By Sr Ann Catherine Swailes o.p.  Address given at the Fisher Mass 2018

Why are we here this afternoon? Another way of framing that question would be to borrow words from our first reading and ask, with the seer of the apocalypse, who are these, clothed in white robes, and whence have they come? When we speak of St John Fisher as a member of that white robed army of martyrs, what kind of a claim are we making for him, and what can it possibly have to do with us? What, in other words, is martyrdom, and why should we care about it?  Is there even any sense we can possibly make, on this sunny Bank holiday afternoon in Cambridge, of the notion that martyrdom might be our vocation? After all, there must have been sunny spring time afternoons in the Cambridge career of St John Fisher when this would have seemed as unthinkable as perhaps it does to us.

Click here for the Lamentations of Jeremiah

This was sung last year at Tenebrae.  If you want to hear it live, Tenebrae is hld at Blackfriars Cambridge on Good Friday nd Holy Saturday.  For further information visit the Friary website

By Sr Tamsin Mary Geach o.p.

Youtube version here:  Some extra material.

On Monday of last week I was travelling to London and I was handed a free magazine.  Normally I don’t open these things but this time I did.  It was a very worthy magazine, mostly about how to improve - how to eat the best food, drink the best drink, exercise and so on.  I was struck by something that had been bothering me in various explorations of the non-theist aspects of the internet.  There are many pundits who give advice to the young, and it follows more or less this pattern:  If you organize your life and eat well and exercise a lot, if you establish what you really want, and pursue your goals single-mindedly, or even ruthlessly, you will be healthy and wealthy and wise.  Occasionally they mention love or relationships as well.