Happy feast-day of St. Catherine, patroness of archivists!

Happy feast-day of St. Catherine of Alexandria, martyr of the faith, evangeliser of fifty pagan philosophers, and patroness of archivists!  Here she is in Maurice Josey’s magnificent mosaics in her church at Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire.

Fanfare for Allhallowstide

An adaptation by Diocesan Design of the Fiesole San Domenico Altarpiece (probably by Fra Angelico) 

In England and Wales All Saints' Day is being kept on November 2nd this year.  Happy feast-day!

     How shall we pilgrims keep the law of love?
  How shall we follow where our Lord has led?
  The saints know how: they point the way ahead;
  They watch the road to Heaven from above.

  The saints were young and old, were great and small,
  In myriad lives showed one thing to be true:
  Whatever works of woe the world may do,
  The Lord shall never let His faithful fall.

  So we on earth, we should be saints as well,
  We wayward wayfarers whom they invite
  To blaze with love, to set the world alight,
  To join them in the joy in which they dwell.

  As we must one day die, they also died,
  But live now as we hope we too shall live.
  To all our friends in Heaven let us give
  Our joyful greetings at Allhallowstide!

Hymnus Paradisi at 75

‘It is the blaze of a thousand suns in the Sanctus; it is a golden radiance in the penultimate chorus; and at last, to the words requiem sempiternam, it is the light of the dawn.’  So wrote the Times music critic Frank Howes after the première performance in 1950 of Hymnus Paradisi, the great choral and orchestral Requiem, and perhaps the master-work, of Herbert Howells.  This year has been the seventy-fifth anniversary of that first performance, and also the ninetieth of the bereavement which precipitated it: the death, aged only nine, of Howells’ son Michael.

‘Requiem aeternam…’  The second movement of Hymnus Paradisi, given in a memorable Proms performance on the 29th August, 2012, by the combined forces of the BBC Symphony Chorus, the London Philharmonic Choir, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and soloists, conducted by Martyn Brabbins.  The music runs on without a break into the 23rd Psalm.

The story has been much told elsewhere: of the shock of Michael’s death — in the space of only three days, from meningitis, in the middle of a holiday — of the subsequent freezing of Howells’ inspiration, of his daughter Ursula’s suggestion that he write something in Michael’s memory, of the composer’s nevertheless keeping his work private for over a decade, until at last Herbert Sumsion and Ralph Vaughan Williams persuaded him to have this ‘personal, almost secret document’ performed.  He was the conductor at that first performance, at the Three Choirs Festival at Gloucester in 1950, the day after the fifteenth anniversary of Michael’s death.  

‘The sudden loss in 1935 of an only son, a loss essentially profound and, in its very nature, beyond argument, might naturally impel a composer, after a time, to seek release and consolation in language and terms most personal to him,’ acknowledged Howells in a BBC radio talk in 1964.  ‘Music may well have the power beyond any other medium to offer that release and comfort.  It did so in my case, and became a personal, private document.’

This year’s anniversary has been marked by a number of performances, notably in Guildford, Hereford, London and Nottingham.  These have been all the more welcome because they are so rare.  For all that this is not only Howells’ own masterpiece, but arguably one of the most extraordinary works in English music — the journalist Simon Heffer has even called it ‘one of the great works of the whole musical canon, and one that stakes a claim to be the finest piece ever written in the English choral tradition’ — it is performed with vanishing rarity, perhaps because of its technical difficulty and the large forces for which it was written.  It may also suffer because of a slight ambiguity of genre — it is meant really for the rich acoustic of a church or cathedral, not a concert hall, yet is neither liturgical in nature nor an oratorio, but a kind of sacred symphonic cantata.  In any case, to have four in a year is special.

