"We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

- 1 Corinthians 1:23-25

This is the central panel of the reredos in Christ Church Cathedral, and is posted in reparation for this.

"When the power of the Most High overshadowed the one who had never known the nuptial bed, her fruitful womb conceived, and she became for all a delicious field: for those who wished to reap salvation by singing 'Alleluia!'"

– from the Akathist hymn.

The great feast of the Annunciation is kept today, transferred from 25 March because of Holy Week and the Easter Octave.

Detail from a fine masterpiece of champleve enamelling, called the Triptych of Louis XII, and dating to c.1500. It is part of the Victoria & Albert Museum collection, and more information about it can be read here.

During my visit to Limerick I used a number of different lenses. In this instance I used a Sony A7RM2 body with a Zeiss Batis 25mm Lens which I really like.

St Mary's Cathedral, Limerick, also known as Limerick Cathedral, is a cathedral of the Church of Ireland in Limerick, Ireland which is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is in the ecclesiastical province of Dublin. Previously the cathedral of the Diocese of Limerick, it is now one of three cathedrals in the United Dioceses of Limerick and Killaloe.

Today the cathedral is still used for its original purpose as a place of worship and prayer for the people of Limerick. It is open to the public every day from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm. Following the retirement of the Very Rev'd Maurice Sir on June 24, 2012, Bishop Trevor Williams announced the appointment of the Rev'd Sandra Ann Pragnell as Dean of Limerick and Rector of Limerick City Parish. She is the first female dean of the cathedral and rector of the Limerick parish. The cathedral grounds holds a United Nations Memorial Plaque with the names of all the Irish men who died while serving in the United Nations Peacekeepers.

All Saints, Longstanton, Cambridgeshire

Edith Webster as Hope by Louis Davis.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying:

And this same flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

The higher he's a-getting,

The sooner will his race be run,

And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer;

But being spent, the worse, and worst

Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,

And while ye may, go marry:

For having lost but once your prime,

You may for ever tarry.

Robert Herrick, To the Virgins, to make much of Time, 1648

Louis Davis was one of the finest stained glass artists of the Arts & Crafts movement. He was born in 1860 in Abingdon in Oxfordshire, and studied under Christopher Whall. He worked alongside Mary Lowndes in the Glass House, London.

In the summer of 1892 when he was in his early thirties, Davis was on a walking holiday in the Norfolk Broads. It was a hot day, and he knocked on a farmhouse door to ask for a drink of water. The door was answered by the farmer's daughter. Her name was Edith Webster. She was 15 years old, and Davis fell in love with her.

Edith was born in Honing, Norfolk in March 1877. Her father was a farmer with a particular interest in new techniques and developments, an open-minded man. Davis got to know the family, and he took the young Ethel to be his pupil, and perhaps his lover, and later they lived as man and wife. But there there is no record that they ever actually married. The suggestion in Davis's biography of a date in the mid-1890s cannot be substantiated. At the time of the 1911 census, Davis would claim that he and Edith had been married for ten years, but there is no record for 1900/01 either.

It was not just love. Edith was his muse. The sketches he did of her as a young girl in the early 1890s would provide the figures for his windows for the next thirty years. Again and again the young Edith appears as Faith, Hope, Charity, various angels and above all as the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Adoration.

There were no children, and it is possible that their relationship was never sexually consummated. At the time of the 1911 census Edith's younger sister, the 19 year old Ethel, was also living in the household as a companion.

In 1915, Louis and Edith were poisoned by coal gas leaking from a faulty fire. She recovered, but he didn't. He suffered a stroke, and, confined to a wheelchair, he had to give instructions to his assistants to create his wonderful windows, many still depicting the young Edith as he had drawn her a quarter of a century before. His worsening health meant that his output became less and less, and but he lived to the age of 81 and died in 1941. Edith survived him and also lived on into her eighties, dying in the 1960s.

