Thursday, June 30, 2011

And the Pope wants to hear more from us women writers...

...just read this:.

Over twenty years ago...

...some of us got together to form the Association of Catholic Women. It's gone from strength to strength.We've just completed our big annual Schools RE Project and you can read about that here on my EWTN Blog. Coming up in due course are a pilgrimage to Minster-in-Thanet (Benedictine nuns, history going back to Saxon days, links w. the landing of St Augustine on that stretch of coast in the 6th century, etc etc...), our Annual Meeting with guest speaker Dr Philip Howard on "Blessed John Paul and medical ethics" plus a new documentary film on JPII...then in the Autumn we're deeply involved with the TOWARDS ADVENT Festival of Catholic Culture, which we help to sponsor (Sat Nov 19th, since you ask. Westminster Cathedral Hall. Put it in your diaries now))...

If you want to come along to an ACW event, there is information on the links I've given, or you can send me a Comment to this Blog, with your email address included in the tetxt so that I can reply to you and send you info. I CANNOT REPLY TO YOU UNLESS YOU SPECIFICALLY GIVE ME YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS which, of course, I will not publish.

London's Evening Standard newspaper...

...has been running a campaign about literacy, with revelations about the large numbers of London children and young adults who cannot read. Just lately the emphasis has shifted away from the problems of children from deprived backgrounds and so on to the actual systems used in schools, specifically the examination systems. Did you know that a teenager can be deemed to have "studied" a Shakespeare play without actually reading it? They are taken to see a film of the play, they read perhaps a couple of scenes, and then they do things like (I'm not inventing this) making paper witches' hats because of the witches in Macbeth.

It's being suggested that the way forward fotr exams is to move towards the "tick this box" system, where a student isseated at a computer and given three options as answers to a question, and moves the mouse to tick one of the boxes each time.

"Well, does it really matter whether people can communicate in handwriting? Everything is going to be computers from now on anyway" - thus runs the argument. No need to cook, either, some say - just buy instant-meals from a supermarket. No need to acquire any skills, really. Then if we are left for any reason to cope without constantly available electricity, easy transport to large shops, access to home-computers, we will collapse.

To find out about the small contribution towards literacy and sane education that some us are trying to make in Britain this year, take a look here. And before you sneer, what are you doing to help ensure that the next generation can read and write and enjoy the great literature produced by previous generations?

...and here's the programme...

..for Papa B.in Spain on the new Vatican website, which has Twitter and links and videos and everything. All launched for the feast of Sts Peter and Paul.

God bless our Pope!

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Further to my last...

...I've succeeded in sending off the form! By re-reading and re-reading the instructions, and praying...and...FINALLY....it was achieved....

So I hope I'll be off to Madrid in August as planned...

The Holy Father...


....doesn't have to fill in a complicated form in order to get to World Youth Day. He just has to pack a toothbrush and his sermon-notes and his Breviary...but it's not like that for us, and I've just spent a v. frustrating evening trying to sort things out for my accreditation. Every time I press "send" it states that my attachments (passport information, letter from editor of Catholic Times affirming that I'm their correspondent, etc) don't match, or something. And then I have to start all over again.

Yesterday the boiling hot weather broke in a glorious thunderstorm. I was having coiffee with a friend and when it was time to go she lent me an umbrella and I squelched very happily along through the suburban roads enjoying it all. Gloriously cool, and everything felt refreshed and delicious. Today, the garden looks better, the house is a pleasant place in which to work, everything seems easier than it did in the heat....but the WYD press accreditation thingummy still won't connect properly!!!!

To Uxbridge...

...and a happy evening at the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes and St Michael. This is a really lovely parish, and there was such a good atmosphere as we all gathered in the hall. Fr Nicholas has been parish priest for just two years - he's cheerful, youthful, and hard-working, and combines his parish duties with a weekly column in the Catholic Times,writing books, and being diocesan archivist. A delicious and talkative supper after the meeting (at which Auntie was speaking re. the role of women and the Church).

