Eight new priests for the Diocese of Westminster

Saturday was an extraordinary day. Eight deacons were ordained to the Sacred Priesthood in Westminster Cathedral: Oscar Ardila, Jeffrey Downie, Fortunato Pantisano, Giles Pinnock, Martin Plunkett, Jeffrey Steel, Martin Tate and Mark Walker. Seven are from Allen Hall Seminary in London, one is from the Beda in Rome; all are for the Diocese of Westminster.

Fr Mark Walker is from my home parish in Harpenden, and it was a particular joy to be back home on Sunday morning to join him at his first Mass in the parish church of Our Lady of Lourdes.

If you haven’t been to an ordination before, the text below gives you a flavour of some of the prayers and promises from the rite:

Homily

14.  Then all sit, and the bishop addresses the people and the candidate on the duties of a priest.  He may use these words:

This man, your relative and friend, is now to be raised to the order of priests.  Consider carefully the position to which he is to be promoted in the Church.

It is true that God has made his entire people a royal priesthood in Christ.  But our High Priest, Jesus Christ, also chose some of his followers to carry out publicly in the Church a priestly ministry in his name on behalf of mankind.  He was sent by the Father, and he in turn sent the apostles into the world; through them and their successors, the bishops, he continues his work as Teacher, Priest, and Shepherd.  Priests are co-workers of the order of bishops.  They are joined to the bishops in the priestly office and are called to serve God’s people.

Our brother has seriously considered this step and is now to be ordained to priesthood in the presbyteral order.  He is to serve Christ the Teacher, Priest, and Shepherd in his ministry which is to make his own body, the Church, grow into the people of God, a holy temple.

He is called to share in the priesthood of the bishops and to be molded into the likeness of Christ, the supreme and eternal Priest.  By consecration he will be made a true priest of the New Testament, to preach the Gospel, sustain God’s people, and celebrate the liturgy, above all, the Lord’s sacrifice.

He then addresses the candidate:

My son, you are now to be advanced to the order of the presbyterate.  You must apply your energies to the duty of teaching in the name of Christ, the chief Teacher.  Share with all mankind the word of God you have received with joy.  Meditate on the law of God, believe what you read, teach what you believer, and put into practice what you teach.

Let the doctrine you teach be true nourishment for the people of God.  Let the example of your life attract the followers of Christ, so that by word and action you may build up the house which is God’s Church.

In the same way you must carry out your mission of sanctifying in the power of Christ.  Your ministry will perfect the spiritual sacrifice of the faithful by uniting it with Christ’s sacrifice, the sacrifice which is offered sacramentally through your hands.  Know what you are doing and imitate the mystery you celebrate.  In the memorial of the Lord’s death and resurrection, make every effort to die to sin and to walk in the new life of Christ.

When you baptize, you will bring men and women into the people of God.  In the sacrament of penance, you will forgive sins in the name of Christ and the Church.  With holy oil you will relieve and console the sick.  You will celebrate the liturgy and offer thanks and praise to God throughout the day, praying not only for the people of God but for the whole world.  Remember that you are chosen from among God’s people and appointed to act for them in relation to God.  Do your part in the work of Christ the Priest with genuine joy and love, and attend to the concerns of Christ before your own.

Finally, conscious of sharing in the work of Christ, the Head and Shepherd of the Church, and united with the bishop and subject to him, seek to bring the faithful together into a unified family and to lead them effectively, through Christ and in the Holy Spirit, to God the Father.  Always remember the example of the Good Shepherd who came not to be served by to serve, and to seek out and rescue those who were lost.

Examination of the Candidate

15.  The candidate then stands before the bishop who questions him:

My son, before you proceed to the order of the presbyterate, declare before the people your intention to undertake the priestly office.

Are you resolved, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to discharge without fail the office of priesthood in the presbyteral order as a conscientious fellow worker with the bishops in caring for the Lord’s flock?

The candidate answers: I am.

Bishop: Are you resolved to celebrate the mysteries of Christ faithfully and religiously as the Church has handed them down to us for the glory of God and the sanctification of Christ’s people?

Candidate: I am.

Bishop: Are you resolved to hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience as the Apostle urges, and to proclaim this faith in word and action as it is taught by the Gospel and the Church’s tradition?

Candidate: I am.