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From Willingham I cycled back across the Cambridge Guided Busway into Longstanton, which will in time become the largest of the fen edge villages - the planned 'new village' of Northstowe on the old airbase will have 10,000 houses and facilities for 30,000 people, the largest new settlement built in England since Milton Keynes, and a new dormitory town for Cambridge. Perhaps, then, it was a little lack of foresight which meant that one of the two parish churches in the village was declared redundant in the 1970s. St Michael sulks broodily half a mile to the east, but first I explored the working one, All Saints.

The tower and spire of flint rubble and dressed stone are straight out of the same mould as Landbeach and Chesterton, and the church makes a nice 14th Century trio with neighbouring Over and Willingham. But there is something quieter and more reflective about the architecture here, and this may be because, although the language is still that of the early 14th Century, the church appears to have been reconstructed after the village was burnt in 1349 at the time of the Black Death. The church that heads eastwards of the tower starts conventionally, but then blossoms out into a large, wide, south transept, which houses the Hatton mausoleum. Sir Thomas and Lady Mary Hatton lie inside on a vast double bed, as naked an act of arrogance and privilege that the mid-17th Century can provide.

Hatton, who was MP for Stamford and official surveyor for Queen Henrietta Maria, the consort of Charles I, bought the Hatton estates in 1633, 25 years before his death. An uncontroversial figure, the Parliament On-Line site notes drily that There is little sign that he supported either side during the Civil War, although the parliamentarians accused him of refusing to take the Covenant and only paying taxes under compulsion.

His wife Mary, however, appears to have thought him the very summa cum laude of his age. Her elegiac Latin inscription for him records that Nature rendered him illustrious, and through him the University learned, the Court elegant, the Law just, the Church blessed. A Jacobean knight, a Caroline baronet, he was companion and servant to both kings.

Their characterful children flank their monument, three boys to the north, three girls to the south. Beyond them in the transept is a sepulchrum, the coffins of their descendants walled up in pods each with a memorial inscription on the end, the most recent dating from the mid-19th Century.

There is a beautiful window of about 1920 of Faith, Hope and Charity by Louis Davis in the east end of the north aisle. It depicts the virtues as young girls in his usual semi-erotic style, which may explain why someone has partly blocked it with large vases of dried flowers, a sign of how much more puritanical we have become in the last ninety-odd years. In fact, Davis later lived as man and wife with his muse Edith Webster, who was about 15 years old when he sketched her for these and other windows.

To the west of it is a good late 20th Century window depicting airmen and aircraft from 7 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps and then Royal Air Force, which was based at the nearby Oakington airfield in both World Wars. One panel shows the hangers and standing planes of the airfield, another a plane coming into land above the village of Longstanton, the spire of the church prominent.

Otherwise this is a church full of light thanks to a goodly quantity of clear glass, and if it is not as grand as its near neighbours, this is a likeable church nonetheless.

"The prophets foretold the coming of the Saviour, the angels adored him when he came; today is the great day on which he was made visible. The Magi rejoiced when they saw his star, and brought him gifts.

A holy day has shone upon us: come, you peoples, and worship the Lord. The Magi rejoiced when they saw his star, and brought him gifts."

– Matins responsory for the Epiphany.

Today, 6 January, is the Feast of the Epiphany, and my sermon for today can be read here.

Stained glass window in Cologne Cathedral photographed by my friend, Gilles. Cologne Cathedral houses the shrine of the three Magi, Caspar, Balthasar and Melchior.

"Knowing that she was a virgin, the blessed one courageously answered the angel: "Your surprising words seem hard for my mind to accept: how can you speak of a birth that is to come from a conception without seed? And why do you cry, Alleluia?"

– from the Akathist hymn.

Detail from a stained glass window in Sacred Heart church, Edinburgh, of the Annunciation which is kept today.

This splendid Gothic reredos is, in my opinion, one of Salamanca's greatest treasures. Finished in 1445, it is attributed to Nicolas Florentino, and comprises 53 individual scenes from the life of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.

The golden statuette is of the 12th-century Virgin of the Vega, patroness of Salamanca.