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

A talk on Catholics and journalism...

...at the Salvatorian College, Harrow. Dropped in to the church next door for Mass first. I am always mildly astonished by the number of people who attend Mass on a weekday morning in the London suburbs...there they were,commuters hurrying off to work after Mass finished, or older people lingering for a while longer, or, as in my case, just resting for a moment before the day's activities...

The school was welcoming, the boys smart in green blazers. A good and intelligent discussion, everyone friendly and polite. I enjoyed it all.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Birmingham...

and Maryvale, and lectures on moral theology, and on the Fall and Redemption. A rather terrifying session on bioethics with information on some of the ghastly things that are now regarded as acceptable in our healthcare establishment...the great John Paul's naming of this as a "culture of death" was all too prophetic and accurate...

After the week ended, I stayed on for a further night at Maryvale, hurrying into Birmingham early on the Saturday morning to join fellow-supporters of Aid to the Church in Need on a pilgrimage honouring Bl. John Henry Newman, at the Birmingham Oratory. There is a rather grand new shrine to Bl John Henry there - very Oratorian in style - and then we gathered in the hall on the upper floor across the quadrangle for talks about him. In this very room he himself taught, as it formed part of the original Oratory School. I made an unhelpful contribution to the history of the place on a previous visit on a scorchingly hot day - I dashed enthusiastically to open a window, tugging on the sash, and down it came with a glorious crashing sound, glass everywhere, terrible mess. All replaced and mended now. Looking at it on this new visit, I wondered if the original window had been there in Newman's day and only my clumsiness broke the link with him...

An elderly Oratorian Father gave a most interesting talk on Newman and Afghanistan - did you know that General Gordon had a copy of the Dream of Gerontius with him on his last campaign, and had annotated it with various comments and enquiries? And there is an excellent exhibition lining the walls of the Hall telling the whole story of Newman's life and work....and his inkpot, and catechism, and other items, are all there on display. I warmly recommend a visit.

On to St Chad's Cathedral - a fine building, a strong and confident statement of faith, beautiful and much-loved, and with an excellent bookshop alongside where I spent some time...and thence by coach to Littlemore, the place where Newman lived and studied and made the great decision to enter the Catholic Church.

If you are interested in Newman you must visit Littlemore. The Sisters of The Work look after it all, and they make visitors very welcome, and it's all very delightful - the rooms, once stables, all fronting on to a small walled courtyard with a garden, and a sense of peace and quiet purposefulness.

By a pleasing arrangement of Providence, J. and I were due to meet friends in Oxford that evening for a dinner-party at a restaurant in Little Clarendon Street, so my day ended there, after a quick bus-ride from Littlemore. A talkative, happy evening marking a friend's 60th birthday. After the meal we dropped into the Eagle and Child for more talk and then J. and I went on to stay the night with relatives nearby.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Pacing...

...the grounds at Maryvale, saddened, anguished, at the latest revelations about sex abuse in the Church - involving Fr Kit Cunningham in the years, half a century ago, when he worked at a school in Africa. Fr Kit went on to become a well-known and popular priest at St Etheldreda's, Ely Place and in that capacity knew many journalists and his death drew obituaries celebrating his life. He was an eccentric and a true London character. St Etheldreda's was known as a centre for those who loved the Tridentine Rite. It was also the headquarters for many years for the Catholic Writers' Guild. All this and more...

And now these ghastly revelations.

Fr Kit clearly died penitent, writing to those he had abused and returning the MBE he had recieved from the Queen.

I remember that when Fr Kit died some one asked me indignantly why there hadn't been a proper big memorial Mass to honour him. I said I was sure there would be, and meanwhile we at the Writers' Guild remembered him at our monthly Mass and had a short talk paying tribute to him as Mass ended. Now the absence of a big event is explained - there were those who knew it would be unsuitable, and perhaps he had indicated that he didn't want it...