Howells at Gloucester Cathedral on the 7th September,
1950, just before conducting the first performance of
Hymnus Paradisi.  The previous day had been the fifteenth
anniversary of his son Michael’s death.
Royal College of Music, ref. LDRCM.Ph.22.77, retrieved from
http://museumcollections.rcm.ac.uk/collection/Details/collect/5038,
reproduced under CC BY 4.0 licence, cropped and enhanced slightly

I have loved this music since my mid-teens, but before this year had only heard it live once, at the Proms in 2012.  This year, impelled to seize every possible opportunity, I managed to hear it twice: at Guildford — with the Guildford Choral Society and Chichester Singers and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jonathan Willcocks — and then in Hereford Cathedral as part of the Three Choirs Festival, with the Festival Chorus and Philharmonia Orchestra under Adrian Partington.  The performance at Guildford was magnificent, but it was at Hereford, in a seat hidden away in the south transept, that I experienced the piece, I realised, for the first time as it was really meant to be heard: that is, in a cathedral acoustic, from a distance,  possibly not even in sight of the musicians (as indeed i was not), as if overhearing, achingly anticipating, the choruses of Heaven itself.  In those great soaring spaces of the nave and transepts and chancel, with July twilight lingering in the tracery and the dusk seeping in under the high vaults, the stupendous crescendoes and climaxes had room to expand to their full proportions, to rise and fall and to be only sustained and intensified, as the composer intended, by the bone body of the church.  Only in a place like this could the music expand to its full scale.  It was, I understood at last, inseparable from the setting of a great church.  The church was part of the music, and actually implicit in the score.  Howells had made the entire cathedral his instrument.

Hymnus Paradisi is a work filled with light, the ‘lux aeterna’ of the prayer from the Requiem Mass.  As Howells wrote,  ‘Light indeed touches all but one of the six movements… Even the gravest verse of the 23rd Psalm reflects it; and the [Sanctus] blazes with it’.  Crucial to that luminous effect are Howells’ radiant harmonies, and therefore, in turn, the purity of tone that goes to make them.  One thing that in consequence has marred many recordings of Hymnus Paradisi for me has been the vibrato used by the soloists.  They are naturally used to taking a leading role, but Howells uses them more as individual instruments, calling for them to emerge from and retreat into the rich overall tapestry of sound.  I was resigned, this year, for the same.  But both Charlotte Bowden at Guildford and Rebecca Hardwick in Hereford surprised and delighted me with precisely the purity and evenness that I had thought so elusive.  Rebecca Hardwick in particular seemed to convey the clarity and luminosity that was needed — that Howells surely wanted — shining definitely and brilliantly, certainly, but not dominating, and making her vital, plangent contribution to the overall sound without overdoing anything.  Hers was the simple voice of the soul entering the everlasting light.  It was profoundly moving.

I have also been meaning to mention a new arrangement of Hymnus Paradisi by Iain Farrington for the reduced forces of soloists, choir, chamber orchestra and organ.  This was first performed at Yale University in America in February 2024, with David Hill conducting.  This is extraordinary because even in this pared-down version one can hear how richly-woven the music is, how deftly-crafted — one of the wonderful things about it is that with every rendition I hear something new in it, some note or phrase I had not realised was there.  The opening of the final movement, ‘Holy is the True Light’, is particularly astonishing in this regard.  Here, too, Howells’ music resembles the intricacy and craftsmanship of the great cathedrals which, as his daughter recalled, he ‘adored’.  May the whole Howells family enter the light glimpsed in this extraordinary music.

Howells’ Hymnus Paradisi, arr. Iain Farrington, performed by the Yale Schola Cantorum, 17th February 2024, introduced by the conductor, David Hill.

Reference sources:

Christopher Palmer, Herbert Howells: A Study (Sevenoaks: Novello, 1978).

Paul Spicer, Herbert Howells (Bridgend: Seren, 1998).

Simon Heffer, ‘Herbert Howells and Hymnus Paradisi’, programme note, 2024: <https://londonchorus.org.uk/2024/01/08/herbert-howells-and-hymnus-paradisi/>.

