"Truly, it is the indescribable sweetness of contemplation which you give to those who love you. In this you have shown the tenderness of your charity, that when I had no being you made me; and when I strayed away from you, you brought me back again to serve you and commanded me to love you." The Imitation of Christ
The intrepid trio are being immortalised by Rome Reports as the "Trio-lars" ! I'm sure that they are used to all sorts of weird and wonderful pronunciations of their surname by now. Anyway, their tremendous achievement, cycling from Sidcup to Rome, made it onto Rome Reports TV (who left out the "Sidcup-to-Canterbury" bit of the journey!).
The two charities didn't get a plug, though, so I figure that I'll make up for the oversight by reminding you all that the Treloars funded the trip for themselves, and then decided to raise money for their two favourite charities on the back of their pilgrimage. The two charities are Mary's Meals and the Cardinal Winning Pro-Life Initiative. You can still make a donation via the donations page - they are currently at £3,912 - but they plan to close the page soon, so get those donations in as soon as possible.
Fr. Tim Finigan was the official photographer for the Faith Summer Session this year, and so he has put up the group photos onto Flickr where everyone can admire and download (or print off) any photos they want.
I didn't manage to take quite as many photos as I'd have liked, particularly the informal shots, because being on crutches made it a little difficult to wield a camera... However I have put up a selection of the best ones up on my own Flickr page.
Somehow or other, despite being corralled into the auditorium for the official photo session, I managed to avoid being included in any of the photos. I didn't quite escape unscathed... I was nabbed by one priest, but since he doesn't blog, I might just get away with it...
As Fr. Tim has pointed out, the Faith Summer Session is a great opportunity for networking. I suspect that there are quite a few bloggers around today, especially as it's the day for visitors. If we manage to get a bloggers' photo, it should prove interesting.
Two priests were giving out First Blessings after Mass today... I think both of them are leaving the Conference this evening, so they couldn't be spread out. I did, however, manage to get one of the First Blessings last night, so I was hopefully able to clock up two Plenary Indulgences for the Holy Souls.
I was delighted to be able to chat with James MacMillan last night - yes, it was the James MacMillan, the composer, not someone with the same name, nor a drug-induced hallucination. I was extremely flattered (and somewhat flabbergasted, to be frank) when he told me that he'd read my blog. Not very frequently, to be sure, but he'd read it. Yes, I'm name-dropping, and I don't care who knows it! So now I can claim to have bought a drink for Delia Smith (yes, the Delia Smith, she of the egg-cookery-instructions... though that was a few years ago) and James MacMillan. James was even kind enough to buy one for me too... (I discovered that the bar at Woldingham stocks Bailey's)
I'm really looking forward to his lecture this afternoon: it's not particularly concerned with music and the liturgy, but will address evangelisation through music (at least that's what I recall of the conversation from my alcohol-induced haze!)
I also got to meet up one of the speakers involved with Catholic Voices. Very nice chap... he seemed pretty on the ball and very articulate, so I'm quite encouraged. He said that he, too, read my blog... but only the spat with Mr. Ivereigh, which might explain why he seemed a little wary of me...
I'd forgotten how bigWoldingham School is. It's set in really beautiful grounds, but, being on crutches this year means that I'm not in the best position to appreciate them. Walking between my room, the Auditorium, the Chapel and the Dining Rooms is proving to be harder work than I anticipated. However, I am not complaining: the congenial company, excellent talks, and marvellous facilities more than compensate... The exercise may even go a little way towards helping me become less... errr... large. Then again, given the very nice food, perhaps not...! People have also been really kind to me, carrying trays, opening doors, and bringing me cups of tea... and something a little stronger in the evenings.
Faith has held its Summer Session here at Woldingham School for many years, and, as I have also been involved in the past as a helper on both the Faith Summer Break and the Southwark Diocese's Altar-Servers Break (also held at Woldingham), I've gotten to some of the staff quite well. They are really lovely people, always cheerful and very keen to help us in any way they can.
Now, if only the British Summer would start (sorry, I mean stop... we've had torrential rain and thunder and lightning this afternoon!) things would be perfect.
I am awfully excited... I have just found out that the Guest Speaker for tomorrow evening's session is none other than James MacMillan.
I seriously hope that I haven't gotten the wrong end of the stick in my Tramadol-and-diazepam induced haze, and it turns out to be some other James MacMillan...
I promised Sir Dan of the Nesbitry that I would post something about the Conference...
There are over 200 young people present at the Faith Summer Session in Woldingham, including over 30 priests and more than seminarians, and it's going really well so far. Last night, Fr. Michael John Galbraith opened the proceedings with a good introduction, entitled The Church: Foreshadowed from the beginning.
Among other things, he explained that Catholicism is attracting a lot of antagonism, and there is an almost visceral hatred of the Church, because she claims to teach objective Truth. This is a real challenge to our society which wants everything to be seen as relative.