Inspiration at Invocation...

...and this despite a drenching in the rain and the fact that Auntie went on to her exams at Maryvale with a dreadful cold.

The Invocation event - big gathering of Catholic young people with priests, seminarians, and members of different religious orders - merited a proper lengthy report rather than the chatty stuff I put on this Blog, so you must settle down and read about it here.

I honestly had not thought there were so many young religious sisters and brothers: you hear so much about religious orders dying out and I know only well that lots of them are, but I hadn't known about some of the newer things. Didn't know, for example, about a group called the Fraternas, based in Manchester. Knew about the Dominicans but didn't realise they had so many younger ones. Remembered the |H. Father visiting the Little Sisters of the Poor but didn't know much about them.

Now I am at Maryvale - exams this morning, and then a new course of lectures starts this evening and lasts all week. No, I'm not going to tell you how I think I did in my exams. Post-mortems are a waste of time. Onwards and upwards...mornings at Maryvale begin with the sound of the Brigettine sisters (some of them were at InVocation too) singing their office in the chapel,and then one knows it is about half-an-hour to Mass. The chapel is the one that John Henry Newman knew - his room, still in use for visiting students, adjoins the chapel at an upstairs level, and he wrote about the consolation of having Christ so near...after our morning Mass there is breakfast and then people disperse - today, there were various examinations and ours was in the main lecture hall, a nun invigilating, papers solemnly unsealed before us and then distributed desk by desk. Then a look at the clock and the announcement: "You may start"...

Monday, June 20, 2011

Enthusiastic young sisters...

...talking and laughing, clad in simple grey habits, ropes knotted around their waists. We were in the glorious surroundings of St Mary's College, Oscott, where last year the Holy Father was pictured with the great crowd of young men from across England who are training for the Catholic priesthood.

The grounds are glorious, but the weather was distinctly cold and bleak - more like November than June, and the crowds of young people who were camping there for the Invocation weekend certainly appreciated the hot food served in the big tepees set up alongside the marquee where talks and workshops were held.

There were lots of young sisters there,but the ones I've specifically mentioned above were from the small community of the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal, based in the diocese of Leeds. I hadn't known that there was a such a community in England, although like other Londoners I've known about the Brothers, working in the East End...it was a delight to meet the sisters, and to catch their infectious joy and enthusiasm. They are doing a lot of good work and, incidentally, they could do with some funds to help with their work for the poor. Contact their website and do what you can.

I loved InVocation. There were inspirational talks,and a beautiful Holy Hour in the magnificent Oscott Chapel,with opportunities for confession. It was moving to see a long queue of people forming for confession, and people quietly going to the priests who placed themselves around the marquee as the Penitential Service in the chapel concluded. Then - perhaps the best bit of the whole weekend - we gathered with glowing candles and a great procession was formed, taking the Blessed Sacrament out under the night sky, round a long route through the grounds as we sang and prayed. Unforgettable and beautiful, and it culminated in Benediction in front of the College - exactly the place, as it happens, where the H. Father gathered with those seminarians last year...

More info on the events at Invocation from that link given above, and I'm also planning a report for my EWTN blog in due course...

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Children...

...at St Edmund's prep school, Ware, praying together at the start of a school day...it was a great joy to be there and to be handing the trophy for this year's Schools RE Project to young winner Joshua Best, whose essay on the Rosary won him First Prize in the Years 5-6 section. The school also won a large number of runner-up prizes. The Morning Assembly was beautiful - a boy read from the Scriptures, the Headmaster led everyone in prayer, and there was such a good and happy atmosphere.

Afterwards a group of children showed me round - they are very proud that this is England's Oldest Catholic School (recusant traditions, martyrs etc) but this doesn't stop it having all the latest computer equipment etc, small tots in red jerseys doing sums at computer screens, whiteboards in classrooms with all sorts of displays etc.

