Prophetic thoughts of Jock Dalrymple

SHORTLY before he died, Fr John Dalrymple gave me permission to reproduce in the Catholic Herald, in two articles, his Light and Salt: an Experience of Priesthood, which he first published in the Beda Review.
It was a brilliant sharing of his experience of the priesthood and of his celebrating and spreading the Good News. In the article he said his daily prayer life began at 6.30 and ended and 8.00. In his earlier days as a priest he felt compelled to pray for not less than four hours a day.
His Reflections on Spiritual Formation Letting Go in Love, have been published by Darton, Longman and Todd, price £3.95 in a handy sized paper-back.
I was recommended to read it by the spiritual director of a one day of .recollection which I had the privilege to attend late last year.
The Beda article is published, plus 11 other splendid chapters on prayer and the spiritual life. Cardinal Basil Hume OSB has written the Foreword, and the Biographical Introduction is by Fr Michael Hollings.
Fr Hollings points out that this son of Scottish landed gentry was greatly influenced in his school life at Ampleforth by a "simple, silent, powerful monk", Fr Stephen Marweed. Then came two years national service in the Scots Guards, followed by the Scots College in Rome.
St Therese of Lisieux and Charles de Focauld moulded Fr Dalrymple's life. In his years in Edinburgh he gave up his life to the care of the deprived, the mentally unstable, the disorientated, prostitutes and ex-prostitutes.
He and his lay workers lived out the psalm: "I rise before dawn and cry for help, I hope in your word.
My eyes watch through the night to ponder your promise." (Ps 119: 147-8)