In Austria...

...the conference was superb and I have come away with so much to study and think about...among the best lectures was Dr Paul Vitz examining the complementarity of men and women, absolutely fascinating. Also Graham Hutton, whom I know well  through our joint work with  Aid to the Church in Need, spoke superbly on St John Paul's Theology of the Body.

I attended the conference with Patti Fordyce, chairman of the Association of Catholic Women.  It was fascinating to meet  Archbishop Gintaras Grusas of Vilnius, and the conversation we had with him is one I will never forget.  We were discussing the film - recently shown in London -  about the original "Divine Mercy" painting in Vilnius,  and he said gently "Yes...I know about this film...I directed it..."  Then as the conversation developed, we learned his story.  His parents met and married before WWII, and the events of the war separated them, his mother remaining in Lithuania while his father, after being captured by the Germans,  later remained in the West, finally making his way to America.  For over ten years neither knew where the other was. Finally, through various contacts, each discovered that the other was alive...and finally, following the death of Stalin and some meetings between Soviet and American diplomats and officials, they were reunited and settled in the USA.  He was born a year later, in 1961.

He grew up to be - no surprises - a campaigner for human and religious rights in Lithuania, and through  the early 1980s organised various activities in the USA and abroad...later, on following a call to the priesthood, he foiund that, in the extraordinary circumstances following the fall of Communism, he would finally return to his family's native land and in due course become Archbishop of its capital city...

The Divine Mercy story is all connected with this history - when St Faustina first had the visions of Christ, it was in what was then the Polish city of Wilno....today Vilnius...

There are Polish/Lithuanian loyalties: Poland rightly claims St Faustina as a daughter of Poland, but Vilnius cherishes its unique and special claim to be the place where this most powerful and important message was given to the world, and where the image of Christ was painted according to St Faustina's specific instructions....an image subtly but importantly different from the various sentimental popularised versions which became known in the years when Vilnius and its treasure were effectively  hidden from the wider world by the Iron Curtain....