"Today the Star led the Magi to the Manger" - from the Magnificat antiphon for today, the Solemnity of the Epiphany.

Stained glass from Covington Cathedral.

"Today the Church is united to her spouse in heaven, because Christ has washed her sins away in the Jordan. The Magi hurry with gifts to the nuptials of the King. Water becomes wine to give joy to the wedding guests. Alleluia."

– Benedictus antiphon for the Epiphany which is on 6 January.

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, and my sermon for today can be read here.

Detail from a medieval ivory crozier in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

"To me the Virgin is basically the way to Christ. She’s our mother and by praying the rosary to her we get to Christ.

Nuestra Señora es la vía a Dios. Our Lady is the way to God."

~Pilar from Spain

Statue of Our Lady from the Carmel of St. Louis, Missouri, USA.

"The Creator of all things rests in the tabernacle of the virginal womb, because here he has prepared his bridal chamber in order to become our brother; here he sets up a royal throne to become our prince; here he puts on priestly vestments to become our high priest. Because of this marital union, she is the Mother of God; because of the royal throne, she is the Queen of heaven; because of the priestly vestments, she is the advocate of the human race".

– St Bonaventure.

Detail from the Lady Altar of St Maurice in Fribourg.

The Hermitage of El Rocío is home to the Virgin of El Rocío a), a small, much-venerated carved wood statue, and is the destination of an annual procession/pilgrimage on the second day of the Pentecost, known as the Romería de El Rocío, connected to the veneration of the Virgin of El Rocío In recent years the Romería has brought together roughly a million pilgrims each year. A lot of pilgrims arrive by horse or horse drawn wagon.

Although there has been a hermitage on this site for centuries, the present hermitage building was designed by architects Antonio Delgado y Roig and Alberto Balbontín de Orta, designed in 1961 and built in stages over the next two decades. The first Hermitage of El Rocío was a simple Mudéjar building constructed some time after Alfonso's 1270 command, and built no later than 1300

How to describ e El Roccio

El Rocío, the most significant town in the vicinity of the Parque Nacional de Doñana, surprises first-timers. Its streets, unpaved and covered in sand, are lined with colourfully decked-out single-storey houses with sweeping verandahs, left empty half the time. But this is no ghost town: these are the well-tended properties of 115 hermandades (brotherhoods), whose pilgrims converge on the town every Pentecost (Whitsunday) weekend for the Romería del Rocío, Spain’s largest religious festival. And at most weekends, the hermandades arrive in a flurry of festive fun for other ceremonies.

Beyond its uniquely exotic ambience, El Rocío impresses with its striking setting in front of luminous Doñana marismas (wetlands), where herds of deer drink at dawn and, at certain times of year, pink flocks of flamingos gather in massive numbers.

First and foremost El Roccio is a place of Catholic religious pilgrimage as only the Spaniards can do, a nation that turns religion into a party. Secondly traditional Andalucian dress and love of horses and horse drawn carriages bring it all back to bygone days . Thirdly the Spanish Devotion to The Blessed Virgin Mary is particularly strong and very public, not at all subtle.

All of these combine to make a place that is unique and somewhat special and not at all like the cowboy town that some refer to El Roccio as, more a genuine place of traditional religious pilgrimage.

"Every year the parents of Jesus used to go to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up for the feast as usual. When they were on their way home after the feast, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem without his parents knowing it. They assumed he was with the caravan, and it was only after a day’s journey that they went to look for him among their relations and acquaintances. When they failed to find him they went back to Jerusalem looking for him everywhere.

Three days later, they found him in the Temple, sitting among the doctors, listening to them, and asking them questions; and all those who heard him were astounded at his intelligence and his replies. They were overcome when they saw him, and his mother said to him, ‘My child, why have, you done this to us? See how worried your father and I have been, looking for you.’ ‘Why were you looking for me?’ he replied ‘Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’ But they did not understand what he meant.

He then went down with them and came to Nazareth and lived under their authority. His mother stored up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom, in stature, and in favour with God and men."

