Medjugorje – Day Two

It was sometime between 1.30-2.00am before I got to sleep but, when sleep finally came, I was deeply, peacefully unconscious – until 6am when a thunderous clash of bells from St James Church across the road tore me from my sleep and I jumped out of bed to close the window. After half an hour’s effort, I fell asleep again and enjoyed another hour of bliss until a blast of music and another session of the clanging bells told me it was 7.30am. Why did I bother to take an alarm clock?

Breakfast was juices, make-it-yourself tea and coffee, excellent bread, cereal with reconstituted powdered milk and the mains: fried eggs, boiled eggs, small sausages and slices of cheese. By now the remainder of the Joe Walsh tours party had arrived – at 3am this morning – and they were tucking in - or fast asleep, depending on their stamina.

St James Church (interior)

English Mass was at 10am in St James Church, which was smaller than I expected; I was expecting something cathedral-size given the two million visitors a year to Medjugorje but it was little bigger than my parish church back home. For a Catholic church, it was also relatively plain with simple Stations of the Cross, plain plastered walls, decent modern stained glass windows, a modest altar – but a lovely side aisle with a large statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Twelve priests were concelebrating, the church was full and the warm, soaring sound of a violinist led the praise. The PA system was not flexible enough and distorted the words of the soft-spoken priest but generally did a good job of sharing the slower, louder, clearer spoken intercessions and the Gospel reading. The congregation, mostly Irish, knew the words, there was no need for missals here and the occasional Latin parts such as the Agnus Dei were confidently said.

The kneelers were wooden, a penance in itself, certainly if you have dodgy knees, like me. All the while Mass was being said, there was a constant stream of visitors, young and old heading for the BVM chapel where they knelt and prayed before the statue of Mary…and contrary to posted instructions that they would not be allowed, cameras and short shorts were both in evidence.

Tour Guide sets out the agenda for the day

Afterwards, as we walked to the Conference Hall for a briefing from the Joe Walsh tour guides, we passed occasional people sitting, deep in prayer, oblivious to the crowd around them and the chirping of crickets. A nice thing!

The three guides, Katarina, Dragana and Diana introduced themselves and each gave a short presentation to the Joe Walsh pilgrims present, about 90 of us, mostly elderly, mostly Irish (there were jokes about  the Irish and English falling apart without sufficient tea breaks).

Early afternoon, we assembled at the statue of Our Lady, just inside the church property boundary. I realised that I had mislaid my spectacles and also forgotten to bring the tour radios (which enable us to hear the tour guides and the broadcast translations of Croatian Masses and prayers). Sadly, I confess that my frustration boiled over and your holy pilgrim uttered a most unholy and un-pilgrim-like word…in the holy precincts. I’m definitely going to have to go to Confession now!



walking in 85 F degree heat...phew!

 

Vineyeard

Fig Tree

Fruit Tree 

lovely grapes
 

The 30+ minute walk to our destination, the Blue Cross, took us past the outskirts of the village, past fig and pomegranate trees, past vineyards with ripe bunches of green and black grapes, past small stalls set up by the village people selling fruits, jams, alcoholic beverages, embroidery, lace and tablecloths. It was certainly over 30 degrees Celsius (the mid-90s Fahrenheit) and the sweat rolled off us as we toiled along, praying the Joyful Mysteries. (We could have gone by taxi – only five Euros for up to four people - but it was a form of penance or mortification, ‘no pain, no gain’, negated somewhat by buying 10 figs for one Euro (70 pence) from a stall – the sweetest, juiciest figs that I’ve ever tasted).

the modern Blue Cross

Arriving, it was a short scramble of five minutes up an incredibly rocky hill before we reached the Blue Cross - yes, a cross painted blue - set in an area where the visionaries sheltered from the Communist authorities hunting for them and where Mary subsequently appeared in apparition. It is also where Ivan the visionary holds his prayer group.

original Blue Cross

Actually, the large blue cross where we gathered was not the site of the original apparitions, that is marked by a smaller blue cross just to the left, the larger blue cross marks a more spacious area specially created to cater to the larger groups of more elderly pilgrims (like us).

