Today's first reading at Mass, from the prophet Isaiah, seems singularly appropriate for us at Hendred. Today is the 143rd anniversary of the dedication of the parish church, built by the Eyston family (descendants of St Thomas More), and the anniversary of the death of D. Gertrude More, the saint's great-great-granddaughter, one of the founders of the Cambrai community. D. Gertrude's life is an inspiration to every novice or nun, especially in apparently hopeless moments when prayer seems to dry up and God seems far away. She wasn't terribly keen on being a nun at first; witty and mischievous, she was given to speaking first and thinking after; she made fun of the saintly Vicarius of the Cambrai community, Fr Augustine Baker, and was filled with mounting despair when, by God's grace, she suffered a conversion, found with Fr Baker's help the way of contemplative prayer and died in the odour of (genuine) sanctity at the age of twenty-eight. The "Life of D. Gertrude More" shows the effect of Fr Baker's teaching, the sanity and humanity of the English contemplative tradition, and the wise and generous roots of post-Reformation Benedictine life in England. We can forgive D. Gertrude her weakness for expressing herself in endless doggerel. Liker her mentor, she too is someone who can teach us to be joyful in God's house of prayer.