This Christmas...

... in Britain has an underlying seriousness not sensed in recent years. There's a sadness about. It's not just that cold weather has disrupted many poeople's travel plans, so that families are divided and people have been stranded at airports and in the Channel Tunnel. It's not just that there's a cyncism about, with one of the year's main news stories being about Members of Parliament grabbing so much money dishonestly through an inflated expenses scheme. It's not just the continuing rise in crime, and family break-up. It's more than all that. It's somehow connected with a nostalgia for the beautiful and the true. It's connected with all the current propaganda denying Christianity its rightful place in our history and traditions and culture and common life, and with a feeling that even joking about this makes one somehow vulnerable. There's a disconcerting am-I-allowed-to-say-this feel in the air when people mention the profound religious truth that is at the heart of Christmas...

Christmas carols...

...at Waterloo and Victoria stations, plus a group that went from house to house...

Carol singing is a major part of Auntie's Christmas, and if you were among commuters at Victoria or Waterloo this week and last, you might have glimpsed a figure in a bright red coat conducting the group of singers - led by a stalwart team from St Joseph's parish, Roehampton, led by Yvonne Windsor.

People love hearing the old carols, and with a willing group of people you can make the rafters ring. The accoustics at a railway station are superb! We had a violinist, and much goodwill, and soon some young people were adding descants, and we not only got huge sums of money, but lots of enthusiastic applause and comments. People didn't just hurry by and drop some money in - they stayed, and enjoyed themselves, and sometimes joined in. Two chaps joined in for fun, and stayed - "We were on our way to the pub., but this was so much fun we decided to stay!"

Through snowy countryside...

...to Goring in Sussex, for a well-attended gathering in the comfortable barn hall attached to the church with the most magnificent of ceilings...

I was there to give a talk about English saints, and was warmly welcomed with hot soup and hugs and good cheer. It was a very happy evening. Organisers were the wonderful Bevan family, whose DVDs are proving a great success...the whole evening was fun, including a good discussion session at the end of the talk, and over tea and (home-made) cakes...

On the way there, through Surrey and Sussex, the countryside was grey with scudding snow, and bright windows glowed through the gathering dusk, an agreeable scene as the train whooshed along...everything felt Christmassy and rather enchanting. Yet there is a deep feeling of sadness over things at the moment: this Christmas sees us, as a nation, so very broken somehow. And the discussions, mentioned above, included a recurring theme "Do you not feel that there may be open oppression of Christians here at some stage? It all feels as though things are moving that way...that it will become unacceptable to voice the orthodox traditional Christian message, especially on things connected to marriage and family life..."

Auntie draws the attention...

...of her readers to this campaign to which she is sympathetic.

Auntie is sickened by the continued injustices towards decent people who are guilty only of being faithful Christians who seek to live and work according to moral principles which have for centuries been at the core of our common life in Britain.

A baptism...

...at Brompton Oratory, followed by a lively gathering, lots of children, a table spread with sandwiches and snacks and cakes, plenty of good cheer. Officiating at the baptism was Fr Anthony Symondson SJ, who writes and speaks on architectural matters and is a friend of the family.

Whenever Catholic families get together, the subject of education comes up...parents are so keeen to get their children into the good Catholic schools, which as a result are beseiged by numbers. The Government has decided that the admissions procedures - which gave priority to practising Catholic families who could show that they sought a Church-based education for their children - were "elitist", and now, alas, our Catholic Education Service is effectively supporting this view. So now the priority will be given to families living near the schools - thus giving a huge advantage to rich families who can afford to buy housing near the good schools. There are some excellent Catholic boys' secondary schools in London, and parents start worrying about how to get their children into these schools while the children are still small...To get a child into a Catholic primary school, you have to show that the child was baptised within a few months of birth and that the family attends Mass regularly...and you will be competing against a good many others. If, for some reason, the child doesn't get into a Catholic primary school, it seems practically imposible to get into a Catholic secondary school.

To the House of Lords....

...for the annual presentation of prizes won by young people in the ecumenical Schools Bible Project. This is always a joy. The winners this year were exceptionally delightful young people, and it was all great fun - at least, I hope they found it so. We met in the Central Lobby and watched the Speaker's Procession, with the carrying of the Mace. Then a tour of Parliament, with a good look at the fine mosaics in the Central Lobby of our four patron saints, St George, St Andrew, St Patrick and St David, and the statues of our kings and queens, and then off to Westminster Great Hall with its associations with St Thomas More and King Charles I, and, in the lifetimes of many of us present , the lying-in-state of Sir Winston Churchill and HM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother...then on (through pouring rain which lashed our umbrellas and made us a rather absurd and drenched procession!) to the room at 1, Abbey Gardens where we had cake and chat and the Presentation of the Prizes. These are cash awards to the schools, and Bibles and other book prizes to the young people. Baroness Cox always does us proud, and spoke most beautifully about the inspiration brought by the Christian Faith, and what it can mean. It was especially touching to hear her speak about young child soldiers in Africa, where she has recently been working on a relief project...

On a dark...

...overcast day, an invitation to spend the afternoon with young relations. On arrival, a cheerful three-year old hurried me into the sitting-room, where a niece, niece-in-law, and assorted small children were snuggled on the sofa with a duvet watching The Wind in the Willows. It was the work of a moment to kick off my shoes and join them. The afternoon went on to include the creation of an Advent wreath, the hiding and finding of golden chocolate coins (St Nicholas Day), and a lively talkative delicious supper...

Children's memories retain all sorts of things, and I often wonder about those one helps to create. I had brought with me an old family set of crib figures. but felt that after some forty years of use they could perhaps do with a wash, so a bowl of warm soapy water was produced and the children swathed in pinafores to engage with the task. I fear they were baffled. They enjoyed watching a couple of aunties plunge St Joseph, and the manger, and various kings into the bath, they watched as the Infant Christ was gently subjected to flannel and soap. They loved putting them all back in the tin and then taking them out, and putting them back....but what strange ritual did they think this was, and what will they tell their own children some decades from now? ("Ah, in the good old days, there was a tradition of washing the manger. I remember it well...."

Where will you be...

...on the evening of |December 16th? If you are in Sussex, why not come to English Martyrs Church, Goring, and hear about "Sussex saints and martyrs"? (Scroll down on that link under "Events" to find out more).

Golly...

...to my surprise I came across this rather good feature on the Guardian website...

We need something like this in Britain...

...and I'm talking about the Manhattan Declaration in which numbers of Christian leaders from different denominations have joined together to affirm principles on marriage and on the rights of Christians.

"Because we honour justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family," it concludes.

There has, of course, been nothing about this in our British media.

More info here.

An extraordinary series of coincidences...

...resulted in my writing a book about a nun who was once headmistress of my old school. Interested? If you are a Philomenian, you will be. The book is "A Nun with a Difference", and tells the story a girl born into priviledge in Victorian England, who ended up founding a college in newly independent Pakistan. Contact Sun Hill Publishing, 11 Sun Hill, Cowes, Isle of Wight PO31 7HY. The book costs £10.99p (make cheque out to H. Lowe) - add £1.50p for postage and packing. Or you can buy it from the CTS bookshoop in Westminster Cathedral piazza...