A timely and beautiful book...

...Why Children Matter - and it's being sent out free to anyone that wants it, and you can get hold of a copy by linking here.... Wise, gentle, and full of hope and common sense, it's a book for today's parents, trying to raise children to be happy and good in a world where crude, ugly, violent and vicious alternatives surge into childhood hearts and minds all the time. The author is Johann Christoph Arnold and the book carries an Introduction by Cardinal Timothy Dolan. It's a delight to be ble to recommend this book, which comes from Plough Publishing, which has produced other excellent material over the years. There is a simplicity and joy about their work and message. They write with courage, taking a clear spiritual and moral approach which could get them lots of criticism today - indeed the author at one point describes being told to leave a school platform halfway through a morning assembly because he dared to mention God. This gives us all an extra reason for reading, and passing on to others, this delightful paperback, which incidentally is beautifully produced and a pleasure to handle.

....and across the pond...

...this comment is relevant and a good read.

Visiting...

...a friend who is gravely ill in hospital. A quiet and solemn visit. The Rosary. Then my route home, in a corner of London not familiar to me, took me past the long high walls of Wormwood Scrubs, the all too grimly-named establishment for involuntary guests of HM...and because I was thinking about suffering, somehow there was a consciousness of the suffering within those walls too...and then, because I was on my way to Mass,a vague link in my mind with the bleak news from the USA of the latest court decision there, not a good sign for religious freedom. On to Westminster Cathedral, and the Mass for Saints Peter and Paul, with Archbishop Vincent Nichols in red vestments and wearing the Pallium. A sudden deep realisation that this unchanging Mass, this huge reality, links us down across the centuries with Peter in Rome long, long ago in prison, and being released from his chains...and the Faith was brought to us, here on this island, and here we all were this June 29th in London, singing out "Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ!" in a packed cathedral...

Come and join...

...walkers to Walsingham. The John Paul Walk for the New Evangelisation. Read more here...and come and be part of it!

...and while on the subject...

...of St Patrick's Soho Square (see blog post below), there will be considerable excitement there about this news. Fulton Sheen was a regular preacher and confessor at this church, as he stayed there whenever he was in London. Used to like to describe himself as an honorary curate there.

June 29th...

...is the feast of Saints Peter and Paul and one of the few remaining Holy Days left to us. DEAR BISHOPS:Please may we have all our Holy Days back? Today, chatting to a couple of Catholic ladies, one noted that "somehow it makes the saints look more important than Our Lord, as they get a special day and his feast-days don't". Quite. The idea in moving the special "feasts of the Lord" to Sundays was apparently to make them seem more important, but of course it did nothing of the kind: in the minds of many, feasts like the Ascension instead just "got abolished", because marking them on the nearest Sunday merely seemed to downplay them. Anyway, it will be a pleasure to honour the great martyr-saints Peter and Paul and to give thanks for the Church...and Auntie will probably do so at Westminster Cathedral or possibly at St Patrick's Soho Square...

To the London launch...

...of a new book on Shakespeare by Nicholas Fogg. He's a native of Stratford-on-Avon and so grew up with the the folklore of Bard. The London launch was at St Mary Moorfields - Nick is a member of The Keys, the Catholic Writers' Guild, which meets there - and followed the usual pattern of such events, with much talk and wine and agreeable conviviality....Nick's book is warmly recommended: more info here.... I was at the launch with a journalist friend who worked for some years at the BBC World Service - which incidentally has now moved from its time-honoured home at Bush House in the Strand. I had always thought that the World Service owned that building, which has the motto "Nation shall speak peace unto nation" carved into its stonework...but apparently they only leased it, and the carving was a mere piece of coincidental providence.It was from that building that the BBC provided news from freedom to occupied Europe during WWII, and to Eastern Europe during the long years of the Cold War that followed. It always had a special atmosphere, and went on using those big square microphones on green-baize-covered tables long after they had disappeared from other radio stations.

A planned meeting in Rome...

