For the CHRISM MASS....

...today at Westminster, some three thousand people crammed into the Cathedral, every corner and side-chapel filled, people sitting on the marble steps of St Andrew's and St Patrick's and St Paul's and the other chapels, and crowded into the back and along the aisles.  As has now become a tradition, members of the Association of Catholic Women gather in the piazza to hand out small thank-you cards to the priests as they arrive: it's lovely being able to greet so many clergy friends. Then when the clergy procession makes its way up from Ambrosden Avenue and in through the great doors, we hold up a placard saying THANK YOU TO OUR PRIESTS. (We'll be doing this again tomorrow at the Southwark Chrism Mass at St George's Cathedral...in fact, that's actually where the tradition began, something like ten or twelve years ago now...).

I love the prayers of the Chrism Mass, which speak about the oil of chrism, which is olive oil...and mentions the dove bringing back the olive branch as the flood receded...

Because of the huge crowds in the Cathedral I usually find a corner right at the back, on the step of the Chapel of St Augustine, next to the tomb of Bishop Richard Challoner. The Cathedral's accoustics are excellent: you can hear every word of the Mass and all the glorious music wherever you are - whether kneeling on the floor in an aisle or at a prie-dieu in one of the chapels, or in a proper place in the nave.  It was moving hearing the strong roar of the men's voices as the priests all reaffirmed their promises.  There seemed to be more priests than ever this year - there were  two or thee hundred of them and we ran out of thank-you cards.

Westminster Cathedral is a place that means a lot to people.A priest from an African country arrived as we were standing in the piazza before Mass. he knelt down and kissed the Cathedral steps, saying that he felt this to be a place of pilgrimage...