Want to read more about...

...Auntie's inside-story on the Ordinariate parish in South London? Read here...

A golden day, the New Evangelisation...

...and a biggish team of people walking through London, praying the Rosary, singing, handing out little messages of goodwill and copies of the Gospel.  We gathered at Precious Blood Church, London Bridge, and acquired a number of new followers as a short talk was given on the historical significance of various points along the way...London Bridge itself (Saxon/Viking battle there over a thousand years ago), The Clink Prison, the Globe Theatre, Blackfriars...Among members of the public who joined us was a young Russian, working for a tourist agency and interested in all such history-walks. He was very comfortable indeed with a religious procession of this kind, explaining that they happen all the time in big Russian cities. There is, of course, a massive Christian revival happening in Russia - and to him it all just seems normal, because it began in the 1980s and is an accepted part of life.

Back here in Britain:  the John Paul Walk for the New Evangelisation  is a project of the Dominican Sisters of St Joseph, and the main annual Walk is to Walsingham. But, starting last year, there is now a Reunion Walk, in London, for the Walsingham walkers plus anyone and everyone.  This year, as last year, the numbers were good. We walked along the banks of the Thames to Westminster, crossed at Westminster Bridge, and then all down along the river to the Tower of London, finishing with prayers at the site of the martyrdom of St's Fisher and More. Then across Tower Bridge and back for Benediction and Tea.

London was glorious with golden leaves scattering down along the Embankment, great crowds packing out the bars and restaurants, some pleasure boats chugging by, the sky a piercing blue. That evening the great rainstorm, predicted by the Met Office, hurtled in and railway lines were closed as trees crashed on to the tracks. By the morning, in a London messy with leaves and sparkling in sunshine after rain, I squeezed on to crowded buses and arrived late but triumphant at St Patrick's, Soho, to give a planned lecture on the Acts of the Apostles. Then on to Newman House (London University chaplaincy)  to talk on "Catholic Culture"...a particularly happy evening because my nephew studied there and met his future bride there...cheery memories flooding back...and today's young students were a joy and we sat talking until terribly late...then one walked me safely to the Tube station where I caught the very last train back to the suburbs...

Golden Autumn days and the New Evangelisation...

EXCITING....

REALLY EXCITING!!!

This is Pope Francis, meeting a group of distinguished Jewish leaders...among them Shimon Samuel, of the Simon Wiesenthal Institute, who is handing the Holy Father a copy of my book!  The book is "Courage and Conviction" and it tells the story of brave Brigettine nuns, who hid Jewish people in their convent in Rome during World War II.

I am really thrilled that my book should be given to the Pope.




 

There is an excellent...

...parish newsletter, called Our Faith on Sunday, which is produced by a Catholic firm in Farnworth, Lancs. It is printed in full colour, a page of useful and interesting material, on one side, and the other side if left blank for the parish to print its own news...

I most warmly recommend this newsletter. One of the latest issues has an excellent insight on marriage:
"if some one were to say  'by a triangle I mean a shape of three or four sides' then he would no longer be thinking about triangles, even if he carried on using the word. Likewise, when the law says 'by marriage we mean a conjunction of two adults. whatever their sex', it is no longer speaking about marriage...In such times, what does God ask of us? Of married people, that they love each other and keep their marriages undefiled and open to life. Of all of us, that we pray, and speak the truth. The present darkness will pass, and Jesus will refute all false doctrines."

A very important...

...new Guide for schools on the subject of marriage, has just been produced. You can read it here...
Parents, teachers, clergy, school governors: take note and recognise that you do not have to teach that children must believe that same-sex marriage is necessarily right, and you do not have to sit idly by when people try to force that belief on children. Get informed....more info on this and related matters here...

The Catholic Union...

...of Great Britain teams up with the Catholic Writers' Guild to run the annual Catholic Young Writer Award. This year's winner went to a Writers' Guild meeting recently to collect her award. Pic and report here...

Students at a number of schools gained runner-up prizes, winning copies of  YOUCAT, the excellent Youth Catechism  and other books.

