As this awful year has unfolded and as the pandemic not only deepened, but a second wave surged across many lands, fears began to grow about our Advent and our Christmas – would we be able to celebrate together or even be together?
‘Even now as we walk amid passing things, you teach us by them to love the things of heaven.’[1] How do we learn to love the things of heaven? We do so by practicing faith, hope and charity. Our faith is in God.
And that one talent which is death to hide/Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent/ To serve therewith my Maker, and present/ My true account, lest He returning chide [1].
This month, so many of us continue our fervent prayer for all of humanity, as the whole world continues to suffer from the pandemic, yet we keep in our prayer another concern that will affect us all, now and in the generations that follow us.
This year, Sunday 25 October marked the 50th anniversary of the canonisation of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. The Martyrs represent Catholic lay and religious men and women executed for their faith between 1534 and 1680.