It was a success!!

Wonderful singing from the choir of More House School (Ave Verum, and Pie Jesu)...stalls and displays from all sorts of groups ranging from publishers such as Fisher Press ,Gracewing,and CTS and groups like Our Lady's Catechists and the Knights of St Columba ...Capacity audiences for all the talks, held in the Cathedral crypt... TOWARDS ADVENT went really well...

I woke early - as mentioned, I had been staying at an address in St Matthew Street, Westminster, near Parliament and near the Cathedral (note to correspondents - NO, that view of Big Ben ISN'T from my own home...I made it clear that I was staying overnight in Westminster!!!). I didn't have an alarm clock, but read somewhere that the Holy Souls wake you if you need it. So I said a prayer for them and asked to be woken at 6 am, and woke as Big Ben rang out its chimes for just that hour... got everything ready, grabbed a quick breakfast and was at the Cathedral Hall by 8 am.. having dropped in to the Cathedral for a quick visit first. Slight hassle about getting the hall unlocked then we got started... it is always exciting watching the Festival take shape, as groups arrive with big displays and stacks of books, all of us busy in the kitchen or the hall or greeting speakers/choir/helpers...

A happy day. Christopher Martin spoke about some of the notable Catholic churches and cathedrals in Britain, Fr Richard Whinder about Bishop Richard Challoner, Aghi Clovis about her journey to Christianity from Islam....

Browsing the bookstalls, I bordered a copy of JAMES, BY THE GRACE OF GOD, a new book just out from Fisher Press, for Christmas. When Jamie arrived in due course he looked at all the stalls too, bought various things, and when we finally met up - I spent most of the day rushing about on all sorts of errands - he said "Um..there is a new book out about James 11, but I didn't get it as I thought perhaps....." "Yes, I said. I've ordered it for you for Christmas."

After it was all over, J. and I had a quick wash-and-change and off to a birthday-and-fireworks party given by friends near Blackheath. It was a rather grand Black Tie affair, and it felt funny to be there after spending the day hectically rushing around a busy hall organising and coping with minor crises...I wore my lovely new swishy skirt and felt elegant. Urge to kick off my shoes and just flop was resisted. Wonderful fireworks on Blackheath and delicious food...home late and exhausted!

This is what I can see from my window...

...more or less. The November night is unusually warm and mild, and floodlight buildings glow against the dark sky.

All Souls Day...

...at Westminster Cathedral with black vestments and swirls of incense, solemn beautiful Latin chant, and a large congregation, and a sermon reminding us of the great reality of death and judgement and facing God...the Holy Souls chapel was full of twinkling candles all day, and, as every year, there are sheets of paper on which you can write the names of people to be remembered in prayer. I wrote my dear father's name as I have done every November since he died. The atmosphere in the Cathedral was especially solemn and reverent...

I am staying overnight near Westminster Cathedral so as to be ready for the Towards Advent Festival tomorrow morning. The chimes of Big Ben ring out through my open bedroom window. I am in St Matthew Street, just off the street-market in Strutton Ground, in a corner of Westminster which is almost like a village, but with Parliament and the Abbey ahead of us and the Cathedral just behind. This is the offices of the excellent pro-life group, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children: they will have a stall at the Festival tomorrow and material for this, along with all my items including stacks of jars of my home-made jam, wait downstairs for transportation to the Cathedral Hall.

To be in the centre of London in the middle of the night is rather exciting. I went to the Sainsbury's in Victoria Street to buy cheese for sandwiches to sell at the Festival. (The Association of Catholic Women has charge of the refreshments - all home-made by volunteers). Then, having tackled all sorts of last-minute arrangements for tomorrow, I settled here to write this blog, and relax with the Catholic Times (feature interview, by me, with Fr Peter Wilson of the University of London Catholic Chaplaincy - do read it!) and a wonderful book about the Apostles, written by the Holy Father, which I bought while in the USA...

Oh, I do hope all goes well at the Festival tomorrow...

All Saints Day...

...and I cycled to Mother's for tea: she produced lovely cakes and I some American maple-syrup cookies. Gave her some pumpkin-scented soap(!) from Alabama. She is so happy about the arrival of her latest great-grandchild and we talked about this, and I also related my American adventures... Cycled home through one of the most glorious sunsets I have ever seen - did other readers notice it? The glow from the pink and golden clouds ripened the Autumn leaves on the suburban trees to an almost luminous orange....

