A sense of dread...

...when one looks ahead at the Autumn and winter activities in Parliament. Are we going to get grim new laws which will redefine marriage and force sane men and women to pretend that two people of the same sex can marry one another? Will legislation - or a court's interpretation of it - threaten Catholic schools so that teachers will feel they may not teach that marriage can only be between a man and a woman? Will there be attempts to sue Christian people for upholding human and Christian truths?

I get irritated when Catholics say gleefully that "a time of persecution is coming, and it will probably do us a lot of good!"  It may well be coming - although "persecution" will be too strong a word initially  and it will all be fairly muddled and mild and may not seem very dramatic at first  - but it will not be fun and it will not, in the lifetime of most of us, apparently do us much good. Under strong legal pressures, many succumb. In Eastern Europe, during the ghastly years of Comunism - when there was real persecution - many decent people fell silent, coped as best they could, kept their religious beliefs to themselves, tried not to endanger their children, and were not outstandingly brave.  Things were different in Poland, with heroic and holy leadership from great men, one of whom became Pope, one of the greatest Popes in history.  But elsewhere things were bleak, and when freedom finally came, the Church was weak and many people were confused and ignorant.

There are going to be tough times ahead. Don't gloat about it: we are going to need courage and faith, prayer, humility and good humour in adversity. Those who make the most noise ("We are prepared  to write the Creed in our blood!" or whatever)  are not usually those who are bravest when the time comes.

Years ago, when I read Solzenhitsyn's Gulag Archipelago I remember thinking that I would never take my freedom and my everyday London suburban life - family, friends, meals, a home, lovely Autumn walks, cups of tea  -  for granted. I would always be glad and grateful, and do whatever paltry things I could to alleviate suffering elsewhere.

I'm still not taking freedom for granted, and now when I look ahead I ponder things almost unimaginable 30 years ago.

That walking pilgrimage to Walsingham ...

...described on this Blog a couple of weeks back, is reported on the website of the splendid Dominican Sisters of St Joseph. Read here  (scroll down a bit, past other bits of news, to reach it). Aim of the Pilgrimage: to pray for the New Evangelisation.  We now plan a reunion Walk, on Sunday  October 28th, starting at Westminster and walking along by the Thames. Watch this Blog for more details. Fix the date in your diary now!  Our country badly needs a new evangelisation, and it starts with prayer, and then more prayer...

Today - and yesterday, and the day before - Auntie was busy with some wonderful volunteer ladies packing up parcels of Bibles won by young people in the Schools Bible Project organised by an ecumenical group. Tomorrow will see us taking stacks and stacks of parcels to the Post Office in relays...

This evening, a meeting of the team involved with St Clare Media, which is the British arm of  EWTN, making programmes, raising funds, promoting EWTN etc.

Marcus Grodi of EWTN's Coming Home series, will be a special guest at the Towards Advent Festival on Saturday November 24th.   You will be there, too, I hope...

A great traditonal...

...family gathering to mark a family birthday. Three generations. A family afternoon with children and noise and fun. A formal dinner with the children tucked up in bed. Next morning, piling into cars for church and then  lunch at an Oxfordshire pub. Morris Men  arrived  - bells, jingles, white hankies, floral hats, pig's bladder, the lot - and there was lots of dancing. Next day on to visit friends in Sussex. Picking blackberries to make gigantic quantities of jam.  Breezy splashy walks along the seashore. Large numbers of children - two crowded tables at meals. Ferocious games of croquet, children militant with mallets.

In lots of ways, summer brings links with past summers, with unchanging summer things. But Auntie, along with everyone else, lives with the great reality of modern Britain and so these forays into family joys are good.

The Fatima-conspiracy-campaigners...

...the ones who seem to believe that the Holy Father is a liar and  that theresagiganticplot run by, oh, the Freemasons and people who go to World Youth Day and so on, have a very emphatic presence on the Internet, disproportionate to the value  and veracity of what they are actually saying. Attempting to get some information about aspects of the Fatima apparitions, I found a lot of ranting and a sort of desperation, as if by saying repeatedly that sisterluciareallymeanttosaywhatwewanthertohavesaid  they can convince themselves and others. Oh, and they really, really didn't like Blessed John Paul being beatified.