For an hour we listened to Mary’s 25^th July message, prayed, listened to some hymns to Mary accompanied by a guitar, then Philip the lead tour guide told us – at some length - the story of several momentous moments in his life, interspersed with quite interesting interpretations of some of Mary’s messages, and concluded with prayers from one of the accompanying priests.

All this time a stray dog lying beside me slept on. He seemed much more comfortable than me, I was perched on a jagged sliver of rock and was tempted to envy him – except that he twitched vigorously every few minutes, bad dreams or indigestion I suppose.

Hotel dinner at 4.45pm – pork steak – was followed by the Rosary in Croatian at 6.00 pm followed by International Mass in Croatian at 7.00pm (with simultaneous translation into the main European languages available by radio). We were told that the Rosary would pause at about 6.40pm when the apparition happened - and it did; a bell tinkled and everyone fell to their knees. Perhaps a little credulous, I was expecting to see a visionary experiencing a vision but was informed that the apparition was happening in the visionaries’ private chapels and not at the church. 

The Mass that followed was also held outside and there were about 80 priests on the altar and I would estimate (based on a count of the benches) that there were four to five thousand people attending. We had personal radios that provided a translation of the Mass but the homily – which was rather good – went on for about 25 minutes and I must confess that my eyes closed and I faded in and out  (probably due to transmission problems…). It was pleasantly cool, the dense black clouds threatened rain and there were several bursts of thunder and lightning but it stayed dry. 

Medjugorje – Day One

The Joe Walsh Tours flight from Gatwick to Split in Croatia (formerly part of Yugoslavia) was via Norwegian Airlines and was crammed with families and young men with five o’clock shadows and flip-flops – a bucket and spade charter. We eagerly scanned the passengers, looking for fellow pilgrims and eventually identified – correctly – the only three; two middle aged Irish folk and a younger man.

The plane, a Boeing 737-800 was interesting in that the tail fin had a picture of an eminent Norwegian. What famous Norwegians do you know? I was stuck until I looked at the flight magazine which named 74 whose images appear on the airline’s planes, including Victor Borge, Greta Garbo, Edvard Grieg, Henrik Ibsen, Soren Kierkegaard, Jenny Lind, Edvard Munch…etc. 

It was raining in Split when we arrived and a passenger service agent with an umbrella shepherded us onto buses – which then travelled all of 100 yards to disgorge us in front of the main (only) terminal. Processing was efficient and courteous and we were soon in a minibus on the two-and-a-half hour journey to Medjugorje.

Ninety per cent of the journey was via a newly-constructed and excellent motorway. We whizzed along at 60 miles an hour, under leaden skies and dark scudding clouds, up into the mountains. It reminded me of the Scottish Highlands - very steep and rocky – as we climbed past occasional jagged peaks rising to over 3,000 feet and then swooped down into narrow valleys before ascending once more.

 

What was different was the trees, every hillside was almost completely covered by trees and bushes. There were small villages and individual houses in the most inhospitable locations that were visible only by a small patch of white wall and red-tiled roofs sticking out above the sea of green vegetation, and occasionally you would see a church tower or a lonely cross on a mountain peak. Isolated they may have been, but the lines of electricity pylons and mobile phone masts suggested they were plugged in to society.

The Croatian and then the Bosnia-Herzegovina border guards decided they did not need to see our passports - they may have heard us loudly reciting the Joyful Mysteries and decided, correctly, that we were harmless.   

As we left the motorway and trundled into Medjugorje along a dusty single track, the dark clouds began to lift, the sun made an appearance – and a rainbow suddenly appeared ahead of us. Two of my fellow-pilgrims were both Medjugorje veterans - one with 30+ visits since 1988 - and immediately assumed that this was a sign; the Queen of Peace is known to herald her presence by a rainbow. I’m afraid I just assumed it was a welcome but natural meteorological phenomenon.  

 

Our hotel was the Pansion Dubrovnik, situated right in the centre of the village, about three hundred yards from St James’ Church, the epicentre of organised spiritual life.

