Dear T,

Thank you for the beautiful picture sent electronically and reminding me “Thou art dust…”.

We all know it too well, or do we?

Every Ash Wednesday I go to the Cathedral. I find it profoundly moving to receive the ashes and listen to Allegri’s Miserere. When I get back to work, someone invariably says “What’s that bit of dust on your forehead?”

The readings in this last week of Ordinary Time before Lent come from Genesis. I know some people, you may think that it’s all rather unscientific, not very Darwinian, but it is sheer poetry.

Poetry makes up for a lot in life. It may not be the literal truth, but it points to the literality of truth.

God said “Let the waters teem with living creatures and let birds fly above the earth within the vault of Heaven.” (Genesis 1:20-2-4)

Dear T,

We went off to see my old history teacher. He has died at a very great age. We took his 96 year old widow to see him.

I know it sounds morbid but visiting a dead person who has lived a good long life is good. Everything suddenly falls into perspective. He taught for forty years and survived tours over Germany in Bomber Command.

Dear N,

Once again I could not remember the day’s readings. I had to go through four decades of the Rosary to get to sleep, but at Mass I remembered Tuesday’s readings from Isaiah. This talks of the prophet being inspired by a hot coal touching his lips. I then remembered that the priest the day before had been talking about how our lips should not lead us astray.

I was dreaming last night that I was in some difficult foreign country. There was some sort of revolution going on. There was some sort of corruption with power. For some reason, a sign suddenly appeared on the side of the road. It was like one of those signs one sees of the edges of public paths detailing local by-laws. This one detailed a few words of Jesus Christ – what it was doing in this hot, chaotic climate I didn’t know. All I remember in my dream is that one of the violent gang, looking at me askance out of the back of the limo. The dream did not relate if the sign did any good.

I was angry that one of my children was doing something he wanted to do. Nothing worked until after Mass – I looked at the statue of Mary – I knew that love is not about what I want, namely for him to be with me, but what he wants:

“See now, this has touched your lips, your sin is taken away, your iniquity is purged.”
Isaiah 6:1–2

Saturday, Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Dear M,

Once again I couldn’t remember what I had been told at Mass, except that it was beautiful.

On Saturday morning, a Sung Mass in Latin at the Cathedral – the best of the week. Then a funny thing happened. Out of the mess in our house, objects occasionally surface for no apparent reason. After years of burial under other items, today a penny catechism emerged from my childhood. It had my name written in childish letters on the front. The newspaper was, as usual, so depressing that I started reading the catechism instead. I found this question and answer:

“6. What do you mean when you say that your soul is immortal?
When I say my soul is immortal, I mean that my soul can never die.”

Quite suddenly at that moment I believed. I believed I believed because in the past I had doubted I could survive death, but of course I can’t survive death, I am going to die but my soul is separate in a way I never understood before. It is not me and never has been: that is the me of the domineering body.

I knew this because I was reading the question and answer with an earlier one:

“4 & 5. Is this likeness to God in your body or in your soul?
My soul is like to God because it is a spirit and is immortal.”

This question and answer made sense of something that I had never quite accepted before:

“3. To whose image and likeness did God create?
God made me in his own image and likeness. This likeness to God is chiefly in my soul.”

We then, the people who walk this earth, are transitory and bear the image and likeness of God. But maybe – and ponder this and let it give you hope that our soul does, because only in our soul are we like God in any real way – this likeness to God is chiefly in my soul.

Friday, Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Dear B,

I couldn’t remember the readings at Mass. This often happens to me. I shouldn’t let it worry me. The important thing is to go and let it waft over you.

But I do remember this: someone came up to me at the end and thanked me for what I had said in defence of the Church’s teaching on marriage. He said improbably that I would be lucky after my death because we are thanked by God for what we have done in life.

I have two problems with this: I am not absolutely certain there is life after death and if there is, I’m not sure if my selfish life deserves any thanks.

But I remember how the priest referred to his angel: be careful what you say to a stranger, he may be an angel.

So irrespective of what you believe, look on all strangers as potential angels.

Dear T,

I sat all day in a long committee meeting which I don’t enjoy. I seem to have a low boredom threshold. But boredom, like perceived obstacles, is only an attitude of mind.

