Friday, May 02, 2008

We Londoners...

...were having our votes counted today, and the London free newspapers had hopeful headlines suggesting Red Ken's days as our mayoral overlord were passing away...

I bustled about London with a vast and heavy long-handled suitcase-on-wheels, carrying some 800 children's essays to the CTS office at Vauxhall...entries for the ACW Religious Education Project. The final judging will not be completed until the end of May, and I'll give the results on this Blog as well as to the press etc...The CTS is doing terrific work at the moment: click on that link and go to "News" to see what they are up to in Afghanistan and the USA as well as here at home...

London was cheery in the rain. There was a special Vespers at Westminster Cathedral, with the choir of Westminster Abbey taking part in a joint service. I had time for a cup of coffee and sandwich near Victoria, enjoying the excellent Ratzinger's Faith - The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI by Dr Tracey Rowland, by far the best book and most readable about the H. Father's thinking and ideas that I have read so far.

On the train, going to Mother's for the evening, I met a friend of hers, and as we sat chatting, another local friend came up saying "I thought I knew that voice!" and we all got out together at Wallington. This sort of thing gives one a sense of roots and belonging. As we made our way to the High Street, we got talking about...the fact that our wretched Bishops have abolished Ascension Day! "I don't know anyone who thinks it was a good idea" said A. "It was a daft thing to do" agreed R. "Do they think we hate having Feast Days? It's as if they've given up on the Church. But why do they think that we have, too?"

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do the popes know that they get to appoint all the bishops of the world.

Anonymous said...

As I said a while ago, I suspect that with that competition exercise you will get mainly paraphrases of the gospel accounts.

Whilst the ability to read a passage and put it into ones own words is certainly worthwhile, it's maybe not the best assignment that you could have devised.

Now the entries are in you will see whether I am right or not.

Anonymous said...

Look: You describe our bishops as wretched, yet when I described them in my last reply to a blog of yours as having barely disguised contempt for His Holiness, you witheld my comment. ???

hc9@orange.net

Anonymous said...

Auntie,

It is only the obligation that has been transferred to Sunday. Ascension Day is still the Thursday. Shame I didn't read this in time to let you know. Our local priests were ignoring it anyway.....