...which will, I think, prove to be of considerable interest. I am meeting a gentleman who, as a small boy during World War II, was hidden in a Rome convent, along with other members of his Jewish family. You will read the results of our conversations in due course...it is very important indeed that the truth about the plight of Rome's Jewish community during WWII is told, and tribute paid to them and to the courage of those who helped to shelter and rescue them.

for more on...

...how Auntie has been spending her days just recently, read here...

On the feast...

...of St John Southworth, hero priest of the London Plague and a martyr, his body is brought out from its usual chapel at Westminster Cathedral and placed in the Nave, surrounded by candles. This evening, at the usual sung High Mass, the glowing candles, the glorious singing, the evening light, were all a sort of balm after a particularly hectic day. Last week, there was a special Mass for a reunion of former choristers - they joined the procession and sang with the choir from the apse, men of all ages, some middle-aged, some still almost schoolboys, lots of them - and apparently effortlessly they sang out together the most glorious music, soaring up to the great basilica roof and lifting all our hearts. I LOVE WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL.

And to all those...

..on the Martyrs' Walk who expressed interest in the Walsingham Walk, please click here for details...

If the young lady...

...who was so kind to me on the train going to Portsmouth today is reading this, a big big THANK YOU!!!! And yes, I did finally make it to the meeting! and for other readers...here's what happened. At Waterloo,I hopped brightly on to a train for Portsmouth, and en route used my mobile to telephone a taxi to meet my train at 1.30pm . A kind young lady hesitantly approached and said that she couldn't help but overhear...and felt I ought to know that the train certainly wouldn't arrive at Portsmouth until at least 2.15pm. Gulp. I had caught a slow train by mistake...and when I started to think about telephoning the church hall concerned to tell them I'd be late etc, I realised I wasn't even certain of its name. St Saviour's? Yes, surely that was it...but no. We found - by now the young lady was an ally in helping to sort things out - an Anglican church of that name but the kind vicar there said I most certainly wasn't going to speak at any meeting that he knew of that afternoon (extraordinarily, he knew my name and had read some of my stuff over the years!). After some more thinking and googling, light dawned - St SWITHUN!! Yes, that was the name. But the only church seemed to be miles away near Southampton. Oh, dear...and at this point the kind young helper had to leave as we had reached her station...so, if she's reading this: IT'S ALL RIGHT! I telephoned the RC diocesan office, and with their help and that of the Southampton church, I found the right church, St Swithun's in Southsea! And arrived there in time to give my talk on "Celebrating the Church's feasts and Seasons". Phew...

Cardinal Raymond Burke...

...has just published a book which looks like a good read. His is a thoughtfuland prayerful voice, and an inspiring one: he has written the Foreword to an important and authoritative book on Fatima , which lays to rest the fantasies of the they-haven't-told-you-the-full-secret campaigners and emphasises the real, and challenging, spiritual message of the visions. His new book draws on Bl John Paul's Ecclesia de Eucharistica and Papa Benedict Sacramentum Caritatis in offering meditations on the Eucharist.

The traditional...

...Martyrs' Walk made its way through London yesterday,following the route taken by Catholic martyrs to Tyburn long ago. We prayed for religious freedom, gave thanks for the sacrifices made by the martyrs in England long ago, asked for courage for whatever lies ahead. We stopped at SS Anselm and Cecilia in Holborn, at the (Anglican)church of St-Giles-in-the-Fields - where we remembered all those, Protestant and Catholic, who died during the turbulent years of the Reformation and prayed the De Profundis, , and St Patrick's, Soho Square, before finally making our way to Tyburn and Benediction. It's no longer possible to walk down Oxford Street(traffic, crowds), so we divided up into sections and went along other roads. Fr Robert Nicoletti had come from Rome to be our chaplain for the day, and for all of us on the organising team the day began at Westminster Cathedral where he concelebrated the 10.30 High Mass with Canon Christopher Tuckwell for the feast of the Birthday of St John the Baptist.

Getting ready...

