As promised on Saturday, we are today putting online a little ebook Digitalnun made many years ago (see Digital books page). It was inspired by the Chapter House paintings of D. Werburg Welch, a nun of Stanbrook Abbey, Worcester, who was widely regarded as one of the foremost religious artists of her day. We are very grateful to the Abbess and Community of Stanbrook for allowing us to make the ebook available and would ask everyone to be scrupulous in respecting Stanbrook's copyright and other restrictions.

Magnificat was begun on the feast of the Immaculate Conception 1999. The Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M. must be one of the most misunderstood feasts in the calendar. Even Catholics tend to stray into unconscious heresy when asked to explain what it means. What the Catholic Church actually teaches is that "the Blessed Virgin Mary in the first instance of her conception was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race." (Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus, 8 December 1854) In other words, Mary, although conceived and born like the rest of us, was not cleansed from original sin by baptism as we are but was preserved from such sin because of the merits of her Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Maximus of Turin uses a lovely phrase, he talks of "original grace" at work in her in contrast to original sin at work in us (see Nom. viii de Natali Domini). Mary was not exempt from the temporal penalties of sin such as pain and death, nor was her sinlessness something she herself achieved. It was entirely the gift and grace of God, a fruit of the redemption wrought by our Lord Jesus Christ. Only he can save us from sin. Thinking of the Climate Change Conference currently taking place in Copenhagen, I am tempted to add, only he can save us from ourselves.