Rain, Lumen Gentium, and a Royal Oak...

...at a busy week at Maryvale. Exploring ecclesiology, studying Vatican II's Lumen Gentium, rich theology on the nature of the Church...a midweek break for a visit to Boscobel, rich in history, where Charles II hid in the oak tree after the Battle of Worcester. Regular readers of this Blog will know that I love rain, and we had lashings of it spattering the windows of the old house at Maryvale, soaking into the green lawns. Night after night groups of people arrived from local parishes for a Novena of Masses leading up to the Feast of the Sacred Heart: Maryvale is a centre of devotion for this and has an old shrine dating back to recusant times.