However, there is some sanity and truth: this website is accurate and useful. It is worrying to realise that a lot of people are going to be confused by the conspiracy-committees.

John Paul the Great...

....I was writing something about him and trawled the Internet for some info. Came across this video which I found v. moving and inspiring...

Evensong...

...with the South London Ordinariate  at Precious Blood Church near London Bridge.  An  inspiration  led us to the formation of an Ordinariate women's group, which will meet for the first time in September.  We already have ideas for talks and action, including the making of craft goods for the Ordinariate stall at the Towards Advent Festival, and a project for children involving calligraphy, artwork, and the Psalms. We're interested in exploring the life and work of some of the Anglican women whose work shaped the Christianity of Britain in the 19th and early 20th centuries; people like Florence Nightingale,  Octavia Hill, Mary Sumner. The group is  very enthusiastic.

Extraordinarily, when I got home - late after a very cheery get-together following Evensong and Mass - I found, on checking my emails, an absolutely fascinating one about precisely this concept: starting small with an Ordinariate venture and allowing it to grow and flourish. The writer even mentioned that she had been praying a Rosary "every day until the 23rd" for her own small initiative and by implication others like it.  And this is the 23rd.

The Church in Britain...

...as summer 2012 draws to its close. Auntie's thoughts: here

Catholic Truth...

...has been fostered, celebrated and taught by the Catholic Truth Society  with great energy and dedication  since the Catholic revival in the mid-19th century. The CTS has for the past decade or more been based at Vauxhall, part of a big Catholic presence there which also includes St Anne's church and primary school, and offices of various organisations. I went there today with a big box of handbills about the Towards Advent Festival, at which the CTS always has a stall and of which, like ACN( see post below) they were co- founders. 

Among the latest CTS publications are some by Auntie but they also publish a number of important books including beautiful editions of the new Roman Missal  (ribbons, white-and-gold binding, the works)  and also YOUCAT, the excellent new Youth Catechism with its Introduction by the Holy Father. They have kindly donated a copy -  beautifully inscribed by a calligrapher at the CTS - to the Catholic Women of the Year Luncheon where it joins various other books as prizes in the raffle.  They are also donating copies for the young winners of this year's Catholic Young Writer Award, which is run jointly by the Catholic Union and the Catholic Writers' Guild (more details on the winners later: the announcement will be made when the new school term begins in Sept).

Dropped in to...

...the offices of Aid to the Church in Need to deliver some handbills about the Towards Advent Festival (SATURDAY NOVEMBER 24th), at which ACN has a stall.  In fact, ACN was one of the founders of Towards Advent over a decade ago:  a number of different Catholic groups got together to sponsor the event, hired Westminster Cathedral Hall, and it has taken place every November since, and has become a big part of the London Catholic calendar.

ACN has its annual Conference at Westminster on October 20th, which will finish with the Blessed Sacrament Procession which starts at Westminster Cathedral at 2.15pm and goes through London, crossing Lambeth Bridge and finishing at St George's Cathedral, Southwark. Info about the Conference from ACN on the link given.  For the Blessed Sacrament Procession - just turn up!  Get the date into your diary now, and tell your parish/friends/family about it...

During the summer, a couple of friends mentioned that they were having difficulty ordering my book on Blessed John Paul, as one supplier had apparently run out: well, you can order one from ACN: here.

Earlier, I went to the 10am Mass at this local church, which always has good numbers for  daily Mass, even on a hot August weekday.  On the Feast of the Assumption (Holyday of Obl) it was packed - and when I commented on this, some one noted that the numbers for the 7am Mass had been large, too.

MOTHER TERESA...

FILM NIGHT: "MOTHER TERESA" in aid of the Friends of the Ordinariate

The first of a new series of ORDINARIATE FILM NIGHTS will  take place at BALHAM on Monday September 17th. The film "Mother Teresa" starring Olivia Hussey as Mother Teresa of Calcutta, will be shown, starting at 7.30pm, at Visitation House, Nightingale Square (adjoining Holy Ghost Primary School, next to Holy Ghost church), London SW12.  Tea coffee (REAL coffee, not instant!) home-made cakes and snacks. Donation £5 to the Friends of the Ordinariate. Everyone welcome. Nightingale Square is 5 minutes' walk from Balham tube station, on the Northern Line.

