Friday, August 27, 2010

London...

...always looks its best in light rain. I lunched with an old friend at the Albert pub in Victoria Street, and we talked long and enjoyably over a very good steak-and-ale pie. On to Westminster Cathedral, where evening Mass was said without choir as the boys are away on holiday: there was something solid and downbeat and somehow very attractive about the simple and straightforward Mass, a rumble of London voices making the responses, lines of people coming up for Communion. I went to confession and, as so often happens, met a friend in the queue and we had one of those whispered conversations exchanging news and greetings. On to Parliament - under grey skies and scudding rain the warm sandstone looks warm and weathered and rather marvellous. Parliment Square is still a mess - the encampment of demonstrators (anti-war, anti-capitalism etc etc) has gone but there are hoardings up while the muck and rubbish they left is cleared and the grass allowed to grow again, and there is still a row of tents and banners and placards facing the Houses of Parliament. The Holy Father will be speaking in Westminster Hall in three weeks' time and an invitation to this stands on our mantlepiece, all silvered embossed crest and elegant lettering. I said a quick prayer as I stood by the railings, and dropped a miraculous medal there.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

And you must come to...

...this lecture, by author Brian Gail. I interviewed him for a Catholic Herald feature a while back, and he was terrific. Come and hear him speak!

The latest issue...

...of COMMON GROUND, the magazine of the Council of Christians and Jews, has a feature by Auntie in it. Click on that link to find it, it's the Summer 2010 edition...

WHO IS JOSEPH RATZINGER??

Come and find out! A colleague has found a superb new film on the life of Benedict XVI, and we've organised a Papa Benedict Evening!!! Monday September 6th, Parish Lounge, Sacred Heart church, Wimbledon, London SW19. Donation £3.00, coffee and Bavarian chocolate cake. All welcome. Funds raised wil go to the Maryvale Institute.

When the early Christians...

...were persecuted in the Roman empire under Nero and Diocletian, one of the accusations used against them was that of cannibalism - because of the Eucharist. It's surfaced again. Campaigners in the secularist lobby - I've just been trawling some of their blogs and websites to see what they are saying in this run-up to the visit of the H.Father - are now making claims that Christianity is essentially cannibalistic, and referring to Holy Communion...oh, and that it is a religion focused on death, because of the centrality of the Crucifixion.

One commentator is quoted by another journalist as saying that the Holy Father's views are "so disgusting, so repellent, and so hugely damaging to the rest of us, that the only thing to do is to get rid of him". I am assuming that she was misquoted...

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Monday, August 23, 2010

Blackberries...

...and small girls eagerly gathering them. A friend and her daughters contacted me to inform me of a newly-discovered wonderful place, a glorious meadow with hedges simply brimming with blackberry bushes, near a beautiful church (on Sunday evenings the bells peal out for Evensong, and they dropped in to share in the service for a little while)...the essence of English rural life, and all in the heart of Greater London suburbia, not far from a railway station which could whisk you to Waterloo in half an hour...

So I joined them for a happy afternoon, and as I write this there are jars of jam all completed, and a mix of blackberry-and-apple straining through to make jelly, and a delicious blackbverry and apple crumble just enjoyed for supper.

If you want to sample the jam, you must come to the Towards Advent Festival, Nov 6th at Westminster Cathedral Hall. Mark the date in your diary now...

In the news...

...there are reports of another incident at a War Memorial, where a drunken woman used it as a lavatory, and later for a sexual encounter. Recently another War Memorial was sprayed with graffitti with militant Islamiscist slogans. One newspaper suggests that we need a new law making it a specific offence to dishonour a War Memorial in this way. We don't. But the incidents do require some sort of a response. Today I went to our local War Memorial with some flowers and a note which said "Reading media reports of recent incidents involving the desecrating of War Memorials made me want to do so something, so I have placed these flowers here. I invite others to do the same."

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

A useful meeting...

...with Gerry Coates, who has launched the Heart Gives Unto Heart internet radio station to cover the Papal visit. I'll be helping with some interviews etc - much to plan and discuss.