 

Our room was pleasant, two regular beds plus a sofa bed, ensuite, neat, clean – but the advertised wifi did not always work and was not capable of uploading images - so this report on Medjugorje will be posted on our return to the UK.

After a late supper of soup followed by pan-fried chicken and fruit, we went to check out the surroundings. The main street through Medjugorje was crowded on either side with religious souvenir stalls, the usual kitsch that will be familiar to Lourdes visitors. We popped into several shops to compare stocks and prices with Lourdes. Much of the range of small items was familiar (and cheaper) and there was the expected differences in modelling of the Blessed Virgin (stance, colour of dress, surroundings) and rather more in the way of pilgrim aids; sticks, stools, chairs, hats, clothing etc. There were several small bookshops selling Catholic books and CDs, obviously specialising in the apparitions. The increased number of bookshops was a definite improvement on Lourdes. I had quite forgotten that the index in locally-produced books is at the end of the book, not at the beginning! Based on a sample of one transaction, Medj shopkeepers are very pleasant with excellent English.

St James' Church

 A Croatian language Mass was in process at St James Church – not in the church but just behind it where there was an open-air altar and in front of it, on what looked like several hundred park benches, were seated several thousand people – all perfectly quiet and attentive. In fact, apart from the priest’s loudspeaker words, the only sound was the frantic chirping of birds in the surrounding trees. It was a strange contrast, the solemn ritual of Holy Mass and the energetic participation of nature … it brought to mind thoughts of St Francis.

Beside the church were two buildings with confession rooms, and , including those in the church, there were about 60 small confession rooms. On the entrance door to each was a sign giving the language employed and the priest’s name. There was also a red or green light signifying whether the confessional was empty or in use. There were about a dozen people waiting for confession in Croatian as we passed at 8pm. In the paved area in front of the church some visitors knelt and prayed in front of the statue of the Blessed Virgin while others took in the sights – rubbernecking as American say – or posed for carefully arranged selfies in front of the landmark church.

Medjugorje seemed quite busy, a constant stream of pilgrims/tourists flowed past the restaurants and souvenir shops, the Italians seemingly in abundance, noisy and unselfconsciously flamboyant as ever – God bless them! The taxis, contrary to expectations, do occasionally stop for people crossing the roads using the zebra crossings  - but it helps if you carry crutches that you can wave at them!.   

We were back in the hotel by 9pm. Next stop breakfast at 8.45-10.00am then Mass in English at St James Church followed by a briefing from the Joe Walsh tour guides, an afternoon of doing something or other (unknown at this stage) followed by an early dinner at 4.45-6.00pm then Rosary and a pause for the ‘apparition’ at St James Church, followed by International Mass said in Croatian, followed by blessings and prayers for healings. The loudspeaker rendering of hymns, rosaries and so on from the church continued until 11pm or so, it was never intrusive but pleasantly reassuring  - prayer and praise is what the place is about.

Medjugorje – A Place of Grace or Diabolic Deception?

Exactly two years ago - to the day - I wrote a post about Medjugorje (Whither Medjugorje?), sparked off by the recurring mental debate about whether I should go there on pilgrimage; the timing coincided with the return from Medjugorje of a friend, Cathy, who was positive and enthusiastic about her experience.

Two years later, I am still uncertain about the worth of Medjugorje as a place of pilgrimage. There have undoubtedly been many valuable fruits – Mary’s Meals is often cited – and the tales of lives transformed are numerous and impressive. I have met many returned pilgrims who were as enthusiastic as Cathy – and also one or two who were quite obsessive!  There is also quite a bit of negative background to be found, in books and on the internet, that - at minimum - sounds warning bells.

At the risk of being boring myself, let me repeat some of my earlier blog, which is a summary of the position as I viewed it then – and now, supplemented by other and more current information...

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The history of Medjugorje and its surroundings is complex with racial, cultural, religious and political elements involving the Byzantine, Roman and Ottoman Empires; the Slavs, Franks, Bulgarians, Bosnians, Serbs and Hungarians; Orthodox, Moslem and Catholic adherents - a real stew of peoples, plots, conflicts and battles that continued until the Second World War, with contributions from the Nazis, Chetniks and Ustasa.