A traditional...

... gathering at the seaside. Staying with friends for a couple of days...swimming, sailing, cycling into the village to buy ice-creams. We ate at a long table set up in the garden, three generations and a mix of cousins and friends and godparents and uncles and aunts. Over the weekend, two young cousins were recieving their First Holy Communion in the local church, and there was much last-minute sewing of white dresses and discussion about lunch arrangements...it sent me back in memory to my own First Communion years and years ago. In a Britain where so much has changed, this hasn't changed. One 21st-century development:  the traditional illuminated certificates had the children's names, dates etc added in beautiful lettering by computer...

Hauling in the boat after sailing, we were waist deep in the water. Some one shouted and then suddenly waters were whooshing and closing over my head -  and as I came up for breath I suddenly realised what the shout had been : "Big wave!"

Home, and the London suburbs drowsy in the heat. Catching up with work on the computer, I come across this book and its successor.   The idea that things will always go on just as they always have done is illusory. And changes don't always come as big waves.

The Catholic Church and the Jews...

...a subject to ponder.  In one of the most significant pronouncements of the Second Vatican Council, the Church declared that  "in her rejection of every persecution against any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel's spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone". Nostra Aetate. 

This October, with the Year of Faith, we mark the 50th anniversary of that Council and its authoritative pronouncements. It is worrying that the Lefebvrists have not, to date, categorically affirmed their support for Nostra Aetate.

The reason for my pondering the subject is that for the past couple of years I have been working on a book which explores - among other things - the story of some nuns who hid Jews in their convent during the Second World War.  They risked death in doing so, and their  Rev. Mother has been rightly honoured for her courage and is commemorated at Yad Vashem.    But the story of the Jews and the Church is a complicated one, stretching back across two millenia, and on studying the subject, it is impossible not to be struck with a profound sense of the neccessity of the  "day of pardon" in which Blessed John Paul led the Church as we entered the third millenium.

 "God of our fathers, you chose Abraham and his descendants to bring your Name to the Nations: we are deeply saddened by the behaviour of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and asking your forgiveness we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant. We ask this through Christ our Lord..."(St Peter's, First Sunday of Lent, 2000)

This was a deep and healing prayer.   The subject was been muddled because of talk about "The Church and the Holocaust" and that is all wrong. Pius XII's reputation is now being more accurately assessed, and his action in saving so many Jewish lives is now being recognised.  But it's stuff of the earlier centuries: the  cramped ghetto in Rome in the days of the Papal States with its locked gates confining Jews within on all major Church feast days, the compulsory wearing of a yellow scarf or hat,  their being banned from most professions, the compulsory attendance at church for sermons urging them into baptism...and more, and more...

The past is a foreign country - "they do things differently there". No point in smugly asserting our own moral superiority in this 21st century. But it was absolutely neccessary for the Church to reassess, to say "sorry", and to teach a firm commitment to a renewed solidarity and friendship with the Jewish people. The future, guided by this and by the heroism of those who shared danger with the Jewish people, promises better.

Loved this...

...pic of feet making their way down the Holy Mile...sent by fellow-pilgrim Karolina, on the John Paul II Walking PIlgrimage...

Been reading up more about Bl John Paul. The latest  Catholic Herald has a fascinating piece from a book by  Jerzy Kluger, BL JP's Jewish friend from his schooldays. They met each other again in Rome in the 1960s when JPII was there for the Vatican Council (and speaking prophetically and wisely about religious freedom, helping to draft Dignitatis Humanae).

You may think...

...that Singapore doesn't have a significant message for the world in general. But it  does.

Read here  for a look at what is actually the sole great reality facing every nation and its future.

Walsingham...

...may not be familiar to all my readers. There is more info here...

Well said, Cardinal Dolan!

...who has spoken out clearly, paternally, and wisely on the subject of the forthcoming American presidential election and the traditional dinner at which the two candidates meet.

