A wandering man of prayer

Yesterday I was having lunch in a pub with a friend who is to be received into the Church at Pentecost.  The pub was festooned with St George banners and I remarked on this to the lady serving at the bar.  She said that people had been complaining because so much fuss is made over St Patrick’s Day but little attention is paid to St George’s Day – which is of course today.  I like to google the saint of the day with ‘Carmelites’ together and this sometimes produces interesting results.  I was delighted to discover that Enfield in North London has a parish dedicated to ‘Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St George’.  One of the delights of the internet is that you can follow trails that lead you to interesting places.  I found that the current parish priest, Fr Daniel Humphreys, is a devotee of Cumbrian Catholic convert John Bradburne (1921-1979).  Although inclined to Franciscan spirituality, this extraordinary man had something of the Carmelite about him.  For many years Bradburne wandered through England, France, Italy, Greece and the Middle East with only a Gladstone bag. In England, he stayed with the Carthusians for seven months. In Israel, he joined the small Order of Our Lady of Mount Sion, and went as a novice to Leuven (Louvain), Belgium, for a year.  After that, he walked to Rome and lived for a year in the organ loft of the small church in a mountain village, playing the organ. He tried to live as a hermit on Dartmoor, then went to the Benedictine Prinknash Abbey, before joining the choir of Westminster Cathedral as a sacristan. Cardinal Godfrey asked him to be the caretaker of his country house, Hare Street House, in Hertfordshire.  On Good Friday 1956, Bradburne joined the Secular Franciscan Order but remained a layman.  Bradburne's wanderlust was coming to an end in 1962, when he wrote to a Jesuit friend in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Fr John Dove SJ. He asked, "Is there a cave in Africa where I can pray?"  That’s what made me think of Carmel in connection with him.  He ended up emulating St Damien Veuster, living with the lepers in Zimbabwe where he met a violent death in 1979. There is a society devoted to keeping alive his memory.

Intercessions

Cancer: Brian Davis, Bernard (and wife Angela caring for him), Jacqui, Fr Jon Bielowski (Plymouth Diocese), Catherine, Alex (43 with five children), Sister Daranee Teapthong,

Kevin (heart attack)

William Gove (recovering from stroke)

Illness:  Hilary Solomon, Katy Keeling

Siena, Elara – sick children

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

We are asked to pray for the Diocese of Chiang Mai and Northern Thailand, as the Northern Mission celebrates its centenary. The process of selecting a new bishop continues.