Pope Emeritus Benedict...

...is the subject of a special feature in the new FAITH magazine...unique insights from his friend and biographer Peter Seewald. 

I have a limited number of copies to give away...send a Comment (which I will not publish)  to this blog WITH A FULL NOTE OF YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS and I will send you one.

and at London's PICCADILLY...

...the new series of FAITH Movement talks begins.  All are at 7.30pm at 24 Golden Square WI (go down the steps to the church hall). Wine and pizza at the end of each evening...and lots of talk and conviviality...

Tuesday 12 January 2016
The reason for the incarnation: Why does it matter? Dermott O'Gorman

Tuesday 26 January 2016
Son of God: A remedy for sin? Joanna Bogle

Tuesday 9 February 2016
The Tabernacle: The Son of God with us today Fr Roger Nesbitt

Tuesday 23 February 2016
The Resurrection: Truth or fiction? Fr Dominic Findlay-Wilson

Tuesday 8 March 2016
The future of humanity Fr Stephen Dingley

Nearest tube: Piccadilly Circus.

Christians persecuted...

...and how we can give some help...

Ben Rogers of Christian Solidarity Worldwide will be the speaker at the January meeting of the Lades Ordinariate Group in London on Monday Jan 11th. Info here...

I was pleased to be able to write a commendation for Ben's book From Burma to Rome, published in 2015. It will be a real privoledge to have him speak at LOGS.

...and thoughts turn to 2016...

...and I'm looking out at Exmoor across lawns that are unnaturally lush and green in this oddly warm weather: where there would normally be crunchy frost there are now emergent daffodils, and sunshine dapples the trees and creates great sweeps of light across the rising moor beyond the valley. There is no smoke curling out of cottage windows - it's just too warm to merit a fire today, although a fresh breeze indicates that could change.

Thoughts go to people in Lancashire whose homes have been wrecked by floods: a miserable way to end the year...

A laptop means that in the intervals of  being with family-and-friends for Christmastide gatherings, one can keep track of current projects, and plan for the year ahead...

On Saturday Jan 16th, at 12 noon, a celebration to mark the 5th anniversary of the establishment of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. Church of the Most Precious Blood, the Borough, London Bridge. The choir of the John Fisher School will be singing. Over these Christmas days,  staying with family first in Oxfordshire and then here in Somerset, I've been busy with "Auntie Joanna's knitting", namely cross-stitch samplers and kneelers...I love to sit sewing while  we all sing carols round the piano, or  while a noisy game of charades is in progress (it doesn't hold back mental processes -  I held my own in charades while stitching progressed). Latest project is some kneelers for the John Fisher Chapel. The school playing fields occupy part of of what was once Croydon Airport  and the boys recently made a video telling the history with support from the Croydon Airport Society... as this year marked a quarter of a century since the Battle of Britain, I'm doing a commemorative kneeler...

"...and is it true...

..and is it true? and is it true,

This most tremendous tale of all,

Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,

A Baby in an ox's stall?

The Maker of the stars and sea

Become a Child on earth for me?"

(John Betjeman)

A Merry Christmas to all my readers...

I was told...

that "it's not allowed" to sing Christmas carols in public any more. This is complete rubbish. I've been leading traditional carol-singing groups in public places  this past week, including a great London railway station, and it's all been splendid. Official support, plenty of enthusiasm, lots of goodwill - and we've raised funds for charity. And, yes, at the railway station we were a church group, and  got our official badge from the railway authorities just as we have always done.

"Once in Royal David's City" "Away in a Manger" "Hark the Herald angels" "Adeste Fideles" "Silent Night "The First Nowell" "While Shepherds watched"...the lot. And more.

So can we please stop this ghastly apparent determination to drive Britain onto some sort of ideological slavery?

If anyone tries to stop you singing Christmas carols, this is your Edelweiss moment. Sing out loud and clear, and invite everyone to join in.. 

...so we sang...

...around the Crib, in the light of the glittering Christmas Tree. led by some one with a flute, all the  elderly people, and the nursing staff, and friends-and-visitors... people  chose favourite carols one by one and then we all joined in gloriously... and the darkness gathered outside, and the darkness could not overcome it...

