Drear Gabriel,

This Feast may have perplexed you, as it has me over the years.

How could a woman, a mere mortal, have been made sinless all her life? Start by looking at the story in an allegorical way. If God exists, he would need a messenger – Christ. If Christ, God and Man, exists, he needs a mother, wholly human – the Virgin Mary. As a mother of God, she cannot be with sin. Anyway, away with these baffled attempts at argument.

I went to a Mass in the Little Oratory for my son’s school.

During the singing of the ‘Credo,’ The Schuola of boys’ voices took over to sing the “Homo Factus Est”. They sang it so slowly and beautifully and with such feeling, that tears welled in my eyes. Ultimately, religion is not and cannot be a rational experience. It has to be enjoyed as an emotional one.

Yours ever,

Thomas

Dear Gabriel,

I went today to a Carol Service taken by the Archbishop of Canterbury. I love this man’s sermons. His voice has such a rich, deep quality, his thoughts so penetrating and profound. His simple message: God’s Kingdom is here already all about us in this world. We don’t have to strive to create it on Earth.

Indeed, that might be counter-productive, because I suppose our version might be very different from others. So, dear Gabriel, wherever you are, do not despair. I am in a café as I write this. God may be seated at the next table. We may not be able to see Him that I do not know yet, though I hope one day to know with certainty that He is there.

Yours,

Thomas

Dear Gabriel,

It is strange how little catastrophes can help lead one to a truth. I have a little statue of an angel left to me by my mother. A child had dropped it, weeks before probably, and she was missing her hands.

I spent the afternoon on the dusty floor of the study – peering into corners – and finally found two tiny, broken off hands. Then, with difficulty, I tried to stick them back on with Super Glue. The glue stuck to my hands, which then stuck together with one of the broken hands. I botched it, but, dear Gabriel, in this job I found much pleasure. Eventually, with her hands slightly askew, and I fear upside down, the virgin was again in prayer. Try to find pleasure from little problems and the contemplation they bring.

Yours Ever,

Thomas

Dear Gabriel,

At the monastery today we looked in great detail at John 11­ – the Raising of Lazarus. This was the end of our retreat and it was only right that having looked last Easter at the parable of the Vine we should end with this. At first, reading these passages can be done almost too easily. It’s only with repeated readings and exegesis that the full majesty and depth of virtually every feature comes to the fore. And every sentence has another meaning.

I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.

As I read this passage several times and imagined it and studied the picture exhibited in the Abbey Church, attributed to Borromeo, of the raising of Lazarus, an extraordinary coming of certainty and belief in the truth of the story came to me. I know that I have often doubted, but, dear Gabriel, I tell you that it is worth reading and pondering on. Something special might happen for you, too.

Yours,

Thomas

Dear Gabriel,

Try getting away occasionally and going on a retreat, even if only for a couple of days. I am at Downside at the moment. I love this place in its rural setting, especially at twilight, as the candles flicker around the Lady Chapel and the statue of Christ. I felt a need to go and sit where I could look at the Blessed Sacrament.

Looking at it, problems do not go away, but they do seem less significant – as if they could be wished away. Later, during Vespers, a chant: ‘Orare Pro Me,’ repeated itself again and again. A sharp determination to overcome problems became sharper still.

On Sunday I got up early, in the dark, and sat alone in the Abbey church before Lauds. A monk came and celebrated Mass alone in a side chapel whose light was a pin prick in the great dark Abbey. Again, I pondered problems and sought solutions. But the solution was there beside me in the Eucharist and its saving grace.

Yours,

Thomas

Dear Gabriel,

It is worth looking for a spiritual aspect even in non spiritual works. I was reading Tolkien’s The Two Towers for the upteenth time today. There is a lovely passage in the Window on the West when Frodo and Sam meet Faramir in Ithillen. Before they eat, the men of Gondor turn to the West.

We look towards Numenor that was, and beyond to Elvenhome that is and that which is beyond Elvenhome which will ever be.” Tolkien was religious but is careful to excise it from the ‘Lord of the Rings.’ But here is a passage that points to his belief in heaven.

