Osmund Lewry died, surrounded by his fellow-Dominicans, on Easter Thursday, 23 April. He was 57. Although he had continued to be a member of the Oxford Dominican house, and died there, since 1979 he had been on the staff of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto. He was becoming an internationally respected authority on mediaeval thought; as The Times obituary notice said, he died ‘at the height of his powers and at the beginning of a richly-promising scholarly career’. His death is a severe loss, but the remarkably serene way in which he faced that death was an inspiration to many people. In place of a conventional obituary we are publishing here an article which he completed for us only ten days before he died. It traces how his fellow- Dominicans, in the span of almost a life-time, contributed to his spiritual development. We believe it has something to say not only to Dominicans.
J.O.M.
Cornelius Ernst once sought a pattern to English Dominican recruitment and found none. We often come to the Order of Friars Preachers by the strength of chance encounters or even reading; the force of example of one or many witnesses may play its part in leading us there and certainly it is individual witness that plays a part in keeping us there.
Names such as Bede Jarrett, Vincent McNabb and Hugh Pope were on the Catholic Truth Society pamphlets which an eleven-year old convert read in self-education, before and after his entry into the Church.