CTS, ACN, Writers' Guild, a parish talk...

...it's been a busy time. The first of those initials refers to the Catholic Truth Society at which we had a most exciting and useful meeting this week, the "we" being a couple of us from the Association of Catholic Women, following up the plans for the Schools Religious Education Project...if you are a teacher in a Catholic Primary School, or a parish priest who would like to see his school involved, do go to that CTS link and find out more....

Then "ACN" stands for Aid to the Church in Need - international Catholic aid agency, with a strong British branch with which I've been involved for some years. A visit to the busy cheerful office is always a tonic, and I whizzed there by bike to collect some books and material relevant to a new venture with which ACN is to be involved...

...and on to St Ann's parish in Banstead, for a gathering of parents discussing "Marriage and Family" and the Church's message.A lovely evening - they have a really splendid parish priest. We finished with Benediction, candlelight gleaming in the church, voices raised together in "Tantum ergo sacramentum..."

Then yesterday, a convivial evening at The Keys, the Catholic Writers' Guild, meeting at St Mary Moorfields. Speaker was Dr James le Fanu: he writes so extremely well in the Daily Telegraph and elsewhere, and as a speaker he was great fun....The Master of the Guild, journalist Melanie McDonagh, presided with great charm and skill - the Guild, established in the 1930s by staff writers on a magazine launched by G. K. Chesterton, has thrived in recent years and numbers attending were large, the talk over supper lively, the atmosphere cheery in keeping with the Guild's grand tradition. Incidentally, the Guild is getting a new website soon - I'll be posting info. about this in due course.