You wouldn't have thought....

...that a lecture on philosophy would be a crowd-puller. But when I heard about a new series of lectures being run at Holy Ghost church, Balham, I thought I'd go along, and brush up on a topic that I studied in the first year of my Maryvale degree course...I turned up last night (Tuesday) to find people standing out in the entrance hall and on the steps - the room was packed out, with people sitting (and in some cases kneeling, as there wasn't even room to sit!) on the floor and pressed up against the walls...

The speaker was Re Dr Francis Selman, who lectures at Allen Hall. He has a quiet, pleasant voice and everyone was gripped. One chap, standing in mild discomfort right up against the front door and straining to hear, was making copious notes and sharing them with a friend. People asked interesting questions.We explored Aristotle and Plato and forms and reality and life and existence...

As the room emptied when the evening was over, it was quite astonishing to see just how many had been crammed in there...I can't go to next week's lecture as I will be at Walsingham, but as numbers are so great they are now looking to move into the nearby school hall.

I've been reading a lot just recently about Bl John Paul II and Poland and this evening made me think, somehow, of descriptions of the "flying university" in the Poland of the 1980s...