SUNDAY 9th October – Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

A fresh, bright day with lots of autumn sun and the wind from the North East.
We sail all the way from the river to outside of Portsmouth in a few hours.
We drive home through Surrey to see my sister.

A good day.

MONDAY 10th October – St Paulinus

I meet with the Chief Whip to give him my views on a full decant of Parliament from the Palace of Westminster. I am against. Get on with the work now.

“The only sign it will be given is the sign of Jonah”
How strange that we are still talking about Nineveh, Mosul.

TUESDAY 11th October

I fly to Vienna at the invitation of the Catholic Bishops Conference to address 20 Austrian MPs on why a Catholic voted for Brexit. Lovely people from all parties. Of course they are questioning, but at least 2 say that if they were British they would vote for Brexit.

WESNESDAY 12th October

I go to 8am Mass in St Stephen’s Cathedral, a good attendance and an experience in front of a marvellous icon. Afterwards we climb on to the roof, destroyed by fire in April 1945, and peer over the gargoyles at the street below.

Vienna – a marvellous place of grand nineteenth century buildings, designed for an Empire. A happy place, not too big and unfriendly.

THURSDAY 13th October – St Edward the Confessor

Back to reality.

I spend all day chairing the Higher Education Standing Committee.
I ask a question in Business Questions about the decant of Parliament. Let’s have all the options available. In the evening, before driving up to Lincs I go to Mass.

Why was Edward the Confessor so holy? What did he do, apart from die at the wrong time in 1066 and let in William the Conqueror? But without him we could not have Westminster Abbey.

“Alas for you who build the tombs of the prophets; the men your ancestors kicked”
Luke 11:47-48

What does this mean?

FRIDAY 14th October

I open a skate park, hold a surgery and support the people of Riseholme in their battle to preserve the Agriculture College and its home farm.

But for me, the outstanding moment of the day is visiting an elderly man of 91 who, with great courage, is looking after his wife; shopping, cleaning and cooking, what a hero and an inspiration.

SATURDAY 15th October

We have dinner with His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Russia. I talk to him and his English is perfect. His church is growing fast: 25,000 new churches.

Soviet persecution has failed and Christianity is bouncing back.