Happy Day

Fifty years ago on this very day (which was also a Saturday) Jane and I were joined in Holy Matrimony by our then Vicar at St Mark's North End, Canon Peter May. St Mark's went soon after we left Portsmouth to be replaced by the ugliest brutalist concrete abortion in England, so we could not go back there to recall our wedding day. Instead we went to one of the newest of Pompey's attractions,  the recently completed Museum Gallery of the Mary Rose. It is spectacular.

This is just one of the many guns brought up from the seabed - and the perspex housing lets you  see the whole of the works - though in some places even the timber gun-carriages have been preserved. One of the more poignant memorials is a case containing religious artefacts, mostly Rosaries but also the covers of some books of prayers, crosses and so on. This was in the latter part of  Henry VIIIs reign, after the breach with Rome. It was only thirty or so years later that his second daughter, Elizabeth, proscribed the use of the Rosary. So  Mary Rose sank at that crucial time when England might have remained Catholic - by Elizabeth's reign the breach was irreparable, and the anti-Roman propaganda was doing its worst. We still live with the damage begun then.

The curators have created a mirror image of the original ship, so on one side you see the timbers raised from the sea-bed, and on the other the multitude of items taken from the wreck, set up as if on continuations of the decks. We thought it  would be a visit of maybe half an hour - instead we were engrossed for three times as long.

Once again my pictures are refusing to download to the blog, so the one above will have to stand for all the rest. Very frustrating. We ended up having tea (with a wonderful view of Victory, stripped of her Masts and undergoing yet another refit). Then a dash home, a brief respite and a change of clothes, and out to a very good evening meal at Gordleton Mill. A lovely way to mark a great day; and tomorrow it is off to Southbourne for Mass with our great Ordinariate gang.

How to welcome a Pope

Our first sight of Pope Benedict was in the newly built basilica, where he addressed nine thousand priests and religious. Through the good offices of the Bishop of Leiria/Fatima, our contingent of bishops and priests were admitted to this event; and bishop Keith and I had privileged seats at the very front of the assembly. Press photographers and security men were everywhere, yet we had a very good view thoughout. This photograph I took as he was leaving the Basilica. He went on into the crowds around the shrine, where he led the recital of the Rosary. This devotion is especially associated with Fatima, where the children who had the vision were told that the Lady they saw was the Lady of the Rosary.

The centre of the visit was the Mass celebrated on the Recinto, the site of the vision which the shepherd children received of the Mother of God. That occurred first on May 13th 1917, so it was on Thursday May 17th that the Holy Father took his place at the altar built in front of the 1930's basilica, where the bodies of the three visionaries are at rest.

It is difficult in words or pictures to convey the sheer size of the crowd gathered to honour Our Lady of Fatima. Generally there will be around 400,000 of the faithful; this year, the estimate was half a million. They are enthusiastic, greeting the arrival of the Holy Father with repeated shouts of "Long live the Pope!"; yet throughout the Mass this great throng is quiet and focused as they concentrate on the action taking place before them - for many, in the far distance! The National TV network covered every part of the Papal visit, from his arrival in Lisbon, throughout his time in Fatima, and his last day in Porto. As pictures appeared on the screens in the church the night of his arrival, great cheers greeted his arrival by helicopter.

Our party included a dozen clergy - on the left, Fr Malcolm Gray, who organises us. In the centre, me and bishop Keith. We were assigned seats in the colonnade, very near the Altar. On an unusually chilly Fatima day the wind blew through the columns and kept most of us awake.

Fatima is not all fun and games, though. When the Ecumenical Friends of Fatima were established some ten years ago, we asked the Bishop what work he would suggest we might share in; his answer was the Community of Life and Peace, where former drug addicts are rehabilitated. Here is some of our group visiting Vida & Paz, in order to present them with our most recent donation towards their work.

It would be good to think that some part of the enthusiasm of the Portuguese for the Holy Father might be repeated in England this autumn. As Anglicans, we have a special responsibility to try to explain why we find his such a sympathetic figure, one who has proved to be a Father in God to many of us who have been treated with less than fatherly care by some of our own bishops. More still, we have a duty to pray for the Pope, and for his visit when he will be honouring one of our own, John Henry Newman.