Sunday 23 February 2020 — Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

I am struck by the litany of St Gregory which I always read after Mass in the Holy Rood.

“From eternal death, deliver us, O Lord.”

That is a more powerful way of putting it than going on about eternal life.

That is what the atheists are offering us: eternal death. Surely none of us wants that, or even think it very likely.

Monday 24 February 2020

I manage to get to Mass at the Cathedral.

“But if at heart you have the bitterness of jealousy, or a self-seeking ambition, never make any claims for yourself.” (James 3)

Well — easily said, not so easily done. We are all at the centre of our own little universe.

Tuesday 25 February 2020 — Shrove Tuesday

James 4:1

“Where do these wars and battles between yourselves first start? Isn’t it precisely in the desires fighting inside your own selves?”

Precisely.

Wednesday 26 February 2020 — Ash Wednesday

I can’t do my usual and listen to Allegri’s Miserere at the 5:30 Mass so I make do with the Latin one at 10:30. Very calm and peaceful.

I am always struck by this passage from Matthew 6:

“Be careful not to parade your good deeds before men.”

Should I be doing this blog at all? Or just keep quiet?

Thursday 27 February 2020

I am at Wilton Park for an FCO conference on Nigeria and religious violence. What a delight to have Mass for just six of us said by the Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja, Cardinal Onaiyekan. So calm and spiritual in all this talk of violence.

Friday 28 February 2020

I go to Evensong in Lincoln Cathedral. Always a delight to listen to Cranmer’s prose. No one can ruin this service: it is incapable of change.

The huge empty nave, luckily with no chairs — a silent witness.

Saturday 29 February 2020

A reading of a psalm in the village church.

“Turn your ear, O Lord, and give answer: for I am poor and needy.” (Psalm 85)

Sunday 16 February 2020 — Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“He has set fire and water before you.
Put out you hand to whichever you prefer.”

This is our choice.

“Man has life and death before him. Whichever a man likes better will be given him.”

These words from Ecclesiasticus are so true.

We wonder why God allows evil. He doesn’t will it: it is our free will which ordains it.

“He never commanded anyone to be godless.”

The world increasingly rejects God, ignores Him. Doesn’t even think on Him. This is our free will.

In the afternoon we go to our village church for evening prayer. We are the entire congregation at that beautiful service.

We hear the story of Genesis from the King James Bible. We think how could all this be true when we are but a speck of dust in this universe of trillions of stars.

Yes, but as the priest tells us, we may be, humanity, the point of the needle. Needles have a point. That is their point. There may be a purpose in all this. It is our choice whether to believe.

Monday 17 February 2020

“Your faith is only put to the test to make you patient.” (James)

My faith is so weak that my patience is indeed tested. I sometimes think that I will never truly and wholly believe til I am dead.

Tuesday 18 February 2020

I am struck by this phrase sitting in our village church:

“When sin is fully grown, it too has a child, and the child is Death.” (James 1:12)

Is that not a powerful phrase to conjure with?

Wednesday 19 February 2020

Today’s Mass is at Farm Street, the 150th anniversary of the Catholic Union.

“Be quick to listen but slow to speak and slow to rouse your temper.” (James 1)

Wise words often not heeded, at least within the mind.

There is an exhibition at the Tate. The religious pictures from James II’s chapel in Whitehall Palace leave me strangely unmoved. Perhaps too ornate and mannered?

Thursday 20 February 2020

Before driving up to Lincolnshire I go to Mass in the Cathedral. There is a powerful sermon on the theme of “Who do people say that I Am”. Peter answers “the Christ”, but what do we say? Just a good man, or a liar, or Christ? Given His claim He can either be the Christ or a liar. I choose the former sitting there. Elsewhere, doubts creep in.

Friday 21 February 2020

I read Psalm 112 alone in our church.

“Praise the Lord, ye servants:
O praise the name of the Lord.”

You can watch Compline on YouTube now. It is quite a soothing way of going to bed. A single monk alone in his candlelit cell singing the office.

Belief comes slowly and with practice.

“Let dreams depart and phantoms fly, the offspring of the night…”

Saturday 22 February 2020 — The Chair of St Peter

The church is being cleaned and I walk up the hill to see the hunt riding by and read Universalis.

“The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want. Fresh and green are the pastures where he gives me repose.”

