Spent the afternoon...

...dusting and hoovering....

Nothing special about that, of course - except that it wasn't at home, but on the bare wooden planks of an empty church.  The fine new marble floor at Precious Blood Church has been covered for these past few weeks because of building work, which is now nearing completion. We have been having Mass in the night-club opposite, or in the bare church with a makeshift altar. The wooden flooring is very very dusty - my backpack was covered in dust when I picked it up after (stupidly) putting it down during Mass last Sunday.  So...as the planking was slowly unscrewed and removed, we had to hoover each piece before it was carried away to be stacked in the hallway,  or the dust would have settled again on the new walls and ledges and steps etc... and then hoover again the cardboard layer beneath the planking...and in due course we'll finally be hoovering the finally-revealed new marble flooring....

It was warm work, and the tea that finished the afternoon was hugely welcome. Then I hurried across the river to the City, where a group of French missionary priests were meeting...they are busy at St Patrick's Soho for the next few days, at a conference on evangelisation, gathering and sharing ideas and information...we made our way together to  Tyburn. It was a powerful moment as we gathered at the site of the gallows, and knelt to pray there, and to kiss the hallowed site where martyrs shed their blood for Christ and the Church...it's on a traffic island where the Edgeware Road meets the Bayswater Road opposite Hyde Park.