To the Walworth Road...

... to a baker's shop, recommended by a friend, to order a cake.  I have always rather liked this corner of London, a step or two from the Elephant and Castle. It still has proper shops - real and some of them messy, all sorts of shops and  not just Starbucks and estate agents.  And this was a real baker, inexpensive and with some yummy cakes on display. After we had arranged about the cake  - it's gotta be big, there are quite a lot of people coming - I bought a lovely warm pasty and hurried off to catch the bus. I know one shouldn't eat in the street. But sitting on a cold morning at a bus-stop  in the Walworth Road eating a delicious wedge of flaky-pastry at a bus-stop and remembering how I used to travel along this road with my father, more than thirty years ago, on our way to work, was one of those happy moments that just deserve to be relished and recorded.

En route to the Borough High Street, a girl on the bus was talking loudly into her mobile: "Yeah...bring them all along: we want theatre, and some street-dancers...yes, sounds great....mmm....yeah we want Shamans and Druids, everyone....it'll be wicked".  I don't know what she was organising, but I got the impression that she very much wanted us all to hear.  So now you know: to make a thing a success you want witch doctors and bogus druids and a general air of something satanic.

There is an ache in the heart in modern London.

Spent the day cheerily at Pr. Blood church, wrapping prizes won by children across London in a big project involving learning about the Psalms. We will be displaying some of the children's beautiful work...  Also tackled some writing for my Maryvale diploma in Evangelisation. Then Evensong and Mass, and a cheery time over glasses of wine and hot sausages. Thank God for being part of the Church....

Things are going to be difficult...

...for Christians in Britain, as in other countries in what we used to call "the West", over the next years.

For some while now, it's become fashionable among Catholics to talk about "the coming persecution". Too often the approach is  approach is a slightly smug  "Ah...well...it'll be good for us..." and even to add a note of relish.

Hmmm.  Persecution isn't fun, and talking tough doesn't mean that you will be tough when the time comes.  Gloating and oooh-golly-I'm-ready-for-a-fight  isn't a useful approach.  Better to be downbeat and realistic, add some humour, and lots of prayer, and keep going.

Plenty of nastiness coming our way. Attempt to impose forms of euthanasia under the nasty idea of "assisted dying" - this won't win a majority of votes in the House of Lords when it is brought forward in the next couple of days, but at this stage the aim of its supporters is simply to gain publicity and promote their message, and this will be very successful.

Then of course the ghastly plans to redefine marriage. Ugh: and the government is doing all it can to force this horrible thing through a Parliament that doesn't want it. Pray - and write again to your MP.

And, on the back of the govt's horrible planned law, great waves of propaganda promoting homosexual lifestyles  now being sent to schools, with everyone assuming that this it is compulsory to teach this stuff. It isn't. Schools have no obligation to promote homosexual activity, and Catholic schools have an absolute right to give the Catholic Church's teaching on this subject.

We are all going to need courage and be quite clear: "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord".

... Yesterday, at a meeting...

...planning an Autumn event (info in due course) we broke off for tea, prepared by our kindly hostess who had welcomed us into her lovely flat near Westminster Cathedral.

 I went into the kitchen to help, took up the tray, crossed into the hall...and the bottom of it fell out, leaving me holding the frame! Shattering sound of crashing crockery - and milk, biscuits sugar, showering the carpet and walls....

You cannot imagine how far bits of broken china can travel, or how much mess one shattered milk-jug and full sugar-basin can make.

Mopping, hoovering, wiping - and, initially, leaving small trails of my own blood as I did so, because I didn't realise that I cut my thumb as I seized the first broken pieces from the carpet...

...and...

reading the children's essays, and discussing children and Religious Education generally, always brings out the tales of howlers. My recent favourite was the small girl praying earnest "Hail Mary, full of grapes..."

Children...

...have sent in some splendid work for the Assn of Catholic Women 2013 Schools RE Project. They had to study the sacraments of Baptism, Reconciliation, and Holy Communion, as part of the celebration of the Year of Faith. A brochure showing a door of a church invited them to open the door and go in...this Project, sponsored by the Catholic Truth Society, has now been running for several years and we get literally hundreds of essays from Catholic primary schools across Britain. Every entry is carefully read, and we award a large number of prizes, all generously donated by the CTS. A team of judges then meets and some top winners are chosen - 1st,2nd and 3rd winners in two age groups. They win cash prizes for their schools, and the 1st winner in each age group gets a trophy to keep for one year...

Running this vast project involves teams of volunteers who mail out the brochures (a task done agreeably over mugs of tea and lots of chat, daily for several days at the CTS office in South London), reading all the essays, organising the final judging, and then packing and mailing out the prizes (a mammoth task).  It is all well worth while, and reading the children's essays reveals encouraging evidence of some good work being done in Catholic primary schools...

