The Gospel of John continues:

I tell you most solemnly, whoever keeps my word will never see death. (John 8:51-59)

A promise so dear yet so immeasurable and obscure in the minds of men in its believability!

I watched the enthronement of the new Archbishop of Canterbury. Impressive in its own way, yet in its great mass of the suited lay establishment and the multi-cassocked clerical establishment, lacking the joy and spontaneity of a 100,000 flag-waving members of the Roman public in St Peter’s Square.

I can never forget these two vast set pieces: Mass clear and simple in the Latin of the funeral of Pope John Paul II and the installation of Pope Francis.

When I listen to the tale of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walking about in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3:14, 24-25, 28), I always wonder: did they get out alive? And who was the fourth man?

Of course the Papal Mass was remarkable. The sunshine, the crowds, the Pope in his Jeep reaching out to the people, the Latin Liturgy, the assembled cardinals…

But later I was alone in a small side chapel in Santa Maria di Loreto. The furnishings were modern, uninspiring even, but simple, but the modern stained glass window moved me more than all the liturgy and pomp of the day. It is of the Mother holding the Child.

I couldn’t go to Mass because I was flying to Rome for the papal inauguration having asked all weekend to be allowed to go. Sometimes persistence pays.

I went for a walk and looked out from the Capitoline Hill over the darkened Forum. What shades of a many layered past dwell there.

Dear B,

What does Jesus means when he starts writing on the ground – John 8:1-11. What is he writing? Is he playing for time? Does it matter?

On the radio there was a good quote from Tertulian about death:

“Why worry about something which is inevitable?”

“Prophets do not come out of Galilee.” John 7:40-52

I went for a long walk past the remains, only mounds of earth, of the old priory. We walk in familiar land and we do not know its history or what it really is.

A good day for being readopted and speaking at a Primary School. Jesus comes out perhaps in frustration in the Temple:

“Yes you know me and you know where I came from. Yet I have not come of myself.” John 7:1-2 and 10:25-30.

We start now in John 5:31-47. The long speeches of Jesus give such an insight into his teaching. I have been eager to read John but there is surely no better way than in these Mass readings.

“You study the Scriptures believing that in them you have eternal life; now these scriptures testify to me.”

I had a difficult choice whether to stay in my office and wait for white smoke from the Sistine Chapel or go to Mass. I went to Mass and was rewarded with this from Isaiah 49:15:

“Does a woman forget her baby at the breast or fail to cherish the son of her womb? Yet even if these forget, I will never forget you.”

I came back to hear of the white smoke. There was no difficulty in deciding whether to wait for the new pope to come out on the balcony or to vote, I waited.

Obviously the two readings today have a watery theme but in Ezekiel the point surely is that the water becomes more productive the further away it is from the Temple.

I wonder if the significance of this reading is that the Father only understood a cure had taken place after he got home.

“The Father realised that this was exactly the time when Jesus had said your son will live.” John 4:43-54

Dear T,

I went to Lauds. It was early and I couldn’t find my way in the book. I only really understood the words when we got to the Benedictus and the reference to the little child. But this is an allegory really on our inability to grasp more than a small proportion of what is read to, but does it really matter?

I could not follow Vigils as it was sung so I read it after alone in the dark Abbey Church. This one passage from Psalm 16 moved me indescribably:

“And so my heart rejoices, my soul is glad, even my body shall rest in safety for you will not leave my soul among the dead, not let your beloved know decay.”

This seemed to affect me because I seemed to understand as I read it that a soul having never been a living body can never die as a body dies. And the next verse seemed then and there for a moment to convince me that it had a purpose in its life, to know God.

“You will show me the path of life, the fullness of joy in your presence, at your right hand happiness forever.”

Of course it is all here today – so simple, so clear, and so impossible. The two greatest commandments; perhaps all we can do is like the scribe echo them with approval, even if confoundingly difficult to follow.

“Master, what you have said is true; that He is one and there is no other. To love Him with all your heart, with all your understanding and strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself, this is far more important than any holocaust or sacrifice.” Mark 12:28-39

There is a lot of comment this evening of the downfall of a prominent couple – the advice given today is useful.

“Every Kingdom divided against itself is heading for ruin, and a household divided against itself collapses.” Luke 11:14-17

The reading today is tough but is it literal or just a guide? I find this hard to believe but I am still on a journey.

“… not one dot, not one little stroke, shall disappear from the law until its purpose is achieved.” Matthew 5:17-19

The story about the servant being forgiven and not forgiving always leads to a slight guilty conscience. It looks like we will all be handed over to the torturers because how can we keep this rule.

“… And that is how my heavenly Father will deal with you unless you each forgive your brother from your heart.” (Matthew 18: 21-35)

The long reading about Naman passed over me gently. But what arrested my attention was the Psalm:

“My soul is thirsting for God, the God of my life. When can I enter and see the face of God.”

There are these moments when something chides; this was just such a time.

The Lenten hymns in the Abbey Church never fail to move, like ‘Think on Me’. But as I went for a long walk after the words of another hymn, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”, came coming back to me.

At first I could only feel for the words. One by one they came back and I had to check the last couple at Vespers, but in a way this hymn contains everything, an antidote to our self-obsession. “My greatest gain I count but loss.”

A wonderfully sunny day: spring weather at last.

I walked along the edge of the wolds to the church of Normanby le Wold. It is the highest church in Lincolnshire, at 447 feet. Heavily restored by Fowler, fallen into dilapidation before.

Named Normanby after the Norse rather than Danish community that settled here in the ninth century, with some fine Victorian paintings. We have one from the same artist in Stainton le Vale. What a gorgeous setting and a tonic for depression.

I was in Lincoln for the Cathedral Council. Attending Eucharist at 12:30, I looked and stared at the vast east window soaring up in giddy magnificence and, there too, the maquette of the new statue of the Virgin Mary, a re-creation of an ancient source of pilgrimage.

“It was the stone rejected by the builders that became the keystone.”

“Father, I beg you then to send Lazarus to my father’s house, since I have five brothers, to give them warning.” (Luke 16:19-31)

I always find this just about the most disturbing reading because the poor old rich man didn’t do anything really wrong: he wasn’t nasty to the poor man.

One feels a slight frisson of fear when you walk past a Big Issue seller and not buy one.

“Promise that these two sons of mine may one sit at your right hand and the other on your left in your kingdom.” (Matthew 20:17-28)

The mother of Zebedee was rebuked, of course.

But it’s actually what we all want. But Heaven surely, if it exists in any pointful way, would somehow ensure we were all up real close!

“Do not be guided by what they do, since they are not practicing what they preach.” (Matthew 23:1-12)

At Mass, I feel a palpable intake of breath, although everyone was too polite to intake their breath.

We were thinking of the current admissions of a certain cardinal.

Dear N,

Lying awake, I thought, saying the Our Father to myself, that really everything is contained in the first line. Indeed, everything is contained in every line.

“Our Father, Who art in Heaven.”

If that is true, if God is in Heaven, if He is our father, he exists and nothing else really is important.