Bishop: Are you resolved to maintain and deepen a spirit of prayer appropriate to your way of life and, in keeping with what is required of you, to celebrate faithfully the liturgy of the hours for the Church and for the whole world?

Candidate: I am.

Bishop: Are you resolved to exercise the ministry of the word worthily and wisely, preaching the gospel and explaining the Catholic faith?

Candidate: I am.

Bishop: Are you resolved to consecrate your life to God for the salvation of his people, and to unite yourself more closely every day to Christ the High Priest, who offered himself for us to the Father as a perfect sacrifice?

Candidate: I am, with the help of God.

Promise of Obedience

16.  Then the candidate goes to the bishop and, kneeling before him, places his joined hands between those of the bishop.  If this gesture seems less suitable in some places, the conference of bishops may choose another gesture or sign.

If the bishop is the candidate’s own Ordinary, he asks: Do you promise respect and obedience to me and my successors?

Candidate: I do.

If the bishop is not the candidate’s own Ordinary, he asks: Do you promise respect and obedience to your Ordinary?

Candidate: I do.

Bishop: May God who has begun the good work in you bring it to fulfillment.

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British youth reject religion

As I think about starting my new work in university chaplaincy, I’m even more interested than I was before about what it’s like to be a young person in the UK today, what questions young people have, and what they do or don’t believe.

So I was drawn to the headline on the YouGov site: ‘British Youth Reject Religion’. I’ll copy the main points below and you can come to your own conclusions:

Religious figures have the least influence on the lives of young Britons – and more say religion is a force for evil than a force for good

In the 2011 Census, 59% of the population described themselves as Christian and only a quarter reported having no religion. But a new poll of young people for the Sun by YouGov finds that the place of religion in the lives of young Britons is smaller than ever.

YouGov asked 18-24 year olds which figures have influence on their lives, and religious leaders came out on bottom: only 12% feel influenced by them, which is far less than even politicians (38%), brands (32%) and celebrities (21%).

The reputation of religion amongst young people is actually more negative than neutral: 41% agree that “religion is more often the cause of evil in the world” and only 14% say it is a cause for good.

When asked if they believe in God, only 25% say they do. 19% believe in some non-Godlike “spiritual greater power” and a further 38% believe in no God or spiritual power whatsoever.

Amongst believers, the most represented denominations are Church of England (13%), then Roman Catholic (9%) and Muslim (4%).

The low influence of religious leaders doesn’t surprise me, because so few young people have real human contact with them. But I’m really taken aback by the 41% agreeing that “religion is more often the cause of evil in the world”.

You can see the full results here.

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The metadata is the message: big data tells you much more than big pieces of content

There are thousands of articles about whistleblower Edward Snowden and the NSA spying scandal. John Naughton writes about the significance of big data.

It’s not the content of our conversations and emails that reveals the most, but the way we move between them, the connections we are constantly making, and the layered reality of a life that emerges when you link together all of the digital and geo-positioning data that is available about someone.

Naughton refers to this fascinating interactive study in Zeit Online, which tracks his movements using mobile phone data. Take a look here. This is the introduction to the site:

Green party politician Malte Spitz sued to have German telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom hand over six months of his phone data that he then made available to ZEIT ONLINE. We combined this geolocation data with information relating to his life as a politician, such as Twitter feeds, blog entries and websites, all of which is all freely available on the internet.

By pushing the play button, you will set off on a trip through Malte Spitz’s life. The speed controller allows you to adjust how fast you travel, the pause button will let you stop at interesting points. In addition, a calendar at the bottom shows when he was in a particular location and can be used to jump to a specific time period. Each column corresponds to one day.

And this is Naughton’s own take on big data:

‘To be remembered after we are dead,” wrote Hazlitt, “is but poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living.” Cue President “George W” Obama in the matter of telephone surveillance by his National Security Agency. The fact that for the past seven years theagency has been collecting details of every telephone call placed in theUnited States without a warrant was, he intoned, no reason for Americans to be alarmed. “Nobody is listening to your telephone calls,”he cooed. The torch was then passed to Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate intelligence committee, who was likewise on bromide-dispensing duty. “This is just metadata,” she burbled, “there is no content involved.”

