But there is good news yet to hear/ and fine things to be seen/ before we go to Paradise/ by way of Kensal Green.

--Gilbert Keith Chesterton

As I was getting ready to go to bed, a thought popped into my mind. I'd remembered a story I had read years ago by a gentleman named Patrick Lally. The story dealt with a memorable Christmas Vigil Mass when he was a young boy. As the story came back to me, I decided I had to share it with whomever would stop on by, so I did a Google search.

And that's how I learned Patrick Lally died in 2002.

I never met Patrick Lally, but from what I had read of his writings, and through friends of friends, I'd come to admire and respect him. Patrick Lally was a brilliant writer, a loving husband and father, and a devoted son of Holy Mother Church. He was also an Irish storyteller of the first rank. There are few of his calibre today.

Oddly enough, the stories of his childhood did not turn up, although some other writings did. I'm going to try and contact the widow Lally, to see if she would be kind enough to share those stories again, and will post them here.

To a man I had never met, but in his own way had made a deep impression upon me:

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.