There is a feeling of deadness about today. I was talking to an Italian person who found it extraordinary that in this country he could turn on the television and there would be a Catholic mass. Well, now the Pope has gone. The Catholic Herald says – ‘It is four days that changed Britain.’ Perhaps that is an overstatement, but it is incredible that 80,000 people should turn out in Hyde Park while a similar number lined the route of the Mall.

Today’s Psalm: 125.

Those who put their trust in the Lord
are like Mount Zion, that cannot be shaken,
that stands forever.
Jerusalem! The mountains surround her,
so the Lord surrounds his people
both now and forever.
For the scepter of the wicked shall not rest
over the land of the just
for fear that the hands of the just
should turn to evil.
Do good, Lord, to those who are good,
to the upright of heart;
but the crooked and those who do evil,
drive them away!

Has our nation been delivered from the bondage of materialism and consumerism? Of course not, but a trickle has emerged from the Spring. Something has started.