– Luke 2:41-52, which is today's Gospel at Mass. My sermon for today's feast of the Holy Family can be read here.

Detail from a mosaic in the Rosary Basilica of Lourdes.

Today, 28 April, is the feast of St Louis Mary Grignon de Montfort, a Dominican tertiary. Born to a poor family in 1673, at Montfort-La-Cane in Brittany, he was ordained at the age of 27. He had a deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and wrote a book, 'The Secret of the Rosary', which is the first work to describe the method by which the Rosary is prayed today. He is also famed for his book 'True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin'. He founded the Company of Mary, a missionary band of men, and the Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Wisdom, a religious institute of women devoted to the poor.

This statue of a devotee in pilgrim's clothing before the Virgin Mary is in a side chapel of Burgos Cathedral in Spain.

"Almighty God and source of all holiness,

you were pleased to enrich your Church

with the varied gifts of the saints of the Order of Preachers.

May we follow in their footsteps,

so that we who venerate them in this single celebration on earth

may come to share with them the eternal feast of heaven. Amen."

– Collect for All Saints of the Order of Preachers, which is celebrated today 7 November.

My sermon for today can be read here.

Medieval fresco the the priory of

San Domenico in Bologna which shows Our Lady protecting the Dominicans in heaven under her mantle.

"Blessed is the womb that bore you, Christ, and blessed are the breasts that suckled you, for you are the Lord and Saviour of the world, alleluia."

– Magnificat antiphon for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.

Stained glass detail from Old St Paul's, Edinburgh.

"O Root of Jesse, that stands for an ensign of the people, before whom the kings keep silence and unto whom the Gentiles shall make supplication: come, to deliver us, and tarry not" – the Magnificat antiphon for 19 December.

My sermon for today can be read here.

This mosaic by Thomas LaFarge is in St Matthew's Cathedral, Washington DC. The prophets Micah and Isaiah reveal the Tree of Jesse, from which springs King David, and Christ, who is being held by Our Lady (cf Isa 11:1).

Today, 16 July, is the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, who is patroness of the Carmelite Order.

Amid the many persecutions raised against the Order in the mid-13th century, St Simon Stock, General of the Order, turned with filial confidence to the Mother of God.

As he knelt in prayer on 16 July 1251, in the Whitefriars’ convent at Cambridge, she appeared before him and presented him with the well-known brown scapular, a loose sleeveless garment destined for the Order of Carmel, reaching from the shoulders to the knees. It was given as an assurance, for all who died wearing it, of her heavenly protection from eternal death. An extraordinary promise indeed, but one requiring a life of prayer and sacrifice.

This feast was instituted by the Carmelites between 1376 and 1386. After Cardinal Bellarmine had examined the Carmelite traditions in 1609, it was declared the patronal feast of the order. The object of the feast is the special protection and care of Mary for those who profess themselves her servants by wearing the brown scapular of the Carmelites.

In this statue from the Carmelite convent of the Incarnation in Avila, Our Lady of Mount Carmel is shown wearing the habit of the Carmelite Order. In her left hand she holds the infant Christ, and in her right hand, the brown scapular in the form it is worn by most people today.

Meditación sublime del dolor materno.

Stabat Mater dolorosa

Iuxta crucem lacrimosa,

Dum pendebat filius.

Cuius animam gementem

Contristatam et dolentem

Pertransivit gladius.

((Tratamiento fotográfico de la obra de Salzillo)).

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"I know not how to praise you, holy and immaculate Virgin. Heaven itself cannot contain the One whom you bore in your womb.

Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Heaven itself cannot contain the One whom you bore in your womb."

– Matins responsory for today's Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.

This 6th-century mosaic is in the basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna.

"It is to our advantage not to ignore why those who are devoted to the Blessed Virgin honour her more on Saturday than on other days. We should note that on the Sabbath the Lord rested; also that the Lord rested in her as in his dwelling-place. Therefore the Sabbath and the Virgin are in harmony because the Sabbath is the time and she herself is the place of the Lord’s rest"

– Blessed Humbert of Romans OP, 5th Master of the Order of Preachers.

