...and so...

...off to Birmingham, to the former home of Bl John Henry Newman at Maryvale...

A weekend of study and lectures...and, thanks to a new laptop, I am now able to work on trains and in spare half-hours at coffee-shops. But is this always wise? Time to think, and pray, and relax,,matters a great deal more than Auntie is sometimes prepared to admit. A useful feature by Stratford and Leonie Caldecott,  in the latest issue of The Sower, excellent magazine published at Maryvale, gives pause for thought: it is about being slow  over important things. Moves towards "slow food" in place of the ubiquitous  fast food with its style of  eat-on-the-street-and-drop-rubbish-anywhere   could, they suggest, be  usefully echoed by a move towards "slow catechesis" for Catholics: think about beauty, about strong family and community bonds, think longer-term, think with the Church...Pope John Paul warned against the idea that the New Evangelisation would be a quick-fix, and we should heed his words...

As if to push the message home, this weekend saw Auntie unusually tired. Overslept this Sunday morning  in the peace of Maryvale - I had a room at the front of the old house, a snug corner room slanting off, Maryvale-style, from one of those glorious slightly slanting staicases - and missed Mass. Hurried cup of tea as everyone else was finishing breakfast, and then we all went off to the morning's lectures...in the late afternoon, travelling back to London, I abandoned the laptop and simply took a Sabbath rest. Evening Mass at Westminster Cathedral, with something memorable about it as we prayed for dear Papa Benedict and for the Church...