In every classroom, children automatically stood up as visitors entered, chorused "Good morning!" in response to greetings, shot up hands to answer questions...and everywhere there was a sense of welcome and friendlines...

On to London where I was due to meet a group gathering at Westminster Cathedral to board a coach for Birmingham for the InVocation event at St Mary's, Oscott.

Crowds of young priests and nuns and brothers, plus young visitors all jeans and packbacks, big marquees and tepees on Oscott's lawns, a hot supper waiting, Evening Prayer in the beautiful chapel...this extraordinary event is something you MUST learn about...auntie will be reporting over the weekend...

Thursday, June 16, 2011

A round of prize-presentations...

...at Catholic schools, for children winning prizes in the Assn of Catholic Women's Schools Religious Education Project. (BTW, that link takes you to a full list of winners).

Amazing experience today. I hurried (through pouring rain, making everything fresh and green, badly needed) to St Joseph's Catholic Primary school in Kingston-upon-Thames. Met by a charming young lady who explained that she'd be taking the morning Assembly, and had been involved with getting the children involved with the RE Project. I started to explain about the background to it etc, and she shyly said "Well...I was your first prizewinner, back when I was a little girl! I'm Maria Byrne..." Young Maria was indeed our first-ever winner, when we launched the whole thing over a decade ago. We had raised some modest funds from coffee-mornings, produced a brochure,photocopied it and and mailed it out to schools, bought some Catechisms as prizes and a cup as a trophy...and young Maria, who was being home-educated, won that cup with an excellent essay on 'What happens at Mass'. And now here she is, working at a Catholic school, and the whole project has grown and grown since then, and this year we had some 2,000 entries from across Britain, and prizes donated by the CTS, and two trophies for children in different age-groups, and dozens of Catechisms sent out to children in schools from Inverness to Bexleyheath, from Manchester to Port Talbot!

A happy morning, and it was a pleasure to present young winner Tashlyn Pereira with her prizes (a celebration book commemorating the Papal Visit to Britain, a book of Gospel stories, a Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and a £50 cheque for the school). The children sang a Gospel song, to a rock-beat, led by Maria, with the words projected on to a screen.

Tomorrow I am off to present prizes at St Edmund's prep school in Ware, Herts.

Then I'm off to my own exams...at Maryvale! Two exams on Monday!More on Maryvale and Birmingham here...

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

A new novel...

...from a young author who won an award for her first, and this new one looks set to be the summer must-read of this year. It's terrific. Poor Banished Children has a courageous and adventurous heroine, good historical resonance, a gripping plot, and is written in clear and vivid English with a vigour which is fresh and enjoyable.

The young author is a relative, and it has been a delight to watch her writing develop over the years. The book is well-researched: I remember studing a 16th-century pirate ship with the author on a seaside visit a few summers back, and getting squeamish as we discovered the details, while she simply absorbed and noted everything...the story-line of this new book centres on the Barbary pirates who raided the coasts of parts of Christian Europe and took people off as slaves. Did you know that Britain's western coast, and parts of Ireland, were thus attacked? That a Devon village lost almost all its inhabitants this way?

Ordering books over the Internet is easy - this one is also available at St Paul's Bookshop, next to Westminster Cathedral.And there's more about the book here.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Read Auntie on ...

...the Ordinariate at St George's Cathedral Southwark...

On feminism...

....and the Church, and where we go from here, and so on. You might like to read this...

Saturday, June 11, 2011

The Sisters...

...of the Gospel of Life run the Cardinal Winning Pro-Life Initiative in Glasgow. And they seem to know or be known by anyone and everyone in Glasgow! It was a revelation to spend time with these Sisters - they are greeted in the street, they get sudden gifts of babyware and prams and carry-cots and money and flowers and more, they get hugs and offers of help and requests for prayers...