To the Sacred Heart Church at Wimbledon for evening Mass. Well, two Masses actually as Fr Mitchell had given me permission to hand out Towards Advent handbills so I was anxious to reach as many people as possible. LOTS of people at Mass, as yesterday for the vigil Mass. Now: our Bishops must get this message firmly:

WE VALUE OUR HOLY DAYS!

Here we are on All Saints, with people filling a big Victorian church on a November evening - because it's the feast of All Saints and we are glad to mark it!

It is one of the few Holy Days left to us, following our Bishops silly and tiresome bureacratic reasoning. If it were Ascension Day, or Corpus Christi, we'd be told we should stay at home and only celebrate on the nearest Sunday instead.

After the final Mass, I was invited to the home of the delightful E. family - oldest son Thomas is my godson - where there was mulled wine, and a candlelit room, and good conversation, and a new baby glowing with health, a perfect way to round off All Saints' Day.

Traditional Hallowe'en

Cycled through London yesterday, a crisp Autumn evening, from Waterloo to a committee meeting of the Catholic Writers' Guild at St Mary Moorfields, via the CTS Bookshop to get some small gifts for the choir at Saturday's Festival. The choir is from More House School - come and hear them sing! Excellent meeting, with dinner provided by our Chaplain Fr Peter Newby: we have all sorts of good ideas and plans for the Guild in 2008. Our AGM is always on January 24th, in honour of our Patron, St Francis de Sales.

Today I went to our local parish in New Malden as I needed to photocopy some things for the Festival - arrived at 12 noon and the little team at the presbytery were saying the Angelus. Somehow this gave the whole day a nice, villagey feeling. Valuable help with photocopying, and a cheery chat with the lady organising the parish Hallowe'en festivities, which celebrate a "Night of Light" with prayers in church, then a procession of all the children dressed as saints (they've been preparing their costumes over the past weeks) with home-made lanterns. They go through the local streets, and all passers-by get a little leaflet with a pumpkin picture and an explanation of Hallowe'en as the Eve of All Saints' Day. Then back to the parish hall for games (apple-bobbing and buns-on-a-string, all the traditional things) and party food.

Now that's the way to re-Christianise Hallowe'en.

So this is where I'll be on Saturday...

...Westminster Cathedral Hall. But it won't look much like that, because the Towards Advent Festival is always packed with people, and we have displays and stalls from a huge range of Catholic groups and organisations, and a programme of events ranging from a choir giving us a feast of sacred music to specially-arranged tours of the Cathedral treasures...

The Catholic Herald...

...newspaper has a splendid full-page advertisment for TOWARDS ADVENT which is most satisfying and spurred me on as I hurried about today making various arrangements. To the Catholic Truth Society to collect some leaflets - in the early years of Towards Advent, the admin of the venture was run from their office in Harleyford Road, with Adrian Thacker, and going there today brought back memories of busy meetings, planning, printing, lots of hard work...

Inconveniently, my bike choise today to get a puncture, so I had to walk across the river from Vauxhall to Westminster, but I didn't really mind as it was a most heavenly Autumn day with cascades of golden leaves wherever trees stood together, and the Thames looking grey and swirling and Westminster Cathedral having that gently glow from lamplight as dusk approaches...

A note from a friend tells me about a glorious CONCERT on Saturday evening - conveniently a couple of hours after TOWARDS ADVENT ends - at Brompton Oratory. Fabulous music, with wine and nibbles beforehand, starts 7pm, and funds raised will go towards LIFE (pro-life group,helps mothers and babies) and the Oratory Church. Get more info from 020 8 788 3115 or click here.

In the rain...

...to the Sacred Heart Church in Wimbledon, where they have a useful 8pm Mass on Sundays, a boon for anyone who has been travelling or had a complicated day. Exhiliaration, cycling through sheets of soaking rain and then entering into the warm, gently candlelit church. I usually hand out leaflets in this parish each Autumn to advertise the Towards Advent Festival at Westminster Cathedral Hall, but the trip to America prevented that this year, so I will do it on All Saints Day, when they have two evening Masses. Cheery conversation with fellow-cyclist by the church's bike-rack, as we prepared for a soaking ride home. A cosy feel as I came into our kitchen and now I'm going to have a mug of tea with my dear J.

Kindness...

...followed me all the way to the airport as I left EWTN. I was rather sorry to be leaving, although home called me with 1,000 responsibilities and a busy week ahead...

While you are away from home, you are in a sort of bubble, living in time-out-of-time. Everything, from doing the hoovering to answering letters, is on hold - and, these days, emails ensure that the most urgent messages get tackled and news from home is guaranteed, so the bubble is a cosy one with anxieties removed but everything still at a distance.