Appropriate, with great emerald views stretching away twenty miles to the south.

The words of Compline from Psalm 4 spring to mind:

“What can bring us happiness, many say.
Lift up the light of Your face on us, O Lord.”

That is why I turn to religion. It makes me happy, or did so the first time I heard the monks singing Compline and went to bed with their words in my mind.

Tuesday 11 February 2020

Someone writes in to complain about my reading in the cathedral. I should not have said “Responsorial Psalm”. How petty can you get? So here is the responsorial psalm for today:

How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord God of Hosts.
My soul is longing and yearning,
is yearning for the courts of the Lord.
My heart and my soul ring out their joy.

Isn’t this the point?

Wednesday 12 February 2020

I start to walk up the aisle to be a Eucharistic minister in the crypt chapel and am turned back at the altar rail by Father Pat due to Coronavirus. Communion will not be taken in both kinds. Not my week.

We hear of the Queen of Sheba. “She brought immense riches to Jerusalem.”

Thursday 13 February 2020

I go to the 5:30 Mass in the Cathedral, carefully sitting in the back and noting what the reader says. “The reading is taken from the Book of Kings.”

I got that wrong too.

“When Solomon grew old his wives swayed his heart to other gods, and his heart was not wholly with the Lord.”

Nor is mine. It wanders all the time. Today to the reshuffle and the sudden demise of the Chancellor. Such pointless badges of power.

Friday 14 February 2020 — St Cyril, Monk

I am back in the village church in the total quiet.

These are holy men who became friends of God, glorious heralds divine truth.

Saturday 15 February 2020

I forget Universalis on my iPhone so I just have the Book of Common Prayer.

Psalm 116 (117):

Oh praise the Lord all you nations
Acclaim Him all you peoples
Strong is His love for us
He is faithful for ever.

That says it all.

St Paul Miki & Companions

Monday 3 February 2020 (4th Week in Ordinary Time)

I must have attended scores, even hundreds, of meekly masses in the Cathedral but for the first time ever I arrive and Mary asks me to do a reading. Very happy but for the first time I can remember I have conjunctivitis.

The reading is very long, all about David fleeing Absalom.

Here I am with the vast cathedral stretching before me and I can barely read the text through my tears. The priest must think me an awful bore reading so slowly. He rattles off the Gospel.

Anyway, divine punishment!

David then made his way up the Mount of Olives weeping as he went, his head covered, his feet bare. (2 Samuel 15:13

Tuesday 4 February

I am back in the Cathedral luckily only listening.

Poor old Absalom.

Jacob took three lances in his hand and thrust them into his heart while he was still alive there in the oak tree. (2 Samuel 18:19)

Wherever I read this I think of father-son relationships. However they are, even open rebellion, they the sons are the most precious of objects.

Wednesday 5 February – St Agatha

It is Mass in the crypt chapel.

David said to God: this is a hard choice. (2 Sam 29:8)

All choices are hard. Does God give us choices? Do we have a choice? Is there a God? Is it all random or pre-ordained? God or no God? Why worry. Anyway, David chooses the least of three evils. That’s all we can do.

Thursday 6 February – St Paul Miki

I have a question to answer in the House so I miss the 10:30 Mass. But I could have gone to the early one — too idle.

Compared to the Japanese martyrs our faith and commitment is as small as a mustard seed when compared to the tree. I doubt, thrown into the cares of the world at the side of the path, it will ever grow much bigger than a dandelion.

Friday 7 February

I am alone in the village church. I read Psalm 17: “Praise be the God Who sees me.”

It is very easy sitting there, the light streaming in through the south-facing windows.

There and then, just for a moment, He is here. He sees me. One leaves the church door and of course one forgets.

Saturday 8 February

I am reading Psalm 118: “Lord, teach me our statues. With my tongue I have recounted the decrees of your lips.”

Sunday 9 February — 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

There is no 5:30 Mass at Osgodby. The storm must have cancelled it. So we go to St Hugh’s in Lincoln for the 6:30 Mass.

“No one lights a lamp to put it under a tub. They put it on a lamp stand.” (Matthew 5:13)

I am mainly looking after Sofka so I miss today’s saint who apparently saw a great light around England.

Monday 10 February – St Scholastica

I am in the Cathedral and asked to read again. This time I can see.

