We can learn much from a true appreciation of the feminine.
There can’t be many people who can claim to have shared a vol-au-vent with a saint, but if Brother Michael Strode is canonised (as those ad- vocating for his cause hope he will be) I may be the first. Br Michael was a doctor, and the founder of the Hosanna House and Children’s Pilgrimage Trust (HCPT, formerly the Handicapped Children’s Pilgrimage Trust), and a friend of my father-in-law, also a doctor.
My father-in-law accompanied Michael on annual pilgrimages to Lourdes, bringing with him his five sons, the youngest of whom I later married. I met Michael at my mother-in-law’s funeral in 2018. He was 95 when I spotted him across the room; physically spent in every way, but had an extraordinary serenity about him. I crouched beside his wheelchair and introduced myself. He looked up at me and smiled the kind of smile which revealed Christ in him.