Normally, I'd add "cooking" to the list of things left aside while away from home, but this time it wasn't the case, as my TV series involves lots of cookery demonstrations. I was producing masses of stuff every day, cakes and pies and biscuits and even some roasted lamb. Much of it had to be done twice - once to produce on the show as "here's one I've done already', and another created in stages in front of the cameras. Some items were actually produced three times. At EWTN, there is a shelf in the staff kitchen where food, books, clothing, or anything else that can usefully be passed on, is left: I found that trays of edibles left there disappeared with gratifying speed. Incidentally, this don't-waste-anything-and-let's-help-each-other atmosphere is one of EWTN's most pleasant aspects: a mix of everyday kindness and good cheer with a faint dash of ecological thrift and a large dollop of sheer generosity.

Home to a rainy London - which is the way I like it, so I wasn't complaining - a mountain of letters, and the rather endearing discovery that Jamie had been able to follow some of my domestic instructions, so laundry was drying and the fridge had food in it.

Home soon....

...and I'm writing this hurriedly at EWTN while waiting for the car that will take me to the airport. It's all been fun - yesterday recorded a couple more programmes and then had time for some souvenir-shopping (bought some gloriously American things - pumpkin soap for Mother, and some sort of Blueberry Syrup for Jamie to have on his morning porridge).

Also had time to watch some American TV...golly there are some odd things out there. EWTN is a relief after seeing some of the dippy things on some other TV channels, especially the religious ones! One showed a big religious rally with lots of people waving American flags, and at first I thought it was all rather nice - jolly wholesome and so on - but then it all went political and there was a great deal of ranting and a chap told everyone they should 'expect great blessings' for having attended the rally and started to list lots of things the President should do on foreign policy because it was all in the Bible. It was quite enjoyable to watch in an odd sort of way, an Evelyn Waugh novel come to life.

But it's impossible to visit America and not be hugely touched by the other side of all this - the huge kindness, the generosity, the largeness of people's hearts. Americans give generously to charity - huge projects of all kinds simply funded out of people's gifts, large and small. They are neighbourly - and regard all sorts of people as neighbours, not just convenient ones. They cope with things. There is a cheeriness here which is - at present anyway - missing in Britain.

Mother Angelica...

...is of course the famous foundress of EWTN and the work has grown and flourished since she began it in a garage some 25 years ago. I have to say that working here is energising, friendly and at times hilarious.

Catholic TV, fish pie, and fun....

...at EWTN, the international Catholic TV station based in Alabama. I am having a busy and very happy time, making a series of programmes which, among other things, involves me doing a lot of cookery...they were amused by the Britishness of my recipe for fish pie (fish with shrimp and cheese sauce, topped by mashed potato, since you ask). Terrifically interesting conversations, as there are people coming and going with many insights on different aspects of the Church and the world...did a chat-show with Fr Mitch Pacwa and will be doing an intervew re my new book etc etc...gosh I do enjoy America and the breakfasts with scrambled egg and good coffee after a very early morning Mass with glorious singing...the TV series on which I have been working will be broadcast in the Spring. Producer is Deb Piroch, who is talented and fun and is also very kind and helpful in every way. It really is a delight to be working here...

Joy!

Joyous news!...a phone call brings the delightful message that niece-in-law F. has given birth to a baby girl! Welcome to baby Francesca! A joyful buzz of phone calls and family rejoicing...I have permission from the young parents to put this news on my blog. Is there any greater joy anywhere than that which comes with the arrival of a darling new baby into a family?

Golden bright...

...Autumn day with a crisp fresh feel to it. Off to give a talk at a Catholic secondary school, about the work of Aid to the Church in Need, supporting persecuted Christians.

Interesting to observe trends in Religious Education. Have you heard the daft packet-of-sandwiches theory about the Feeding of the Five Thousand? It's the modernist take on this great miracle, deliberately invented to try to steer young people away from understanding the full Eucharistic significance...I heard it again today and it's clearly one of the bits of rubbish given to gullible RE trainees: the idea is that it wasn't really a miracle when Christ took the loaves and fishes and raised his eyes to Heaven...nooooo, what really happened was that when the small boy produced this simple food all the other 5,000 people who had apparently been hiding their packets of sandwiches greedily for themselves now produced them to share...