Life in the Culture of Death

In the past decade it has been discovered that at the moment of conception, at our very beginning, in a phase intrinsic to the formation of the first single cell from which we grow, there occurs an eruption of metallic ions in a brilliant flash of light, or ‘zinc spark’, as embryologists have called it.  As with so many things in life, how we respond to this knowledge depends on how we choose to look at it.  To those to whom the unborn child is ‘just a clump of cells’, this flash of light will be just a flash of light.  But to the thoughtful, humble observer, this zinc spark is a signal, a signal that calls to us and invites us to consider its meaning.  What we conclude may carry certain implications and charge us with certain responsibilities.  But if the signal betokens a reality, and if it matters to us that we live in accordance with reality, then we should be keen to make an accurate interpretation of that signal.

I for one believe that the meaning of the signal is so clear that if I had been seeking merely to fabricate embryological phenomena for the sake of pro-life propaganda, I would have rejected the idea of a ‘zinc spark’ as too obvious, too miraculous, too unequivocal a witness to our humanity.  But there it is: the vindication in empirical and impartial observation of the consistent Christian teaching of the ages.  Of course even these beginnings are often fragile, and in the hands of God, but in so far as these matters are entrusted to us, the sign is clear: the life of the unborn child is not ours to take.

The ends of our lives can, it is true, be more blurred and complicated, but for the centuries in which Britain was Christian the idea of a ‘natural death’ was broadly accepted: that there comes a point at which the soul (the same as once was ignited in a wink of zinc) subsides into embers too cool to revive, and that even if it is sometimes hard for us to tell quite when the soul has departed from the body, this moment is beyond our say-so.  For as long as the Christian faith held gentle sway in these islands, we knew, for all our shortcomings, of our responsibility for each other for the whole duration between these two moments.  That belief has, for the present, it seems, come definitively to an end in Britain, given that a fortnight ago, in a single week, the House of Commons made two decisions that fundamentally undermine this principle, both at the beginning of life, and at its end.

The law’s been passed and I am lying low

Hoping to hide from those who think they are

Kindly, compassionate.  My step is slow.

I hurry.  Will the executioner

Be watching how I go?

Others about me clearly feel the same.

The deafest one pretends that she can hear.

The blindest hides her white stick while the lame

Attempt to stride.  Life has become so dear. 

from 'Euthanasia’ by Elizabeth Jennings (1926–2001) 

The voting through of these Bills, to say nothing of the immaturity and haste of the debates preceding them, has as far as I am concerned brought disgrace on Britain.  We are now going downhill distressingly quickly.  I want to climb to the rooftops and bellow that I had no part in it; I long to carve into clean stone a testament to my bitter opposition and set it into a wall or a crypt, to be found by such of our descendants as we allow to be born.  This Bill represents the direct opposite of the Britain that I consider myself to have inherited and which, in my small corner, I am trying to sustain.  I am filled with grief at the prospect of the suffering these Bills will cause if they become law, and, yes, with anger at the short-sightedness and shallow thought of our elected representatives.  The shame of Britain, her giggling and smirking as she brings herself low, burns me and torments me.

And yet I do not condemn our Parliamentarians outright.  There were many who offered principled and articulate opposition to the Bill.  And even those who voted Yes generally did so with perfectly human instincts, albeit woefully incomplete and ill-formed.  They may have spoken of dignity and freedom and compassion, but I think they were motivated mainly by fear: the fear of dependency, the fear of being depended upon, the fear of suffering, the fear of watching others suffer.  All quite understandable feelings: but by their vote our elected representative have sought to place the sovereign will in the driving-seat in the hope that we can each outrun these things, to allow us to take whichever exit we choose off the motorway of life, rather than to remain all together in the same carriage bound for the same terminus.  (They also fear having to cede their right of way over the new lives joining us off the slip-roads.)  All human beings know these fears, and they are not trivial.  But the pagan solution adopted by our MPs reveals that they simply do not know ‘the perfect love that casts out fear’.  They do not know the true meaning of the word compassion, which is literally ‘to suffer with’, to share the burden of suffering, and to strengthen a bond of intimacy and brotherly love with another person, and thereby to defeat the fear and loneliness that is often a sharper sting than the suffering itself. They do not know that Christianity, and indeed the natural law that undergirds all the world’s nobler traditions of wisdom, offers this vital rejoinder to our sorrows: that our humanity is deeper even than our will and our desires, that it is not diminished one jot by suffering, by pain, by weakness, by imminent death.  It proclaims that our dignity transcends our indignities.  Indeed, our dignity is often found precisely in our response to suffering.