"...Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail, the incarnate Deity..."

Want to know more about Pope Emeritus Benedict? And have a small Christmas treat?

....Then  enjoy the interview with  his biographer Peter Seewald in the Jan/Feb FAITH magazine. Send a Comment to this blog INCLUDING YOUR FULL POSTAL ADDRESS, and I will arrange for you to be sent a copy.   Peter Seewald  has all sorts of fascinating insights and personal anecdotes...and gives a taster of what promises to be a magnificent biography in due course...

This offer is limited, as complimentary copies of the magazine are limited. So hurry...

Across the frontage of St Peter's in Rome...

...is the surname of the Pope on whose orders the current building was erected.  These days the building is illuminated and  featured across the world on TV and  so, on an even more enormous scale than proud  Paul V Borghese could have imagined, his grand surname is there for millions to see.  Somehow, it massively misses the point. The desire to perpetuate a family lineage, rather than the spiritual lineage from Christ's call to St Peter  meant an opportunity lost:  as you pick out the words, you get  a sort of bureaucratic feel rather than the pleasing discovery of a familiar prayer or piece of Scripture...

Some of the  most notable  Popes in recent centuries haven't come from grand families at all: nothing on the frontage of St Peter's notes the surname of Sarto, son of a village postman, or Woytila, son of a retired Polish Army officer.

When people want to be rude about the present Pope,  they use his surname, Bergoglio, perhaps because it sounds faintly ridiculous to non-Latin ears, and emphasises that he comes from a family of Italian immigrants to South America.

Thoughts about all this arose when the news of Mother Teresa's canonisation was announced: an Albanian who studied in Ireland as a teenager, taught at a girls' school in India in the days of the British Raj, and then, following "a call within a call" set out to serve the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta.  At her canonisation, there will be Indian garlands and nuns in saris, along with formal representation  from Albania, which not so long ago was an officially atheist state persecuting Catholics...

When Blessed John Henry Newman is canonised (oh, I do hope it's not too long now!) there will be the faintly absurd feeling of an Englishness about it all, words like  Oxford, Littlemore, Birmingham echoing round St Peter's Square.

Years from now, there will be a Chinese Pope, and, well before that, one from the Indian sub-conitinent, and from Africa.  The Borghese pretension is only a part of a long long history, after all.

Mass, with four candles glowing on the Advent wreath...

...and pondering on that astonishing unfolding drama in today's Gospel: Mary walking along the hill country, just as the Ark of the Covenant went centuries before , and John the Baptist leaping  as David leapt before the Holy of Holies...

An afternoon visit to a dear elderly relative...darkness falling before teatime... a talkative evening visit to friends on delivery of a Christmas parcel to a godchild...home a safe haven in the rainy December night.

Reading a book about the outbreak of war in 1914 and thinking about the history of that era that shaped our own...

Attempts to think about plans for 2016, things that need to be done, responsibilities, projects.

Christmas and its message matters first and most.

Our home looks distinctly...

...random (useful word, learned from nieces) at the moment...Christmas presents all wrapped and labelled, Advent wreath, cards, crackers in glittering silver paper, Nativity scene, all jostling with thr ironing, the usual stacks of books and papers.  Plans for major and overdue repair work in the kitchen will add to the chaos...

Christmas, and much love and joy ...but as you get older, you are much more conscious of the realities of this season: it's so bittersweet. The message of Christ's arrival among us is glorious - it's the great central fact of time and eternity...but with its memories and its tender moments, each Christmas brings consciousness of sad anniversaries, of hopes and of fears,  challenges in the year ahead, ...

And I'm thinking of the prisoners, of divided families, of the young who don't know what the Incarnation is all about - not even remotely, not even with vague ideas - and of the people who aren't really bothered about these things...

Long ago to a child in the London suburbs what mattered was the almost unbearable excitement of a lumpy stocking on Christmas morning and parcels under the Tree, and roast turkey. Church and peaceandgoodwill and so on was the official part and it was obviously central but only in a taken-for-granted sort of way. As you get older...