Quite apart from the racist idea of assuming selfish inability to share picnics was somehow the norm among 1st-century Palestinians...this daft theory doesn't even fit the facts. Why would it be considered remarkable if people simply enjoyed food they already had? What sense can be made of the link made in the Scriptural account with the manna in the desert - and Christ's extraordinary words about feeding people with his own flesh?

No wonder young people seem bored with their religion, finding it apparently hard to grasp its reality, or surrender to its joy, when they have it thus gutted of real meaning.

However...the school was welcoming, efficient, friendly, generous. Pupils mixed: some (a few) open, interested, capable of response to my talk about faith and ACN, and tales of derring-do in assisting Christians in various parts of the world... others with rigid body-language saying don't-come-near-me-with-all-this, shrugging, pushing away the holy cards, downcast faces hidden behind sheets of hair. It's something I always notice: among the young today some, especially the girls, have a wounded and alienated look...the pressures in today's vicious culture are so huge, and already in late teens there is a sense of violation somehow, of lost life. This makes it tough for teachers.

Interesting point made in discussion: those who believe face derision from their peers. "Persecution" isn't something far away from these young people, it can already be a reality, if you admit to being a believing Christian...yes, even in an RC school.

TV, Tradition, and Hard Work...

...more or less sums up my relationship with EWTN, the Catholic television network. Spent all of Wednesday in Balham, where Fr Stephen Langridge at Holy Ghost Church allowed a TV crew to invade the parish while we filmed a series of six interviews for CATHOLIC LIVES...these included Nicole Parker of the London Fertility Care Centre, Josephine Robinson of the Association of Catholic Women, Fr Alexander Sherbrook of St Patrick's Soho Square, Kristina Cooper of GOOD NEWS magazine, and more...on Saturday I fly to Birmingham, Alabama to make a whole new series about Traditions Marking the Feasts and Seasons of the Year (I don't quite know why I've put that in capitals but it somehow conveys the flavour of the thing...)

Wednesday's work was fun but, golly, it was exhausting, and at the day's end, when the little crew, after sorting things out and packing up and dealing with everything, met in the quiet church for Mass - said by a visiting priest from the Brothers of St John, who had come from Holland to watch our work as he works with a similar TV project in Amsterdam) - it was so good just to be there with the rhythm of the words and the bright glow of candles. I have only ever been in that church when it is teeming with families and chanted music on a Sunday morning, and having just a small group gathered (in exhaustion!) before the altar on a weekday evening with the darkening windows and the glitter of a lifted Chalice was a suddenly powerful experience.

Up early this morning to get to a committee meeting of Aid to the Church in Need. Afterwards, to a bookshop to treat myself to a new, looooong, interesting book for the flight to the USA on Sat. I do have some work to do on the flight, but there will be several hours in the air and I feel I can give myself up to the pleasure of deliciously uninterrupted reading. (I am actually planning to take some sewing to do as well - cross-stitch sampler which needs finishing and is rather fun to do - but have been warned that needles are sometimes confiscated as being potential terrorist weapons...anyone know anything about this?).

Auntie in a rush, in the rain...

...to Oxford, to address the Newman Society, because a planned speaker had to drop out at the last minute due to a family illness. I caught the Oxford Tube from Victoria (note to US readers: it's a bus, that's just its name) and through a most magnificent rainstorm it battled its way to Oxford. The city looked glorious in the rain, glittering pavements and golden leaves and glowing windows. I knew I'd be given sherry and dinner so relished a rain-soaked walk to the meadow by the river, through the war memorial garden which is just opposite the Old Palace. Then dinner (candlelit, with delicious food) and the talk - which was about the work of Aid to the Church in Need. Members of the Newman Society are formal and wear a special tie. It made me feel quite bohemian in my denim skirt. Everyone v. kind...and then the return bus - I couldn't stay the night, as I was due to make an early start in London the next morning for a day of TV work.

Home extremely late, and with rain still clattering down as I hurried in the the kitchen door and shook off my wet things.

A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

A very happy 21st birthday celebration and book launch at St Etheldreda's Ely Place. A birthday, because it is 21 years since my "Book of Feasts and Seasons" was first published by GRACEWING, and a book launch, because my brand-new "Yearbook of Seasons and Celebrations" made its public appearance....the crypt at this magnificent gem of a Medieval church was twinkling with hundreds of candles, wine and snacks were served, and small niece E. helped me to cut a celebration cake. Tom Longford of Gracewing made a hearty speech and said all sorts of kind things. Lots and lots of friends came, and it was a lovely, lovely evening. Many thanks to Fr Kit Cunningham for welcoming us to this party - 21 years ago there was a launch at St E's for that first book, and over the intervening years I have been in the crypt for many wonderful evenings with the Catholic Writers' Guild (a plaque in this crypt now marks the association with the Guild).