Deep in the latest book project...inevitably

...interrupted by phone calls from TV and radio people when there is something in the news about the Church, or morals and values in community life, or related issues...

But these days I am able to send them on to the excellent CATHOLIC VOICES  where there is a team of informed, lively, committed young Catholics trained and energised for work in the media. While I'm glad to be of use when I can, I am increasingly conscious that there are so many good young speakers out there, and I don't need to hurry off to a TV studio while there is a book humming away to be written here at home...And Catholic Voices is going from strength to strength. It took courage and initiative to get it going, but it was an idea that was absolutely right and absolutely necessary - and it has been blessed with fine people and a sense of direction and purpose, and tasks that need to be done. Deo gratias.

BTW, this website often has good insights on the news: see recent report about Archbishop Nichols speaking out well on a recent radio interview...

The Holy Father...

...today met members of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.  This is of interest to Auntie, because one of the leaders of the Centre contacted me, interested in my book Courage and Conviction, about the Brigettine nuns who hid Jewish people in their convent during the Second World War. I was glad to be able to send him copies of my book, and we had some good conversations...I am hoping that perhaps my book was among the gifts presented to the Holy Father at the meeting...

A correspondent to this Blog...

...asks about the children's book that I wrote a while back. Yes, it's still in print, and available from Gracewing Books. It's "We didn't mean to start a school" and I wrote it under the pen-name "Julia Blythe". I loved writing it, and a sequel is in preparation...

Excellent series...

...of talks sponsored by the FAITH Movement and held at Precious Blood Church, London Bridge. After each meeting, discussions continued in a local pub until a late hour: evolution, Genesis, the relationship between science and religion, the Scotist understanding of the Incarnation...and more...and more...

I stayed behind from this evening's pub discussion, enjoying instead an equally lively chat in the Rectory about the Ordinariate, and the Church, and Vatican II, and the Faith Movement, and more...

We plan to continue the series of talks, probably in the New Year, and at another  London Catholic venue. Pr. Blood has been hugely welcoming and generous.  BTW, you will find both the Faith Movement and the Ordinariate at the Towards Advent Festival of Catholic Culture on Saturday November 23rd at Westminster Cathedral Hall. Be there! Admission free...a feast of Catholic talk, ideas, books, organisations, movements, DVDs, music...doors open 10am. All welcome.

CATHOLIC HISTORY WALKS...

...take place over the next weeks and months:

THIS SUNDAY (Oct 27th):  the John Paul II  Walk through London, led by Sister Hyacinthe of the Dominican Sisters of St Joseph.  Starts with 11 am MASS at Precious Blood Church, London Bridge. BRING SANDWICHES.  We will have coffee and sandwiches in the Rectory after Mass, then set off - with the banner that the John Paul Walkers carried to Walsingham this summer! - on a walk that will take us to, among other places, Blackfriars, St Paul's, and the Tower of London...we will finish with Benediction back at Precious Blood.

Tuesday November 26th - an afternoon walk, starting from Precious Blood Church after the 1.05pm Mass. Meet at the church door approx. 1.30pm. We will be visiting the Bishop of Winchester's Palace, the Clink Prison, and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre....

Tuesday Dec 17th, 3pm, a tour INSIDE Westminster Cathedral. Come and see the glories of this Cathedral, including the two new mosaics, and the special memorial stone, recently laid and blessed, commemorating the State Visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Britain...

....and here are some dates to book into your 2014 diary:

Sunday June 22nd 2014, The Martyrs Walk, starts 1.30pm at St Sepulchre's Churchyard, near the Old Bailey.

Saturday, October 18th 2014, the "Two Cathedrals" Blessed Sacrament Procession, starts 1.30pm Westminster Cathedral, finishes with Benediction at St George's Cathedral, Southwark.

Giving out prizes...

...to school pupils who produced good work in the Schools Bible Project, is a satisfying way of spending a morning, and also gives opportunities to talk things through with RE teachers, learn what's happening in schools' RE, and so on. Here is Auntie at a school in Essex...

