The Orders helping each other

Tomorrow afternoon I will be going on retreat for the rest of the week with fellow Carmelites to the Benedictines at Douai Abbey near Reading. This is a classic example of how the Religious Orders help each other.  God bless the Benedictines!  We regularly make use of them for retreats at Ampleforth as well as at Douai, and this year we are trying out a new retreat at Worth Abbey in Sussex.  This has been the base for a well-known media personality, Fr Christopher Jamison OSB – I see he is currently the Abbot President of the English Benedictine Congregation.  Like ourselves, the Benedictines have been struggling for vocations in this country, and we must pray that the current influx of younger people into the Church which has been reported in the media will result in vocations to the religious life as well as to the priesthood.  Apart from anything else, we can ill afford to lose these larger retreat centres which are such a gift to the Church.    

Intercessions:

Brian Davis – cancer

Cancer: Marie, Bernard (and wife Angela caring for him), Jacqui, Sue B, Theresa K

Siena, Elara – sick children

Wojtek – massive heart attack leaving him incapacitated

David OCDS - housebound

Sophia – blind infant

Joy Smith OCDS – seriously ill