There's a new fashion for indignant, muddled young(ish) fogeyish Catholics who are less well formed in the Faith than they think they are, to announce themselves as commentators on the Internet.  There are a great many good and large and generous things that they could be doing, but becoming a (sort of) Catholic wanna-be celeb instead is too big a temptation, so they get excited with camera and computer and talk a lot and post it  on the web. Verbal bashing of the Cardinal and other pro-life leaders and workers is their current excitement. Time to chuck it, boys. There are great and noble tasks awaiting you in your generation, and you need to get on and seek out what God is asking of you.  Being an active  Catholic consists of more than feeling good and being rude about the grown-ups.

...and now some dates for your diary...

...next CATHOLIC HISTORY WALK is  Thursday September 13th, 6.30pm at the Tower of London. We will pray at the site of St Thomas More's martyrdom, and learn about the hero-martyrs of the Tower such as St Edmund Campion and St Ralph Sherwin. Meet 6.30pm at the EXIT (note EXIT...there are several entrances) to Tower Hill tube station.

Saturday October 20th, at 2pm, the BLESSED SACRAMENT PROCESSION through London. DON'T MISS THIS!!! Starts 2pm at Westminster Cathedral, finishes at St George's Cathedral, Southwark. Tell your local parish, and start getting it into people's diaries now...

Saturday November 24th, all day, the TOWARDS ADVENT Festival of Catholic Culture at Westminster Cathedral Hall. Open all day, from 10 am.

...and this is what our poor country is like...

...and why it needs prayer....

A friend who recently acquired British citizenship told me about the form that has to be completed as part of the procedure. Under the section "children" you are asked whether your children are currently still of the same "gender" that was assigned to them at birth. So the myth that sexual identity is merely a matter of labels, and that a girl can be turned into a boy by some surgery is perpetuated with your money and mine, and announced on official citizenship application forms. Loopy...and very, very sad.

The pilgrimage...

...concluded at Walsingham, with a great reception at the 12 noon Mass, which was packed with pilgrims from various groups from across England....a section of the church had been set aside for us, and the rest of the gathering congregation gave us a great round of applause. Our two Ordinariate priests, who had accompanied us (and had the blisters to prove it!) concelebrated the Mass, and the opening hymn was "He who would valiant be"  which seemed v. appropriate. After a picnic lunch - with some additional food given by a lovely Indian pilgrimage group which was cooking up all sorts of tasty dishes over a couple of stoves - we walked the Holy Mile in traditional style, ie barefoot. Then things finished with Benediction in the Church of the Annunciation, with full hearts and with memories that we will keep all our days...

Here are...

...some of the young pilgrims getting ready for Mass at Castlacre, in the sunlit ruins of the great abbey there...pic with huge thanks to Karolina...

Golden fields...

...of wheat, and green fields of sugar-beet, and mellow sunshine pouring down on it all...Norfolk in August, with the harvest being brought in as our feet in boots and sneakers and sandals pounded the ancient route to Walsingham. And I do mean the ancient route - we were following old lanes and paths, going along one of the old, old Walsingham Ways, which can still be traced along the fields and meadows. We prayed the Rosary, all twenty mysteries, led by Sister with a microphone, recalling Christ's Incarnation and the great events of his life, death and resurrection...it is a memorable experience to be pondering the Eucharist (5th Luminous Mystery)  as you walk together alongside a golden, almost glowing, field of wheat, young voices saying "give us this day our daily bread..."

Our overnight destination was Swaffham, and the first day's walk was just over 20 miles. As we walked, we also had some superb talks, on the Scriptures, following the drama of salvation history through Abraham and Moses and on to Christ,  pondering the Covenant, seeing the Church foreshadowed in the Old Testament and shown in the New...

The Pilgrimage was well organised, our bedding-rolls and other luggage being ferried ahead to our overnight stop, a van bringing water and food - all done by volunteers.  At lunchtime we tackled a generous supply of bread and cheese and salad and fruit,  and on our arrival at the Sacred Heart school at Swaffham Sister Julie had cooked a wonderful pasta supper. The glorious , glorious sound of traditional bells pealing out wafted over us as we sat eating and talking, friendships now well forged.  We sang Night Prayer in the Church of Our Lady of Pity - aptly named, as more than one pilgrim quietly noted, as blisters and tiredness were now rather evident.  At the start of the Pilgrimage, all qualified First Aiders were asked to identify themselves - there was a very well-equipped First Aid box and I was able to treat blisters and other problems so that everyone could keep on walking. One of the best-ever inventions is spray-disinfectant which can be used directly on to skin, and can also disinfect needles, hands, etc.