This morning it was the turn of Fr. Tim Finigan to give his talk, The Church: Our living link to Christ. Despite my speculations as to whether any new technological breakthroughs would be forthcoming, Fr. Tim stuck to PowerPoint for the presentation; I really hope that he will make the slides available online, because there were several very fascinating quotes which I'd really like to look at in more detail.
Fr. Tim explained that the Faith vision particularly took the Scotist view of the Incarnation, namely that Christ would have become incarnate even if our first parents had not sinned. He then showed how this lead organically to the conclusion that the Church must also have been intended. There was a quote from one of the earliest Christian literary works, The Shepherd of Hermas (I think) which described the Church as an old woman because she had been the first to be created, and the world was made for her sake. This seems to me to be one of the most powerful arguments against those people who say things like "Oh yes, I believe in God, and in Jesus, but not in all that Church stuff..."
I'm having a really great time (no surprise there) and I'll post again as soon as I get the chance...
Leutgeb of Bara Brith fame thinks that it's a real shame that this video has had less than 3000 hits, and wants it to go much higher. The computer I've found at the school doesn't have speakers (and the earphones I have for my iPhone don't seem to work on it) so I have absolutely no idea what the soundtrack is... I shall find out on Friday.
In the meantime, though, I shall do my bit to raise the hit rate on the video...
I'm off to the Faith Summer Session at Woldingham this week. I don't know if I'll get a chance to blog - I'll certainly have a go.
I have to say that the titles of the talks look a little daunting: they're all about the Church. I expect that the recordings will find their way onto the website in due course - in the meantime you can listen to the talks from last year's Summer and Winter Conferences.
It seems that the little hamster in the sidebar has been causing some browsers to load slowly, or to scream "malware detected," and so, Fr. Z has decided that maybe the hamster has to go to join all the other little hamsters in the skies...
...though Vincenzo (the Photoshop whizzkid) decided that perhaps the hamster ought to be sent on pilgrimage to Rome...
I'm afraid that every time I hear "hamster," I start chortling. The classic BBC series Fawlty Towers had an episode called Basil the Rat (I used to think it was The Health Inspector, but apparently not.) Now, unless you have seen the episode, you won't appreciate the connections between rats and hamsters. I have looked in vain for the relevant clip on YouTube, but they only have a later part of the episode.
The health inspector pays a visit to the hotel, and Basil Fawlty goes up to Manuel the waiter's room to get him to sort out the dead pigeons in the water tank. Then he spots Manuel's pet...
I can't remember my favourite scene exactly, and searching Google hasn't helped. But basically, it goes like this:
Basil:"What's that?" Manuel: "He my hamster." Basil: "It's a rat!" Manuel: "I think so too... I say to man in shop, he rat, he say no, he filigree Siberian hamster, only one in shop, special price only five pound." Basil: "It's a bloody rat. Don't you have rats in Spain, or did Franco have 'em all shot?"
Anyway, Polly the maid pretends to give the rat to a friend to look after. In reality, they hide it in an outbuilding... and, predictably, the rat escapes. Polly, Terry the chef and Manuel all try to find the rat before Basil Fawlty discovers the deception...
This is just such a funny episode, and there's no more on YouTube, so I'm going to download it from iTunes.
There has been a lot of negative publicity given to the visit of the Holy Father. I have to admit, when the organisers were making such a hash of the preparations, I was extremely dubious about the whole thing.
However, now that details of the Holy Father's itinerary have been published, and the ticket allocations for each parish have been dished out, I sense more excitement about the visit. This is despite attempts to put a dampener on the events by focussing on the cost of the tickets. Leutgeb has countered that hoary old chestnut very adroitly.
Our parish's ticket allocation for Birmingham has been snapped up, and the Hyde Park tickets are pretty much all gone, so our Parish Priest is busy trying to get hold of spares from other parishes.
Stuart McCullough alerted people to the fact that Fr. Armand de Malleray, FSSP is encouraging people without tickets for the Hyde Park event to turn up to a different part of the park and pray the Rosary, accompanied by some of the priests from the FSSP. There are details given on their own website.
I definitely won't be able to go to either event - I was doubtful before, but my recent ligament injury has confirmed it - though I still hope to be able to go and line up along a route somewhere to wave a flag. The mood has changed, and the organisers of the Papal visit are encouraging the faithful to line the streets, while the use of the popemobile will help to make the Holy Father more visible.
Our parish newsletter has been giving suggestions for how we can prepare for the Holy Father's visit, and I was delighted to see that the FSSP have much the same idea:
"...please make sure you devote special time to pray for the spiritual success of Pope Benedict’s visit. Let us not underestimate the great power of prayer and of mortification. This is a unique opportunity. Our Blessed Lord surely expects all souls of good will to intensify their prayers for His Vicar on earth as he is about to visit Our Lady’s Dowry."
