There was a programme on television about some young women becoming nuns.

I can quite understand the impulse but can we not be just as committed in ordinary lay life? No, almost certainly not, but for half an hour a day, yes.

Does an athlete have to run all day and live in an athletic camp? No, he can run half an hour a day and in that half an hour have as intense an experience as any Olympic athlete.

I was struck at Mass by one phrase in the letter of St Paul to the Romans.

“My brothers, there is no necessity for us to obey our unspiritual selves.”

But we do, all the time.

The reading from Matthew today always seems to me so simple yet so impossible to implement.

“…to love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind.”

The second even more impossible.

“You must love your neighbour as yourself.” (Matthew 22:34-40)

Does anyone do it?

St Paul continues his discourse on the spiritual and inspirational.

“It is death to limit oneself to what is unspiritual.”

Surely no one can contend that notion, for the atheist accepts that life ends in death.

St Paul today talks of the struggle that is always within us between the spirit and the world.

“Every single time I want to do good it is something evil that comes to mind.” (Romans)

But in a small, simple, existential pleasure like hoisting a spinnaker up a mast, that angst seems dissipated.

I always find these words difficult, powerful yet alarmingly and no doubt true:

“Jesus said to his disciples… Do you suppose that I am here to bring peace on Earth? No, I tell you but rather division.” (Luke 12:49-53)

These words struck me at Mass, particularly for someone like me who is a natural doubter.

“The language of the Cross may be illogical to those who are not on the way to salvation. But those who are on the way see it as God’s power to save.” (St Paul to the Corinthians)

True, the Cross is illogical, but it draws you into it.

“Here I am Lord. I come to do Your will.” Ps 39

This is all I could remember of the Mass as soon as it was over in the Cathedral, but it is enough.

When I was attending the Cathedral Council at Lincoln recently I suggested that they should make more of the fact that once upon a time, the Shrine of St. Hugh of Lincoln was once a major pilgrimage site. Thirty years ago only a handful of people walked the route to St. James of Compostela. Now, 300,000 a year do so. On 12 November the new Bishop of Lincoln is being consecrated. Perhaps Gabriel might make an imaginary walk from London to Lincoln calling at the places he might have done in centuries past, starting a couple of weeks before.

“This is what I will do: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones… I will say to my soul. You have plenty of good things laid up… But God said to him You fool, this very night a demand will be made for your soul.” (Luke 12:13-21)

Why do we worry so much about the transient instead of the eternal?

It was the end of the week on Saturday evening at Vespers. The reading was about Christ after the Resurrection calmly eating some boiled fish in front of the disciples. Suddenly, for an instant, it all seemed true, that it could not possibly have been made up. Then the moment passed but the week had progressed from small beginnings.

A friend was talking to me about her experience at Medjugorje. She had spoken to one of the visionaries who said that Our Lady had said “Tell my child that all that is important is love, joy, and peace.” That night, lying awake for a long time, those words turned in my mind.

The reading for today’s saint, Saint Callistus, seemed apposite:

“No the greatest among you most behave as if he is the youngest.” (Luke 22:24-30)

One of the great is being laid low. It happens every day. Perhaps the only route to happiness is in St Therese’s way of being small and unnoticed.

With a friend we were reading that of the greatest trees, a few have the smallest seeds.

The reading was from St Paul about faith flowing on from faith. To me it seems like a river from small beginnings to a mighty stream.

I moved a motion that was defeated by 200 to 61 but in defeat we achieved a review. Something gained.

The reading was about the King having to go out into the street to gather in tramps because none of the invited guests wanted to come.

We were told that this reading is all about having to go where we would rather not and often this is best for us. I thought of this as the theme for this week.

I went to Evensong at Durham Cathedral where I was a student forty years ago. Of course the stark Norman setting is magnificent but from all the anthems and psalms one response stayed in my mind. “Do not let my heart grow cold within me.” But immediately my mind wandered, perhaps to something cold.

Today’s little grace: a day of long driving but at the start of a ten-hour drive, even a few moments at the back of the Cathedral was worth something.

The moment of grace: finally finishing my speech on humanitarian aid to Africa to the Council of Europe. Job done.

The moment of grace: a Mass at the Cathedral packed with young.

I was looking at some Surrealist paintings and I was struck by the importance of not always looking at the things in a concrete and rationalist way. This thought was curiously relaxing. On the way back to the hotel, reality set in: my bicycle tyre got caught in a tram track. I flew off. When I got up, I realised the little finger or the end of it was at a horrible angle and obviously broken.

The moment of grace: the excellent French health service that straightened it.

A very long drive to the Council of Europe at Strasbourg. The moment of grace, closing my eyes and seeing a kind of translucent orange glow as dawn broke.

A day of moving about so I just got to the Cathedral five minutes before it closed. The small little moment of grace.

A week trying to recognise her little graces. St Therese tells us that every day one should look for some little spiritual grace. This I tried to do this week.