SUNDAY
We go to Doddington Hall. A charming Elizabethan house on the edge of Lincoln with a medieval church – locked, despite it being Sunday.
The reading from 1 Corinthians today I read over the burial of my father’s ashes.
“Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous. Love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence…”
How often in our marriages do we try and gain an advantage? How often do we take offence or are resentful?
MONDAY
“David then made his way up the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went, his head covered and his feet bare.” (2 Samuel 15:13-14)
I have stood too on the Mount of Olives and looked across the valley to Jerusalem. Who stands there cannot weep in his heart for this divided history. Even in my own lifetime war has raged across the city.
TUESDAY – The Presentation of the Lord
As chair of the All-Party Russia Group, I take twenty MPs to lunch with the Russian Ambassador in his residence. Later in the Mail on Sunday I am accused of gushing friendship. But there was no gushing of Putin, only of Russian culture and language. Who cannot gush praise on the language of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky?
This is the day when in the Cathedral the crib is at last taken away.
“Now, Master, you can let your servant depart in peace; just as you promised. Because my eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared for all the nations to see.” (Luke 2:22)
Is this the most charming and beautiful passage in the Gospels?
WEDNESDAY – St Blaise
I often seem to have a sore throat and I enjoy getting it blessed today.
I take part in a debate on funding of health authorities.
David seems to get in trouble with the Lord for holding a census. I’m not sure why this is so wrong.
If we make mistakes the consequences seem dire.
“The Lord sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning till the time appointed and plague ravaged the people.” (2 Samuel)
THURSDAY
I make an intervention in the debate on Europe: “My Hon Friend (Bill Cash) is so right to raise the debate above mere technicalities. He will remember that at his school (Stonyhurst) he was told that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Is not the blood of all these parliamentarians who died in defence of this cause the seed of our liberties?”
FRIDAY
I journey down to Downside. It is oblates weekend. I arrive in time for midday prayer and Father Alexander kindly lets me sit in the choir for the rest of the weekend liturgy. I walk down to the beautiful valley, coming back for tea. The only time we talk in the refectory. Later, after compline, I am alone in the vast almost dark abbey. I light a candle and go up to the Bossano painting of the raising of Lazarus. As I look at the painting and think about life and death suddenly a sense of peace arrives. Something quite palpable tells me ‘Do not be afraid; I know of your coming and your passing. I am with you and will shelter you.’
One can reason for years but these all too busy moments of faith and understanding and intuition, rather than any logical process or proof, are more, much more, important.
SATURDAY
A wonderful Mass at 8.35 sung in Latin then an oblates’ day. Already little of the discourses remains with me a week after the event. But does it matter? There is a memory of the quiet psalms with just half a dozen monks and a determination to carry on with the slow painful walk of writing my encounter with the life of Benedict and my view that the revival of the monastic movement depends as much on lay people as full time religious. Just as in the fifth century we live in a violent time. Monasteries are an oasis. But in Benedict’s time, it was lay brothers who led the way.