I was staying with them as I was in Scotland for a visit to the new and excellent Scottish office of the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, in Motherwell. The Director, Lorraine McMahon, is a terrific person with lots of energy and is doing extremely good work: the charity helps Christians wherever they are persecuted and is currently funding projects in, among other places, Sudan, Pakistan, and India, and its recent publication Persecuted and Forgotten is an important and troubling analysis of the state of religious freedom worldwide. Talking with Lorraine and discussing the work and all sorts of plans was immensely interesting. She took me to Carfin, where ACN recently had a pilgrimage - some 45,000 people visit this place of prayer annually. I suppose it would generally be described as simply a shrine to Our Lady, but it has so much more - a beautiful glass church where the Blessed Sacrament is honoured and where people were at prayer, shrines created by the Polish and Lithuanian and Irish communities, a great Calvary, a Way of the Cross, a new impressive statue of Blessed John Paul the Great, a shrine honouring Our Lady of Fatima complete with the little shepherds and their sheep, a big parish church...and more, and more...

And then I went on to stay with the Sisters. Their convent is on the south side of Glasgow, immediately opposite Holy Cross church, and they also have their own small oratory in their house where they say - and sing - the daily Office. Nearby is the headquarters of the Pro Life Initiative, where daily they dispense practical help and assistance to women who are pregnant and in trouble. A quiet comfortable room is set aside for interviews and counsel, and there is a main hall where, on the second day of my visit, volunteers were busy setting out great tables of toys and clothes and books for a fund-raising sale. Other rooms have stacks of babyware and beautiful prams and push-chairs, all donated, and all going swiftly to new homes and being replaced by fresh gifts. There's a St Joseph's Confraternity of men who meet together to pray and to mend and repair all donated equpment so that it is all as good as new.

But that's not the half of it. We went to the (recently beautifully refurbished) Glasgow Cathedral for a special Mass for the Knights of St Columba. (Impressive crowd of men - all ages, from across Glasgow and beyond - it was grand to hear the strong voices giving out the Mass responses, and we sung "Faith of Our Fathers" at the end). A collection was taken - and it was announced that it would go to the Pro Life Initiative. One evening when we arrived back at the convent, well-wishers had just finished setting fresh potted plants in the front garden. When the Sisters ate a meal with a group of young people in a restaurant the other day, the staff wouldn't take a tip, just asked the Sisters to pray for them. And it just seems to go on and on like that...

When Cardinal Winning announced the Pro-Life Initiative a little over ten years ago, his commitment was to any woman who was expecting a child and was frightened or alone or poor or in any sort of difficulty. And the promise has been made good: the help is there, and people have taken it to their hearts and the Sisters who are at the core of the work are faithfully carrying it out and are deservedly loved for it.

Sunday, June 05, 2011

A heartening visit...

...to Allen Hall. It stands on land once owned by St Thomas More, and we began by visiting Chelsea Old Church where he used to go to Mass every morning...the churchwardens and guides there are v. friendly and our group recieved a warm welcome. On to Allen Hall where we split into three groups and were taken round by students who were knowledgeable and interested in the seminary's history. Then to the chapel, where the Rector led us all in Vespers and Benediction.Young men reading from the Scriptures. Strong young voices in the prayers and hymns. A tonic. Before we left, we gave three hearty cheers for the seminary, its staff and students.

Conspiracies and the Church...

...and Fatima and freemasons and things....you might find this of interest...

Saturday, June 04, 2011

....And have you read....

...YOUCAT? You must. It's simply terrific. I was given a copy the other day, and have been devouring it on the Tube.

Concise, well-expressed, and with a beautiful Introduction by a man who knows how to teach. Get a copy into the hands of the Catholic teenager nearest to you.

What a week!

...the spectacular celebrations at St Patrick's, Soho Square, began with that wonderful Opening Mass (see previous blog post, below) then continued with a glorious Sung Vespers on the Eve of the Ascension, and a superb lecture by Papal biographer George Weigel, and concluded the next day with a magnificent Ascension Day Mass celebrated by His Eminence Cardinal George Pell who had come via Rome from Sydney, Australia...along with a great many other London Catholics I attended all of these events, and it was a great privilege and joy to be there.