Statue of Our Lady of the Rosary enshrined in the Rosary Chapel of San Domenico, Bologna.

Marian Exhibit in celebration of the 90th Anniversary of the Apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima [1917-2007]

Parish of Our Lady of Fatima

Philamlife Village, Pamplona Dos, Las Piñas City

September 29 - October 07, 2007

"Loving God, as a mother gives life and nourishment to her children, so you watch over your Church. Bless these women, that they may be strengthened as Christian mothers. Let the example of their faith and love shine forth. Grant that we, their sons and daughters, may honor them always with a spirit of profound respect."

It's Mother's Day today in the USA, and more generally, around the world. So, a blessed day to all mothers! And may Mary, the Mother of us all, pray for our mothers.

"Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.""

– Luke 2:34f.

Today, 15 September, is the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. The heart pierced with seven swords is her symbol.

Today is the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, or in Greek, 'Theotokos', meaning God-Bearer.

The history of this doctrine, defined in 431 in the Council of Ephesus, can be read here.

This relief sculpture is in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington DC.

The Magnificat antiphon for 19 December: "O Root of Jesse, that stands for an ensign of the people, before whom the kings keep silence and unto whom the Gentiles shall make supplication: come, to deliver us, and tarry not."

This Jesse tree is from the lectern in the parish church of Lourdes.

My sermon for today can be read here.

"Most honourable Queen of the world, Mary ever virgin, who bore Christ the Lord, Saviour of mankind: intercede for our peace and well-being".

– Benedictus antiphon for the feast of Mary's Queenship, which is kept on 31 May in the Extraordinary Form.

This painting is from a side chapel in Burgos Cathedral.

"All that the prophets foretold about Christ has been fulfilled through you, Virgin Mary: you were a virgin when you conceived and remained a virgin after you had given birth."

– Vespers antiphon from Christmastide.

My sermon for today's feast of the Holy Innocents can be read here.

"And Jesus went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man"

– Luke 2:51f, which is part of today's Gospel at Mass. My sermon for today's feast of the Holy Family can be read here.

Detail from a stained glass window in Notre Dame de Paris.

On 16 July 1251, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St Simon Stock, who was then prior of the newly-established Carmelite priory in Cambridge.

After he prayed for help for his Order, she appeared to him with the brown scapular and said, "Take, beloved son this scapular of thy order as a badge of my confraternity and for thee and all Carmelites a special sign of grace; whoever dies in this garment, will not suffer everlasting fire. It is the sign of salvation, a safeguard in dangers, a pledge of peace and of the covenant."

This vision of St Simon Stock (shown in the Carmelite church in Salamanca) and the gift of the brown scapular which is worn by millions the world over, is commemorated on this day, the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

The Magnificat antiphon for 21 December: "O dawn of the east, brightness of light eternal, and sun of justice: come, and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death."

The Virgin and Child with the rising sun seen through the windows of the chapel of the Dominican Sisters of St Joseph in the New Forest.

My sermon for today can be read here.

"When Gabriel hit the bright shore of the world,

Yours were the eyes saw some

Star-sandaled stranger walk like lightning down the

air,

The morning the Mother of God

Loved and dreaded the message of an angel."

– Thomas Merton.

The Annunciation is kept today, transferred from 25 March, and this mosaic is from a street in Rome.

"O Mary, recall the solemn moment when Jesus, your divine Son, dying on the cross confided us to your maternal care. You are our Mother; we desire ever to remain your devout children. Let us therefore feel the effects of your powerful intercession with Jesus Christ. Make your name again glorious in this place, once renowned throughout our land by your visits, favours and many miracles. Pray, O Holy Mother of God, for the conversion of England, restoration of the sick, consolation for the afflicted, repentance of sinners, peace to the departed. O Blessed Mary, Mother of God, Our Lady of Walsingham, intercede for us. Amen."