By chance, came across...

...this on the internet and it gave me a good laugh...is it a spoof? I had thought that all this sort of thing died in about 1989/90...it was an enjoyable, if unreal,  piece of nostalgia.

At a major London railway station...

...we gathered to sing carols. The singing worked well, and there was enthusiasm and goodwill among the teeming crowds of passengers: we raised a good sum of money and we got lots of  indications that people were enjoying it all.

There is enthusiasm for Proper Carols: people like The First Nowell, Once in Royal David's City, Hark, the Herald Angels, Silent Night, We three Kings and Away in a Manger...

We had carol sheets, and we stood in choir formation to sing (it's hopeless if you spread out), and we gave of our best.

We in the LOGS, thre ladies group of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, enjoy doing things like this, and afterwards we enjoyed ourselves some more over a good supper and much talk and laughter.

Funds raised will go to charity. Carols sung will have given praise to God and spread goodwill on earth this Christmastime.

A sudden odd debate on the internet...

...alleging that the Pope doesn't kneel enough when praying. So I  googled Pope Francis kneeling  and found he does it all the time, and especially before the Blessed Sacrament. So who is announcing that he doesn't, and why?

at the House of Lords...

...a wonderful welcome for the young winners of the 2015 Schools Bible Project. We are starting a new website for this Project in 2016, so for the moment it suffices to say that this is a venure that has been flourishing for over a quarter of a century and involves pupils at schools across Britain being invited to study events in the life of Christ and to write about them. We get some superb entries, and every year the main winners come to receive their prizes from Baroness Cox, who is one of the Trustees. It's always a delightful day, and this year it somehow seemed to go better than ever. Delightful young people, wih their parents and teachers - as always a mix of ages and races and from schools in different parts of Britain. The Project involves a good deal of work, but is worth every moment, and I have  some great teams of volunteers who who all sorts of things from judging the essays to packing and posting the prizes.

And a door opens...

...the Door of Mercy at Maryvale House, blessed and opened by the Director of the Maryvale Institute, as students, staff, and Brigettine sisters gathered in the dark and chill of a December morning. All over the world, these doors were opening, in great cathedrals and in parish churches, as the Year of Mercy began.

It's been a busy weekend of lectures...and it finished with a train ride down into Surrey for a joyful evening with old friends, who were hosting  Prof Tracey Rowland from the John Paul Institute in Australia.  A delight to have a long talk with Tracey, to catch up on news, to be able to give her a copy of my JPII book,...

On a day of steady rain...

...at Maryvale  in Birmingham,  I am working on Apologetics, and ouside the window, under the shelter of the wide pillared veranda,  a  couple of cheery Brigettine Sisters kneel with with evergreens and bright Autumn chrysanthemums  to make a great garland around the chapel door.  Tomorrow this will be blessed and opened as the Holy Door for the Year of Mercy for the diocese of Birmingham.

The house is bright and warm, lectures are taking place in the main rooms and there's a promising smell of cooking wafting from the kitchens...It is good to be here,sitting amid books and papers under the kindly gaze of Bl John Henry Newman, who lived and worked here over 150 years ago, and with  thoughts of all who came here in the years before, when this was a recusant Mass-house, approached across the lanes and fields where all is now roads and houses and shops and curling motorways...

Birmingham is, truly, a dreadfully ugly city now - there are some gems in the city (St Chad's Cathedral is one), but the place is dominated by vast slabs of concrete and steel and  a simply horrible massive lump all covered with enormous blisters, alongside New Street Station. On summer nights, there is a lot of shrieking and drunken lurching about and fighting in the shopping centres as crowds of the young entertain themselves, but last night in December rain the city centre was just traffic and Islamic families shopping. Arriving at Maryvale brings a sense of welcome - I spent happy years here working for my BA...I used to walk around the grounds, and put my hopes and worries about my exams before the white statue of  Mary near the chapel door where, just now, a Brigettine sister stands, hands on hips, surveying the garland work while another tweaks a leaf here, a branch there, to make all complete...

