Today Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of Matthew (16: 13-19) in which Simon Peter declares that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God and Jesus says of him, ‘on this rock I will build my church’.  Afterwards, Fr Paul shares a little about St Leo whose memorial we celebrate today.

Fr Paul says, St Leo was born in Etruria and he became Pope in the year 440. He was a true shepherd and father of souls. He constantly strove to keep the faith whole and strenuously defended the unity of the Church. He repelled the invasions of the barbarians or alleviated their effects, famously persuading Attila the Hun not to march on Rome in 452 and preventing the invading Vandals from massacring the population in 455.

Leo left many doctrinal and spiritual writings behind and a number of them are included in the Office of Readings to this day. He died in the year 461.

Today Fr Paul invites us to ask, “St Leo… Pray for us!”