Overnight accomodation was in the school's large halls - big sports-mats used for gym  were stacked in the corner of one hall and proved blissful as sleeping-mats. Using the showers and washrooms we pattered down the school corridors, where the children's work was on display: "Use of Nouns"  "Shakespeare and Drama: the story of the Globe Theatre"  "Colour, Art, and Design". A statue of Our Lady gazed down benevolently.  There was absolute silence within moments of the lights being turned out: sleep came instantly.

A Glorious traditional walking pilgrimage...

...to Walsingham. The John Paul II Walking Pilgrimage for the New Evangelisation....a  good crowd, mostly young but with some older people including Auntie, gathered at the ancient ruined abbey in Bury St Edmunds. Ruined by Henry VIII - but on this golden summer evening suddenly alive again as Mass was celebrated there, the sound of voices saying "I confess to Almighty God..." and  singing Kyrie Eleison, and Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus... and the sight of people kneeling on the soft green grass and lining up to recieve Holy Communion. We sang "For all the saints..."   and thought of St Edmund, boy-king and martyr...

The Mass was celebrated by a priest of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, and this seemed especially appropriate as the Ordinariate opens up a new chapter in the long history of Christianity in our land.... the Abbey ruins carry a plaque, placed there in the 19th century,  noting that bishops gathered there to discuss and plan for  Magna Carta, the first part of which insists that "the English Church shall be free..."

 After Mass was over, we gathered in the church hall, and Sister Hyacinthe of the Dominican Sisters of St Joseph, organisers of the Pilgrimage, got us all introducing ourselves and sorting out arrangements for the days ahead.

The Sisters are splendid. There was a good supper waiting for us, and then we trooped into the church for Night Prayer. It's a lovely building - a real piece of Catholic history -  Georgian, with box pews, and we sang the Dominican form of Night Prayer, going turn-and-turn-about with the psalms. Then we settled down for the night in the church hall, which is actually the crypt of the church. Separation sections for men and women were created by sheets hung on a long line down the centre. It was a warm night and I opened the door into the large walled garden and wandered there for a while before tiptoeing back in and snuggling down...we had all brought mats and sleeping-bags and so on.

The next morning saw us gathered again in the church for Monring Prayer, and then setting off for the village of Brandon. Here we had Mass in the Catholic church, concelebrated by our two Ordinariate priests, and with some splendid singing. Then a hearty breakfast provided by volunteers from  the local parish, who also gave us a grand send-off, as we walked out out in a great column, with a banner of Our Lady of Walsingham...

Catholic Tradition...

...for over 40 years now, has established the Catholic Women of the Year Luncheon as a   major event in the Catholic calendar in Britain. The noise of  three or four hundred women all  talking at once is quite shattering...but brave men do sometimes attend, and this year the speaker is again a man, Edmund Adamus from the Diocese of Westminster's Department of Pastoral Affairs, who will speak on "Blessed John Paul's legacy: love and life".  Money raised from the Luncheon goes to a different venture each year: in 2012 it is going to the Maryvale Institute.

One of my jobs (I'm on the Committee - please be impressed! I'm trying hard to feel like a lady-who-lunches...) is to get prizes for the raffle, and  this year I'm gathering  new books signed by various authors...I've found a splendid book about Bl John Paul and have tracked down the author in Poland and been in email contact. The book is now on its way to him for signing...

The Catholic Women of the Year Luncheon seeks to honour the "unsung heroines" of the Church in Britain. You can find out about the 2012 women here...

Why doesn't Auntie...

...have more pics on her blog?  Chiefly because she is busy and lacks the time to tackle the techy side. However, she is capable of doing it when neccessary so...


HERE is a pic of Auntie with the Nuncio, Archbishop Mennini, at the recent FAITH Summer Session.

Meanwhile, in Rome...here is a good man...

...and you can read more about him here.  I am well aware that a little lobby group has been trying to start a campaign against him: this is silly and nasty and  should stop.

Dropped in to...

