Glorious music, a baptism...

...Sunday Mass today was a joy. A packed church - there are not enough pews at the back, some having removed, in lunatic fashion,  a few years ago, on the grounds that they would not be needed because...er...people don't go to church much any more, do they?  

The Sunday School is large and growing, and won't fit into the only space available. 

A lively lunch with a group including the parish's new young music director. Plans for a children's choir are going well.  This may take some pressure off the Sunday School. Much talk about music, traditions, liturgy, history, education, and more...

A walk along the Thames, in good spirits. A visit to a beloved elderly relative, with gentle talk of family things.

But all this is happening against a sensation of a darkening future. Horrible new regulations have been suggested  for "mandatory national transphobic hate-crime training for police officers and the promotion of third-party reporting". Translated into English that means that if you think that it is not actually possible to turn a boy into a girl, and you voice that opinion, you might be arrested. More on all this here. There's a horrible feeling that ordinary freedom to speak openly of ordinary things may be crushed.

In the 197Os, I  joined in do-you-think-we-may-all-be-persecuted-one-day? discussions with other young Catholics...and we often announced solemnly to one another that, yes, it could happen...look at the Soviet Union, look at history...and we saw (and fought as vigorously as we could against) trends that were ominous as public funds went to groups promoting abortion and so on...

And now.,..