A magnificent Mass...

...at Westminster Cathedral to give thanks for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. At Clapham Junction, clutching my special invitation-only ticket, I ran into a friend who had his ditto and we travelled to the Cathedral together. Glad we got their early. Three quarters of an hour before the Mass was due to start it was filling up rapidly, people content to sit or kneel in silence for a long time just to be there....Soon there were no spare places at all. The Lord Mayor of Westminster arrived with glittering chain of office and was led to a seat in the front. Mass began with a great procession to the sanctuary - Archbishop Vincent, other bishops, lots and lots of priests (and a great double-column of seminarians, a sign of promise and hope for the future), plus of course that fabulous choir...We had Mozart's magnificent Kronungsmesse - it is glorious to hear stunning sacred music in the setting for which it was originally intended, the celebration of Holy Mass - and for the other sung parts everyone joined in with great strength, a great chorus of voices roaring out the plainsong Pater Noster and Agnus Dei...as the Mass ended we said the Jubilee prayer for the Queen and then sang the National Anthem with full hearts...and slowly the procession left the sanctuary to Walton's Coronation March... It was all magnificent, and I think the Queen would have loved it. Earlier, the Archbishops of Edinburgh, Westminster and Cardiff were at the big thanksgiving service at St Paul's, a nice ecumenical statement. When the Mass was over, people stood in pouring rain under umbrellas and talked about the Jubilee - one young about-to-be-seminarian who shared his umbrella with me had spent the morning with the vast outside St Paul's cheering HM in and out, and seemed unworried by the wet. These Jubilee days have certainly done the nation good. The moral and spiritual state of Britain requires much, much more than this, of course....but joy and thanksgiving and a spirit of community are good things in themselves, and open our hearts to more good things...