed it worthy of his blog, I do hope he wouldn't mind it being shared on mine... The Latin reads, "Many things undertaken and yet so many things scarcely begun."