...and while in Rome...

...I went to Mass on Sunday evening in a modern church I hadn't even known existed. Ugly, I felt,and surely completely unneccesary in Rome where it stands within a very short walking distance of a number of other churches each of which is large and magnificent, rich in the glorious images painted and sculpted by some of the greatest artists of all time and soaked in centuries of prayer and music? However, this church had a good-sized congregation on a hot summer's evening, young people doing the Scripture readings, babies yelling from time to time, the poignant silence with the chiming of the bell at the Elevation...the reality of parish life. It felt somehow just right to find this normality within yards of the glories of St Peter's.