A Country Unknown to Me

I am to fly out to Helsinki tomorrow and won’t be blogging that day.  I have been invited by the Helsinki Seculars to speak to them about St John of the Cross.  I believe they are the only group in the country, but they sometimes meet up with a group based in Tallinn, Estonia.  I can't imagine what it must feel like to be so isolated. My contact in Finland – a deeply Protestant country - wrote this lovely passage in an email to me.  ‘On the internet I discovered and read your autobiographical text. There you mention St Damien of Molokai. I found his statue in Brussels some years ago. The location is the park surrounding the National Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Koekelberg. I knew who he was because of my discovery in the local library in Helsinki when I was (about) ten years old, that is very long ago. I found a small book telling about a Catholic priest from Belgium who worked among the lepers in Molokai. His sacrifice touched me very deeply. Father Damien de Veuster, who was neither beatified nor canonized at that time, became my first saint. I was raised a Lutheran and was converted to the Catholic faith at the age of 19 after having met Edith Stein, whom nobody knew at that time, and the Castilian saints. The Catholic Church makes saints, and the saints make the Catholic Church.’

[no blog tomorrow]

Intercessions

Pope Leo as he recovers from his operation for cancer.

Cancer: Brian Davis, Bernard (and wife Angela caring for him), Catherine, Alex (43 with five children), Theresa K, Elena

Ivy – sick child

Brian (recovering from Pneumonia)

Kevin (heart attack)

William Gove (in recovery)

Illness:  Katy Keeling, Noreen

David OCDS – housebound

Grace – troubling ailments, job difficulties, family (deceased mother and health of father)

Mark – brain infection

Michael, Kira – vulnerable youngsters

Defence of the unborn and the elderly