The Catholic Women...

...of the Year Luncheon always begins with a rising crescendo of noise as women gather and greet one another and talk and talk,  and then more arrive, and more, and more....AND THE NOISE IS PRACTICALLY DEAFENING! Drinks, and photographs, and much bustling about as people make their way to the dining area and then the Top Table (the elected Cath Women of the Yr, plus chairman and speaker etc) walks in to great applause...it's all done in a very grand style.

Edmund Adamus, of the Department of Pastoral Affairs for the diocese of Westminster was our special guest speaker and was superb. He spoke about the special roles of men and women in the Church, quoting extensively from Bl. John Paul,  emphasised the crucial centrality of family life and the sacred  core of things in the home, the domestic Church,  and ended up with a most moving and inspiring quotation from Mulieris Dignitatem...Auntie's job was to give the Vote of Thanks, and found her task delightful as both he, and Mary Killeen, speaker from the Maryvale Institute (to which funds raised by this year's Luncheon will go), really uplifted us all.  Sitting at the high table at such an event enables one to see how the whole thing is going, and every year I am impressed by the lively chatter and the easy interchange of everyone - it really is an excellent event which brings together Catholic women who relish the chance not only to celebrate their shared faith but also to swap news and ideas and information...among the useful contacts Auntie made were a young student pro-life leader, a journalist working for a political website, a Maryvale graduate now planning to do more study and research, and of course friends old and new enjoying the day...

It was a pleasure to be sitting next to Jo Siedlecka, one of the Women of the Year.  We have often overlapped at various events working as journalists and she is a talented and hard-working writer who has put her skills at the service of so many good causes: it was a real pleasure to see her recieve a well-merited honour.

After lunch, time for a quick cup of tea with Patti, fellow-member of the Association of Catholic Women, and  fellow campaigner and worker for various causes, and  a quick consulting of watches...would it be feasible for me to make a dash to Oxford, for the Newman Night Walk? The Luncheon was held at the Thistle Hotel near Marble Arch, so Paddington was do-able...I decided YES, and and s very very glad that I did.

The Night Walk is special.  It commemorates the wet and stormy October night in the middle of the 19th century when Dominic Barberi  arrived at Littlemore, having travelled there by stage-coach. He had recieved a message that the Rev John Henry Newman would like him to stop by.  As he stood by the fire, with his soaking cloak, Newman came into the room and knelt at his feet, begging to be recieved into the Catholic Church...

We gathered at the Oratory in Woodstock Road, and walked to Littlemore, led by a couple of Oratory Fathers. We prayed the twenty decades of the Rosary along the way, and made a series of stops, each marking a significant event in Newman's life - Oriel, the University Church, St Clement's, the cottage at Littlemore where his mother and sisters lived, Littlemore Church  which he built and from where he served the local poor people with such love and care...

A wonderful, wonderful walk. It is not far - perhaps four and a half miles. The rain which had fallen steadily all day had ceased. The lanes and meadows of Newman's day have given way, of course, to roads and streets of suburban-style houses, but we walked where he walked, and we prayed prayers he wrote, and sang his  "Lead kindly light" as we set off for the final section,  carrying lighted candles.  The sisters The Work organise all of this, and when we got to St Dominic Barberi Church at Littlemore, they had hurried there ahead of us and we kneeling before the sanctuary, in their beautiful bridal-style Choir robes, with white veils.

Each of us took on that Walk our own special prayer-intentions, our hopes and our worries, and asked for Newman's intercession and laid it all before God...