Sunday, July 31, 2011

The new Mass translation...

...is beautiful and excellent. We are already using it in our parish, for the priest's part. The sacred reality of the Canon of the Mass comes across with powerful solemnity and clarity.

The lady next to me...

...on the bus sighed rather heavily and seemed distressed. I tentatively made sympathetic noises. We got chatting.She was on her way back from hospital - she had something wrong with one arm, and it had given her trouble in the night so she had hurried there and now, after treatment, was on her way home. She had a number of other worries. She spoke with a foreign accent. I wondered if she was perhaps a Catholic. When I said I'd remember her in my prayers she responded very nicely and said yes, she believed very much in prayer. I hesitated for a moment and then said "Why not ask Blessed John Paul to pray for you?" She looked interested "Who is he?" she said. Oh dear, evidently not a Catholic. It turned out she was a Moslem. "But I understand" she said "A good man, with a pure heart. You say to him: take this message to Allah, and he does? That's what we do, too." We talked a bit more "Yes, I will ask this John to pray for me to Allah" she said "And it is so good that we met and spoke like this.I feel better already." And we parted like close friends, although we hadn't even exchanged names, and the whole morning felt brighter somehow.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

A large sunny room...

...in the big hall adjoining St George's Cathedral, Southwark. The last time I was in this hall was a few weeks ago,for celebrations following the ordination of a number of priests for the new Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. Today I returned for...my 3rd year Maryvale exams! We sat two papers, on Redemption and on Fundamental Moral Theology. All beautifully organised, in very traditional style, tables set wide apart, names and examination code-numbers on neat cards. A nun led us in prayer, distributed the papers, announced the timing, gave us the word to begin. Turning over the pale blue sheet to stare at the questions was less frightening that I found it when I took my first set of Maryvale exams a couple of years ago.

Afterwards, three of us lunched agreeably together nearby, en route to Waterloo station...we agreed no post-mortems, and stuck to this rule: we talked about Maryvale, swapped news and views, discussed the state of the Church, Britain,Western society generally, and more...it was good to relax and talk and laugh and ponder lots of things together in good company. In late afternoon sunshine we shook hands and looked forward to our next gathering at Maryvale in October.

Several members of our year-group have already disappeared, one to study full-time for the priesthood, another to study to become a deacon, two to go into politics, several more to...well, who knows? It feels a bit worrying to be part of a diminishing group like this. But I am hugely looking forward to the start of the new Maryvale term and the next stage towards my Degree - assuming that, gulp, I've passed my exams and am eligible...

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Latest issue of...

...FAITH magazine arrives in the post. And next week brings the annual Faith Summer Session, which I hope to be able to visit briefly...over 30 years ago, this annual summer gathering for young Catholics was a big part of Auntie's life, and along with many other people I owe this excellent Movement a great deal. It has grown and grown, and it is good to see a whole new generation benefiting from the insights and teachings given. And there are now so many priests linked to FAITH, and they are doing so much good work.

But, golly, the realisation that I can remember the Summer Sessions of the 1970s is pause for thought...I remember speakers like Christopher Derrick - an unforgettable defence of Humanae Vitae which was a big influence on my understanding of that whole topic - and of course the splendid Father Edward Holloway...and I remember sitting by the lake at the college in Roehampton where the Sessions were then held (is the lake still there? I bet they've filled it in and covered the lawn with buildings), and evenings in a local pub, and Masses in the college chapel, and excellent concerts-got-up-from-scratch which always culminated in a magnificent rendition of a famous piece of music with genuine musicians supplemented by the efforts of people using whatever could be found in cupboards and suitcases so combs and vacuum-cleaner tubes and milk bottles came into play...and I remember (and cherish) good friendships which have lasted to this day, and good discussions, and good opportunities for asking big questions and getting honest answers...and the Salve Regina at the end of night prayers on a warm summer evening, when summers seem to last for ever...

At Brompton Oratory...

...for a Board Meeting of the British section of Aid to the Church in Need.

On all train and Tube journeys at the moment, I'm busy revising for exams. Been re-reading Paul VI's Humanae Vitae as part of Moral Theology. He came under such terrible attack for this Encyclical, but how wise and truthful it was, and how prophetic it turned out to be! This evening I googled his name - and, alas, the first several references to him on the Internet were all horrible, nasty, snide attacks on him. Even all these many years later, his enemies absolutely loathe him...so I have been reconnecting with my own knowledge of him to get a real picture. There is so much that I had not known about at all - how he worked with Pius XII to give Jews and other refugees a safe haven at Castel Gandolfo in WWII,how he pioneered new forms of evangelisation while working in Milan...

