A full hall of...

...First Communion parents, at St Joseph's, Epsom. A most happy and heartening evening: this is a large and thriving parish, and every year when I am invited to talk to the First Communion parents, there is such a wonderful welcome...it is partly because this is all not far from my home, and also the home in which I grew up, and so there are all sorts of links, friendships, shared knowledge of schools and parishes and so on.  But it's mostly simply because this is a wonderful parish where good things are happening. This time, I had brought along copies of YOUCAT which had been specifically (and generously!) donated so that every parent could have a copy. I cannot recommend YOUCAT too highly...if you haven't got a copy. hurry and get one.

Yesterday was a strange day, in that it began in Willesden, at the Shrine of Our Lady, where I met members of the SPES team from St Patrick's for a pilgrimage. An early Mass, a short talk about the shrine, which is well worth a visit and then we set off on a Rosary Walk along the canal. It ought to be a lovely walk - and in lots of ways it was, a beautiful Autumn morning, a good spirit between us, and the voices saying the Rosary back and forth - but the path along the canal is spoilt by litter and horrible manic graffiti, and it somehow has a bleak feel to it. We were all perfectly safe, but it would be no place to go for an evening walk....

However...we finished at Tyburn convent, where we paid tribute to the martyrs, and prayed, and then went on to the site of the Tyburn gallows and said some more of the Rosary there (suitably, we were now at the Sorrowful Mysteries).  And so on to St Patrick's.  Here, Auntie acknowledged her age and was given an opportunity for a good rest. Then lunch, and a talk to the SPES team.  Then home, and a rush to pack things up and hurry to Epsom...