Wow...

...it's great to be able to get news, video clips etc over the Internet. Vast crowds at Loreto in Italy, over 500,000 at a youth gathering which is a sort of localised version of World Youth Day. If Sydney is going to be anything like this, then I am very glad to be helping young people to get there. Superb scenes in Italy, glowing lights as dusk falling, prayer vigil, opera singer Andrea Bocelli pouring out glorious music...I hadn't known he is blind, wondered at first why he seemed to be singing with his eyes closed, then realised.... The Italians organised this huge gathering extremely well and as a spectacle it was terrific: young people talking to the Holy Father about their ideas, worries, hopes, aspirations - all youthful and idealistic and hair-tossed-in-the-wind and so on - and then the silence of the Holy House, and pilgrims trickling in, and scenes of prayer there flashed up on giant screens...

Today a friend from Oxfordshire, Sara, 'phoned. She is keen to attend some meetings of the London Faith Forum. Sara is blind, and finds it easier to get around in London if she is accompanied, so I generally meet her at Marylebone ands she stays overnight with us. One of life's extraordinary coincidences: one night last year as we were coming home, quite late, we met a neighbour, Robert. We all got chatting and he mentioned that he happens to keep braille machines in his house, as he helps a society for the blind. I regard this as one of the most extraordinary and useful coincidences I have ever had. A couple of days later I followed it up, and he gave me lessons in braille, and lent me one of his machines. So I am able to drop notes to Sara regularly. I am not good at braille but am getting better and it is a useful thing to acquire, I think.