In between I was at the CTS, with a couple of wonderful and loyal volunteers, packing up and sending out the prizes won by children in the ACW Schools Religious Education Project. We still have a good many more to send out: great quantities of beautifully bound copies of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, some lovely books on the Rosary, a delightful book of Gospel stories, and more. The number of essays sent in by children this year was vast - the project has grown and grown, and it seems almost absurd to look back and remember how we began it by just ending out some leaflets to schools and raising funds for it all from some coffee-mornings. The great breakthrough came when the CTS generously offered to sponsor it all, and provide prizes...and this, plus the extraordinary enthusiasm of volunteers who collect and read the essays, pack and mail out the prizes, and so on, have turned it into a big nationwide event...

And when I wasn't at the CTS, or sorting out my bike problems (the chain has broken...ggrrrrh) I was at a committee meeting of the ACW where we planned future events (pilgrimage to Minster in September, Annual Meeting with Dr Philip Howard as guest speaker and a documentary film about Blessed John Paul the Great, contact here for info). And then on Friday evening there was a gathering at a friend's house for the informal Catholic Cultural Group: wine, snacks, reconnecting with various friends...

And then on Saturday at St George's Cathedral, Southwark, the first of a wave of ordinations for the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. The men lying prostrate before the altar, the great gothic arches soaring overhead. Glorious music surging, and history being made...

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

It was fabulous, magnificent, wonderful...

...at St Patrick's, Soho for the Re-Opening following huge renovations. The church is a glory of gold and white and paintings and beauty, with gleaming marble and glittering candles, and it was packed to overflow with people standing in every possible corner,and out into the street, while a choir poured out Mozart and Palestrina,a roar of voices joined in the Mass responses... and we had the Archbishop of Westminster plus a Bishop from Denver - the church has strong links to the USA - a great array of clergy, Franciscans and Missionaries of Charity, seminarians and office workers and teenagers and older people, distinguished guests from across Europe, and hundreds and hundreds of friends of St Patrick's from across London and across Britain...

We began outside in Soho Square, a vast crowd gathering around the church. After beginning the ceremony with prayers, Archbishop Vincent then called on Father Alexander to "Open the Door!" and the doors of St Patrick's slowly opened to reveal the glorious, new gleaming interior and the crowd slowly, slowly moved forward...

The Mass was glorious. James McMillan had written a special piece of music, there were fine old hymns like "Praise my soul, the king of Heaven", and lots and lots of glorious music from the Church's fabulous storechest of the centuries. It was the Feast of the Vistation - a most wonderful day on which to be celebrating, everything just sort of fitted together beautifully - and the Archbishop preached about Mary carrying Christ, the Light of the world, along the dusty hills and pathways of the Holy Land, on her way to meet Elizabeth and how we, and St Patrick's, must carry this Light, take it to every corner...

As Mass ended, Father Alexander thanked the architect, fund-raisers,designers,and more, presenting each with a commemorative medal...and then handed over to the final speaker, a homeless man who had found refuge at St Patrick's, and who spoke from the heart and magnificently, summing up all that St Patrick's means and will mean to so many people...

It's not just the church which has been been renovated, but the whole building, including the ancient warren of cellars and underground rooms, all now rebuilt with large comfortable spaces and a new kitchen and everything bright and clean and welcoming , so that the homeless and the students and all the people who belong to the various groups which have found a home at St Patrick's can flourish. We all surged down there - wisely there was plenty of water and fruit juice in addition to wine and snacks, because it was all dreadfully hot - and there was so much greeting of old friends, and the press of TV cameras and the clatter of hundreds and hundreds of voices...

The celebrations continue tonight with Vespers and a talk from papal biographer George Weigel, and as I write this I am about to hurry to be there...