...the superb new exhibition about Mother Teresa of Calcutta at St Patrick's, Soho Square. It is rather awkward to find - you have to walk right round to the back of the church, and negotiate some massive roadworks and hoardings and wriggle your way in via a rear entrance - but it is WELL WELL WORTH IT!  It includes Mother Teresa's sari - much-darned and worn - and other personal items including that thin grey cardigan that she wore in colder climes, plus lots of pix of her earlier life ( eg wearing Albanian national costume at a parish social in the early 1920s) and a fascinating film which features a lengthy interview with her, and footage of her funeral which was one of the biggest events in Indian history.  Fr Alexander, parish priest at St Patrick's, knew M. Teresa and this excellent exhibition really captures  her life and message...it brought back memories of meeting her in Bonn in 1989, when she talked to Jamie and me about our plans for a big Family Congress in Britain the following year. She gave me a Miraculous Medal...

The KEYS, the Catholic Writers' Guild...

...which meets at St Mary Moorfields, is very proud of its links that go back to the days of the team producing GK's Weekly in the days before WWII. But it has never been as lively and thriving as now: we have excellent meetings with top speakers, and this evening's Committee session planning for 2013 was great fun, lots of talk and great ideas for the months ahead...We run the Catholic Young Writer Award - jointly with the Catholic Union of Great Britain - and the entries for this year have been pouring in and look promising. Judging takes place in Sept. The winner will come to a Guild meeting in the Autumn, at which the speaker with be Lord (David) Alton. By tradition, the winner gets not only a shield - to be kept for a year and duly engraved with his/her name etc - but also a cash prize of £50 and books donated by Guild members.

Recent Guild meetings have been addressed by Jonathan Aitken - telling of his experiences in prison -  Baroness Neuberger,     Mgr Keith Newton of the Ordinariate of OL of Walsingham, and our Guild Master Mary Kenny, who in January ( on the Feast of St Francis de Sales, our patron)  will hand over to a new Master and so the Guild story will continue...

Our speakers in the Autumn will include Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury. And the Guild was one of the founders of the TOWARDS ADVENT Festival of Catholic Culture, which takes place on Saturday NOVEMBER  24th at Westminster Cathedral Hall. This Festival is a MUST - open all day, admission free, includes glorious music, stalls and displays from a wide range of Catholic groups and organisations, a special guest appearance of Marcus Grodi of the Coming Home Network, and a celebration of Bl. John Henry Newman's "Second Spring"...

The Olympics...

...dominating the headlines, keeping people glued to their TVs....but what is the Church doing? A lot. Especially by young people. There's a mini World Youth Day going on in London at the moment. Click here and find out about the Joshua Camp and the hundreds that have gathered for prayer, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and evangelisation with a message of Christ's deep love for each of us...

"Season...

...of mists and mellow fruitfulness" is how the poet described Autumn. And I love it. We are not there yet, but the August sun is bringing the fruitfulness. Auntie has been out this morning gathering blackberries.  There will be some fabulous jam  on sale at various events raising money for the Friends of the  Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham over the next months.

The feast of...

...St John Vianney, the Cure of Ars, was celebrated at the weekend - v. grand Mass  at the Evangelium conference (see below). You might be interested in this book about him...

Evangelium...

....the summer conference mentioned below, is sponsored by the CTS, which also publishes an excellent teaching pack with the same name...

Founded by Blessed John Henry Newman...

...The Oratory School is in a most glorious setting at Woodcote, near Reading. For the past couple of summers it has welcomed the EVANGELIUM Conference of young Catholics adults...and this 2012 event was perhaps the biggest yet, with some 140 young people and a packed programme. There is a strong link with the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, several Ordinariate priests attending. Splendid music - Gregorian Chant, good hymns -  at Mass in the school chapel. Talks and workshops on a variety of subjects, all linked to the challenge of evangelisation.  Fr Andrew Pinsent on science and faith with a detailed look at the great scientists of the centuries, so many of whom were Catholics - including the man who discovered the Big Bang theory, and the founder of modern genetics...Hannah Vaughan Spruce on  how to pass on the Faith as a catechist, Sister Hyacinthe of the Dominican Sisters of St Joserph on Prayer,  Fr Marcus Holden on St Augustine and Pugin and England...and lots more...