“The cloud filled the temple of the Lord.” (1 Kings)

But this time I could at least see this latter-day temple.

Friday 24 January 2020

We went to the funeral of Jonathan Green in the magnificent Louth Parish church.

About six hundred people there. He was only 57.

A good man and a sad occasion, but I drew comfort from these words in St Paul to the church in Thessalonika:

“For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again , even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.”

Sitting there, I had the definite feeling that it was true. Words come and go, doubts remain, but suddenly from nowhere one gets this strange conviction. Or perhaps from somewhere?

Saturday 25 January 2020

Today’s psalm On Saturday is Psalm 117.

I read it alone in the silent village church.

“Laudate Domine”

Praise the Lord all ye nations, in the modern translation — all ye heathens in the old.

TUESDAY 21 JANUARY 2020

We went to three very different services this weekend in Lincolnshire.

On Friday in Binbrook Parish Church to the funeral of Norah Douglas, who died at the age of 92. An occasion to celebrate a life well spent.

On Saturday to the last weekend service at Bardney, due to a shortage of priests. If we could ordain married permanent deacons, many of outstanding merit and maturity we wouldn’t have this problem in rural areas throughout Europe.

On Sunday we went to Evening prayer in our village church. A lovely Anglican tradition. Out of all the services what the priest said struck me the most. He was commenting on the Gospel around the baptism. Jesus tells his new disciples: “Come and see” and “Go and Tell”. Good advice for all of us…

SUNDAY 19 JANUARY 2020

This Sunday we go to the last weekend service at Bardney. A really nice atmosphere and a skilful exegesis on the Gospel reading, showing how all the readings tie in together. Jesus is the Lamb of God and as He dies on the Cross the lambs are sacrificed in the Temple. All the readings point to the same thing: He is the new sacrifice.

30 December 2019 – Monday

I was sitting in our village church. The bright winter sun streaming in from the windows facing south made a play of light on the wall, giving a sense of calm transcendence and movement, yet always the same.

“Sing a new song unto the Lord. Sing unto the Lord, all the whole earth” (Ps 96)

29 December 2019 – Sunday

Ecclesiasticus is full of good advice. I like the bit about looking after the old dad: “Even if his mind should fail, show him sympathy.”

And of course the exhortation for husbands which is known so well. Better not write it down in case I fall short…

27 December 2019 – Feast of St John

“He saw and he believed.”

The first to do so and the only one to stand at the foot of the cross. If one could be with anyone in history would it not be he?

After communion the priest kept a silence. The atmosphere was so heavy with the presence of God, you could cut it with a knife.

Christmas Day

In all the glorious magnificence of Midnight Mass in Latin one phrase stands out and is endlessly repeated in my brain.
In the second reading of St Paul’s letter to Titus:

“What we must do is give up everything that does not lead to God and all worldly ambition.”

22 December 2019 – Fourth Sunday of Advent

Today is the last Sunday in Advent and at Mass we have the collect said every day in the Angelus.

As I sit later alone in the village church, with the afternoon light streaming in, it is a beautiful thing again to read. Again a great sense of a presence.

“Pour forth we beseech you O Lord your grace into our hearts that we, to whom the incarnation of Christ Your Son was made known by the message of an angel, may, by His Passion and Cross, be brought to the glory of His resurrection.”

Apparently more people believe in Angels than God. But then where do they come from? We should certainly treat casual strangers in the street well. They may be an angel.

21 December 2019 – Saturday

Saturday 21st December. The shortest day.

I am alone in the village church at dusk at 4 o’clock. All is hushed and fading. The pictures inside the church merging into the gloom.

I read The Song of Songs:

“Come then my love, my lovely for see winter is past.”

I sit silent and feel that presence of God that only comes in true loneliness. But a joyful one. A profound sense.

Sunday 24 March Third Sunday in Lent

“Do you suppose these Galileans who suffered like that were greater sinners than any other? They weren’t.” (Luke 13:1-9)

To what do we owe chance?

Monday 25 March The Annunciation of the Lord

Lovely to have this beautiful feast in the middle of Lent. We are at the 10:30 Mass in the Cathedral.