At which point the thought uppermost in one’s mind is: what kind of idiots do they take us for? Of course there’s no content involved, for the simple reason that content is a pain in the butt from the point of view of modern surveillance. First, you have to listen to the damned recordings, and that requires people (because even today, computers are not great at understanding everyday conversation) and time. And although Senator Feinstein let slip that the FBI already employs 10,000 people “doing intelligence on counter-terrorism”, even that Stasi-scale mob isn’t a match for the torrent of voice recordings that Verizon and co could cough up daily for the spooks.

So in this business at least, content isn’t king. It’s the metadata – the call logs showing who called whom, from which location and for how long – that you want. Why? Because that’s the stuff that is machine-readable, and therefore searchable. Imagine, for a moment, that you’re an NSAoperative in Fort Meade, Maryland. You have a telephone number of someone you regard as potentially “interesting”. Type the number into a search box and up comes a list of every handset that has ever called, or been called by, it. After that, it’s a matter of seconds before you have a network graph of second-, third- or fourth-degree connections to that original number. Map those on to electronic directories to get names and addresses, obtain a secret authorisation from the Fisa court (which has 11 federal judges so that it can sit round the clock, seven days a week), then dispatch a Prism subpoena to Facebook and co and make some coffee while waiting for the results. Repeat the process with the resulting email contact lists and – bingo! – you have a mass surveillance programme as good as anything Vladimir Putin could put together. And you’ve never had to sully your hands – or your conscience – with that precious “content” that civil libertarians get so worked up about.

Do people fall for the “it’s only metadata” guff? If they do, my hunch is that it’s because their intuitions haven’t kept pace with the extent that mobile technology has pervaded our lives, or with the scale of the data that outfits such as the NSA have been accumulating. Most people would be discomfited to learn how detailed a reconstruction of their lives their mobile phone operator could produce if required – right down to a pretty good guess at when they have been speeding in their cars.

Naughton quotes Matt Blaze:

Metadata is our context. And that can reveal far more about us – both individually and as groups – than the words we speak. Context yields insights into who we are and the implicit, hidden relationships between us. A complete set of all the calling records for an entire country is therefore a record not just of how the phone is used, but, coupled with powerful software, of our importance to each other, our interests, values, and the various roles we play.

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Exploring Monastic Theology: Retreat for Young Adults this summer

Transfigured in Christ

Exploring Monastic Theology – Retreat for Young Adults

@ Worth Abbey Benedictine Monastery

28^th August – 1^st September

Four days of study, prayer and community alongside the monks of Worth Abbey and members of The Wellspring Community. With talks and study, structured around participation in the monastic rhythm of prayer, and space for reflection in the beautiful surroundings of Worth Abbey.

For more than 1500 years, the 6^th Century Rule of St Benedict has inspired Christian living in the Western Church, informing a range of Catholic spiritualities, monastic, priestly and lay. At the heart of the Rule is a vision of our human potential transfigured in Christ. This invitation to “share through patience in the passion of Christ, that we may also share in his Kingdom” (RB Prol.) is the subject of these study days in monastic theology and spirituality for young adults. Monastic spirituality is grounded in a profound realism about our human condition, but never loses sight of the “loftier summits” (RB 73) to which Christ both summons us and accompanies us. The Prayer of the Church (Opus Dei), Holy Reading (Lectio Divina), the practice of Mental Prayer, and the key theological themes of the monastic tradition in the West will form the substance of this weekend of reflective living, praying and studying together with the monks of Worth Abbey.

Only £120 for students/unwaged, and £150 for waged.

For more information, see here.

To book, complete and return this form (return address is on the form).

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Images of your church community: your chance to share on Guardian Witness

The online Guardian site has a Guardian Witness project: “Share your view of the world: your chance to have videos, photos and stories featured on the Guardian”. It’s a kind of democratic journalism – a simple and uncensored way of uploading your own perspectives on a given topic, onto an elegant Pinterest-style site.

One of the current topics is “Your Church Congregation”. There are 293 contributions as I write. You have until Friday 28 June to upload images from your own church. Why not add your own? It’s a great way to share the life of your own community; and at the very least it will help Guardian readers to appreciate (in case they don’t already) how alive our Christian churches are.

See the Church Congregation page here.

This is the spiel:

Who are the Christians in Britain today? On any given Sunday, there will be at least 2.5m people in churches of various sorts, but each congregation tends to be an island with little contact with others. So, we want you to share your photographs and videos of your own congregations, everywhere from converted units on an industrial estate to magnificent medieval cathedrals.

