SUNDAY 11th September – Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We climb the Rock to say hello to a family of monkeys, including a baby, and go into the caves and we fly back. I get to the 7pm Mass in Westminster Cathedral.

Collect:
Look upon us o God, creator and maker of all things.

MONDAY 12th September – The Most Holy name of Mary

I ask a question in the chamber.

“Give peace, o Lord, to those who wait for you”.

TUESDAY 13th September

The hottest September day since 1911 and I spend the morning chairing the Higher Education committee and asking about Hinckley Power Station.

WEDNESDAY 14th September – The Exultation of the Holy Cross

The Cathedral has a relic and we bless it. Where, I wonder, does it come from?

THURSDAY 15th September – Our Lady of Sorrows

A long, hot chairing of the Higher Education committee. I send an email to all colleagues arguing against the complete decant of the House of Commons for six years – a typical Rolls Royce solution, over engineered. Why can we not make do and mend?

“Simeon said to Mary: Behold, this child is destined for the ruin and rising of many in Israel and to be a sign of contradiction and your own soul a sword will pierce”.

FRIDAY 16th September

A rare delight – the children come up to Lincolnshire. We take Monti for a long walk and four times let him off the lead, four times he runs away chasing pheasants and rabbits. But for Theo sprinting we would never catch him.

“If there is no resurrection of the dead, Christ himself cannot have been raised, and if Christ has not been raised then our preaching is useless”.
1 Corinthians 15:13-15

SATURDAY 17th September

Monti is now on a long rope, a more peaceful walk.

Collect:
Look upon us o God, creator and maker of all things, that we may feel the working of your mercy.