The beautiful words at the end of the Magnificat:

“Let what you have said be done to me, and the Angel left her.” (Luke 1:26-38)

Tuesday 26 March

I feel guilty: I have given up absolutely nothing for Lent. I can’t be bothered – not even angered by five hundred hours of Brexit debate.

“Not seven, I tell you, but seventy seven.” (Matthew 18:21-35)

How many times do we forgive? Once, or not at all?

Wednesday 27 March

“Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.” (Matthew 5:17-19)

A demanding passage, but view it as an injunction to keep trying rather than to be overcome by a sense of failure.

Having met with Orthodox Jews at the inaugural meeting of the Values Foundation, they have been teaching their children their faith for five thousand years. I am one of just twenty-one to vote against compulsory relationships and sex education.

Thursday 28 March

“He who is not with me is against me. And he who does not gather with me scatters.” (Luke 11:14)

Is this a command to be with him always? So easy to say – so difficult to do.

Friday 29 March

“You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” (Mark 12:28-34)

This is what we would all like to hear. Can we live a life to make it happen?

Saturday 30 March

The village church is locked all day, so I just read Universalis.

“I thank you God that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous, like the rest of mankind, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here.” (Luke 18:9-14)

Are we too often like that?

Sunday 17 March Second Sunday in Lent

I am at the large church near the Place Victor Hugo in Paris. I have Universalis so I can follow the readings.

“The Lord is my light and my help. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life. Before whom shall I shrink?”

Monday 18 March

No time today in Paris to go to Mass, but I can read Universalis.

“Do not treat us according to our sins, O Lord.”

Tuesday 19 March St Joseph’s Day

Mass in St Joseph’s Chapel. Lovely to have the Mass in Latin with the priest facing away.

“Behold a faithful and prudent shepherd whom the Lord set over his household.”

Wednesday 20 March

A swim in the Serpentine and then some breakfast but back in time for Mass.

“Anyone who wants to be great among you must be your servant and anyone who wants to be first among you must be your slave.”

Thursday 21 March

I go to the 10:30 Mass.

“Test me, O God, and know my thoughts. See that my path is not wicked and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Friday 22 March

“But his brothers came to hate him [Joseph] so much that they could not say a civil word to him.” (Genesis 37)

It’s strange how hatred can grow from anything, even a father’s love for a son.

Saturday 23 March

I have a short time in the 10:30 sung Latin Saturday morning Mass – the most beautiful of the week. Why did we ever give it up? A little gem in the middle of London.

Sunday 10 March 1st Sunday in Lent

“I will give you all this power and the glory of these kingdoms.” (Luke 4:1-13)

How and why do we strive for power or influence or recognition? How difficult to give Jesus’s answer: You must worship the Lord your God and serve Him alone.

Monday 11 March

“I tell you solemnly, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:31-46)

Isn’t this the most difficult injunction of all? Do we visit the sick, those in prison?

Tuesday 12 March

I go to Mass and think on today’s psalm: “The Lord rescues the just in all their distress.”

I think all those who come forward to take communion should be welcomed whatever their state of mind.

“I sought the Lord and He answered me. From all my terrors He set me free.”

Wednesday 13 March

I go to our Mass in the crypt.

“Remember your companion, O Lord, and your merciful love, for they are from of old.” (Entrance Antiphon)

Thursday 14 March

“O Lord, give heed to my sighs. Attend to the sound of my cry, my king and my god.”

I have sent off my letter to the Holy Father in which I ask for zero tolerance of clerical abusers. We will see what answer we get.

Friday 15 March

“If you, O Lord, should mark our guilt, who would then survive?”

Saturday 16 March

I read a psalm in our village church. KJV because that is in the Book of Common Prayer they have there. But here it is in modern speak: “They are happy whose life is blameless, who follow God’s law. They are happy who do His will, serving Him with all their hearts.” (Psalm 118)

3 March 2019 – Eighth Sunday Ordinary Time

We are at Mass in the Mass House at Osgodby, just three of us and Father Robert sings it in Latin for me, facing the altar.

In a shaken sieve the rubbish is left behind. So too the defects of man appear in his tail. (Ecclesiasticus 27, 5)

Monday 4 March

I am at Mass in the Cathedral at 10.30.

“Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor.”

This is what we are supposed to concentrate on but I prefer this phrase: “Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him.” (Mark 10:17-27)

He loves our lack of will and imperfections.

