A memorable day in London...

....with a team from FOCUS, the USA_based Catholic students group, who have been  here in Britain on mission. Taking a break from their work in street evangelisation, organising Night fever etc, they spent a day discovering London's history with Auntie. We began with Mass at St Elizabeth's, Richmond, and then after coffee and buns walked to the Old Palace and the river and learned about Henry VII and Henry VIII and all that, with a quick romp through Romans and Saxons etc on the way...

Train to London, where the bells of Westminster Abbey were pealing out - there is no more glorious sound. It was for Prince George's birthday. He is six: our future king. What sort of country, with its current social, moral, and spiritual muddle and its failing birthrate, will he inherit?

We were allowed into the Abbey in small groups to pray: although tourists are encouraged to queue up and pay to visit all the royal tombs etc, you can of course enter the Abbey nave  from the West Door if you genuinely want to pray, and we did. There are two Eastern-style icons, one of Christ and one of Our Lady, with stacks of candles in front of them, all in the area near the Coronation Chair and the Tomb of our Unknown Warrior. It was rather moving to stand and pray the Lord's Prayer there with these young missionaries...