09/10/2026
RADIO MARIA UK
Dear All,
On Tuesday 20th October, Radio Maria UK begins an extra special four days of live broadcasting, running through to Friday 23rd. This is our Mariathon, ‘Holy People, Holy Land – Saints and Culture Makers’, and it matters to me because our faith, our history and our Catholic culture are a treasure I long to share with you.
Perhaps my favourite painting is The Angelus by French painter Jean-François Millet, completed between 1857 and 1859. The painting depicts two peasants, presumably a married couple, in a field bowed over a basket of potatoes, while saying a prayer, which we know from the title of the painting to be the Angelus.
Now whilst I am assured by my French friends that France is really rather beautiful, nearly as beautiful as the UK in parts they maintain(!), the scenery in this painting is rather non-descript. The couple stand in a rather flat field and all that is really visible in the background is a church spire, and presumably it is the chiming of the bells from this church that has given the couple the occasion to pray.
The field really could be anywhere – it’s the atmosphere that makes this painting quite so beautiful, the supernatural cutting through into the ordinary, just as the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. That place where that holy couple pray becomes holy land. The Angelus is a reminder in the ordinary of our lives, that God loves us in an extraordinary fashion. Radio Maria serves the same role, a reminder of the Incarnation piercing into the quotidian through the gift of Our Lady’s radio. Prayer, Mass, devotions, stories of past saints and the making of the saints of the future. Imagine the travesty if that voice fell silent?
Today I am not asking for anything except two small things.
First, if you can, have the radio on that week. You can listen on DAB radio, online at RadioMaria.uk, on the free Radio Maria Play app or ask your smart speaker to "Play Radio Maria".
Second, if Radio Maria has meant something to you, would you reply to this email and tell me? A sentence is enough. With your permission, I would like to read a few of them out on air during the Mariathon.
God bless you,
Fr Toby Lees OP
Priest Director, Radio Maria UK
Radio Maria UK
2 Signet Court, Swanns Road, Cambridge
CB5 8LA