Tuesday 5 March

I go to Mass in the Cathedral.

“The Lord became my protector. He brought me out to a place of freedom. He saved me because he delighted in me.” (Entrance Antiphon)

I write a letter to the Pope – not something one does every day – and I imagine he gets rather too many letters.

Ash Wednesday 6 March

I go as usual to the 5:30 Mass in the Cathedral. There are various distractions. I worry if I am in someone’s seat but nothing can take away from Allegri’s Miserere. It’s lovely that Ben and Theo come to Mass.

As the priest says this is like any other 5:30 Mass just a little busier. Or is it?

“Sound the trumpet in Zion. Order a fast. Proclaim a solemn assembly.”

Friday 8 March

“Why is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?” (Matthew 9)

I think on my poor fasting!

Saturday 9 March

“It is not those who are well who need the doctor, but the sick.” (Luke 5:22)

It is good to think on this when debating who should receive communion.

I go to evening Mass at the Cathedral. The reading sums up our dilemma: “Help the little faith I have.”

At last a senior clergyman tells it how it is. Questioned about child abuse in the Church, the Archbishop of Melbourne says: “In this area our credibility is shot to pieces.”

Progress starts with humility and a realisation that action needs taking and bishops no longer are trusted to do it.

“Happy the man who has placed his trust in the Lord.”

All too true. One certainly can’t place it in anyone else’s hands.

Today I always reflect on the Japanese martyrs and the film of their plight but perhaps the Japanese government was justified in protecting their traditional culture. We do not condone their cruelty. They would say they saved their country.

We are in Lincolnshire for a quiet day especially as we go to Mass at the Osgodby Mass House (1793) in the evening. It is a very short Mass, no sermon, but givien the place in the tiny Mass House it is spiritual for all that.

“What is your name” asked Jesus. “My name is Legion.” I don’t know why I always find that phrase chilling, and yet correct about human nature.

We are here for Mass at Holy Rood with Sophia playing in the back of the church.

“Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are life.”

In the evening I go to our church. Vicky is locking up but she allows me to sit for a moment in the darkened church.

I read Psalm 6 by the light of my phone.

“O Lord, rebuke me not in thy anger, nor chasten me in thy wrath. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are troubled.”

We drive Sophia up after 8:00 am Mass.

Delightfully, in the chapel of St Paul in the cathedral, the priest faces the altar, which is more spiritual.

I go to Mass in the Cathedral. I have had difficulty in recent months with the Church. But now I sit during Vespers and the chanting gradually sinks in. I feel once again a sense of joy and fulfilment. Something utterly different from church politics and more than soothing. Joy.

I went as usual to read a psalm in our village church. The psalm of the day is Ps 99 – “Cry out with joy all the earth” – but it is more beautiful in the King James Version.

The little church was as usual empty and utterly quiet. There was a heaviness in the air and in that heaviness I felt a distant echo of something else. God or joy or the eternal, I know not what…

“Rejoice in the Lord always…”

The robes like, the liturgy, are a glorious rose colour. The rose of a new dawn.

Advent is not merely a rocky path of repentance to prepare for the Saviour, but it is too a time of joy, something much deeper and meaningful than mere happiness.

Is there poetry more sublime than that of Zephaniah?

“Shout for joy, daughter of Zion…”

The church may indeed be tossed by storms. Its helmsmen uninspiring or worse and some tossed overboard. But it is in the scriptures that hope comes not in mere men.

I apologise to anyone who may read Another Country for not updating it recently but I’m having difficulty in finding someone willing to type it up. Still, I carry on writing it for myself which is probably good enough!

This week BBC 4 is broadcasting a programme on Mindfulness from Downside Abbey. I happened to find recently what I wrote on 24 February 2005 in one of my diaries:

Downside. I arrived feeling stressed and depressed. All these attacks on MPs have got us down
Then I attended the liturgy in choir and went for a walk. I walked down “The Beautiful Valley” along a wooded stream by a green lane shaded with trees and when I looked at the stream I felt a calming and returning happiness.

Next day, Sunday afternoon, I walked in the opposite direction past the Parish Church down into another deep valley. I stood upon a wooden bridge above a rushing stream. It came to me that I should accept my job just as it is, come what may, enjoy it as best I can and not worry about the future.