Pope John Paul abandoned, and rightly, the Ostpolitik which had marked Paul VI's papacy - but he opened the diocesan process of his beatification in 1993, and declared him a Servant of God.

Monday, July 25, 2011

More on the Ordinariate...

...of Our Lady of Walsingham, here, with a description of a recent gathering in the old Friary in Francis Street near Westminster Cathedral...

Sitting in St James' Park...

...between meetings, reading moral theology, revising for exams. Groups of tourists surging past, hot sun beating down on the grass, making me glad I had found a cool place under the shade of a great plane tree...

At one level, everything in London SWI on a summer afternoon is more or less as I have always known it - crowds, ice-creams, Londoners looking busy, traffic roaring, the occasional siren squealing, flag flapping gently above Buckingham Palace. But at another level, it isn't. The police now wear heavy-duty padded bullet-proof jerkins and many carry weapons.People are fatter. Few people are dressed formally or smartly, and a number of women are poured into tight-fitting lycra clothing with flesh bulging out at waist and top. Others, of course, are hidden beneath burkhas - a news item in today's press notes that as France has banned this form of clothing, numbers of well-to-do Middle-Easteners have moved to London for shopping and social activities instead. The most elegant women are Indian ladies in saris. Sights once routine in London - men in bowler hats, for example - are now unknown.

You hear a lot more casual swearing and obscenity. There is a lot more litter - though less in a London park than in suburban streets which are often adrift with rubbish. Lots of people eat while walking around. Fewer people read newspapers: it's rare to see some one seated on a bench reading one. Many walk with i-phones plugged in to their ears. Many have a mobile phone clamped to an ear. Conversations are all routinely interspersed with the word "like", as in "So, I'm, like, at the bus stop, and I'm, like, hey, where's the bus, and he's like, hey, like, the bus is on its way..." and in anyone under about 30, all sentences go up at the end, as if every statement is, like,a question?

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Pilgrimage...

There are a couple of places left in a pilgrimage to Durham, Lindisfarne, Hexham and other holy sites. Leaving London by train on Monday 12th Sept. and returning there on 16th September. Cost all in £255. Those interested call Brigid 02087638201 or Amanda 02086475021.

"Sweet Sacrament Divine"....

...is one of my favourite hymns, and we sang it this morning at Holy Ghost Church, Balham. I went to Balham because there is an 80-strong group from there heading for World Youth Day in Madrid in 3 weeks' time, and I wanted to check some details with the parish priest. Alas, he wasn't there, because, as Dean, he had had to hurry off to a neighbouring parish where the priest, Fr Bonvini, had just died...

Fr Bonvini...Fr Bonvini...on hearing the news, my mind went back over 30 years, to a summer evening at St Elphege's, Wallington, where Fr Bonvini, then the curate there, talked to Jamie and me about Christian Marriage. We had gone there to make arrangements for the wedding - a family friend, Fr James Tolhurst, was to celebrate our Nuptial Mass and marry us. But it fell to Fr Bonvini to deal with the neccessary paperwork - and to explain to us about the Sacrament we were to recieve and its beauty and importance. His talk was quietly full of wisdom, imparting the Church's teaching without cliches or frills, and with an emphasis on prayer and the spiritual life, and I have always remembered it. May this good priest rest in peace after a life given fully to the service of the Church and to hundreds and hundreds of ordinary Catholic families like ours in the London suburbs...

This morning's Mass at Balham was a swirl of incense and glorious music, with Latin chant, a beautifully sung Psalm, and, as mentioned, "Sweet Sacrament Divine" at Communion...a friend remarked recently that the thing he had noticed, on joining the Catholic Church, was the number of men in the congregation - "Sundays, and even weekdays. Always lots of men. In my previous denomination it was mostly just older ladies".

Afterwards, I treated myself to 20 minutes with coffee and a newspaper: grim headlines about the massacre in Norway, and various analyses about the situation in Europe with new tensions over Islamic immigration, and a worsening economic situation...

Feeling solemn, I headed for home. I spent yesterday evening addressing envelopes for the big mailing to all London parishes about the Towards Advent festival later this year. Somehow it seems more important than ever to affirm a strong Christian presence and a message of general goodwill and hope. Will World Youth Day help?

