A model Carmelite

Yesterday evening my own Secular Group was able by coincidence to be present when the body of the late Joy Smith OCDS was received into St Gregory and St Augustine church in north Oxford prior to her funeral.  For many years Joy had been the Parish Secretary.  Although our paths had crossed a few times, I did not know her well, but I could not fail to be impressed by the warmth with which people spoke about her beauty of character.  Even when she was already very sick, she was ministering to others and dispensing cheer and smiling through the pain.  Fr Matt Blake OCD, our delegate from the Friars, told us that she was a model Carmelite.  I do remember her smile, and that makes me think of when St Teresa said she could not abide miserable nuns in her convents.  When I was much younger, I thought of cheerfulness as just a mood that would descend on a person periodically only then to give way to other moods, but now I realise that I can consciously cultivate cheerfulness.  The more I put on that smiling face, the more it becomes natural to me.  And smiles themselves are a blessing, as I appreciate when I am looking at one ….

Intercessions:

Cancer: Brian Davis, Bernard (and wife Angela caring for him), Jacqui, Theresa K, Fr Jon B, Catherine,

Illness: Roy Seymour, Catherine Keeling

Siena, Elara – sick children

David OCDS – housebound

Sophia – blind infant

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

Lucia – Overwhelmed by weariness

Mark – brain infection

Defence of the unborn and the elderly

RIP Richard Parker, Martin Gilham, Sue Burton, Wojtek, Joy Smith OCDS