Request for Prayers

When someone one knows and admires dies, there is in one sense only a single that one should say . . . ‘May he rest in peace, and rise in Glory’ : and that, today, I say for the repose of the soul of fr Austin Milner OP, whose photo from his Golden Jubilee Mass earlier this year is to the right, and who died at Blackfriars, Oxford, this morning.

At the same time I suspect all of us are prone to thinking, at least when we consider the prospect of our own deaths, the shortfall of our own failings and abilities as compared with what they ought to be : and yesterday’s Dominican sermon, by fr John Kenrick OP, reminds us very firmly of this when he says ‘If we truly long for God's reign our conversion to Christ cannot be half-hearted.’

For fr Austin, however, I don’t think that a concern such as this is something that needs to worry us too much : he was such an obvious loving and caring servant of Christ, whose conversion was not ‘half-hearted’, and I understand that the last hours of his earthly life were entirely as one would expect of a living member of God’s family, a child of S. Dominic, who knew that he was close to going home.

Let us pray for him, and remember him with affection.

UPDATE
I understand that fr Austin's funeral is to take place at Blackfriars at 11:30 this Friday, 3rd December; and I am quite sure that all who can come will be very welcome.