Went to pick blackberries and think.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

There is a court case...

...running this week and next in which a judge will decide whether to make a patient in a hospital die of thirst. The patient is semi-conscious and deeply vulnerable. It has been suggested that water and food should be stopped. This is a gross and ghastly plan and the patient needs our prayers and support. Pray for "M", and for the judge who will decide whether to let this person live or force a particularly cruel death. And you might like to join in an act of solidarity which is planned for next Wed (July 27th) at 1pm at Old Palace Yard, WEstminster, London SW1, in which a woman who was once herself a patient in an intensive care ward is planning a demonstration.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Dropped in...

...to the St Paul's Bookshop next to Westminster Cathedral, to discuss my forthcoming book on Blessed John Paul. Exciting to see the cover design and to talk about publication plans...

London has spme good things on at present. At the National Gallery you can see some magnificent altar-pieces in this exhibition. It's FREE, and well worth a visit. Beautifully presented with interesting and clear explanations.

Watching...

...this fascinating interview with Cardinal Raymond Burke, talking to the Association of Hebrew Catholics. He is really excellent.

As a journalist I occasionally get sent some vile anti-Jewish ranting material and to my horror I have realised that it has come from a source claiming to be Catholic. It has included nasty attacks on Jewish Catholics too. So I went to the Assn. of Hebrew Catholics website, and found it very helpful - see above.

The latest issue of Common Ground, magazine of the Council of Christians and Jews, has a review, by Auntie, of the book Light of the World, in which the Holy Father speaks on a wide range of topics, including this one. I was especially touched by his comment that his German birth gave him "a special reason to look with humility and shame - and with love - upon the people of Israel."

And this YouTube clip is also relevant....

Re-Reading...

Veritatis Splendor for some work on Moral Theology. You hear the timeless voice of the truth in its clear and thoughtful words, and in its gentleness and sense of proportion in tackling the great issues that confront us...

Monday, July 18, 2011

Great boxes ...

...of handbills and posters for the 2011 TOWARDS ADVENT Festival have arrived, reminding me of the work to be done in getting envelopes addressed to every RC parish in the South East of England, ready for the big mail-out that takes place in September. Meanwhile, today, packets of handbills went to the various groups and organisations taking part in the Festival, so they can be mailed to members. It looks set to be our best-ever Festival...click on that link and put the date in your diary now...

London in light summer rain...

...and very enjoyable. A party to launch Fr Nicholas Schofield's new biography of Fr William Lockhart - an excellent book telling the story of a leading figure in the Catholicism of Queen Victoria's England, and a man who helped to shape the Church that English Catholics know today.

It was a wonderful evening: guest speaker was Lord St John of Fawsley, with glorious anecdotes and much name-dropping - the latter being his trade-mark so he engaged in some self-mockery especially when it came to his description of being about to say to a Pope "As Her Majesty the Queen was telling me.." but decided to forego it...

Fr Nicholas is a good writer and a fine historian, very much at home in English Catholicism. Tom Longford of Gracewing Books presided, and guests included Fr Marcus Nolan - whose Evangelium conference is coming up in August - Fr Richard Whinder, and Antony Tyler, a former Master of The Keys, the Catholic Writers' Guild, with whom I shared a cheery bus-ride back to Waterloo and a cup of coffee and a snack there, swapping news and views very enjoyably before catching the train home...

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Space travel...

...is the current interest of a small relative, so when I was at his house looking after him and his little sister and baby brother this weekend, we spent a good deal of time organising the creation of rockets from cardboard boxes in the kitchen, and hauling them around the floor on missions to Mars etc. It was hot work.

At bedtime I enjoyed browsing through the children's books on the pretext of choosing a story for them. Small girl wanted the Christmas story. I explained that we were in July...to no avail. We read the Christmas story. She particularly loved a picture of Mary drooping sadly at the bottom of a tall flight of steps while Joseph bounded up to ask for a room, and an innkeeper at a window made a glum face indicating that there was none to be had. She wanted to act it out, so I was by turns Joseph and the innkeeper and she drooped gleefully as Mary and then jumped up gladly at the news that there was a stable nearby...after about the eighth time of doing all this I called a halt, and we had prayers and then finally Auntie could stagger downstairs and flop in the kitchen amid the remnants of rockets. When the young parents returned from their evening out they were amused at my exhaustion, explaining that it's the norm.