By the stream I walked down a long green slope. I had in my hand Dom David Foster’s book published by Continuum, Deep calls unto Deep. I thought how impressively intellectual it was. Continuum have rejected my book The Monastery of the Mind.

This is what I really want to do, write a book which encourages prayer and meditation using the life of a Saint or perhaps an event that can be carried in the picket.

I know I can and want to do it, if I can find the time and will every day to give it a go.

I walked up to a gate and some thought rose up unannounced in my mind to anger me. I realised that if I am angry about something I just have to accept it and then I walked up the stream again and realised hoe much I love solitude. That is how I have to accept it as I am. Three streams, a hill, and a gate, some thoughts, a prayer and thanksgiving.

Eventually St Paul’s Publishing house did publish The Monastery of the Mind after every other religious publisher had rejected it.

I return often to the Monastery. The regular prayerful repetition of the psalms focuses the mind on the beauty of the present rather than any regret about the past or fear for the future.

In recent years Mindfulness has become very popular, but really it is Christian meditation without God. Indeed we have been practising Mindfulness for fifteen hundred years in our monasteries since St Benedict founded his first community.

I prefer to focus, not just on breathing, which is indeed an aid to concentration, but also on the word.

Saturday 2 September

I take the train down to a meeting of the Oblates at Downside. It’s good to be back in the Monastery. There is a seminar on the life of my friend, the charming and wonderful Dom Sebastian Moore and his impenetrable poetry. Well into his late 90s and with great courage he continued to produce a poem every day, which he typed up and handed to anyone he met. He was an enthusiast for Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now. We go on to to discuss him in the afternoon, but as usual the lovely atmosphere seeps in. I read a simple life of St Benedict. With a picture on every page it looks like a children’s book but each short passage is profound. It is written by two Spanish nuns. In the evening after Matins which we do on Saturday night, there is a lovely tableau, as I stand behind the monks while they sing the Salve Regina. After everyone leaves I sit alone in the huge darkening abbey church as twilight lengthens. The candle I light is a soft glow, visible from the far end of the abbey by the Choir. There truly is power in this Now.

I always go to bed early and happy at Downside. The peace is persuasive.

Sunday 3 September

I am up early to sit in the choir for Lauds. Being able to sit in Choir and feel part of the proceedings has transformed the Downside experience for me. The sensation of listening to the Monks chanting the Psalms is timeless. As I sit in the choir at the end of Sunday Lauds, I am always sad to be leaving. The school is still on holiday, so I can sit in the front for the 10:00 am Mass for the first time. There is a fine choir. The singing of the Ave Verum Corpus is a true Mindfulness moment.

St Thomas’ church, Market Rasen

SUNDAY 30th April – Third Sunday of Easter

Our church is closed for woodworm treatment so we use the Anglican church of St Thomas in Market Rasen for our 11.30am Mass. Our priest sings the Gloria, Kyrie, Sanctus, Angus Dei and Pater Noster in Latin. A beautiful sound in a beautiful place which may not have heard these words for a long time.

Entrance Antiphon:
“Cry out with joy to God, all the earth; O sing to the glory of His name. O render Him glorious praise. Alleluia”.

MONDAY 1st May – St Joseph the Worker

Psalm 134: Ecce Nunc
“Behold, bless ye the Lord all ye servants of the Lord which by night stand in the House of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord”.

In the afternoon I listen to some music and paint a little.

TUESDAY 2nd May – St Athanasius

I go to Mass at the Holy Rood. St Athanasius had a difficult life fighting Arianism. The passions stirred up by the dispute seem strange to us. Afterwards I canvas in Swallow.

Psalm 135: Laudate Nomen
“Praise ye the Lord, Praise ye the name of the Lord. Praise him, O ye servants of the Lord”.

WEDNESDAY 3rd May – St Philip & St James the Apostles

I canvas in Middle Rasen and in the evening we have our adoption meeting in the delightful Holton le Moor village hall. It all goes well and everyone is very friendly. I have never known such a benign political environment.

Psalm 136: Confitemini
“O give thanks unto the Lord for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever. O give thanks unto the God of Gods, for his mercy endureth for ever. O give thanks to the Lord of Lords, for his mercy endureth for ever”.

THURSDAY 4th May

It is local election day for the county council.

