All Souls Day...

...at Westminster Cathedral with black vestments and swirls of incense, solemn beautiful Latin chant, and a large congregation, and a sermon reminding us of the great reality of death and judgement and facing God...the Holy Souls chapel was full of twinkling candles all day, and, as every year, there are sheets of paper on which you can write the names of people to be remembered in prayer. I wrote my dear father's name as I have done every November since he died. The atmosphere in the Cathedral was especially solemn and reverent...

I am staying overnight near Westminster Cathedral so as to be ready for the Towards Advent Festival tomorrow morning. The chimes of Big Ben ring out through my open bedroom window. I am in St Matthew Street, just off the street-market in Strutton Ground, in a corner of Westminster which is almost like a village, but with Parliament and the Abbey ahead of us and the Cathedral just behind. This is the offices of the excellent pro-life group, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children: they will have a stall at the Festival tomorrow and material for this, along with all my items including stacks of jars of my home-made jam, wait downstairs for transportation to the Cathedral Hall.

To be in the centre of London in the middle of the night is rather exciting. I went to the Sainsbury's in Victoria Street to buy cheese for sandwiches to sell at the Festival. (The Association of Catholic Women has charge of the refreshments - all home-made by volunteers). Then, having tackled all sorts of last-minute arrangements for tomorrow, I settled here to write this blog, and relax with the Catholic Times (feature interview, by me, with Fr Peter Wilson of the University of London Catholic Chaplaincy - do read it!) and a wonderful book about the Apostles, written by the Holy Father, which I bought while in the USA...

Oh, I do hope all goes well at the Festival tomorrow...