LOts of emails and messages from people who are coming to London for Papal events, including some Americans. Some are making a longer stay, and arriving some days before the Papal visit to enjoy some sightseeing etc. If you are among these, do join me on the Catholic History Walk on Sept 9th. It starts at 6.30pm (ie after the 5.30pm Mass) on the steps of Westminster Cathedral...no need to book, just turn up. Wear suitable shoes and clothing, we'll be walking whatever the weather. The route wil take in Westminster Abbey, Parliament, St James Park etc...

Sunday, August 15, 2010

The Holy Father on Religious Freedom:

He is increasingly stating its importance. At a time when Christians in various places - yes, I'm talking about Britain - sense that their right to work and pray and teach and speak out from the vantage-point of a living faith is being challenged or denied, Pope Benedict XVI has made religious freedom the theme of his 2011 Peace Message. Read here for more...and understand the significance of what is being said.

Addressing the United Nations a couple of years ago the Holy Father said: "Human rights, of course, must include the right to religious freedom, understood as the expression of a dimension that is at once individual and communitarian – a vision that brings out the unity of the person while clearly distinguishing between the dimension of the citizen and that of the believer."

The Church is not asking for priviledges but just for the right of everyone to play a fair part in common life: the Pope noted that asking that some one renounces religious beliefs in order to take part in building up the social order is unjust, and fragments the human person. Of course it also denies to society the benefits brought by all that is being produced through the zeal and commitment of those who work from a position of faith: schools, hospitals, universities, all sorts of provision for the poor and marginalised and so on...

And while on the subject, Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Freedom is authoritative and extraordinarily prophetic and wise...

Having recently met...

...some of the Dominican Sisters from the New Forest, I trawled their website, and was impressed by their range of activities, which included a visit from a school, with a v. charming pic...

A Traditional Wedding...

...in Hampshire. A great gathering in church, a beautiful bride, glorious music, delightful bridesmaids in swishy scarlet dresses matching the red roses, enchanting small page-boys, solemnity as the young couple exchanged their vows...all joyful, memorable, tender. The Nuptial Mass was celebrated by the chaplain of the University where they met, concelebrating with family friends...and in addition to a magnificent Byrd Mass, sung by a choir of friends of the young couple, we had some of my favourite, favourite hymns... Later, over a delicious meal, there were excellent speeches, and laughter and talk and then dancing until a late hour...and the departure of the bride and groom in a car trailing tin cans and balloons...

Favourite hymns? Oh, since you ask...John Henry Newman's Praise to the Holiest, of course, and Soul of my Saviour, and Glorious things of thee are spoken...

And just to make things perfect, this morning as various of us returned to the same church for a packed Sunday Mass, we had Tell out my Soul: wonderful nieces singing fabulously beside me...

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

And you must MUST watch this...

...click here...I found this extraordinarily moving...

Hurrah for Papa Benedict...

...and you must read this blog if you are a Londoner and want to be part of the Papal visit.

Monday, August 09, 2010

The Oratory School...

...founded by John Henry Newman, stands in glorious countryside in the Thames Valley and welcomed a great crowd of young Catholics from across Britain for the third EVANGELIUM Conference this weekend. Outsanding speakers included Roy Schoeman with a gripping Jewish testimony, and Fathers Andrew Pinsent and Marcus Holden with a superb presentation of the Catholic Church's achievements in the sciences, the arts, education, care of the poor and sick, human dignity, and common life and culture...there were glorious Masses in the large school chapel where Gregorian chant and hymns were sung with enthusiasm, and a surge of young voices joined in prayers, there was Morning Prayer in the beautiful old chapel in the school grounds with the psalms going back and forth to welcome the day, there were excellent meals with a roar of talk, there was a lovely evening gathering with music and wine in a gracious drawing-room opening on to the lawns beneath brightly glittering stars. There was a great presentation by Jack Valero on Catholic Voices, and an excellent talk on the Papacy, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" by Father Nicholas Schofield. Auntie took part with a talk about women in the Church and English Catholic Heroines, and there was an evening discussion in which both Bogles, J and J, were part of a panel tackling questions on all sorts of topics - Jamie was v. good.