...for the Martyrs' Walk tomorrow (Sunday June 24th). Meet near the Old Bailey - site of Newgate Prison where many Catholic martyrs of the 16th and 17th centuries were held before their execution. We'll be gathering in the churchyard of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, nearby. We'll be walking along the route taken by the martyrs, stopping at the Church of Sts Anselm and St Cecilia, at St Giles-in-the-Fields, and and at St Patrick's, Soho Square. We finish at Tyburn Convent with Benediction. The Walk is part of a tradition stretching back a hundred years, commemorating the Martyrs and praying for our country and for unity and goodwill among Christians. We pray the Rosary, and there are opportunities for Confession. Come and join us.

Got talking...

...about the Prodigal Son. The finest bit of the story is the Father, who sees the son from far off, and runs out to meet him. The initiative comes from him, and the son's is actually rather grudging - he's only homeward-bound because he knows that at least there'll be some food there. The Father's heart is full of love and concern.If he saw the son from far off, probably it was because he glanced that way often, day after day, praying and hoping....but what if the son arrives announcing that he's been right all along, that he's a saint and no sinner, and just what the family needs, and he's going to change things to the way he believes they ought to have been from years back? Penitence is unpopular today, and "returning home" is more often seen in terms of assuming rights.

Extraordinary...

...evening at St Patrick's Soho Square, with a magnificent and evocative performance of a play about St Therese of Lisieux. A one-woman show: Eva Herendez in an unforgettable performance which had us spellbound from the moment she walked slowly up the aisle in the Carmelite habit, and sat down before us. Suddenly she was Therese, recounting incidents from childhood (as described in "Story of a Soul"), becoming - hilariously - a turgid novice-mistress listing the timetable for each day in the monastery, and, finally, revealing the self-surrender to the love of God that is at the heart of the Therese message. The church (which was packed) sort of held its breath as the story drew to its end. Extraordinary. Well worth seeing this fine piece of theatre. It's been presented in churches and theatres around France, and even in some prisons, where it's drawn a deep response. If you get the chance, do see this play.

Catholic schools...

...come under fire a lot, and there will be more if this ghastly same-sex marriage scheme goes through and schools are told that they must teach that two people of the same sex can marry...which no Catholic school can teach under any circumstances. Meanwhile I have been spending the week sending out certificates and prizes for the 2012 Schools RE Project run by the Association of Catholic Women and realising just what a lot of good work is done in Catholic junior schools in Britain. They face an uphill task, however. Vast numbers of those who seek to send their children to Catholic schools are not actually practising the Faith, and indeed seem puzzled at the notion that they should, as Catholics, actually go to Mass every Sunday...

The book...

...by von Balthasar that I mentioned (see below) was actually produced jointly bewteen Von B. and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now BXVI. They sort of have it half-each. It's Mary - the Church at the source and it's fascinating. Explains just why the decision of the Fathers at Vatican II to include Mary in the document on the Church rather than just have something separate about her was hugely prophetic as well as being absolutely right.

The Guild Master...

...of The Keys the Catholic Writers' Guild, Mary Kenny, has a good piece in the Irish Independent about the Eucharistic Congress. I've been hearing a good deal about it, too, as I've spent this week at the offices of the CTS in London, working on the Schools RE Project run jointly the CTS and the Association of Catholic Women. A team from the CTS spent the week in Dublin and returned highly enthused and inspired, which is quite the reverse of how I thought things would be. I hadn't known they were going, but learned about it when I arrived at the South London HQ (Vauxhall, in a building that owes its existence to Bishop Brown who worked long years in what was then a very poor district and who built the fine church of St Anne, now a thriving parish). A great procession of the Blessed Sacrament with about 12,000 people surging along, a packed stadium for the final rally on Sunday - the only complaint was that the various talks and workshops were in rooms that were too small, in some cases only sitting 200 people, so many were turned away and were disappointed. The Congress wasn't the biggest thing happening in Ireland at the weekend - for many, football took precedence. But it was a great event, a turning-point, and a sign of hope: read Mary's piece, and you'll get something of the flavour.