Feast day of...

...Blessed John Paul.   And yesterday a meeting to discuss a new project connected with his canonisation. It is a useful and attractive little project with which Auntie is very glad indeed to be involved.

While doing some research about him, I needed to re-read this  encyclical, and this one, and realised just how prophetic and important they are.

Where was Auntie last Saturday?

At the Ordinations in the Ordinariate church...read about it all here . (Auntie helped with compiling this news report).

The splendid Cardinal Burke...

...of whom Auntie is a fan, recently gave an interview to an American Catholic newspaper. You can read  it here...

Cardinal Burke is a great supporter of the  "reform of the reform" of the liturgy, and emphasises that the Extraordinary Form of the Mass and the Ordinary Form should enrich each other. And he emphasises continuity - no rupture: "The renewed reformed rite of the Mass is not a new Mass, but is in continuity with the holy Mass as it has always been celebrated."

A number of  correspondents to this Blog have brought up questions relating to the prophesies and visions of Fatima: I urge them to read Cardinal Burke on the subject. As Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, he does know what he is saying, and he measures his words carefully. I suppose that some of my correspondents will always yearn for the Great Conspiracy Thing: secrets-not-yet--revealed and plots-to-hide-the-Real-Truth.  But the reality is what matters. Cardinal Burke: "With regard to Our Lady of Fatima, we know well the prophecies that were given to the three seers at Fatima which have all now been published and what they indicate with regard to the attacks of Satan upon the Roman Pontiff. I am sure that Pope Francis has this clearly in mind and is invoking the intercession of Our Lady for her protection even as she protected Blessed John Paul II from an assassin’s bullet. It was on Our Lady of Fatima’s feast day that the dreadful attempt occurred, and John Paul was fully convinced that she interceded to save his life. I believe that Pope Francis is imploring that same intercession and protection from her at this time."

for more by Auntie on...

...the TenTen Theatre and its work...read here...

Teaching a Confirmation class...

...is not a totally new experience for Auntie.  I have given talks to a number of Confirmation groups in the past, including the large class (usually at least 40 teenagers) in this excellent parish, which is where I learned so much about how to do it, and what to teach, and received so much help and encouragement in starting my Maryvale course...

But actually running a course from scratch is a new experience and one that I am (so far!) enjoying. I'm doing it in this parish and we began last week. This is a special class for people who for one reason or another missed out on Confirmation and responded to an invitation to start a course.  The parish priest started us off with a prayer and a blessing, and the atmosphere has somehow been just right.   With a Catechism to hand, and a Simple Prayer Book for each person round the table, we began work.  There is a wide age-range (youngest a just-teenager, while another member of the group is a busy mum who brought her two small children along, who were given cheerful and kindly care by a wonderful volunteer, with books and crayons etc from the Sunday school). But there is interest, attention, and a great goodwill, and it is a real privilege to be involved...

While we were in the parish room, getting  to grips with God and the Covenant, and the Ten Commandments,  another parish team was busy in the church itself, lifting all the pews and stacking them away, filling the sacristy with all the statues and candle-stands and so on...to get the entire floor area clear for a brand-new heating system to be installed. And once the floor was cleared, it was ruthlessly scrubbed by enthusiasts with brushes and soap suds and is now the cleanest church floor in England...The church is going to be warm and welcoming for Masses this winter.

The TenTen Theatre...

...is really excellent. In a packed  theatre at Leicester Square we were taken to Poland in the 1940s and the drama of Maximillian Kolbe.  The full poignancy of this haunting story of courage and extraordinary heroism is brought out fully in Kolbe's Gift,  a most powerful bit of theatre. We are made to ponder the fullness of the thing: Kolbe stepped forward at Auschwitz when prisoners were being picked out to suffer the horror and torture of death by thirst in an underground starvation bunker.  When one such prisoner blurted out "My wife! My children!" Kolbe offered himself to go in his place, saying calmly to the supervising officer: "I am a Catholic priest", and explaining that he had no family and was prepared to go forward. 