Britain now feels less like Britain than I can ever remember, and not only because of the stifling weather.  My mood is much as it was after the news of Ireland’s repealing of her Eighth Amendment: three parts dismay to one part hope.  There is the grief at the wrong decision, and horror at another advance of the Dictatorship of Relativism, building and pressing down like this towering heat.  Then there is resignation, for none of this really comes as a surprise after so many years of secularisation.  But there is also a suspicion that the Culture of Death has again overplayed its hand — that the victory was too blatant, too hasty, too enthusiastically crowed over, and that, in its very cheapness, the very ease with which it has been achieved, it has sown the seeds of its own defeat.  This article by Sebastian Milbank suggests as much of the Assisted Suicide debate:

Watch the debate.  Search the faces and the gestures, listen closely to the words that were spoken.  Look beyond the specific arguments, and feel the pulse of feeling, sentiment and motivation racing underneath.  The constant back-patting about the good-natured quality of the discussion, the strength and sincerity of feelings, the pure and decent motives of MPs, and cries of “parliament at its best” are not merely the self-congratulations they appear. It is the collective nervous tic of guilty men and women […]  This almost unseemly urgency buzzed at the edges of today’s vote.  Those in favour continually stressed that doing nothing was worse than doing something, that the “status quo” was untenable.  The bill was ideological displacement activity; a release valve for the neuroses of a governing class waking up to a country in crisis, and a public sector on the brink of collapse.

Again, many courageous Parliamentarians have fought honourably against the Assisted Suicide Bill, and their words will remain in Hansard until their final vindication.  Also, many will have seen how the Catholic Church has offered some of the strongest opposition.  But the abortion Bill, meanwhile, was the result of a hijack, an ambush, and rushed through before we could do anything about it.  We may still pray that the Bills are heavily amended, and ideally defeated in the House of Lords.  If not, then we light another long, slow-burning candle in our hearts for their ultimate repealing.  But regardless of what happens, all the while, at the moment of every human conception, the zinc spark will continue to send its signal, a gentle but insistent reproach to those who do not believe in life, and a quiet encouragement to those who do.

Happy Pentecost!

“The Holy Spirit bestows understanding. The Spirit overcomes the ‘breach’ that began in Babel, the confusion of mind and heart that sets us one against the other.  The Spirit opens borders…  The Church must always become anew what she already is. She must open the borders between peoples and break down the barriers between class and race.  In her, there cannot be those who are neglected or disdained.  In the Church there are only free men and women, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ.”  

Pope Leo XIV, quoting Benedict XVI in his homily for Pentecost Sunday, 8th June, 2025.

The Veni Creator Spiritus sung in the four languages of these Islands at the Coronation of King Charles III.  Sung by the combined choirs of Westminster Abbey and His Majesty’s Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace with choristers from Belfast, Truro Cathedral and the Monteverdi Choir.  The Director of Music is Andrew Nethsingha, the organist Peter Holder.

A Lion in Rome

We have a Pope!  God bless Leo XIV!

God loves us, God loves you all, and evil will not prevail!  All of us are in God’s hands.  So, let us move forward, without fear, together, hand in hand with God and with one another!

— from the new Pope’s first address, 8th May, 2025.

