GLORIOUS PROCESSION AT THE CATHEDRAL

On Friday evening,after a satisfying day working for EWTN,and a proper Tea, with Cake and lots of talk (see below), I made my way to Westminster Cathedral where I was due to give a lecture at the Hinsley Room. First, I dropped into the Cathedral, where for things were just reaching a conclusion after the Forty Hours devotion.

I had visited the previous day, and found lots of people praying and all the traditional settings of a Quanrant Ore, but now was was unprepared for what was there: a packed cathedral, a sanctuary glittering with candles, innumerable clergy, glorious singing. Then, as Mass had just drawn to a close, a great canopy was slowly brought forward, and the Cardinal, carrying the Blessed Sacrament in a Monstrance, led , very slowly, a vast procession down the aisle....with Latin chants later giving way to traditional hymns such as "Sweet Sacrament Divine" and "O Bread of Heaven", a vast concourse of people slowly made its way out into the piazza, round down by the side of the Cathedral - with people coming to the doors of all the flats and heads popping out of windows - along Francis Street and up Ambrosden Avenue...it was a really splendid procession, and all the more wonderful for simply happening on a Friday evening, a sort of bonus really...

Afterwards it took some time to get out of the Cathedral and round to the Hinsley Room but it didn't matter as most of the people who were coming to the lecture had, like me, got involved in the procession anyway.

Talk on the history of the Church in England went well, and was very well attended. People enjoy hearing about quirky bits of information relating to the Reformation, eg that the "Jack in the Box" toy was deliberately invented to mock the Tabernacle, and also about pre-Reformation Catholicism, with things like pub signs, eg The Angel at Islington which commemorates the Annunciation etc...