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Fasting is suddenly fashionable

Fasting is suddenly fashionable, and the ancient Christian tradition of not just abstaining from meat but radically cutting down on food for two days a week (Wednesdays and Fridays) has become the new norm.

It’s the 5:2 diet, of course, but Oliver Burkeman asks how we can apply this ‘fasting and feasting’ philosophy to other areas of life.

It sometimes seems as if every other person you meet is following the Fast Diet, also known as the 5:2 Diet, the eating plan first detailed in a BBC2 documentary last summer and then in a bestselling book, by the journalists Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer. It entails eating very small amounts of food (600 calories for men, 500 for women) on two non-consecutive days of the week, and consuming whatever you like on the other five. [It involves] the crucial psychological insight that extreme self-denial almost never seems to work.

The grander claims made for the 5:2 approach are debatable at best: it’s far from clear that it will stave off ageing, dementia or death. (The best results so far have been confined to mice.) Even Mosley and Spencer admit there’s nothing magic about the 5:2 ratio, or the specific calorie limit for fast days. But because you’re never more than 24 hours away from eating whatever you want, it’s a way of eating less – and of being mindful about what you eat – that people actually stick to. It doesn’t overtax your willpower; nor does it conjure images of a joyless life spent permanently without burgers. “Conscious self-denial,” Bertrand Russell wrote, “leaves a man self-absorbed and vividly aware of what he has sacrificed.” The Fast Diet has a built-in remedy for that.

Which raises a question: might the 5:2 approach work equally well when it comes to those other bad habits we struggle to change – such as failing to exercise, spending too much time online or constantly worrying or complaining? […]

Why does this approach work when others seem to fail?

The fact that extreme self-denial often doesn’t work, or at least not for long, is one of the oldest truths about human nature: Odysseus, according to the myth, had himself bound to the mast of his ship because he knew he couldn’t resist the sirens by willpower alone. If willpower is a “depletable resource”, as experiments by the psychologist Roy Baumeister and others have suggested, then it’s not hard to see one reason for this: the self-discipline muscle simply becomes exhausted. (In one famous study, students made to resist the temptation of cookies and chocolates had less capacity to persevere at geometry exercises.) […]

There are other reasons a plan such as 5:2 might make habit change easier. It’s simple and therefore easy to remember – but it’s also precise, and therefore easy to follow. (Compare that with the food writerMichael Pollan‘s famous summary of the rules of healthy eating: “Eat food, not too much, mainly plants”. Being simple but not precise, this is hard to implement.) It also introduces a challenging constraint, of the kind of thing likely to provoke creative thinking: if you’re allowed to consume only 500 calories a day, or banned from frittering the evening on the internet, you might come up with some imaginative new recipes, or original new ways to spend your leisure time.

This moderate sort of approach won’t work for everyone, nor for every bad habit: sometimes, going cold turkey is preferable. “I can’t drink a little, child, therefore I never touch it,” Samuel Johnson once explained to the poet Hannah More. “Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.” (That’s the Alcoholics Anonymous philosophy.) But if absolutist bans have never worked for you yet, the 5:2 approach could be worth a try.

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The scandal of Christian uniqueness

Is it possible, in these pluralistic times, to claim that Jesus Christ is the unique saviour? Well, of course I think it is. Archbishop Augustine Di Noia, however, gave a wonderful anecdote about how difficult it can be to proclaim this – even to Christians.

Archbishop Di Noia is Vice President of the Pontifical Council ‘Ecclesia Dei’ in Rome. He was in London last week to speak to the clergy of Westminster Diocese at our annual summer gathering.

He was reminiscing about when the document Dominus Iesus was published in 2000 by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, then headed by Cardinal Ratzinger. The US Bishops’ Conference was given an embargoed copy of the text a couple of weeks before, and they gave it to Di Noia to ask what he thought of it, what he thought the public reaction might be (within and outside the Church), and how he thought they should prepare themselves in anticipation. He had some kind of advisory role there at the time.

So he read the document, and his reaction was (I’m quoting from memory): “There’s nothing particular striking or controversial here; nothing that isn’t in the Holy Scriptures or the Documents of the Second Vatican Council. I doubt it will get much attention. No action needed…”

Perhaps he was naive, but he himself admitted that he was completely unprepared for the forcefulness of some of the negative reactions. At the end of the story he quipped, with a smile: “I nearly lost my job”.