Dear Gabriel,

I was reading a passage from a religious book with a friend. It said “view death not as an end but just changing homes.” It is a good thought, but you might go further. Death is not just changing homes because heaven is here now, all around us. If it exists, I don’t think that it is in some distant place up in the sky or in space. It is here now; it is as if you could stretch out and put your hand through that curtain in the room and it would be there.

Yours,

Doubting Thomas

Dear Gabriel,

I had to go to a very difficult meeting with a friend of mine today – a priest. It actually went quite well, contrary to expectations and what was said at the beginning. Afterwards, travelling back on the tube he told me he had left a holy meditation in one of the seats. Mother Theresa used to do this.

I know we like to think we are rationalists and this sort of magic is mumbo jumbo, but don’t dismiss that which goes beyond the rational. Be prepared to be a bit magical.

There is so much beyond the perverse world which we cannot comprehend.

Yours,

Doubting Thomas

Dear Gabriel,

Today, the reading is about the Centurion.

And when Jesus entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. [Matt. 8]

Of course, for the Jews listening to Jesus, what would have struck them about this story was that it took a hated Roman Conqueror to be so happy to accept Jesus’ will and be so strong in faith. But this story is very relevent in this doubting world.

We are Romans – the last people who might have faith – and therefore this story is for us.

Today, at the start of the Church’s liturgical year, I start a new series of Another Country. I will do it in the form of a letter to one of my six children, but so that I don’t favour any particular one, I shall address it to one we never had – Gabriel.

We always liked this name, but never used it.

Dear Gabriel,

Today a copy of Awake arrived from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I would never join them, but some of their literature is worth reading, so be polite when they turn up at your door!

They give five secrets of happiness:

1) Love people, not money or possessions. ‘The love of money is a root of all sorts of injurious things.’ [Timothy 6:10]

2) Resist the urge to compare yourself with others. ‘Do your work well and then you will have something to be proud of.’ [Galatians 6:4]

3) Maintain an appreciative attitude. ‘In connection with everything, give thanks.’ [Thessalonians 5:18]

4) Chose your friends wisely. ‘He that is walking with wise persons will become wise.’ [Proverbs 13:2]

5) Satisfy your spiritual needs. ‘Happy are those conscious of their Spiritual need.’ [Matthew 5:3]

I would add to the first: love people not power or reputation. Easy for me to say, because I have been in the backbenches for twenty-five years and have never been offered power. But the love of power is as corrosive to speaking your own truth in your own way as the love of money. Perhaps it is worse.

To the second, I would add: Resist the urge to compare yourself to what you might have been or may become. Live for the present to help you work at the present. Look at nature – not just a glorious star flecked sky or sunset, but also the leaves of a plane tree in a city.

This helps in the third instruction – to maintain an appreciative attitude. If all else fails, remember that you are alive.

The fourth speaks for itself.

The fifth is the most important: ‘Satisfy your spiritual needs.’ The world has grown enormously in material happiness and, particularly in the West, stalled on spiritual happiness. I don’t quite know why. Perhaps we can investigate these together later.

This is the last week of the Church year. The readings are from the book of the Apocolypse. For the Atheist, this is one of the most wildly incomprehensible and ridiculous books of the New testament.

Even if you don’t believe in its content, however, you can still love the poetry. Today’s reading:

And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God:

For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.

And again they said, Alleluia And her smoke rose up for ever and ever.

(Revelation 19:1-3)

Christopher Hitchens, one of our most prominent atheist commentators, was in the Times today. He has a very severe cancer. He has put his view of death rather nicely. He doesn’t fear death because he won’t know about it, but if he does wake up in an afterlife, he says it will be a pleasant surprise.

I once heard Billy Graham saying much the same thing: “I don’t fear death, only dying.”

Billy Graham has seemingly unconquerable faith. Christopher Hitchens may have little or none, but they are not far apart – and I am in the middle.