What a challenging place that the Mother of God (Our Lady of Medjugorje, Queen of Peace) reportedly chose for her communication! There are unsettling parallels with the Rwandan apparitions of Our Lady of Kibeho that took place at the same time. Both alleged appearances took place in 1981 and both presaged conflicts; the Rwandan Genocide in 1994-5, in which the UN estimate that about 800,000 died, and the Bosnian War of 1992-5 when over 100,000 people died. Two ‘holy’ places, with their shrines and pilgrimages sited amid a landscape scarred by the sinfulness of humanity.
..................

Today, there seems to be three views about Medjugorje in the Catholic community.

The first is “Medje-what? How do you pronounce it? Where is it?”

The second - and most prominent on the internet - is “A wonderful place, prayerful, I experienced something that has changed me forever...”

The last is “Work of the devil, Stay away.”

Learning how to pronounce the word ‘Medjugorje’ is easy now (Med-joo-gori-yeh or thereabouts!), thanks to the internet.

Also, thanks to the internet, those with negative views on Medjugorje can readily communicate their reservations or contrary opinions. These seem to fall under three main headings

DIVISION & REBELLION

There is a history of confrontation between the local ordinary of Mostar and the Franciscans in Mostar (who promoted the apparitions). Indeed, the local Bishops of Mostar, Pavao Zanic, and his successor Ratko Peric, have both ruled against the apparitions, after investigating them. Under the principle of collegiality, religious at all levels should have honoured this decision, but, instead, quite a number have visited Medjugorje or allowed facilities to the alleged visionaries when visiting their areas, sowing the seeds of division and apparently promoting an illicit cultus or alternative magisterium. (Indeed, at one stage, in 1991, Bishop Peric was kidnapped, beaten up and held hostage in an illicit chapel belonging to the Franciscans.)   

In 2007 Bishop Peric summarised the local church’s view (Bishop Peric's Statement) 

The Church is competent to say this. In her name, 30 chosen priests and physicians, working together in three Commissions for 10 years, in more than 30 meetings, dutifully and expertly investigated the events of Medjugorje and brought forth their judgement. And not one, but twenty bishops responsibly declared that there exists no proof that the events in Medjugorje concern supernatural apparitions.

However...a final view on the question has now been subsumed by the Vatican. In March 2010, Pope Benedict XVI established a Commission of 17 experts under the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), headed by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, to report on the alleged apparitions. In November 2013 Pope Francis commented that the BVM ‘... is not a postmaster, sending messages every day.’ In January 2014 the Commission’s report on Medjugorje was provided to the CDF. In June 2015 the Pope, flying back to Rome after a visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina, told a reporter that a decision on the apparitions was imminent.    

Three days later, in his homily during Mass, Pope Francis cautioned against those who look for God‘with these Christian spiritualities that are a little ethereal,’calling them ‘modern Gnostics.’These people, he said ‘tell you this or that: no, the last word of God is Jesus Christ, there is no other!’ He also warned against those ‘who always need novelty of Christian identity. They’ve forgotten that they were chosen, anointed, that they have the guarantee of the Spirit, and they seek.’

Francis observed that there are those who might ask, ‘But where are the seers who tell us today, ‘the letter that the Madonna will send us at four in the afternoon…’ He cited this type of predicted vision as an example of those who base their faith on novelties, explaining that these people ‘live from this.’However ‘this isn’t Christian identity. The ultimate word of God is named ‘Jesus,’ nothing more,’he added.

DIVINE NATURE OF COMMUNICATIONS

Some commentators accuse the seers of receiving messages that are contrary to faith, for example, claiming Mary has said that all faiths are the same and equal before God. The visionaries are alleged to have given inconsistent reports in the early years and lied. It also strains credibility that tens of thousands of messages have been received since 1981 (compared to a handful at Lourdes and relatively few at Fatima). The messages are also described as anodyne, banal, boring or, in a few cases, even heretical and supportive of cults like Bayside, or validating the existence of UFOs!