All along by the Thames...

...on the South Bank, under a clear blue sky and in bright winter sunshine, there are  stalls selling roast-pork-and-potatoes, and French crepes with chocolate sauce, and wonderful arrays of chocolates and fudge and marzipan fruits...and there's a merry-go-round, and roasted chestnuts, and people enjoying it all.   I  bought some Christmas gifts, ate a good lunch, and then settled in a cafe with coffee and my laptop and tackled some work...a perfect way to spend an Advent weekday after a lunchtime Mass.

In one place there was recorded music, with a choir singing "Amazing Grace" and other hymns and carols which was lovely...further along there was horrible rock stuff with a woman shouting, MUCH TOO LOUDLY into a microphone the sort croon that begins "Ah gotta...Ah wanna".  But in general it was all just delightful and as dusk fell and the tide went out, and the wide sandy beach revealed its rocks and pebbles and the flotsam of centuries in the lamplight  it was rather wonderful...

We'll be carol-singing at London Bridge station on Friday Dec 18th: come and hear us - or, better, come and join in! (6pm, main concourse).

Confirmations...

...and baptisms at church, including one of a former Moslem...

A street procession through Soho with a great statue of Our Lady...

News of a Soho Mission with these sisters....

A busy day showing some Americans around Westminster Cathedral and explaining the history...then J. treated us all to a Proper Tea at the Strand Palace Hotel.

To Richmond...

...and Mass at St Elizabeth's Church,  where Fr Stephen Langidge has recently been appointed Parish Priest.  This is a church  with a fascinating history, on which I will be doing some research. As is customary in most parishes, the Mass-intention was announced, and today it happened to be a foundation Mass for the soul of Louis-Phillippe d'Orleans  whose family has a long link with this area, living for some while at Twickenham...just one bit of the rich history of this loop of the Thames...

One perk of getting older is that life begins to have agreeable links. As a teenage school-leaver in the 1970s, I began work as a journalist on the Richmond Herald newspaper, then based in George Street. Years before, my mother and her brothers were growing up in Richmond, and she still speaks with happy memories of childhood days in Richmond Park and along by the river. Somewhere in the parish archives will be the record of the reception of her father and all the family into the Catholic Church...

St John Paul II...

...and I had forgotten how angry some people were when he spoke about the significance of our being male and female, and the language of the body...

I spent the morning busy w. research in the large University library, where a useful catalogue initiates rich internet possibilities.

2016 will be spent largely working on a dissertation, and this research is beginning to show how extremely interesting it is all going to be...

And meanwhile, Advent is here, heralding Christmas. The annual arrival of the Chronicle from the dear nuns at St Cecilia's on the Isle of Wight is always a joy...it's always ful of good and  spiritually nourishing  things. But it's also a reminder that the Bogles have cards and letters to write, and domestic Christmas arrangements to make....and there is carol singing (some at a big London railway station, some at a local home for elderly people), and more..

Air war in Syria...

...and while Parliament debates, I am in one of HM prisons teaching Prevenient Grace to a young catechumen.

N. is preparing for baptism, and my task today was to look at the way in which God is really the initiator: he loves us first, and so  it isn't a question of us saying earnestly "We should all try to be holy". It is essentially just about saying "Yes" to God and responding to his love...we looked at St paul teaching this to the Ephesians...

I hadn't much wanted to go to the prison this afternoon...apart from anything else, the walk from the railway station is a rather horrid one, and also I had wanted to stay on at college where the research for the dissertation  is just getting interesting.  Which just shows how rather spoiled and fussy I am. I always learn a lot from the young prisoners, and although I suspect I don't really help them very much, at least they get a visitor and, I hope, an ordinary sense that being in prison doesn't make any difference to being part of the Church - we're all together when we pray, and all just Catholics.

Home, and thinking about bombing Syria. Is it a good plan? Bombing places from the air never really seems to work: there'll be TV scenes of burned children,  and it will all go on into a terrible muddle, getting worse and worse, while the guerilla-types on the ground, hide out,  building strength, knowing their own territory and telling the local people how horrible we are.