This week there have been a couple of blows, though it seems one should scarcely expect anything else from a week in Parliament nowadays.

That aside, the most reassuring thing I heard all week was from the priest in a Mass for the Remembrance of the Departed. He asked the congregation to remember all our dead friends and relatives in our prayers, and specifically list them by name.

This process was curiously comforting. After doing it I had the distant feeling that I was not only praying for them, but that they were praying for me.