However...there is a dispute as to the actual words said, reported, and translated. Although there may be some tape recordings surviving from the early days, and original transcripts are said to display numerous contradictions and inconsistencies, in many cases we are going back 30+ years to fallible recollections. The few alleged messages of Mary that I have read seem consistent with Catholic doctrine, emphasising prayer, repentance, fasting, the Bible, the Eucharist - however, we are talking about literally thousands of messages.

In support of the supernatural nature of the visionaries’ experiences, it is said that three separate and detailed scientific examinations of them failed to reveal any subterfuge or impropriety (- so they have not been ‘found out’ over the last 34 years, which must say something). Then there is the ‘miraculous’ signs, the sun spinning or being encircled by rainbows, base metal rosaries becoming gold, healings and so on...and there are also tales of credulous pilgrims staring at the sun for so long that they suffered eye damage.

LIFESTYLE OF THE VISIONARIES AND THEIR PROMOTERS

None of the visionaries has opted for a religious life (as did the visionaries in Lourdes and Fatima). It has been said that they did not seem exceptionally devoted to the Eucharist, and several seem to have benefitted materially from their situation, owning nice houses and cars. Their main promoter and spiritual advisor, Father Tomislav Vlasic, was reportedly suspended by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, investigated for matters including sexual immorality and creating a New Age cult, and then allegedly defrocked (or allowed to revert to non-clerical status). Similarly, two Franciscans accused of serious improprieties, including in one case impregnating a nun, were declared ‘innocent’ by the BVM  in several ‘messages’.  

However...it can be argued that participating in a Catholic marriage is also a worthy sacramental life. Some who have seen the seers’ houses regard these houses as unexceptional (although they have been enlarged to help house pilgrims) and many view the visionaries as exemplary Catholics. Also, it can be argues that not all those clerics and religious involved with the phenomena are, absent grace, able to resist the wiles of the Evil One.

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...so, are the good fruits, the conversions and genuine piety seen at Medjugorje enough to validate the apparitions as the fruits of grace?  

I don’t know.

But, I’m going there in a few days time for a week’s pilgrimage and, if I decide either way, I’ll let you know.

Windows Warrior...

The new PC operating system, Microsoft’s Windows 10, was officially launched on 29 July. Since I was keen to try it out, I loaded it on my desktop on 1^st August, three days later (and on my birthday). 

All went well for just over a week. There are enough bells and whistles on Windows 10 to satisfy the most determined technophile. Edge, the new browser, is lean, mean and a delight to use.

However...yesterday, on switching on, I found a warning message: 'CRITICAL ERROR - Your Start menu is not working. We'll try and fix it the next time you sign in.' It asks you to click on the 'Sign out Now' button.

So I clicked it and switched the PC off and then on several times - but with absolutely no effect.

Mmmh...a quick check on the internet showed that this ‘critical problem’ was being experienced by quite a few people and someone believed a Microsoft person had committed to come up with a fix.

In the meantime, I scoured the internet for possible solutions and applied various suggested remedies - mostly deleting suspect programs and applying scripts to the command line; nothing worked...nada, niet, zilch.

By the way, although this was described as a ‘critical error’ it only affected a few facilities, like the Start button (but the right-click button still worked), Search, app tiles and the Edge browser (but I could use my old, buggy, Internet Explorer and my Google Chrome browsers to access the internet).

So, in summary, it was far from being a disaster. So, why was I so irritated and why did I not wait until Microsoft came up with a ‘fix’ ?

Good question. The answer is probably because I saw ‘curing’ it as a challenge and also because I’m naturally rather impatient...

The next step was to re-install Windows 10, which took 2-3 hours. This had no effect, the ‘Critical Error’ message glowed even brighter.

At this stage I was losing faith in Windows 10 and decided to re-install Windows 8.1. On attempting, I found that it was impossible as ‘some files required for the installation have been removed.’

Gulp...