Sunday morning saw us all cheerily at Mass in a packed church, one family among great numbers of others with small children, people crammed into every pew in the large church and standing at the back and all down the sides...we had that rather hideous version of the Gloria in which you are made to clap rhythmically twice after the first line. Could we all somehow get together to ban this particular piece of nonsense? Trying to make the Gloria fit into this sort of jerky, confused jazzy mode is horrible. But I loved being at Mass with the children, who were quiet and well-behaved, small boy's exuberance manfully restrained as he wriggled in the pew next to his Daddy.

In the afternoon, we all came back to Auntie's house. Small girl tenderly nursed my ageing dolls (dating from the 1960s and living rather quiet cupbord life these days: it was a joy to see them reciving real affection. She bandaged the broken leg of one of them, and tucked them all up in a bed improvised from kitchen towels). Entertainment possibilities are a bit limited in Auntie's modest home so I took the children out down the back lane and we picked blackberries. Most satisfactory, and we got a great bowlful and marched it gleefully back into the house, small boy bearing it aloft triumphantly and treading squelchy mud into the carpets and along the sofa.

I was sad when the weekend was over and am sitting here with a glass of sherry feeling suddenly quiet after putting the dolls away.

At Allen Hall...

...in Chelsea, a good crowd met for for the annual Summer Gathering of the Catholic Union. Mass was celebrated by the Apostolic Nuncio. Then a meeting chaired by Lord Brennan, our President, and with a report from Dr Tony Cole on the the latest activities of the Parliamentary and Public Affairs committee of the Union...a good, serious, up-to-the-minute session which looked at the various projects currently on hand. Things are grim with regard to the Govt's gruesome schemes for reducing marriage to the same level as same-sex unions, and with the endless pushing of euthanasia at so many levels by so many campaigners who find supporters in, for example, the BBC. There are continuing problems in education - although the immediate threat for compulsory sex education for five year-olds seems to have receded temporarily. There are continuing, and increasing, pressures on Christians in public and professional life...

After lunch, further talks, which explored the issues raised by the latest (excellent) lecture sponsored by the Union in Parliament - Lord Griffiths, looking at banking and the economy - at the Catholic Young Writer Award sponsored by the Union,at the needs of Catholic schools especially with regard to improvements in RE...and more...and more...

It was good to be at Allen Hall , with its links with St Thomas More. He planted mulberry trees in his garden - because their name in Latin can be a sort of pun on his own name. It has a fine chapel, and a refectory with portraits of former Archbishops of Westminster, and a Roll of Honour of the Douai Martyrs, a sense of a great heritage for the English Church...outside the rain lashed down, and there were jokes about this being officially our Summer Garden Party, but somehow we never seem to be able to get into the gardens very much...

It was encouraging to see such a good attendance at this meeting, with people there from Catholic Voices, and the Catholic Medical Association and the Catholic Writers' Guild....there was a good spirit, a sense of solidarity and of purpose. As we face tough times in Britain, with Christianity and Christian values increasingly coming under attack, there is quiet resolution, good humour, and courage...

Friday, July 15, 2011

An unforgettable evening...

...with members of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham! It began with the launch, at the old Friary building in Francis Street, just behind Westminster Cathedral, of the FRIENDS OF THE ORDINARIATE...the idea is to raise funds to help the clergy and their families,and this is badly needed as of course they are venturing out into new territory and leaving homes and secure incomes. You can find out more about it all here. Later there was a lively talkative supper, much goodwill and it was all so interesting and full of hope and plans...Mgr John Broadhurst, who is on the governing Council of the Ordinariate, was there, along with two of the younger clergy, one from Coventry and the other from the Isle of Wight, both of them married with families.This has been an extraordinary time for them...something of a rollercoaster ride, with big decisions made, lengthy family debates and discussions,then moving house, facing an entirely new future. It was good to get some understanding from the inside, so to speak, of how things are going: no great dramas so far, good relationships with local RC parishes and so on, but much uncharted territory still to explore...numbers involved are rather higher than I had thought and there will probably be more as things develop over the next eighteen months to two years...

Mgr Keith Newton and his team are very good company. There was so much talk, and laughter, and a sense of zest and purpose.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

On Archduke Otto von Habsbburg....

...you may be interested to read this...