What is especially poignant in the story is that the man whose life Kolbe saved went on to live in a very ordinary way, and not without sorrow. His two sons, having survived the Warsaw Uprising and other wartime horrors were both killed by random fire of the Russians in the last days of the fighting. He  worked as a minor town hall official in the drab and difficult years of post-war Communism, suffering as did all other Catholic Poles from all the petty restrictions and practical hardships and miseries of those years...there was no dramatic reason, humanly speaking, why his life should have been saved.

And that, the drama seems to be saying, is all part of the importance of Kolbe's gift. It was a pure gift, an act of pure generosity. The man whose life he saved didn't have to "earn" the honour by going on to do something hugely significant. The message is about love, and about the law of giving, of being some one for others...Kolbe's gift, not only in his final heroism but by many acts of heroic kindness in Auschwitz where he shared his bread and gave hope and faith to men in desperate misery, is a gift we have to ponder and ask ourselves about...

TenTen has done some powerful work in schools, exploring in drama - really superb drama - issues concerning crime, killing, hatred, sacrifice, and truth.  They also work in prisons.The plays - like Kolbe's Gift - are not comfortable or cosy in their message, but powerful and important.  If you get the chance to see one of their plays, don't miss it. If you are working with young people, connect to the website and get information.

A Surrey town in Autumn...

...and a friendly group awaiting me at the Leatherhead Community Association. I was speaking to them about Caroline Chisholm, the Australian pioneer heroine.

This is the part of the world that has so many echoes from my childhood...family expeditions to the river Mole where my father fished and we'd have a picnic...walks in the Surrey countryside...and although so much has changed, so much hasn't and it's easy to feel at home.

The Britain of today is a place where,  suddenly, and with great depth of understanding, one can have a sense of great alienation, of not belonging. So perhaps it's good just sometimes to relax into familiarity, memories and the joy of shared references to history, to children's books, and more...

Walking through London...

...with the young team from the SPES group.  SPES is the St Patrick's Evangelisation School, based at St Patrick's, Soho. My job was to lead them in the first of a couple of History Walks. Their daily regime is challenging, starting early with prayers and breakfast and continuing through the day with lectures, Adoration of the Bl. Sacrament, Mass, Rosary, and a whole range of activities including  a Maryvale course - gaining certificates by the end of the year - street evangelisation, meals for the homeless, etc etc.

So things began with a talk in their lecture-room at St P's, then Mass and a hearty lunch, at which we were joined by the parish priest Fr Alexander Sherbrook, and then we set off...visiting St Giles-in-the-Fields and learning the history of this area, its leper hospital etc, then on to Holborn and Lincoln Inn Fields (martyrs, Sardinian Embassy chapel, etc), and then the Temple Church (Crusades, Templars) and Fleet Street, and so on to St Paul's. We finished with big cups of tea near St Paul's...these young people are the World Youth Day, BXVI generation, very enthusiastic about evangelisation, with a sense of mission. They love to swap stories of WYD - "I  celebrated my 16th birthday at World Youth Day at Cologne"  "At Rio, praying together on the beach was just so amazing". They want to share their faith,  conscious of the sense of loss and confusion among many of their peers who have never encountered Christ or who have been given only a vague distorted image of him...

It was now nearly 6pm, so as they went back to St Patrick's, I  walked across the Millenium Bridge, for Evensong at Pr. Blood Church on the opposite bank.  The sunset was extraordinarily beautiful, staining the sky pink beyond the done of St Paul's, long strands of glowing light trailing across the London skyline. It was low tide, with the rocky muddy shoreline making the river look more "homely" somehow, showing evidence of the years and years and years of human activities and homes and livelihoods that have been happening along its banks. People were beginning to pack into pubs and into the Globe, and teeming along to Waterloo or London Bridge stations. And so on to Precious Blood...Evensong, and the Psalms going back and forth. Deacon Scott was leading the service, and will be ordained on Saturday.