On a London pilgrimage, with a delightful...

...international group of students from Kings...honouring the English Martyrs. We began at this church, just by the Tower of London. A magnificent  church by the younger Pugin, and an active parish, with an interesting history in its own right: one of the people involved in its early stages was a nurse with Florence Nightingale and later went on to found a religious order caring for London's poor...

We stopped, of course, at the site of SS Thomas More and John Fisher's martyrdom. This area where the land rises up beyond the Tower - it's still called Tower Hill -  has remained open land down all the centuries. Once the ghastly place of executions, where crowds gathered to watch the grisly scenes,  it has long been a garden honouring the dead. Today, the execution site, adjoins the Memorial to men of two world wars who died at sea...they are honoured here, along by the Thames, because here their ships came bringing the food to this beleaguered island.

On to St Paul's and thence to Holborn...walking the route along which St Edmund Campion and others were dragged on hurdles, to face an agonising death at Tyburn.

At the convent, a beautiful Mass and a warm welcome from the good sisters...

The students were good company: sincere in their faith, open and interesting in their conversation, enthusiastic about learning the history. It was moving to be kneeling there in the lovely chapel at Tyburn, and hearing their strong young voices singing the Gloria...

This was my second walking-pilgrimage in 24 hours - my third, if you count the Blessed Sacrament Procession (see previous blog post).  After the Procession, I went with a Catholic youth group from a London parish for a Night Walk along the Southwark reaches of the Thames...again, lots of history, from the Bishop of Winchester's old palace, via the Clink Prison, to the little house where Catherine of Aragon stayed on first arriving in Britain - and on across the Millenium Bridge to St Paul's...

Late on an Autumn night, hurrying home through darkened streets, there is a curious sense of  feeling at once very comfortable and familiar - this is my London, my city, known since childhood - and faintly bleak.  A city and its history can all be very delightful - but late at night, the one corner of it that matters is home...long ago I might have travelled there by river, today it can be bus, tube, or train...having a home waiting is a mighty blessing for which to give thanks.,..