Lectures for Living

I discover that today is the feast of All the Saints of Ireland – a country to whom Catholics in the UK owe so much for the Irish people’s steadfastness in the faith over the centuries.  I was looking over a list of their saints and I paused at Blessed Columba Marmion (1858-1923), whose classic Christ the Light of the Soul still inspires many.  I find that he was Spiritual Director to the Carmelite nuns at Louvain for a while, visiting them every week and giving spiritual conferences.  I like this passage from Wikipedia about him: ‘Marmion taught dogmatic theology at Louvain, following the thought of Thomas Aquinas. His lectures were distinguished by, "on the one hand, his extreme clearness, and on the other his happy and fluent application of doctrine to the inner life".  Rather than presenting "revealed truths like mere theorems of geometry having no bearing on the interior life", Marmion sought to inspire his students to "live in and by the mysteries he set forth to them"

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

Mark – brain infection

Michael, Kira – vulnerable youngsters

Defence of the unborn and the elderly