There was a panel discussion on Apologetics, with people submitting any question they wanted: panel led by  Fr Marcus Holden, Fr Andrew Pinsent, and a team of lay people (incl. Auntie).  There was Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and Morning and Evening Prayer. There was a social evening in the beautiful setting of the old manor house which is at the heart of the school buildings, with wine and music and talk until a late late hour...

On the Sunday morning, Auntie spoke on "The Bride of Christ" looking at why God made us male and female, exploring the theme of Christ the Bridegroom and the Church the Bride...looking at Bl. John Paul's Letter to Women, the CDF document on the collaboration of men and women, etc etc....

Read Auntie on...

...the Olympics, and Britain's bleak future...and action that is needed...

At the heart...

of the FAITH Movement  is a new synthesis of science and the Catholic Faith, a perspective on creation through evolution, very much in tune with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. This vision is inspiring a new generation of priests and young lay people...find out more about it by clicking on to that link.

A magnificent...

...week at the FAITH Summer Sesssion. A  superb talk from Father Luiz Ruscillo on the Old Testament, crackling with wit and then gripping everyone with the unfolding drama of the Covenant...this is the way to teach and inspire...a glorious Mass, the singing soaring up to the rafters of  the packed chapel... an excellent presentation on Blessed John Henry Newman, bringing to a new generation the story of this great figure of the Church in England. The big auditorium was spellbound. A moving and unforgettable look-back at 40 years of the FAITH Movement, memories and laughter, and a new generation hearing some of the stories. For some of us this was an unforgettable moment of gratitude and emotion...Auntie gulped as memories came flooding back of so many happy, happy times...

Talkative convivial mealtimes.  Adoration in the chapel, with people kneeling in prayer, quietly coming and going.  Night prayer with "The day thou gavest..."  and the Salve Regina...  A  fantastic, glorious firework display - now that's something we never had back in the early years.A ceildh with all the young people twirling and dancing to Scottish music until a late, late hour, while their oldies (yes, that includes Auntie) socialised and enjoyed themselves, the beautiful panelled rooms of the old house a magnificent backdrop, groups gathering on the great stone steps and balcony overlooking the wide front laws with its illuminated statue of Christ against the darkening trees...

Defending human life...

...a conference that will equip and inspire people.. organised by Care Not Killing, with speakers from around the world...it is crucial to get informed and learn how to fight euthanasia and the deliberate killing of sick people in hospitals.Click on to that link and get more info...

Read...

...THE PORTAL, on-line magazine of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham...here

The FAITH Movement...

...Summer Session, held in the beautiful setting of Woldingham School at Marden Park in Surrey. This lovely valley has its own small railway station, and the school is approached via a long lane winding between meadows where cows munch lazily and great horse-chestnut trees cast glorious shade.  An added bonus - most mobile 'phones don't work there. Bliss.

This year's conference pack  has a list of all the FAITH Sessions going back to the very first one in 1973. Oh, we didn't have conference packs then, or badges on loops with information about fire drills, or anything like that. And there were  40 young people gathered at Roehampton that long-ago summer. Now, there are several times that number, some of them the  now-grown-up offspring of the first attenders. Plus many, many priests who have become linked to the Movement over the years...and a great number of seminarians, some from Rome, some from the diocesan seminaries here in England...

Excellent talk by Sister Andrea Fraile of the Sisters of the Gospel of Life. Excellent discussions over meals or in groups gathering in the courtyards and garden. A packed chapel for Adoration, and a Penitential Service, during which confessions were heard. Suddenly, across the silence, the searing siren of a fire alarm. Silently, everyone dutifully plodded out of the chapel and out to the official Fire Assembly Point, where there was a roll-call. For some reason, standing there and hearing each person answer up to his/her name  called out  from a list, I had a sudden frightening premonition of what it might be like in prison, with a roll-call of Catholics summoned for disobeying the latest spiteful infringement of our religious rights and liberties...

Back to the chapel, Undeterred, confessions continued, and then Night Prayer and Benediction. It is singing the Salve Regina that always brings back the deepest memories...now, a new generation of young men's voices starts the prayer, and as we all join in, I'm thinking of others summers decades ago, and the unchanging truths that have been taught and shared...