But then I had a brain-wave. The most recent restore-point was a couple of days ago – possibly when I had downloaded the item that caused the malfunction. So, I then attempted to roll-back to the earlier point, a few days previously.

...AND IT WORKED. The critical error message disappeared and the beautiful Windows 10 was re-born. However, I did lose some applications including Adobe Creative Cloud with Photoshop and Lightroom, which had to be re-installed.

So, the moral is, if you are a Windows Pioneer, like me, be prepared to take some knocks in the early days. (My sons are less charitable in their assessment; the elder one thinks that anyone who installs new software immediately it comes out, without waiting for one month or more in order for it to bed down is simply asking for trouble; younger son was more succinct – you’re an idiot, Dad!).

RIAT 2015

Today was a not-untypical English summer’s day...a chilly morning with lots of gloomy clouds threatening rain, a gentle shower at lunchtime - just as the sun breaks through, and then a blazing hot afternoon with temperatures in the mid-20s C (mid 70s F).

It was the last day of RIAT, the annual Royal International Air Tattoo and the world’s largest military airshow. An estimated 150,000 spectators viewed the extravaganza over the three days that it was in operation this year (including myself and younger son today). It started from modest beginnings 44 years ago, is volunteer-run and operated by the RAF Charitable Trust.

This year there were (by my count) a total of 143 aircraft at the show, mostly static but including 46 aircraft performing flying displays. For me, the big draw was the Vulcan bomber as 2015 will be the last occasion that the remaining example flies since the necessary airworthiness certifications to permit it to fly cannot be obtained after 2015 for a variety of reasons. The RAF started operating Vulcans almost 60 years ago and the famous delta-winged plane participated in its first (and only) combat action in 1982 during the Falklands War.  

A few of my favourites...

 

Ordination of Deacon of Ian Moon

Today, Ian Moon was ordained to the sacred order of the diaconate at the church of St Thomas of Canterbury and the English Martyrs in St Leonards on Sea. It was a joyful, spiritual and moving occasion. Even the fickle English weather cooperated with glorious blue skies and Mediterranean-like temperatures.

The Church of St Thomas dates from 1888 and has a rather plain exterior that belies the richly decorated interior. Its extensive and colourful murals were painted just over 100 years ago but have already been renovated several times, due to damage caused by the salty seaside air. Canon Thomas Traherne is the parish priest and the main celebrant today was Bishop Richard Moth, accompanied by about two dozen clergy from A&B and Southwark dioceses. There was a small choir and orchestra and the cantor was Stephen Bloy, Lourdes pilgrimage veteran and participant in 'The Voice' TV show. The church was full and the sustained applause that followed Ian's ordination was clear testimony to the affection in which he is held.

Now...apologies. I'm leaving at 6.30am tomorrow morning for a full day at RIAT (Royal International Air Tattoo) at RAF Fairford in Glocester so I do not have time to write up today's occasion as it deserves - also there are a couple of hundred photographs of the event waiting to be edited! Here's a sample...

 

 

 

Festival 50

Today was the Catholic Diocese of Arundel & Brighton's 50th Jubilee, and it was held at the  American Express Community Stadium, located at Falmer, five miles north of Brighton & Hove. The Amex stadium is the home of local football team, Brighton & Hove Albion, also known as the Seagulls.

 It was a long day - and I'm exhausted! - so I'll just try and give you a brief impression of the day with a few photographs.

The last few days have been very warm with temperatures in the high-20s Celsius (upper 80s Farenheit). I was rather concerned that many of our elderly attendees might have struggled with the heat today..

...No problem. Today at 8.00am a torrential rain began to fall on the city and continued for several hours. As we walked the ten-minute walk from the car park to the stadium we were absolutely soaked, our shoes waterlogged, our trousers wet and flapping, our hats stuck to our heads and a cold wet trickle working its way down our necks. Quite a start to the day!

After an 8.30am briefing, we scattered to our separate assigned posts. Mine was photography in the West Side area of the stadium, ably assisted by Mrs R.

It was early and the 200+ coaches still had to arrive. Our new Bishop Richard was already at work, welcoming the early comers (and exchanging 'high fives').