Today, 24 September, is the feast of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Marian Exhibit in celebration of the 90th Anniversary of the Apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima [1917-2007]

Parish of Our Lady of Fatima

Philamlife Village, Pamplona Dos, Las Piñas City

September 29 - October 07, 2007

"Let my prayer be counted as incense before thee,

and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice!" - Psalm 141:2

Incense is offered before the Blessed Sacrament in the Underground Basilica, Lourdes at the close of the Eucharistic Procession.

"Today Christ is born:

Today the Savior appeared:

Today on Earth the Angels sing,

Archangels rejoice:

Today the righteous rejoice, saying:

Glory to God in the highest.

Alleluia."

– Magnificat antiphon for Christmas day. My sermon for Christmas day can be read here.

Detail from a medieval tapestry made by a Swiss Dominican nun, who is pictured here beside the crib! This tapestry in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow.

"O wonderful exchange! The Creator of human nature took on a human body and was born of the Virgin. He became man without having a human father and has bestowed on us his divine nature."

– Vespers antiphon for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.

Mass being said in a chapel of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington DC.

The small church of Our Lady of Victory was the first building to be erected in Valletta by the Order of St. John. It is dedicated to the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, which is celebrated on the 8th of September. The church was built in thanksgiving for the victory of the Order of St. John and the Maltese over the invading Turkish fleet of Suleiman the Magnificent. The Great Siege of Malta lasted five long months, inflicting heavy losses on both sides, and ended on the eve of September 8th, 1565.

Construction of the church began in 1566 on a site close to where the foundation stone of the city is traditionally believed to have been ceremoniously laid on March 28, 1566. The building was financed personally by Grand Master Jean Parisot de Valette. Valletta, Malta

"O most august and blessed Virgin Mary! Holy Mother of God! Glorious Queen of heaven and earth! Powerful protectress of those who love thee, and unfailing advocate of all who invoke thee! Look down, I beseech thee, from thy throne of glory on thy devoted child; accept the solemn offering I present thee of this month, specially dedicated to thee, and receive my ardent, humble desire, that by my love and fervor I could worthily honor thee, who, next to God, art deserving of all honor. Receive me, O Mother of Mercy, among thy best beloved children; extend to me thy maternal tenderness and solicitude; obtain for me a place in the Heart of Jesus, and a special share in the gifts of His grace. O deign, I beseech thee, to recognize my claims on thy protection, to watch over my spiritual and temporal interests, as well as those of all who are dear to me; to infuse into my soul the spirit of Christ, and to teach me thyself to become meek, humble, charitable, patient, and submissive to the will of God.

May my heart burn with the love of thy Divine Son, and of thee, His blessed Mother, not for a month alone, but for time and eternity; may I thirst for the promotion of His honor and thine, and contribute, as far as I can, to its extension. Receive me, O Mary, the refuge of sinners! Grant me a Mother's blessing and a Mother's care, now, and at the hour of my death. Amen."

– Prayer to Our Lady to be said in the month of May.

My sermon for today, reflecting on the virtue of courage, and the gift of fortitude, can be read here.

Detail from a stained glass window in the Lady chapel of St Cuthbert's Catholic church, Durham.

Anglican Shrine church, Little Walsingham, Norfolk

One of the more obscure and exotic backwaters of the Church of England is the Anglican shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, set in remote north Norfolk. It was created in 1931 by the Anglican Vicar of Walsingham, Alfred Hope Patten, at a time when the Anglo-catholic enthusiasm of the church of England was in full flood. Today, the tide has receded, and the Anglo-catholic movement is somewhat beleagured. Now, most of the hundreds of visitors to the village are either tourists or Catholics - the Catholic National Shrine of Our lady is a mile or so off. But still this intriguing building remains, serving a diminishing but devout band of pilgrims.

The heart of the church is the Holy House, devised by Hope Pattern from the Legend of Richeldis, whose dream of the Holy House in Nazareth had led to the building of the great Abbey of Walsingham in the 12th century. The Abbey was destroyed by the British Crown at the Reformation, and the ruins survive just to the south of the shrine.

