SUNDAY

“Go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach to them as I told you to.” (Jonah 3:1)

Strange that Nineveh is where the great cathedral has just been blown up by ISIL.

MONDAY

For some unaccountable reason a bad back started today. I always wonder at this phrase in today’s gospel:

“How can Satan cast out Satan?” (Mark 3:22-30)

But what does it mean?

TUESDAY

We went in Strasbourg but just I asked the Backbench Business Committee for a debate on faith schools and British values.

How do “British values” trump the traditional British value – of Christianity?

“Since the law has no more than a reflection of these realities and no finished picture of them.” (Hebrews 10)

WEDNESDAY

I went to a lovely Mass in the seminary at Strasbourg Cathedral. It is lovely in its timelessness of its chant.

“And the priests stand at their duties every day.” (Hebrews 10:11-18)

THURSDAY

I had spoken at the Council of Europe on persecution of Christians. The usual arguments. I’m not sure we added anything new but I stressed the need for the technical legal term of “reasonable accommodation” for Christians to have space in Europe where there is no outright persecution but where Catholic midwives for instance need space to abide by their conscience or British Airways staff should be allowed to wear a cross.

Anyway, nothing new but quite a good day. For my sins no doubt however I woke in the middle of the night with a crashing pain in my back and my conscience or something or someone told me to “look after the poor and the dispossessed”. I doubt that I will do it very well. My right-wing convictions often tell me that showering public money on the poor creates as many problems as it solves.

FRIDAY

My back was so bad at Mass that I could not get up and the communion had to be brought to me – a foretaste of the future but nice that people think of one.

“Only a little while now, a very little while and the one that is coming will have come, he will not delay.” (Hebrews 10:32)

SATURDAY – St John Bosco

The 10.30 sung Latin mass as beautiful as usual. Today in Hebrews 10 we are told that “only faith can guarantee the blessings that we hope for.”

Then I have a long way to go. If it is only a question of faith it is easy for some, hard for others.

“And he woke up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea ‘Quiet now, be calm!’ And the winds dropped and all was calm again. Then he said to them ‘Why are you so frightened? How is it that you have no faith?’” (Mark 4:35)

Strange, reading this I have faith that this really did happen and is true.