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Dear Brothers & Sisters
This week we continue cautiously opening our church in a restricted fashion, attentive to the advice of both Diocese and Government. We are a long long way from ‘back to normal’. By the grace of God we get the right saints at the right time, and this week is no exception.
St.Camillus de Lellis (Tuesday) was from a rich family in Italy like Francis of Assisi, and like Francis led a riotous early life before his time of conversion at 25. He tried twice to join the Franciscans but was turned down on health grounds, so he founded his own Order to care for the sick paying particular attention to the poor and plague-affected whom no one would touch. A good intercessor in a time of pandemic!His Order (the Camillians) only has a small presence in the UK but our brothers in India & Thailand have a good working rapport with the Camillians where they are more plentiful.
St.Bonaventure (Wednesday) was the great theologian of the early Franciscans, and his image is in our church in the St.Francis chapel. Like St.Francis he championed the use of the senses in spirituality and despite sharing the typical Franciscan aversion to power & honour he was honoured as a theologian. The pope even offered him the Archbishopric of York on one occasion but he turned it down.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Thursday) has always been a special day for Carmelites, who trace their origins to 12th century hermits living on Mt.Carmel (near Haifa). But as our Sacred Heart Congregation owes much to St.Miriam Bouardi a Carmelite mystic born a few miles away, we keep it as one of our feast days too.
Stella Maris: The miracle cited in 1Kings 18 when rain came down on Elijah’s sacrifice began with a small white cloud out at sea. Later Carmelite tradition has Elijah viewing this pure cloud as an image of the Virgin foretold in Isaiah 7.14. Tradition connects this with the ancient title Our Lady Star of the Sea.
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