This was an evening to hold in the memory, full of happiness and friends and talk and laughter.

Preston...

...is a place of happy associations for me, with family links. Bit depressing, therefore, on my Sunday evening visit to find the usual dreary British-city feel, gloomy louts in the main streets chucking beer cans and yelling obscenities, pounding beat from packed but uncheery booze-places (somehow the jollier word "pub" doesn't apply), groups sitting on the pavement drunk, sense of loneliness everywhere. Seeking St Walburga's, I asked the way from various people, included a busy Catholic church where a huge crowd of Indian families had evidently been enjoying a gathering in the parish hall, now dispersing. A lot of children running noisily around the church and shouting as people gathered, talkatively, for Mass...I felt a bit out of place, but everyone v. nice, the kind priest directed me to St W's, and then when I got a bit uncertain at a road junction a bit further ahead, some youths drinking on the steps of an Elim Pentecostal church got me right again, although inadvertently hitting a sad note as they did so: "Yeah..that's the one they're gonna close...right? Yeah, OK, it's just down there...

At the big old prestbytery at St W's, the Franciscans - in traditional brown robes with knotted ropes round their waists, bare feet and sandals - run a chaplaincy for students at the University of Central Lancashire. Numbers small for this Sunday evening gathering, but a warm welcome, delicious spaghetti, international group with lovely friendly atmosphere, much enthusiasm for my talk on Pope Benedict...it would be glorious if, through prayer and dedication, this chaplaincy could grow and breathe new life into St W's, currently threatened with closure...

To Westminster...

...Cathedral, where I ran into a friend, Patti, in the excellent CTS bookshop in the piazza. We went for a quick and enjoyable chat-and-cup-of-coffee. P. is a colleague in the Association of Catholic Women, and we have shared in many useful projects and campaigns - she'll be helping, as always, with the mammoth task of serving food and rink to the 1,000-odd people who throng the Nov 3rd Towards Advent Festival. We last chatted when working on the ACW Schools Religious Education Project...

On to the Rosary Rally, which starts at Westminster Cathedral and goes through the streets, with banners and statue, to Brompton Oratory. Mother and I always meet it at the Oratory, having had an agreeable trip there by bus via a visit to a teashop, making it a pleasant day out. Oratory packed, of course, lots of good hymns, and a sermon that started with a vivid description of the Battle of Lepanto and the role of the Rosary in its outcome, establishing the feast of O.L. of the Rosary which is marked each year on Oct 7th. It was all very challenging, aimed at making us think about what is happening today and to our civilisation...

Afterwards, having seen M. safely on to the train home, I went to Westmin. Cathedral for Mass. Glorious singing from the choir of Farnborough Hill school, and a group of young people coming forward to start their preparation for Confirmation. Sometimes the future of Christianity in Europe seems small...but it's there...

Kingston....

-on-Thames was the County Town of Surrey when I was a child and I went there to take an important pre-scholarship exam when I was ten: can still remember the sense of trepidation as we got on the bus, and the weird feeling of being in a big school with lots of strange children. Then many years later I worked here as a reporter on the Surrey Comet newspaper - old-fashioned offices right next to the parish church.

Cycled there for tea on Friday with a priest from a new movement based at Hampton Wick - of which more in a moment - but found the centre of the town a rather depressing experience. Crowded shops, lots of people, thronging and spending...but louts hanging around the church shouting obscenities, chucking beer cans, while other people (?? I think actually students from what is now Kingston University) also hung about, also swearing and looking glum and cross...this gave a nasty and slightly scary feel to things. I had wanted to pause to enjoy things a bit. The Regimental Colours from my father's regiment hang in the parish church - I remember going there for the ceremony when I was about eleven. Autumn sunshine and the river sparkling. But police on the alert, their radios crackling into life "Yes...could you just send along another couple of peole...no, not sure...that would be of help...thanks..." so my sense of menace was shared by others.

Later, over tea, I was told that this is normal :"And it's much worse at the weekends, when there are groups hanging about with their black teeshirts with that satan symbol on, and litter everywhere..." Oh dear.

The group I went to meet is based across the river, at Hampton Wick, and is called the Heralds of the Gospel. Evidently a new Catholic movement, fostering very traditional Marian devotions.