...the 2011 Towards Advent Festival was a great success! Great numbers of people thronged into Westminster Cathedral Hall,the Gallery Choir of the Cathedral Choir School sang gloriously, Archbishop Vincent Nichols greeted everyone and opened the Festival in great syle,our special guest speaker Mgr Keith Newton of the Ordinariate spoke to a standing-room only gathering in the Hinsley Room. All the bookstalls and displays by Catholic groups and organisations reported good sales and lots of visitors. Crowds poured into the Hinsley Room again for the celebration of Blessed John Paul by the youth drama team from Oxford: people crammed into every available space, sitting on the floor and on window-ledges. It was all wonderful, and possibly our best Festival yet...the Assn of Catholic Women did a wonderful job serving teas and coffees and sandwiches and cakes all day, and the Hall was filled with so many wonderful andinteresting things to see and read and watch and buy and discuss. Some wonderful paintings by members of the Society of Catholic Artists filled the stage area. Some beautiful craftwork was on sale at various stalls - hand-made rosaries sold in aid of a charity in India supporting nuns who care for and educate blind children, some fine statues, olive wood products from the Holy Land...Aid to the Church in Need was there, and EWTN, and the CTS and the National Catholic Library and all sorts of booksellers and publishers,and the Catenians, and the Knights of St Columba, and many many more groups and charities...
A hectic day for Auntie, but a happy one: this Festival began its life in 2000 and it is most satisfying to see it safely launched into the start of its second decade...
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I was there and must say that it was such a wonderful event. Please extend my gracious thanks to the organisers. I managed to purchase from CTS two copies of My Little Missal and a YouCat for my grandchildren plus a few more items from the other stalls. Had to dash from Hinsley Room for the Requiem Mass at 2:30 and missed the film on Blessed John Paul. All in all, a marvellous day.
God bless.
Sonia
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