You can read the document here. The core is simply a re-statement of mainstream, historic Catholic belief that Jesus Christ is the unique saviour and that the Catholic Church has a unique place in God’s plan of salvation.

Dominus Iesus is a lot more inclusivist than many people think. It leaves open the hugely important questions about how people might be saved without an explicit knowledge of Jesus Christ or an explicit faith in him, and the different ways in which people can be related to the Catholic Church and share in the salvific communion that she mediates in history.

But it refuses to let go of these core beliefs which we receive from the Scriptures and the Tradition. What’s fascinating is to see how much these once uncontroversial beliefs challenge so much of what is taken for granted in the contemporary secular worldview, and how they even give many Catholics pause for thought.

[Scandal, in its original Greek context, does not mean a situation where some moral wrongdoing has taken place, but something that ’causes you to stumble’: that stops you in your tracks, that trips you up, that makes you think, that challenges you, that ‘scandalises’ you in the sense of overturning all of your preconceptions about a given situation.]

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Kolbe’s Gift, 1-5 October 2013, Leicester Square Theatre

Book now for this new production from Ten Ten Theatre. This is from their website:

Kolbe’s Gift is a full-length play written by David Gooderson which tells the story of two men, Fr Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan priest, and Franek Gajowniczec, a Polish soldier, whose lives crossed in the most extraordinary way in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1941. Spanning three decades, Kolbe’s Gift will be produced by Ten Ten Theatre with a cast of seven actors at The Leicester Square Theatre in Central London for one week only in October 2013. With many enriching events surrounding the production, it promises to be a theatrical event not to be missed.

“This place is not simply a concentration camp. It’s a laboratory dedicated to the destruction of human identity. It is the gospel of hate, which can only be defeated by the Gospel of Love.”

In 1941, Polish priest Maximilian Kolbe entered the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz.

A gifted man, Kolbe was the founder of monasteries in Poland and Japan, produced a monthly magazine with a circulation of over one million, and formed an international movement to help bring people to the Catholic faith. Then, a chance encounter with an ordinary soldier, Franek Gajowniczec, led Kolbe to an extraordinary act – walking away from all that he had and could have achieved.

David Gooderson’s powerful play tells the true story of these two men. One became feted across the globe. The other faded into obscurity. This is their story.

Tickets priced from £12.50 – £20.00 can be booked through the theatre box office on 08448 733433 or via their website.

There is also a booking page here at the TenTen site.

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Spirit in the City

Spirit in the City takes place in central London from Wednesday to Saturday this week. See the website here, and I’ve copied the full programme below.

There is a wonderfully creative YouTube video doing the rounds, with ‘graphic novel’ images of a woman’s search for meaning and how she stumbled across Spirit in the City taking place.

Spirit in the City 2013 e-flyer | poster

 

Wednesday 12 June 2013

19.30	AWAKENING
	A dazzling opening show in the Leicester Square Theatre.  6 Leicester Place, London WC2H 7BX
	Click here for more details and to book your tickets.

 

Thursday 13 June 2013 – St Patrick’s, Soho Square

12.45	Opening Mass
	Afternoon workshop
13.45-18.00	Sanctuary in the City: adoration in the church & street outreach

Evening Programme, St Patrick’s, Soho Square

19.00	Praise and worship &  London Premier of ‘Child 31′ by Grassroots Productions Talk by Magnus McFarlene-Barrow, Founder of Mary’s Meals
20.00	Marian street procession followed by night prayer and social

 

Friday 14 June 2013, Notre Dame de France, Leicester Place

12.15	Mass followed by adoration
13.15-17.30	Sanctuary in the City: adoration in the church, street outreach and workshops

Evening Programme, Notre Dame de France, Leicester Place

19.00	Prayer, music, talk by Fr. John Armitage
20.30	Eucharistic street procession from Notre Dame de France to Corpus Christi followed by a time of adoration, benediction and night prayer

 

Saturday 15 June 2013
Leicester Square Gardens & Notre Dame de France

13.00-20.00	Live entertainment and street festival * Stage programme with LIVE music * Workshops * Prayer Tent, adoration * Reconciliation tent * Information stalls * Prayer Chair Ministry * Activities with face painting and more!
18.00	International Mass in Notre Dame de France
20.00	Close of programme in Leicester Square Gardens

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Soldier to Saint: tour dates announced and tickets available

I posted a few weeks ago about Soldier to Saint, the contemporary drama by RISE Theatre based on the story of St Alban. See my earlier comments here.