Peale tells of his golf ball being struck in the rough. A friend asked him to bend down and feel the grass around the ball, even taste it. The individual blades of grass were quite smooth so getting the ball out of the “rough” was only an attitude of mind.

Remember, he says, the rough is only mental.

Wednesday, Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Dear N,

I am continuing to read Norman Vincent Peale. He tells the story of travelling salesman who made very few sales. Then one day another salesman gave him a three-sentence prayer that transformed his life. Just before he confronted a customer he repeated it:

“I believe I am always divinely guided. I believe I will always take the night turn of the road. I believe God will always make a way where these is no way.”

It seemed to do the trick. He made a sale 85 per cent of the time.

At Mass we heard of a very different life: that of St. Paul Miki and his companions, martyred in Japan in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Perhaps the prayer is as useful to travelling salesman in the US as martyrs in Japan or even us.

Dear T,

We had the great debate on same-sex civil marriage. I was worried about quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church, but the words can indeed apply to any faith or any supporter of traditional marriage.

Sometimes in the Cathedral there is a funeral on Mondays. One’s first instinct is to turn away from the 10:30 Mass. But it is worth staying.

There is something humbling about going to the funeral of a complete stranger; it is not so much a celebration of a life as an affirmation of life. There was one passage that stuck in my mind: That you have to love when you die.

Monday

The priest at Mass had a simple formula for all problems – look at the Cross! It seems to work, just visualise it physically.

Tuesday

I got my Ten Minute Rule Bill passed. Of course it will never become law, but there is a warm sense of achievement in winning a vote in the Commons by 81 to 31 votes.

Wednesday

We went to a memorial service of a friend in Lincolnshire. She was the most efficient person I knew but no one really commented on that, only that she has a great capacity to love.

Thursday

I am continuing to enjoy the book by Norman Vincent Peale. His central thesis of the power of positive thinking must be right. But he links it with the magic and power of phrases from the New Testament, endlessly repeated, like this:

“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” (Philippians 4:13)

Surely if you keep on repeating this you cannot fail, at least in your own mind.

Friday

A near-ninety-year-old man came to my surgery. He was brought here in 1945 as a German Prisoner of War. For seventy years he has not bothered to get British citizenship. He has never asked for a passport. Now he would like to see his 90-year-old sister in Germany, whom he has not seen for 70 years. What beauty in simplicity and perseverance.

Saturday

We went to Candlemas. We walked into the darkened church up the stairs holding our candles. Is there any more patient and fulfilled speech than that of Simeon?

Dear T,

Another phrase recommended by Peale which I turned over in my mind in front of the fire in the country pub:

“Whosoever shall say to this mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have what so ever he saith.” (Mark 11:23)

Surely these two readings are alone enough to keep one going!

Dear N,

We were at my son’s school. We had travelled some distance, but he was not at Mass with the rest of the boys.

We looked everywhere for him but then suddenly at the Communion he appeared at the altar, in a surprise, he had been there all the time.

Sometimes things are there, obvious before us, but we don’t see them because we assume the worst.

And now the clouds are driven away, it is a bright blue day. The air alpine in its sun and freshness. I sat outside in the snow as one does in the Alps. And I closed my eyes and listened. There was a slight breath of air in the trees and then far, far away the merest hint of a bird call, so quiet and so beautiful.

It is true that words said long ago can lead one into a different world.

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.” (John 14:27)

But as I heard for a tiny instant that bird singing I was happy.

I was in a high place on the Lincolnshire Wolds. The cold was so deeply penetrating. The very bare leaves were frozen into immovability, becoming an ice sculpture. The wind cut my face, my feet slowed on the deep climb, wearyingly. The lake itself is not dark but light, snow-covered, reflecting. Its very depth hidden, its surface all important as a source of light.

I chaired a Bill Committee for nearly five hours. This is not rushing and fretting but the need to concentrate enervates and tires. A few minutes at Mass was a welcome relief.

By chance I learned it was the feast of St. Francis de Sales. I am reading about him at the moment. I always think of him as one of the first religious to show that being a full time religious is not a necessary prerequisite to a deep spiritual life. That all life can be encompassed in religiosity.

