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 17 October 2013

St Margaret Mary Alacoque and Paray-le-Monial


Having visited Paray-le-Monial this summer I feel better equipped to reflect on the life of St Margaret Mary Alacoque whose feast day it is today. I also realise that my own sense of the importance of devotion to the Sacred Heart had grown, partially I suspect from visiting Paray, but also from my own reflections upon the themes implicit in the theology of the image. As a result I am more drawn to prayer to and invocation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

 http://stvincentimages.cstcis.cti.depaul.edu:8181/Pictures/07.%20Miscellaneous/Mosaics/France,%20Paray-le-Monial,%20Vincent%20de%20Paul%20and%20French%20Saints,%20Sacred%20Heart.jpg

St Margaret Mary and other devotees of the Sacred Heart

Image:stvincentimages.cdm. depaul.edu

There is an online account of St Margaret Mary and her revelations, and also on the history of the devotion here.

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