SUNDAY 10 AUGUST

I can’t say I warmed immediately to Medjugorje. Of course it is crowded with endless tasteless Marian souvenir shops full of tasteless tack but you accept that. It is an amusing part of Lourdes, too. In no way is it a beautiful town or, like Lourdes, in a splendid location by the rushing river Gave in the foothills of the Pyrenees. The housing is East European apartment blocks. The parish church is dignified as is the domain around it. We went to a pleasant English mass in a simple hall.

Afterwards, after being stuck in a hot, noisy café, I climbed the Apparition Hill. The rocks are very sharp and it is steep, tiring, and hot. It is probably a mistake to go to these places alone. We were told that on Sundays the locals collected on the hill at 4pm, but I wasn’t aware of any particular group. I faithfully said the Rosary as I climbed the hill. I didn’t feel much. And yet…

In the emotion of my dog dying I felt a profound sympathy for all living things, human or animal. It was a good place to be. Bob, our friend, said although he was not religious, there is something about the place, an atmosphere, and he is right.

MONDAY

We made our way to Split. I much preferred the town to Dubrovnik. In Diocletian’s Palace there is a real sense of layered history. His tomb is now the Cathedral.

There is a sense of irony that should beset us all. Here the great persecutor of Christians, his body vanished in the foundations of a cathedral. So are our works crushed by the vastness of history. We die and the world is happy to go on without us in its own direction.

Meanwhile it’s a great place to sit in a café and have a drink in.

TUESDAY

We were making our way home: now we were in Venice. I suppose the religious art in the Accademia should be inspiring. True, one can admire it, but does one feel moved? Religious art that hangs in museums is taken away from its natural berth. It is an academic exercise. They said rightly that Titian’s Assumption had to be moved back to where it should be, in the Church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. There it is home in all its glory.

In Venice, I like to escape the suffocating crowds around the Rialto and the Piazza San Marco and wander along the long straight canals in the north. Here I found a quiet church and an evening mass for three people and myself, where I saw this sign up which made a real impression on me: UOMO DI POCA FEDE, PERCHE HAI DUBITATO.

But don’t get me wrong, even art in a museum is inspiring. Look at Giovanni Bellini’s Madonna degli Alberetti: the quietness of the Virgin as she reads is deeply moving. She is waiting…

WEDNESDAY

Near the offices and church of the Order of Malta is a quiet chapel seldom visited where you can see a picture of St George and the dragon. I made the mistake of attempting the long, hot, crowded walk via the Rialto and the Frari church. Feeling ill, I felt I was more like a scene out of Death in Venice than anything else.

THURSDAY

We were nearer home, in the Alps near Geneva. In a small chapel out walking I found a young priest saying Mass. It must have been a walking pilgrimage. How wonderful to be here in this simplicity with a young priest and young families in the middle of nowhere… and to greet the great sweep of Mont Blanc outside.

FRIDAY: FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION

This is always a lovely day, right in the middle of August, a holiday all over Europe. The church in Combloux was packed. I have never seen anything like it. Every square foot of standing room taken in the small village church. The famous simple message simply uttered.

SATURDAY

We were back in London after our holiday so I went to the 10:30 mass in the Cathedral. There is no singing at the Saturday Latin Mass in August. There is just a quiet low mass in English. The great doors to the street are open, the hot, dusty Victoria Street a distant echo, a few quiet tourists.

The reading is from the prophet Ezekiel:

“The fathers have eaten unripe grapes. And the children’s teeth are set on edge.” (Ezekiel 18:1-10)

What does this mean? I think it is about this a later time: “Make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.”