Visiting...

...a friend who is gravely ill in hospital. A quiet and solemn visit. The Rosary. Then my route home, in a corner of London not familiar to me, took me past the long high walls of Wormwood Scrubs, the all too grimly-named establishment for involuntary guests of HM...and because I was thinking about suffering, somehow there was a consciousness of the suffering within those walls too...and then, because I was on my way to Mass,a vague link in my mind with the bleak news from the USA of the latest court decision there, not a good sign for religious freedom. On to Westminster Cathedral, and the Mass for Saints Peter and Paul, with Archbishop Vincent Nichols in red vestments and wearing the Pallium. A sudden deep realisation that this unchanging Mass, this huge reality, links us down across the centuries with Peter in Rome long, long ago in prison, and being released from his chains...and the Faith was brought to us, here on this island, and here we all were this June 29th in London, singing out "Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ!" in a packed cathedral...