I canvas in Glentworth, a pretty village nestling alongside Lincoln cliff edge then we spend a late evening and early hours at the count. The results are good, as good as they have ever been. We win six out of the eight wards and win back Scotter, lost in a by-election.

Psalm 137: Super Flamines – whenever one reads the words, one’s heart lifts despite their sorrowful nature …
“By the rivers of Babylon,
There we sat down, yea, we wept
When we remembered Zion.
We hung our harps
Upon the willows in the midst of it.
For there those who carried us away captive asked of us a song,
And those who plundered us requested mirth”.

FRIDAY 5th May

It feels like the day after General Election day, tired after a very late night.

Psalm 138: Confitebor Tibi
“I will praise thee with my whole heart; before the Gods I will sing praise unto thee”.

SATURDAY 6th May

I walk around Covenham reservoir. It is nice seeing the dinghies but the concrete reservoir is bleak and huge ‘No swimming’ signs are up.

Psalm 139: Domine Probasti
“O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.
You comprehend my path and my lying down,
And are acquainted with all my ways”.

ALTICHIERO da Zevio, St George Slays the Dragon (1378-84), Fresco, Oratorio di San Giorgio, Padua

SUNDAY 23rd April – Divine Mercy Sunday

Apparently, according to our Parish Priest, if you go to confession over the next fourteen days and to Mass every day, all your sins are wiped clean. Quite a tempting prospect but if there is a purgatory it all seems too easy to me.

“They went to the Temple everyday but met in their homes for the breaking of bread”
Acts 2:42-47.

MONDAY 24th April – St George (martyred 303 A.D.)

We squeeze into the fine Chapel of St George in Westminster Cathedral for Mass.

Who was St George, except that he was martyred in the Diocletianic Persecution? And why is he the patron saint of England, except for that Richard I adopted him as the epitome of Christian Chivalry? Who was he and what did he do …

Anyway, the Entrance Antiphon is nice:
“Rejoice, you saints, in the presence of the Lamb; a Kingdom has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Alleluia”.

TUESDAY 25th April – St Mark

I chair Westminster Hall, juggling how to get fifteen colleagues in the time available and ask a question in Justice Questions.

Apparently Mark, a disciple of Peter, tells his Gospel from Peter’s point of view, but what was this scene like:
“And so the lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up to heaven…”
Mark 16:15-20.

I often wonder, how was he taken up into heaven?

WEDNESDAY 26th April

Our APPG entertains the French Ambassador at lunch.

Macron and Le Pen are through to the final round. She says Macron is highly intelligent. We shall see. Intelligence without a parliamentary majority is not enough.

“But at night, the angel of the Lord opened the prison gates and said as he led them out ‘Go and stand in the Temple and tell the people all about this new life”
Acts 5:17-26.

THURSDAY 27th April

I ask a last question about Brexit and wait for the quaint ceremony of prorogation. One or two colleagues are sitting on the green benches for the last time. There is always the feeling: will I be returning here?

Today’s Entrance Antiphon:
“O God, when you went forth before your people, marching with them and living among them, the earth trembled, heavens poured down rain – Alleluia”.

FRIDAY 28th April

Our last surgery of this Parliament. A busy one in the Guildhall at Gainsborough, then I visit the Heritage Centre. I buy a book about the impact on the town of the First World War. The Gainsborough News is filled with the deaths of the sons of the town. Five-hundred killed during the war from the small manufacturing and market town.

In the bookshop I bought a book about childhood in the 1950s, a happy time when we could play in the street and I could cycle as a seven year old on my little red bike all the way into the City.

I also buy a book by Richard Osborne on the Universe. When you read of the extraordinary discoveries even being made as you speak, I find it difficult to reconcile with my religious faith. The more we know, the more fantastic questions arise. There seems to be less not more universal laws, more vast galaxies and black holes, the universe expanding and the parts furthest away accelerating the quickest and the weird findings from quantum mechanics and the problem of gravity, and antimatter. There may be other dimensions in the universe or other universes.

All this seems so enormous that it is difficult to understand how the God of the Bible could create it all. It is enough to shake ones belief.

Maybe our God is the creator of concepts such as truth, or love, or justice but is not the creator of the physical universe which just is, or maybe the concept of many Gods is not so daft.

