As Night Falls: summer holiday in Falmouth
Well, the media do it, so why shouldn't we? Just a few of the highlights of an extra-ordinary year. The Scots have been denied a PEV, so there was a visit North of the Border, for a Mass of the Chrism.
Immediately after it, there was Florence for Holy Week - that was pretty special, with a confirmation as part of the Triduum celebrations.
Then there was Fatima for the May Pilgrimage. Everyone I know seems to have seen the Holy Father in England; but to see him in Portugal was very special - not least because thanks to Fr Gray we, Bishop Keith and I, had pole position for his visit. Wonderful.
There were many events in England too; a great celebration at St Michael's Croydon, for St James' day, will have to stand in for all the rest - too many to recount.
Walsingham National, our first in three years, was lovely, and a great time for meeting old friends.
Most recently, the great joy of being with our son for his Degree Ceremony; for a lad who dropped out of school at sixteen, and then rose through the ranks of bar-tenders to run the most prestigious pub in Oxford (the King's Arms) achieving the degree of Master of Science was more than we expected; and still he continues, working towards his doctorate.
As the year draws to an end, so does my ministry in the Church of England; all fifty years of it. But it is such a privilege to be at the start of something utterly new. No telling how it may develop over the years, but it is good to be able to say we were spared long enough to be here, in the first wave of the Ordinariate. Now, onwards and upwards to 2011.
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