Happy New Year! Why not celebrate the birth of the new year with a clip of the ever-insightful Sr Wendy Beckett talking about Botticelli’s painting “The Birth of Venus”. Listen out for her comment at the end: “We have to have beauty partly hidden or the challenge is too great.” What do you think about that?

Maybe in 2016, declared by Pope Francis to be a Year of Mercy (more on that in a future “News” post), we can ask for the grace to throw our hearts wide open to the full force of Beauty in this year, and beyond.