Monday, July 11, 2011

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Coming up...

..for Auntie over the next days and weeks are (in no particular order of importance), the reading of essays in an ecumenical Schools Bible Project, a morning with young would-be-journalists working on a magazine, some more Maryvale exams, babysitting,a day at the seaside, the Evangelium summer conference, and World Youth Day.

A dinner...

...at a London club in Piccadilly, all candlelight and beautiful portraits and crisply starched napkins. It was a school reunion dinner of J's old school, with suitable speeches and reminiscences and passing of port. We all enjoyed ourselves very much despite (because of?) realising that swapping memories and shared teenage/childhood jokes is a pleasure of old age, and one that is denied to the young...

Children...

...in vast quantities, at a suburban Family Mass, off my usual beat. Today J. and I were due to visit some friends, clashing with my normal late-morning Mass, so I found an alternative. Golly, what a packed Mass! Squeezed in near the back. Quantities and quantities of children...and then, just before the Offertory, more and more poured in, trotting quietly up the aisles to join parents and siblings, having been busy at their own instruction-classes during the Liturgy of the Word...

They mostly seemed remarkably well-behaved, except for one boy immediately in front of me, who seemed intent on being as disruptive as possible and encouraging his companion to do likewise, within the constraints of the crowded pew and the general reverent atmosphere. When the Consecrtion was about to happen, and he was having a busy time removing his sneakers and pushing his friend about, I grabbed him by the back of his hoodie and whispered savagely:"It's the Consecration. Kneel and pray!" And to my surprise, he did, or at least went through the motions of doing so. With one shoe off and one on.

There was music, beautifully played - even a violin - but it included a couple of hymns with awfully trite tunes, and a too-jazzy Gloria...there is so much beautiful, beautiful music from which to choose...we surely don't need to keep on flogging those tunes from the late 1970s?

One thing which was noticeable, however, was the very reverent way in which the children went up for Holy Communion, and the smaller ones for a blessing, arms crossed in front. They had obviously been told about this and were following an established parish tradition. That, plus the glittering candles and the incense, would impress this Mass on a child's mind, week by week. I can see why the numbers attending are high.

Tuesday, July 05, 2011

To Wales...

...and a delightful visit to St Joseph's Catholic Primary School in Port Talbot.

I travelled late at night, and had booked in to a b-and-b where there was a lovely welcome - a glass of sherry and some chocolate waiting for me in my room as a bonus,a hot shower, a comfortable bed, and in the morning a delicious breakfast...my fellow-guests were all enthusiastic cyclists, who were to spend the day as they had spent the previous ones, riding gloriously in the mountains. We all tucked in to bacon-and-eggs with enthusiasm, and I felt a bit feeble simply scurrying off to a school as they set out plans for a mountain-day in the rain...

St Joseph's is a lovely school - children's voices chorusing "Good morning!" in Welsh, and singing cheerfully together. It was a delight to be giving out the prizes for the ACW SChools Project, and the children were absolutely charming. The Sign of Cross is beautiful in Welsh.The school wins lots and lots of trophies for sports and these were all being presented too, and two little girls showed the medals they had won for dancing. A friendly chatty time in the staffroom - most useful to get ideas and feedback for future Projects.

The great hills rising up beyond the town, all misty with rain as I was drawn back to London by train...

...and I found this rather touching...make sure you have the sound on, too...

Monday, July 04, 2011

You MUST get...

...the latest issue of Standpoint magazine. It has some excellent stuff in it. Look out for the feature that began as a part of the glorious re-opening of St Patrick's, Soho Square...

I found this rather good...

A great man....

....Archduke Otto von Habsburg,eldest son of the last Emperor of Austria-Hungary, has died aged 98. A truly good man, whose life was dedicated to public service in a genuine Christian spirit, and some one who sparkled with zest and good humour even in old age.

One of the most interesting afternoons of my life as a writer was the one spent with him, as he answered questions about his childhood memories and his father. His lively and interesting mind, his beautiful English - it had a hint of the pre 1914 flavour in its style and accent - his courtesy and his excellent memory and ability to communicate interesting information in a friendly and pleasant way made this an unforgettable encounter. He was charming and patient with us - and yet he must have had so many people, over the years, asking him questions about his extraordinary life, his childhood memories of being Crown Prince, of meeting Emperor Franz-Joseph, of being part of that vanished world of before the First World War...