And we badly need good news, because so much of what is happening in Britain at the moment is horrid. Schools are being sent nasty material promoting same-sex "marriage", including material aimed at very young children. There is increasing evidence of unjust discrimination of employees in various services who dare to show - even privately - opposition to the imposition of acceptance of same-sex unions. The tradition of fair play and freedom under the law is now regarded as out of date and wrong, because an obligation to agree with the Government on this subject is deemed to take priority over every principle and every sense of conscience. And the Govt is trying to rush the legislation through Parliament despite strong and growing opposition...read more here...

To Northern Ireland...

...to speak at a conference organised by All Saints Church, Ballymeena, on 'Women and the Church'. Large attendance. An excellent introductory speech by Baroness O'Loane, who spoke of  great Christian women who had influenced and inspired her...and the parish priest spoke extremely well, giving the teaching of the Church with specific references to John Paul and Mulieris Dignitatem etc...

Earlier, a weekday Mass in the church with a substantial congregation - certainly over 150 -  and when I remarked on this I learned that was smaller than usual as a coachload of people had gone to Knock on pilgrimage...

Sunday - a journey to the coast, glorious countryside, a crowded Mass with lots of families...

Next time you hear that the Catholic Church in Ireland is dying...it isn't.

Extraordinary...

...sudden conversation this afternoon, in a busy café where I'd parked myself to tackle some work on my laptop for an hour or so. Pleasant girl sitting in vaguely yoga-position, cross-legged, at the table nearest to the only electric plug was friendly and helpful when I asked if I could share it...and after we had both spent a longish while beavering away on our respective computers, we got talking. She helped me tackle a bothersome layout problem on my Word document, and somehow we moved on from that to talk of theatre and writing and travel and  more...she announced with some vigour that she was an atheist and this resulted in a very lively conversation. Delightful girl: an actress and dancer, bright, articulate...conversation ranged over Dawkins, Hitchens, touched on evolution, Buddhism...it was blustery and rainy outside as we said goodbye, and I put my hands into my pockets to keep warm - and encountered a small Bl JPII medal given by a friend from Rome. I gave it to this new friend. JPII was an actor too....

On to Marble Arch, for the Tyburn Lecture. A disappointment. The Tyburn nuns are wonderful and always have a warm welcome, and the Lectures, celebrating free speech and debate about crucial current issues, are a magnificent tradition. But this one was unimpressive: given by a lawyer who lectures at the London School of Economics, it ended up as a rather tired-sounding rant against John Paul and Benedict. Somehow, after a lively conversation earlier, I felt let down. The speaker parroted the line that is apparently being pushed in The Tablet.  The silliest bit was his suggestion that John Paul didn't engage with the modern world. All those great gatherings in the cities of the world, the wall-shattering change that swept across Eastern Europe,  the breakthrough in relations with the Jewish people,  that extraordinary rapport with the young that created World Youth Day...apparently none of that really happened...oh, and he didn't seem to think that Benedict XVI would have much long-term impact either...

Listening to this rubbish was slightly embarrassing, like hearing someone who dabbles in poster-paints denouncing Michaelangelo.


 

I LIKE Papa Francis...

...have done from the start, but he keeps giving us all more and more reasons for doing so. Like today: read here...

The river Humber...

...goes out to meet the sea at Hull, and this became one of Britain's busiest ports. Some two million people arrived here from Northern Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries, travelling from here across the country to Liverpool to sail to America.

Hull: the sea, fishermen, a great maritime heritage...today the old docks have become a marina for  expensive pleasure-boats. There are wonderful old pubs and smart new cafes and restaurants...a fine statue showing a family group, commemorating those long-ago emigrants...an old lightship which you can board and explore, seeing the cabins and galley and shining brass equipment that was all in use just a few decades back...and the magnificent  buildings which once housed the shipping authorities and port officials are now  elegant empty offices advertising space to let...and there are a  number of museums, telling the local history and the maritime history...

What was once a busy noisy place is now clean and beautiful...but on a hot sunny day there were not many people in this waterside area, except at the cafes overlooking the marina. I walked along the quayside and old docks, gazed out towards the sea, pondering the history... and was  almost alone. Returned to a café to catch up on emails and do some work.

The crowds are elsewhere, in the big new inland shopping centre. The fine old City Hall now hosts a tourist bureau, and the Post Office has closed and is run from the back of a shop instead.

Lunchtime Mass at St Charles church - sudden Bavarian baroque in this Yorkshire seaside city! A good number of people for a weekday Mass. A rich history. A huge number of names, four long columns of them, on the  1914-18 War Memorial...

In the evening, a change of pace. I was speaker at the HULL FAITH FORUM .This has been running for several years, and is linked to the Faith Movement.  Young people from parish Confirmation groups, a great atmosphere, excellent local priests doing good work...

"I vow to thee my country..."

is the title of a lecture to be given by Charles Moore, at Brompton Oratory on June 13th. More info here...I will definitely be attending.  6pm, preceded by Evensong.  It is sponsored by the Friends of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, and the theme is the future of Christianity in Britain.

Charles Moore is a v. good writer, and of course his latest biography is provoking a good deal of interest...