If you go to the 10:30 Mass at the Cathedral, you sometimes come across a funeral. Most funerals are private affairs in a small chapel. Here there were few members of the family but the usual 50 or so strangers seated around the vast building. I feel a bit of an interloper on these occasions, but actually, it sums up that death is for anyone, anytime. Eileen was the lady whose funeral it was. I never met her and perhaps never will. Or perhaps I may.

Mata Amritanandamayi again:

Personally I am not interested in celebrating my birthday. The real ‘birthday’ is when the thought ‘I was born’ dies. If we were to live each day as our last day – that is, to live each day to the fullest and share as much love as possible, then each day would be like a birthday: each day would be a celebration. In fact, we should realise that every birthday is also a ‘death day,’ because every birthday takes us closer to death. But people are afraid of death, so in order to forget death, they celebrate their birth instead.

We paid a visit to another old school of mine (I have several), the Reading Oratory in Berkshire. This is the only school to be founded by a Saint – Cardinal Newman. At first he only had seven boys. One of his ideas in education was that the headmaster should know all his boys’ names – not too hard with just seven! I paid a visit to Norris House where I was a boy. It was sad to see a picture of my late brother there. Underneath it, there seemed to be a picture of my youngest son – but it was me forty-five years ago. Anxious, serious and surprisingly neat.

We were taken to the old chapel. In my day, we had a choice at 7:30 of prep or Mass. Mass was preferable, because one could go to sleep there. It seemed as old and as unchanged as ever.

Thank you to Clive Dytor, the Headmaster, for taking us round and for turning the school around to become one of the best Catholic schools in the Country. Newmanesque, he knows the names of all the boys. In my day, the head was a kindly but fierce Benedictine Monk who, for some reason, wouldn’t let me go to Winston Churchill’s lying-in-state, He thought my studies should come first and that it wasn’t fair on the other boys who didn’t have a ticket… Fair enough.

At school, I went into the bottom set – 4d (yes, there was a 4a, 4b and a 4c). They told us that Latin was beyond us, so I led a revolt, saying we should be allowed to do it. To the credit of the authorities, they let us. It was my earliest political victory. There haven’t been many since.

Edward Leigh, leading a revolt of Oratory School students.

I went to the Confirmation service of my son at the Brompton Oratory. It was sobering and almost uncanny to see the children in the same place, in the same uniforms, reciting the same things as I had done nearly half a century previously.

I even remember the Bishop asking us all a question. My hand shot up – my first political act – and typically, I got the answer wrong! After the Confirmation in Latin we had Benediction, all according to the rite. The timeless words drifted in and out of my mind. Whether they penetrated the minds of the boys is debatable, but they will not forget the experience, even in fifty years time.

Tantum ergo Sacramentum
Veneremur cernui:
Et antiquum documentum
Novo cedat ritui:
Praestet fides supplementum
Sensuum defectui.

Walking from a constituency engagement in Market Rasen to my home, I descended the valley and was faced with an extraordinary contrast of shades of green, pale blue, browns and an utterly still lake, shining like glass. It was a scene of extraordinary beauty and peace. If felt almost like nature’s response to the woes of the world.

I went to confession and confessed that I was too easily irritated by other people. Within a few minutes of penance, I went to mass and was soon irritated by the person in front of me talking. My sin free period had lasted precisely ten minutes.

At Mass this week we were reminded that Mass can come in many different forms. Latin or English, traditional music or guitars – but ultimately it is a tool to achieve a numinous experience and a path to experience the divine.

I went to the Stonyhurst dinner. There was an excellent talk by the curator of the museum.

Objects have a wonderful power which words don’t, as we saw in the ‘History of the World in A Hundred Objects.’ The collection at Stonyhurst is wonderfully eclectic: a beautiful book of hours, capes, and even the eye of a Matyr. History is here under one’s hands.

November is a month of praying for the dead. A humanist sees this as a pointless exercise. Even as a religious person, I feel it difficult.

What, precisely, are we trying to achieve for the dead person? A quicker passage through Purgatory, perhaps? Reading this month’s Oratory Magazine, we are told that it is one of the most important things we can do. I tried it out with initial reluctance.

