Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Friday 9 December 2011

The Visionary of Tepeyac


Last year I posted this piece about Our Lady of Guadalupe and St Juan Diego Cuatitiatoatzin. This is an opportunity to make it available again.

This year Our Lady's feast is not subsumed by Sunday, so both the apparition and St Juan Diego will be commemorated. St Juan Diego's commemoration falls today, the anniversary of Our Lady appearing to him on the hill of Tepeyac 480 years ago. There is an online life of him and the story of the reception of his story here.


St Juan Diego Cuahtlatoatzin

Image : Wikipedia

Not only is this a day to give thanks for Our Lady's appearance to St Juan Diego and its impact on the life of the Church in New Spain, but also to pray with and for the Church in Mexico which has witnessed bouts of terrible persecution within the last century and a half from anti-clerical and anti-Christian forces.


1 comment:

Frederick Oakeley said...

Mexico deserves our prayers particularly at this time while it passes, with all party support, some of the most progressive Climate Change legislation of any in the world and thus puts much richer countries like the US and Canada to shame.