The building has been greatly extended several times since, creating a delightfully labyrinthine church on two levels. Beside the church are the shrine gardens, a pleasant place to wander.

"In this month of May, I would like to recall the importance and the beauty of the prayer of the Holy Rosary. Reciting the Hail Mary, we are led to contemplate the mysteries of Jesus, to reflect, that is, on the central moments of his life, so that, as for Mary and for St. Joseph, He may be the center of our thoughts, our attention and our actions. It would be nice if, especially in this month of May, you would pray together as a family, with your friends, in the parish, the Holy Rosary or some prayer to Jesus and the Virgin Mary! Praying together is a precious moment for making family life and friendship even more stable! Let us learn to pray more in the family and as a family!"

– Pope Francis.

This crowned statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus is in the cathedral of Fribourg, St Nicholas'.

"As blessed Dionysius says, 'Faith is the light that introduces the truth into believers and the truth dwelling in them'. Therefore, Mary clung completely to the first truth of the Wisdom of God, who is her Son... And so, [Elizabeth said to Mary] 'Blessed are you who believed', because she, in her contemplation, thought of the truth with wonder. Full of faith and truth, she gave her assent, and with this love for the truth she sought the truth most devotedly in prayer.

Through the Son she conceived, she found the truth; through knowledge she came to dwell in the truth; and by the Son's taking flesh, the truth came to dwell in her" – St Albert the Great OP.

This statue of the Virgin and Child Jesus is in the entrance lobby of the Dominican priory in Fribourg named in honour of St Albert the Great, the "Albertinum". May is the month of Our Lady, in which the Church especially remembers and honours the Virgin Mother of God.

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is the doctrine that the Virgin Mary was conceived without original sin, prepared by God's grace from the moment of her conception to be the Mother of the Incarnate Word, and Mother of Redeemed Humanity. The doctrine was almost universally believed over the centuries and but was only formally defined as a doctrine of the Church by Pope Pius IX in 1854.

This mosaic of the Virgin Immaculate with Pope Pius IX holding the papal bull declaring the doctrine is in the basilica of San Lorenzo fuori le mura in Rome.

Today, 8 December, is the feast of the Immaculate Conception.

"The shepherds came quickly and they found Mary and Joseph, and the Child lying in the manger."

– Antiphon at First Vespers for the feast of the Holy Family. My sermon for today's feast can be read here.

Medieval stained glass detail from the Victoria & Albert museum collection in London.

"The star of light shed its rays among them that were in darkness

and guided them as though they were blind

so that they came and met the great Light:

they gave offerings and received life and adored and departed".

– from an Epiphany hymn by St Ephraim the Syrian.

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, and my sermon for today can be read here.

Detail from a medieval tapestry made by a Swiss Dominican nun. The tapestry is in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow.

Sometimes I stumble upon things.

The shrine in the front is the Infant of Prague. Behind that is a statue of St Bernadette before the Virgin Mary as she appeared in Lourdes, France

Riverdale, The Bronx

"And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, [the Magi] departed to their own country by another way.

Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Out of Egypt have I called my son."

– Matthew 2:12-15, which follows on from the Epiphany of the Lord to the Magi. May the Holy Family protect all refugees and persecuted Christians.

This stained glass window is in the parish church of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.

"Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple"

- Luke 14:27, which is part of today's Gospel at Mass.

This medallion with Christ Crucified between Our Lady and St John is in the British Museum. It may have been used for personal devotions, as a reminder of our Saviour's love for us, and of our need to follow him by bearing our own Cross.

"When the appointed time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born a subject of the Law, to redeem the subjects of the Law and to enable us to be adopted as sons. The proof that you are sons is that God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts: the Spirit that cries, ‘Abba, Father’, and it is this that makes you a son, you are not a slave any more; and if God has made you son, then he has made you heir."

– Gal 4:4-7, which is today's Second Reading at Mass.

This stained glass window is in Old St Paul's church in Edinburgh.