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.


Thursday 15 October 2015

St Teresa of Avila


Today is the feast day of that wonderful blend of profound and insightful mysticism with robust practical common sense, St Teresa of Avila.


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Peter_Paul_Rubens_138.jpg 

St Teresa
A posthumous portrait by Peter Paul Rubens

Image: Wikipedia

This year is the fifth centenary of her birth in 1515 and so there is that added reason for celebrating today and giving thanks for the gift of her to the Church, for her reform of the Carmelites - no mean achievement by any standards to create a new community that has borne such fruit over the succeeding centuries - and for her writings. There have such directness and are a rich source for spiritual discernment as well as a record of living the Christian and monastic life in practice, and also a marvellous insight into life in Spain between 1515 and 1582.


https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2gaitwKoEJM1l85BuG6BdBwv3WOqTEH4S4ieyIXaGhurcUa1fnVphjrXva7_gTzf_7lqPMlwOb3vX9wDPw4FlDIMHUo8mg0UdtFoG2HfVsbtXnETvW_1kUATd1Qean9tZ-SW7xUMHaqQ/s400/St+Teresa+of+Avila.png

St Teresa
 A more nearly contemporary portrait 
 
Image umblepie-northerterritory.blogspot.com 


May St Teresa pray for us 

 
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