Catholic Churches of Our Lady of Sorrows,
Effingham and The Holy Spirit, Fetcham

Thoughts on the Pope’s Visit

I was not looking forward to the Pope’s visit. The negative media response, particularly the BBC, and the thought of conducting forty parishioners safely from Effingham Junction into Hyde Park was somewhat daunting. However, from the moment the Pope landed in Scotland, his shy, somewhat nervous smile, seemed to change all that. (more…)

The son of Sir John More, barrister and judge, Thomas More, at the age of thirteen, joined the household of John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who sent him to Canterbury College, Oxford, where he stayed for only two years on a very restricted allowance from his father, who called him home. In 1496 he entered Lincoln’s Inn and was called to the bar in 1501. (more…)

I am writing just a week after Pope Benedict XVI returned to the Vatican after his historic four-day visit to the UK. I believe that the papal visit has been vastly more successful than many, perhaps most, people had predicted. For faithful Catholics in the UK (and, it seems, for those returning to their faith) his visit has been intensely moving, uplifting, encouraging, re-affirming and, as one Lancastrian lady proclaimed, “simply awesome”. (more…)

Recent, on Palm Sunday, I was sitting in Canterbury Cathedral listening to Stainer’s Crucifixion and Faure’s Requiem and thinking about the story of Our Lord’s Passion and death that was being portrayed in the wonderful music echoing round the Cathedral.   I also thought about the death of St Thomas a Becket who was murdered in the Cathedral not far from where I was sitting and of the thousands of pilgrims who, since Thomas’ martyrdom, had travelled the pilgrimage route across Southern England to his shrine to seek forgiveness from our God and some measure of hope.   (more…)

BENEDICTINES (called black monks from the colour of their habits, OSB – Order of St Benedict) the oldest monastic order, founded by St Benedict in the sixth century at Monte Cassino in Italy.

Monte Casino

His Rule, only some 12,000 words long, established the pattern of communal living, chastity, the absence of personal possessions, of obedience to the abbot, and the form of worship.  As well as a long night-office, there were seven day offices: Matins or Lauds (daybreak), Prime (6.00 am), Terce (9.00 am) Sext (noon), Nones (3.00 pm), Vespers (sundown) and Compline (9.00 pm).  The humanity of St Benedict is seen in his provision that the first psalm of the night-office be said slowly to give lie-abeds time to make it into church.  Each week all the psalms were read, and each year, most of the Bible. (more…)