The Evangelium event - now clearly a part of the annual national Catholic calendar - is notable for bringing together people from a number of new groups within the Church, including the Neo-Catechumenate. It is sponsored by the Catholic Truth Society. There were people there linked to the FAITH Movement, to charismatic groups, to the Fraternity of St Peter, and to the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. I was interested to meet some young women from the Community of Our Lady of Walsingham, and plan to take them up on an invitation to visit them shortly.

Throughout the weekend, there were references to Newman, and it was wonderful to be in the school he founded, and looking ahead to the Papal visit and the beatification...a sense of things coming together.

On Sunday afternoon, things finished with a final Benediction, and then lots of goodbyes and a relay of minibus trips to Reading station...where some of us gathered for a final drink and chat, and were still there more than an hour later, still enjoying ourselves as the evening drew on - talking agreeably over a great range of things (theology, John Paul II,the Church, the nation...) not in the beautiful setting of Woodcote where we had been all weekend, but at a cheery pub with an ugly view of office blocks. We were still talking as we boarded the train for LOndon, and finally reluctantly shook hands and made our ways home at Paddington...

Thursday, August 05, 2010

Joyfully...

...to the annual FAITH Movement Summer Session, held at Woldingham School in Surrey. Packed with young people, it was also an opportunity to reconnect with various friends who, like me, had come along for this Wednesday afternoon and evening - traditionally the Guest Night. An excellent talk by guest speaker James Macmillan, Catholic composer, whose latest work is a Mass which wil be sung when the Holy Father comes to Birmingham to beatify John Henry Newman. Drawing on inspiration from John Paul II's Letter to Artists,, Macmillan spoke about the beauty,structure and sense of order and meaning which music imparts, and how music has an intrisic link with faith, with religion...

Our family has a longstanding link with the FAITH Movement, and it was fun to be at this Summer Session with some young relatives...including a four-year-old who loved the beautiful gardens and grounds - a rabbit lolloped agreeably through the woods as we approached, there was a great fat fish in a pond, and the sun shone on wide lawns newly freshened with rain. A happy afternoon.

Evening prayer in the chapel, and memories of so many Summer Sessions down the years. We sang "The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended...", the voices rising up in the evening air.

An excellent and at times hilarious concert, a packed room applauding each performer with much clapping and stamping. Then a walk down the lane to the station, the stars very large and bright above us, and a train ride to Clapham Junction and so home on my bike, very late, and contented.

Monday, August 02, 2010

In sticky summer heat...

...hurrying around London...then supper at Euston Station, reading exam revision notes, then train to Birmingham, still reading, then a taxi to a comfortable inn at Sutton Coldfield, near to Maryvale. The bliss of a shower and comfy bed - and a Gideons Bible in which to look up various Bible references. Thank the Lord for the Gideons: I hope some nasty campaigmner doesn't succeed in banning them from placing Bibles in hotel rooms. I always make a point of using one, and anyway it's always so reassuring to have it there, and handy for bed-time prayers...

Maryvale pleasant and inviting, as always. Much greeting of friends as people foregathered for exams. A number of young nuns among the crowd - and it was a large crowd, as people from various different year-groups were there for this big summer exam session. The usual lecture-room was doubled in size by the drawing back of a great set of folding panels, and we each sought our alloted desk with its examination number.

No use speculating on how I did...I tried my best and will just have to await the results.

Train back to London,on to a Saturday evening Mass at Westminster Cathedral and then straight on to young relatives where I was due to stay the night preparatory to a Day at the Seaside on Sunday. A cheery fish-and-chip supper, the family group including not only Auntie but a godmother and a German au pair - lots of lively and amusing talk among the young people, much laughter and fun.

The Seaside next day was a joy - small great-nephew leaping joyously into the waves, small great-niece tucking into ice-creams, new baby snoozing and beaming, young relatives unpacking a great picnic in the sunshine...we all very much enjoyed ourselves...

And then on Monday, to Sion-Manning School, where a lively Holiday Activity Week was in progress, and Auntie was leading a workshop on journalism. A happy busy morning, with some enthusiastic youngsters in a very pleasant atmosphere. Their week will include a visit to Kensington Palace and a good look at English history, with a bus tour of London and a boat trip along the Thames...and the plan is that they will now have some journalistic skills so as to produce a lively report on it all to take home for friends and family...