Dear Gabriel,

Try getting away occasionally and going on a retreat, even if only for a couple of days. I am at Downside at the moment. I love this place in its rural setting, especially at twilight, as the candles flicker around the Lady Chapel and the statue of Christ. I felt a need to go and sit where I could look at the Blessed Sacrament.

Looking at it, problems do not go away, but they do seem less significant – as if they could be wished away. Later, during Vespers, a chant: ‘Orare Pro Me,’ repeated itself again and again. A sharp determination to overcome problems became sharper still.

On Sunday I got up early, in the dark, and sat alone in the Abbey church before Lauds. A monk came and celebrated Mass alone in a side chapel whose light was a pin prick in the great dark Abbey. Again, I pondered problems and sought solutions. But the solution was there beside me in the Eucharist and its saving grace.

Yours,

Thomas