Yet Christianity and religion seem correct not just by powers of reason but by one’s own inner feelings, sensations and sense of joy. God seems at once very close and very unbelievable.

One thing is certain given the immensity of the universe and its extraordinary nature: it makes our efforts on earth and our obsessions with them, parliamentary differences and hatreds in politics and religion, seem so futile. Really as we look at the night sky we should just stare and wonder. Yet we go one killing and hating each other, to what end?

Another remarkable thing is that whereas since the 1920s we have been pushing radio waves into space and listening, we have as yet heard nothing in return. If there is intelligent life in the universe, it seems very remote or may not even exist at all. We may indeed be alone, which would explain the interest a god takes in us.

Psalm 132
“Lord, remember David and all his afflictions”.

SATURDAY 29th April – St Catherine of Sienna

We canvass in Scotter and eat a takeaway fish and chip supper sitting in the churchyard of Scotter church.

Every day I am here I read a psalm in our village church, the verse of the King James Bible resonating as no other English can. Today is the turn of 133, over the weeks I have gradually worked through the previous 132.

Psalm 133: Ecce Quam Bonum
“Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity”.

ANGELICO, Resurrection of Christ and Women at the Tomb (1440-42), Fresco, Convento di San Marco, Florence

SUNDAY 16th April – Easter Sunday

As Mass starts, Father Anselm leads the wonderful anthem:
“Salve, festa dies, toto venerabilis aevo, qua deus infernum vicit et astra tenet”.

It seems a suitable full-stop to the magnificent liturgy of these four days.

The only sadness is that the retreat is over for another year.

MONDAY 17th April – Easter Monday

I always love going to the Cathedral the day after Easter Sunday to see the Cathedral bedecked with lilies and the readings this week are the most important of the year. They are the witness to the Resurrection and Christianity without the Resurrection is nothing.

“Do not be afraid: go and tell my brothers that they must leave for Galilee; they will see me there”
Matthew 28:8-15.

TUESDAY 18th April – Easter Tuesday

All hell breaks loose with the PM’s announcement that there is to be a General Election on June 8th. So, we will spend the month of May in Lincolnshire. Obviously, I welcome a chance to increase our majority.

I take the opportunity in Foreign Office Questions to raise the slaughter of Shi’a civilians at Foah and Kefraya.

The wonderful Easter readings continue. All our faith is based on these few hundred words of the testimony of a handful of people. The whole thing looks sincere and I can’t help believing it but it is few words to hang the universe on, although the words are compelling.

“As she said this she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, though she did not recognise him … Jesus said ‘Mary’. She knew him then”
John 20:11-18.

WESNESDAY 19th April – Easter Wednesday

I put a question to the PM in which I describe the Fixed Term Parliaments Act as an Emperor without clothes. We duly vote to abrogate the Bill and have an early General Election.

It is clearly in the national interest to have an election when it is in the national interest to have one.

Today we have the wonderful story of the disciples walking with the Lord to Emmaus:
“… he took the bread and said the blessing; then he broke it and handed it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognised him”
Luke 24:13-35.

For all the fragility of the evidence, our eyes too can open at such a moment.

THURSDAY 20th April – Easter Thursday

A rare event: I have two questions on the order paper to the DEFRA Secretary and answer two as Chairman of the Public Accounts Commission – an eclectic mixture of Lincolnshire coastal defences and the PAC work on cancer drugs.

I take the train up to Lincolnshire but before I do there is time to go to another Easter Week Mass.

“… They were still talking about all this when Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you’”
Luke 24:35-48.

FRIDAY 21st April – Easter Friday

I am at a meeting to discuss the listing of the village hall – a former Methodist Tin Chapel. We know nothing about the people who worshiped there but their life in this remote spot must have been very simple.

There is no Mass at Caistor tonight so I wander around the parish church and find an extraordinary object – a fragment of a wall made up of cement and the bones of martyred Christians; nothing changes.

Today is John 21:1-14
“Jesus showed himself again to the disciples. It was by the Sea of Tiberius – the third time Jesus showed himself to the disciples”.

SATURDAY 22nd April – Easter Saturday

It is sad that these wonderful weekday readings are coming to an end but in the Mass at Market Rasen they do so in summation:

Mark 16
“Having risen in the morning on the first day of the week, Jesus appeared first to Mary of Magdala …”.