I’ve just heard that the tour dates and venues have been publicised, so do see if you can get to one of the performances around the UK. See their site here. The dates and venues are copied below.

27 Jun 8.00pm ST ALBANS Ss Alban & Stephen Church E-mail: sylviacwhite@talktalk.net  Call: 01727 854596

28 Jun 7.30pm TUNBRIDGE WELLS St Augustine’s RC Church Call: 07776 143237

30 Jun 7.00pm BRISTOL St Augustine’s RC Church Tickets available on the door

04 Jul 7.30pm HODDESDON St Augustine’s RC Church Call: 01992 440986 or email hoddesdon@rcdow.org.uk

05 Jul 7.30pm READING OLOP & Bl. Dominic Barberi RC Church Buy online: s2sreading.ticketsource.co.uk

06 Jul 7.30pm PORTISHEAD St Joseph’s RC Primary School Email: administrator@stjosephschurch.eclipse.co.uk

10 Jul 7.00pm TORQUAY St Cuthbert Mayne School E-mail: Call 07906 234210

11 Jul 7.30pm FALMOUTH St Mary’s RC Primary School E-mail: maryiedwards@talktalk.net  Call: 01326 312763

12 Jul 7.30pm PENZANCE St. Mary’s RC Primary School E-mail: maria@st-marys-rc-pz.cornwall.sch.uk

17 Jul 7.30pm RUISLIP Most Sacred Heart Church Email: mothers_prayer@hotmail.com  Call: 07966 529703

18 Jul 7.30pm REDHILL St Joseph’s RC Church Call: 01737 761017 (Mon to Fri, 9am – 5pm only)

19 Jul 7.30pm YATELEY St Swithun’s RC Church Call St Swithun’s: 01252 872732 / Call: 01276 34208

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The miracle of the human mind

I managed to get a ticket for the very last day of the Ice Age Art exhibition at the British Museum on Sunday.

At one level, the works are extraordinary. To stand in front of a 40,000 year old Lion Man carved in ivory; to see a flute from the same period made from the bone of a griffon vulture, with six carefully spaced holes waiting to be fingered; to pass from one exhibition case to the next, a succession of statues, figurines, etchings, carvings, tools, weapons, most of them with some form of figurative imagery, thousands and thousands of years old. And to think that for some reason it was in this period in Europe that figurative art first developed.

At another level, it’s extraordinarily ordinary. These are images and carvings that could have been created yesterday, in the local art college, or even the local school. They clearly have a huge and unknown symbolic value, but as examples of figurative art they are simply very graceful and well-kept examples of the human urge to represent what is real.

This is what the human mind does. It produces images of what is out there in the real world (an etching of a lion jumping). It forms imaginary creations by playing with these images mentally and combining and recreating them (the head of a lion on the body of a man). It makes tools (a carefully carved stone core), weapons (a small pouch to launch an arrow), and musical instruments (the vulture bone flute). The mind or imagination works symbolically, and this is what allows us to transform the world, because the symbols don’t just stay in the mind – they change how we relate to the world and what we do in and with it.

It’s the lack of distance between then and now that is so extraordinary. If we could meet these ancestors of ours, and have just a few weeks of contact, perhaps just a few days, we would have learnt their language, and they ours, and we would be communicating as neighbours, as brothers and sisters. And yes, we would be working out whether they were friends or enemies, and the whole of human history would unfold once more…

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Corpus Christi and the Litany of the Most Blessed Sacrament

We had a mini-procession of the Blessed Sacrament here at the seminary yesterday, at the end of the Vigil Mass for Corpus Christi: from the chapel on the first floor, along the corridor, down the main staircase, and into the garden. There was a beautiful temporary altar set up in the centre of the garden, with the rose bushes behind.

There is a four storey block of flats overlooking one side of the garden. I’ve no idea what the neighbours thought, seeing the whole seminary and assorted guests kneeling before the monstrance at 7.15 in the evening.

We prayed a beautiful litany that I had never come across before: The Litany of the Most Blessed Sacrament, composed by St Peter Julian Eymard, the founder of the Blessed Sacrament Fathers. Here it is, copied from the Catholic Culture website:

Lord, have mercy. R. Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy. R. Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy. R. Lord, have mercy.
Christ, hear us. R. Christ, graciously hear us.
God the Father of Heaven, R. have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, R. have mercy on us.
God the Holy Spirit, R. have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, R. have mercy on us.

