"This One Thing Only"

At the age of nineteen Catherine Gascoigne knew she wanted to serve "God alone". But her application to leave this country to enter a monastery abroad met with refusal on the grounds of her striking beauty. She resorted to prayer. Smallpox struck, and her good looks were marred.

That gift of prayer and strength of mind were characteristic from first to last. Born in 1600 at Barnbow, Yorkshire, she was one of the first nine professed at the monastery of Our Lady of Comfort (or Consolation), Cambrai, on 1 January 1625.

She immediately recognized in Father Augustine Baker someone skilled in the art of guidance in prayer. To the end of her life she remained faithful to his teaching and a doughty custodian of the manuscripts he wrote for the community; rather than hand them over to be "purged", she was ready to withdraw the monastery from the English Congregation.

Her own account of how she prayed, "this most happy exercise of tending and aspiring towards God by love", still survives.

"This one thing I wish for, this one thing I desire: my God."

Appointed abbess in 1629, she was re-elected nine times before she finally resigned in 1673. She died on 21 May 1676.

Some of Dame Catherine's writings will become available on CD-rom. Watch the Abbey Press pdf brochure for details.