As Cardinal Mercier said : "When prudence is everywhere, courage is nowhere."                                                                                  From Cardinal Sarah : "In order to avoid hearing God's music, we have chosen to use all the devices of this world. But heaven's instruments will not stop playing just because some people are deaf."                                                                                              Saint John-Paul II wrote: "The fact that one can die for the faith shows that other demands of the faith can also be met."                                                 Cardinal Müller says, “For the real danger to today’s humanity is the greenhouse gases of sin and the global warming of unbelief and the decay of morality when no one knows and teaches the difference between good and evil.”                                                  St Catherine of Siena said, “We've had enough exhortations to be silent. Cry out with a thousand tongues - I see the world is rotten because of silence.”                                                  Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”                                                Brethren, Wake up!

THE CROWNING OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST!

Over the coming weeks of this holy and salutory season of Lent we shall be presenting a series of art-historical meditations upon our most noble Patron, through the good offices of the National Gallery in London. There are ten talks, which will appear on Saturdays and Wednesdays throughout Lent, ending on Spy Wednesday. We are greatly indebted to a learned and pious (and thus necessarily anonymous) member of the Priory for this truly excellent proposal. The Covid times are a felicem culpam offering many of us time for such devotions we should not normally have at our disposal.

The first video is given below. We encourage all members of the Order to take full advantage, with their families amd communities, of this wonderful resource, offered freely for our cultural and religious benefit by this great national institution. The spiritual depths you may derive from these talks are entirely at your determining. Some of you will develop a structure of prayer to accompany them. (UPDATE - It has been pointed out by an astute Dame of the Order that the presenters are Anglicans and thus you are to ignore any protestant sacramental theology! The presentation of the Baptist remains sound.)

The first introductory episode is entitled "Saint John the Baptist, from Birth to Beheading." These films were made in 2014. (You are encourged to click on them and watch full-size in your browser!)

Sancte Joanne Baptistæ, ora pro nobis et pro fratribus nostris.