Curiously, once I had prayed for three friends that had died, I felt a lot better – as if I had achieved something.

I went to the Civic Service at Gainsborough for Rememberance Sunday. This always a dignified and moving occasion. This year, I noticed that the minister had added a Taizé chant.

O Lord hear my prayer
O Lord, hear my prayer
When I call answer me
O Lord, hear my prayer
O Lord, hear my prayer
Come and listen to me

This was sung as the bidding prayers were made. I thought it beautifully done and added a spiritual element to a civic occasion.

Perhaps it is a good sign of the times that a purely spiritual chant is considered appropriate at this sort of occasion. Certainly, the church was packed.

I came upon the footbridge
And stopped to listen there
and all stood still but the gurgling brook
And the fading leaves in the Autumn air

I heard my boys’ voices distant accross the field
My daughters’ footsteps approaching
A distant dog bark
A machine far away

But here in the wold surrounded valley
Our own noise was muted; our thoughts stopped too
And the Water moved on under the footbridge
Never changing, always new

Past and future had never been
Only the gently swaying leaf above,
And lapping below the wooden bridge;
This moving stream

This moment was the only news
The only event and reality
Bursting upon the silence
But gently, slowly; sweetly

A shot; the brass clad Pheasant rises
From the woods to the top of the hill

To a view of many miles beneath
Deep ploughed brown furrows
and a short, green clad figure on the heath

Far away I glimpse the marsh and plain.
And the quiet church of Tetford is hidden yet present
Ancient stones and many generations.

Before travelling up to Lincolnshire I went to the Gauguin exhibition at the Tate Modern. Always when I go around these exhibitions I feel inspired to carry on painting. One’s own lack of any talent or skill means that there is nothing one has to prove; just to try.

The exhibition includes Gauguin’s “Yellow Christ”. What is interesting about this crucifixion scene is that contains Breton Women. There is, therefore, something contemporary within this rendition of an otherwise ancient image.

I went to the Requiem Mass for the deceased of my old school, the Oratory. The usual list of diseased Oratorians from before and around the time I was there was read out, but also mentioned was a brave young officer killed in Afghanistan.

War is never just a matter of numbers and policy – it is the terrible impact of death to individuals and the bereavement of those left behind.

Faure’s music and the words of the Requiem were hauntingly soothing:

Requiem aeternam dona eis.
Domine, et lux perpetua,
Requiem aeternam,
Aeternam dona eis.
Perpetua luceat.

We are reminded of Newman’s Dream of Gerontius. All of us will make this journey with trepidation, or even with acceptance.

I was having a most interesting conversation with a friend about science.

Apparently – and I am badly versed in all this – the spaceships launched out of the Solar System in the ’70s are not slowing down and coming to a stop, as Physics would predict, but rather they are speeding up. Physics has had to invent Dark Matter to explain this phenomenon.

Science, then, is never still. It is always expanding and moving. It is not like slowly building a rigid house of knowledge, making God redundant the moment the roof is complete. I suspect that Science will no more do this in a hundred or a thousand years than the next ten, or last hundred.

This is an interesting feast, because the Basilica di San Giovanni, Laterano, is the Mother Church – founded, incredibly, as long ago as 324. But what I love about today is the reading from Ezekiel. It is the beautiful imagery of the water flowing down to the sea which is so enchanting.

Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple; there, water was flowing from below the threshold of the temple towards the east (for the temple faced east); and the water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar. Then he brought me out by way of the north gate, and led me round on the outside to the outer gate that faces towards the east; and the water was coming out on the south side.”

He said to me, ‘This water flows towards the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah; and when it enters the sea, the sea of stagnant waters, the water will become fresh. Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish, once these waters reach there. It will become fresh; and everything will live where the river goes. People will stand fishing beside the sea from En-gedi to En-eglaim; it will be a place for the spreading of nets; its fish will be of a great many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea. But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they are to be left for salt. On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.

(Ezekiel 47: 1-2 & 8-10)