Jesus, Eternal High Priest of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, R. have mercy on us.
Jesus, Divine Victim on the Altar for our salvation, R. have mercy on us.
Jesus, hidden under the appearance of bread, R. have mercy on us.
Jesus, dwelling in the tabernacles of the world, R. have mercy on us.
Jesus, really, truly and substantially present in the Blessed Sacrament, R. have mercy on us.
Jesus, abiding in Your fulness, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, R. have mercy on us.
Jesus, Bread of Life, R. have mercy on us.
Jesus, Bread of Angels, R. have mercy on us.
Jesus, with us always until the end of the world, R. have mercy on us.

Sacred Host, summit and source of all worship and Christian life, R. have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, sign and cause of the unity of the Church, R. have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, adored by countless angels, R. have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, spiritual food, R. have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, Sacrament of love, R. have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, bond of charity, R. have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, greatest aid to holiness, R. have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, gift and glory of the priesthood, R. have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, in which we partake of Christ, R. have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, in which the soul is filled with grace, R. have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, in which we are given a pledge of future glory, R. have mercy on us.

Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.

For those who do not believe in Your Eucharistic presence, R. have mercy, O Lord.
For those who are indifferent to the Sacrament of Your love, R. have mercy on us.
For those who have offended You in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, R. have mercy on us.

That we may show fitting reverence when entering Your holy temple, R. we beseech You, hear us.
That we may make suitable preparation before approaching the Altar, R. we beseech You, hear us.
That we may receive You frequently in Holy Communion with real devotion and true humility, R. we beseech You, hear us.
That we may never neglect to thank You for so wonderful a blessing, R. we beseech You, hear us.
That we may cherish time spent in silent prayer before You, R. we beseech You, hear us.
That we may grow in knowledge of this Sacrament of sacraments, R. we beseech You, hear us.
That all priests may have a profound love of the Holy Eucharist, R. we beseech You, hear us.
That they may celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in accordance with its sublime dignity, R. we beseech You, hear us.
That we may be comforted and sanctified with Holy Viaticum at the hour of our death, R. we beseech You, hear us.
That we may see You one day face to face in Heaven, R. we beseech You, hear us.

Lamb of God, You take away the sins of the world, R. spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, You take away the sins of the world, R. graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, You take away the sins of the world, R. have mercy on us, O Lord.

V. O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine,
R. all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine.

Let us pray,

Most merciful Father,
You continue to draw us to Yourself
through the Eucharistic Mystery.
Grant us fervent faith in this Sacrament of love,
in which Christ the Lord Himself is contained, offered and received.
We make this prayer through the same Christ our Lord. R. Amen.

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Cinema etiquette and mobile phone addiction

There was an extraordinary moment in the evolution of human consciousness and the sociology of cinema etiquette last week. Perhaps it was the first time it had ever taken place – and I was there as a witness! Like being there in 1903 when the Wright brothers flew their way into history; or sitting in the space capsule as Neil Armstrong stepped down onto the surface of the moon.

So I’m sitting in the Cineworld Fulham Road last week as the trailers take place before the new Start Trek film (disappointing: 6/10). The guy next to me takes out his mobile phone, checks for messages, leaves it on, and then – this is the Close Encounters of the Third Kind moment – he places it in the moulded plastic fizzy drinks holder attached to the front of the arm rest between us. No self-consciousness; no shame. The bottom of the phone comes forward, towards him; the back leans against the upper edge of the drinks holder; so the phone is at a perfect 37 degree tilt from the vertical for him to see. And he’s watching the film as he is glancing up and down at his incoming messages – like a driver with the TomTom in the edge of vision.

I was too awestruck at the audacity of this technological leap to be shocked. It’s the kind of unforseen improvisation that delights and appalls me at the same time. I bet you big money that within two years there will be dedicated and beautifully designed mobile phone holders on the arm of every cinema seat, but this time just above the fizzy drinks holder. What would my friend have done if he had had a 6 litre carton of coke as well? [Just for the record: This is my idea, and I hold the patent…]

Is this the end of civilisation or the beginning? Is this common in London or New York or Shanghai and I’ve just never witnessed if before?

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