I had tried shooting prayers at unknowing fellow travellers in the train. There was a chap opposite me who was particularly fidgety. He seemed agitated as he worried on some obviously very serious accounts. He played unnecessarily with his mobile phone but shooting prayers did not work.

Then right at the end of the journey he returned a pen to the guard who had lent him one. A wonderful charming smile of thanks came over his face. Perhaps the prayer helped or perhaps, probably, I first misjudged him as we often do.

Later that day, after rushing about taking my daughter to Heathrow and speaking in the 1922 Committee, I had a short break from rushing in the 6PM Mass in the Crypt. All night the Taize chant kept coming back to me and then the next morning I couldn’t remember any of it.

I was reading my very old book by Norman Peale on the long French journey. I tend to get noticed by young people on trains. I just happened to read that Mr Peale recommended you to shoot positive prayers out at people who irritate you. I shot a prayer at my neighbour.

As we got up to leave the train, he said in French “I have read that book, it’s full of positive thinking.” How strange that a stranger should mention a foreign-language book written sixty years before.

I missed the Mass in the Cathedral but just before it closed I sat in the back. It was empty apart from two people sitting far apart half and three quarters way down the nave. I noticed over some minutes that whilst I was fidgeting, they were still, completely still.

Who were they? An antidote to the crowd who at the half-hour going of the astronomical clock raced to it as if it was amazing and miraculous. The still people had more point and purpose.

I was on a long journey, and it got longer – stretching out to over 8 hours as the train trundled over the snow. By the afternoon I could not remember the wedding feast at Cana. Although later I remembered it summed up the beneficial power of healing water. And then on the way back from the Cathedral I popped into the local Church.

Everyone had left save one who prompted said “Go over to her,” the shrine of Mary, “She’s returned today.”

Their because of the train delays I had an hour to kill in Paris and popped into the Church near the Gare de l’Est. The sermon mentioned the strange fact about this St. John reading; there is no mention of bride and bridegroom at the Cana wedding – aren’t they always the centre of interest?

Then later I remembered that my friend the Wednesday before had mentioned. Read St. John. It is different, every reading has a symbol. The symbol here is that Jesus is the bridegroom – married to his new vocation. It had taken an hour train journey and these Churches to prompt my memory. So although religious healing seems illogical if you work at it logic comes mysteriously to the surface.

I talked to a group from “Catholic Voices”.

They are all young, ready to speak up for their values on radio, television and in the public square. Meeting them was like being galvanized by an electric shock – we are not alone.

Perhaps here it is. I had picked up an old book from a second hand book stall – The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale (seen above) published 60 years ago.

Does anyone read it now?

One of his bits of advice is ten times a day repeat “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” (Philippians 4:13). Peale calls this the magic statement that is the most powerful antidote on earth to discouraging thoughts.

A friend of mine has read my book. He is more orthodox and rigorous than me and doesn’t have my struggles with faith.

His advice to me is: “Don’t try and understand God the Father, he is too much beyond our comprehension. Use Christ as an intermediator. He is human, understandable.”

This is the classic Christian argument and of course true but I wonder why are our main prayers – “Our Father, who art in heaven…” or Hail Mary…” – don’t address Christ by name. We need a regular Christ prayer.

I went to the British Museum with a friend. He had read about and wanted to see the Portland Vase in Room 70 amongst the Roman objects. It is a quiet room away from the bustling crowds around the Egyptian Mummies. Soon after arrival, it was deliberately smashed into 125 pieces by a visitor and faithfully glued together again.

What does the beautiful object tell us? It tells us, Gabriel, that beauty is worthwhile in itself. It serves no purpose, has no religious iconography, just gentle human forms. There are numerous arguments about what it all means. Does it matter if you look at it from above? A deep black seems to rise up from the penetrating blue shielding the white figures. In its colour it is almost spiritual.

We won today a long standing campaign to remove the word “insulting” from Section 5 of the Public Order Act.

It is now OK to use strong argument even if someone claims they have been “insulted.”

It is a great advance for freedom and for religious people and secular people to argue their case strongly.