Our area contained the majority of the exhibitors' stalls, 39 out of 50, and they soon attracted a steady stream of browsers from 9.30am when the coaches began arriving. Popular stalls included Chemin Neuf...

 The CTS...

and Taize, an ecumenical monastic order founded in France in 1940 and popular with young pilgrims who value its focus on prayer, devout music, Bible study, sharing and communal work.

By late morning the area was packed...

At the West reception were a couple of exhibitions, first the treasures and vestments of the Diocese...

And on the other side of the entranceway, the history of the Diocese ( - well, the 50 years of it!).

The Bishop mentioned that as many as 1,500 people had volunteered to help organise the Jubilee. I know for sure that the staff of DABCEC (the Diocese of Arundel & Brighton Christian Education Centre) had put in a phenomenal amount of work, planning, organising, preparing, printing, producing, directing and enabling. A small proof of it was the care given to crafts and flowers. This was one of the beautiful flower arrangements lurking in just one small corner of the West corridors. (Well done St Teresa's of Southwick with Portslade).

One of my assignments was to capture activity in the theatre areas. Much of the activity involved school choirs. However, the performing spaces tended to be just three or four feet from the audience - and proud parents wielding cameras and mobile phones were in the front rows so that it was virtually impossible to get a photograph that did not include a stray hand holding a phone....

 

For a while I even tried photographing from the side or the back....

 



 

However, even with all the distractions, there were some super performances...

 

 

There was even a play, RISE Theatre's 'Soldier to Saint' but - confession time - we were so busy trying to cover everything that we only got to it as the cast took a bow. The applause suggested it was a successful showing.

 

  

There was no doubt about the success of the Filipina Choir's performance. Again, sadly, I reached it as they were concluding their brief session but (maybe in gratitude for having earlier explained to them exactly where the Theatre was in the rabbit warren that is the Amex stadium) they posed for a photo.

 

 

Similarly, the Polish group (from Eastbourne I think) had everyone  clapping, stamping and swaying...

 

 

As usual the Redshirts (the Youth Service Pilgrimage for Lourdes, school years 10 or 11) sang with passion and joy, led by John Watts, guitar maestro.

 

 

But, if there has to be a winner, my money would be on this group...I think they may be the Mauritian Blue Sash Choir.

 

 

If only because they actually got a couple dancing!

 

 

The highlight of the day was - of course - the Jubilee Celebration Mass. I made my way to the venue, the football pitch, passing the A&B Deaf and Hard of Hearing group, their usual sunny selves...

 



 

The stadium, which has a capacity of 30,750 was just over one-third full, with an estimated 11,000-plus people.

 

 

The rain had stopped by midday, it was comfortably warm and the skies were blue. The procession of altar servers, priests, deacons, bishops, archbishop and Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor slowly made their way round the field to the North side where an altar had been erected among the stands. (The celebrants included Bishop Dan Turley of Chulucanas Diocese in Peru, who I had the honour of greeting briefly last night just before he celebrated Mass at the Sacred Heart, Hove, with our own Fr Kevin).   

 

  

And the altar...

 

 

As always, the music was wonderful, from Newman's rousing 'Praise to the Holiest in the height' to the Going Forth with text by Sylvia Dunstan and much from Paul Inwood, including the Penitential Act, Gloria and Gospel Acclamation. The acoustics were excellent - but there was one unscripted event...

 

During Bishop Richard's homily - on mercy and mission - a seagull circled the North end of the ground, swooped down until it was yards above our heads and then soared to the stadium roof, only to circle down again and again...and again. I even caught it on camera (see below)...

 

 

After the Consecration, the priests and deacons, over 100 of them, moved among the crowd to distribute communion...

 

 

And then it was over, and the participants processed out of the ground (the senior clergy being closely shadowed by the official photographer, Mazin!)

 

 

Outside, the children's funfair was in full swing, the children making up for time lost earlier when it was pouring with rain.

 

 

Deo gratias, another memorable day.

 

(more photos on www.flickr.com/photos/Catholicism )