Fr Peter Blake a saint in a hurry with countless admirers

FR PETER BLAKE Si. OBE, for many years one of the bestknown leaders of retreats and missions for servicemen died last weekend at Farm Street in London at the age of 77. Fr Patrick Rorke pays tribute to a remarkable priest.
'Peter Blake was my friend and fellow novice and for 12 years my superior at Loyola Hall near Liverpool. In those days we often thought that the most apt description of him might be the title of a play written about St Francis Xavier El Divino lnpaciente a saint in a hurry. I am not presuming to canonise my friend bui he was most certainly in a hurry arid exhausting to live
with.
"He never lost a boy's uncomphcated approach to life for him things were either black or white. For his countless admirers and friends, old and youthful, it must have been evident that his great love was for the RAF in which he served as a chaplain during the war and for whose members he worked for more than a quarter of a century. aided by others of his brethren in the Moral Leadership courses. He was awarded the OBE in 1969, for the work he had undertaken for the RAF.
"He was in great demand for school retreats as well as for parish missions. There was a certain strain of intolerance in Peter which paradoxically did not separate him from the lapsed of drop outs who found themselves on the receiving end of his fiery exhortations. _ "Indeed as often as not he converted them into keen Christians and apostles.
"He did not spare himself nor any who happened to be on his staff. 'Work here, rest elsewhere' might have been his motto. It was like living with a hurricane, exhausting. bracing, noisy but he loved his Lord and we loved him."
The Requiem Mass will be held at Farm Street today at 10.30 am.