...gazed serenely from a portrait placed by the sanctuary of Westminster Cathedral and was surrounded by candles and flowers as we gathered for Mass. I love the way that crowds seep into the cathedral, coming somehow as if from nowhere, on an occasion such as this: a Mass to give thanks for the Beatification of the great John Paul, on this Feast of Our Lady of Fatima. The dramatic link between the two - it being the 30th anniversary of that assasination attempt in St Peter's square in 1981 - was of course highlighted by Archbishop Vincent Nicholls in his address. Glorious singing from the Cathedral choir. As Mass ended, people went to light candles and invoke Blessed JP's prayers before the picture. Standing there I felt a sudden huge nostalgia for the days when he was Pope and addressing people in St Peter's and gathering young people together at great events around the world...
"But he's more close to us all now than ever!" was of course the response when I spoke of this as we gathered in the evening sunshine in the piazza, and of course that's true, and of course that's what the Communion of Saints is all about...
The scenes in the Cathedral piazza after a special Mass are always rather splendid - people were greeting the Archbishop and kissing his ring, and milling about chatting, the great doors of the Cathedral flung wide to reveal its darkened interior and then the glow of the great sanctuary, and a wafting breath of incense...
A time to linger.Greeted by friends I hadn't seen for a long while, joined by others, lots of talk. We chatted about many things, including the newly-published instructions from Rome encouraging and supporting the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, which were incidentally almost exactly what I had predicted they would be, when chatting about the subject with friends in Rome back in February. And we spoke of events shared, and things to come - the glorious Papal Visit last September, World Youth Day coming up in August...and we reminisced, and spoke of new things...and the man who was Pope when some of us were young, is now named mong the Blessed in Heaven...meanwhile in Rome, Pope Benedict used the anniversary to affirm Blessed John Paul's theology of the body...
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