Not made for Death, but for Life

Happy Easter to all readers!  I have been meaning to blog sooner, but have been particularly busy over the last month or so.  And there has been no shortage of news – most significantly the loss of Pope Francis on Easter Monday.  We had of course been well aware of his serious illness the previous month, but he had seemed to be recovering – and had we not seen the pictures of him in St. Peter’s Square the previous day, and had he not wished us a happy Easter, and met the Vice-President of the United States, and in his Easter homily (albeit read aloud on his behalf), declared that “we were not made for death, but for life”?  So to lose him was rather a jolt.

I suppose, in a way, it is appropriate: he was ever the Pope of the dramatic gesture, with a sense of the theatrical about him, and was always encouraging us to put our feet where our faith is.  Perhaps, in his dying on Easter Monday, we might see a similar thing.

Yet I remember this aspect of him taking a little getting used to at first, especially after the careful manner of Pope Benedict.  Pope Francis had less time for words, even a certain impatience with them, and perhaps the same went for formalities.  He always gave the impression that there was no time to lose, and so it is characteristic that he should have had his foot on the accelerator to the very end.  This was a man who in embraced a disfigured man without hesitation; who actually knelt to kiss the feet of the warring leaders of South Sudan, who amid evening rainfall calmly blessed the whole world in those vertiginous first weeks of the pandemic.  A critic might call it a ‘PR papacy’, and indeed any photo-op carries the risk of playing to the camera; yet these images, which were challenging and conscience-pricking, were also a kind of riposte to the age of the age of airbrushing and virtue-signalling.

Embed from Getty Images

The media, of course, also put their own spin on him, as is their wont; to them he was simply the Pope who wanted to make the Church more ‘progressive’ and ‘forward-looking’, and apparently a change from previous Popes (which is of course a jab at Pope Benedict, something they can never resist).  But as ever the media reveal their selective hearing, choosing to ignore the moments when he expressed himself with startling directness, capable of criticising liberal and conservative excesses with equal enthusiasm, while also pointing out that the Christian faith transcends either.  He was perfectly willing to fire from both barrels, and indeed I have found him more chastening and challenging than I did the supposedly stricter (but actually very gentle) Pope Benedict.

Yet of course he did strike a particular tone of mercy.  His description of the Church as a field-hospital has stayed with me, as with so many: the priority of getting people, in whatever condition or state of life, out of the rain and the cold of the world, and into the warm and dry of the Church.  He is right this is a world that urgently needs the Church (the world’s largest provider of healthcare, and its largest educational institution, and perhaps the largest humanitarian organisation overall, even before we get onto spiritual matters…).  He was right we cannot necessarily afford to wait until everything is neat and tidy before putting out into the deep.  Similarly, his promotion of a ‘culture of encounter’ has encouraged me to overcome my reserved nature and speak (and, I hope, listen!) to more people.  Finally, his extension of mercy above all – the unique priority of the Christian faith – was also absolutely urgent.  So, may the Lord soon welcome him to his reward, and grant him the eternal life in which he taught us to hope.

Now, as we await his successor, here again is his final homily:

Christ is risen, alleluia!

Dear brothers and sisters, Happy Easter!

Today at last, the singing of the ‘alleluia’ is heard once more in the Church, passing from mouth to mouth, from heart to heart, and this makes the people of God throughout the world shed tears of joy.

From the empty tomb in Jerusalem, we hear unexpected good news: Jesus, who was crucified, ‘is not here, he has risen’.  Jesus is not in the tomb, he is alive!

Love has triumphed over hatred, light over darkness and truth over falsehood.  Forgiveness has triumphed over revenge.  Evil has not disappeared from history; it will remain until the end, but it no longer has the upper hand; it no longer has power over those who accept the grace of this day.

Sisters and brothers, especially those of you experiencing pain and sorrow, your silent cry has been heard and your tears have been counted; not one of them has been lost!

In the passion and death of Jesus, God has taken upon himself all the evil in this world and in his infinite mercy has defeated it.  He has uprooted the diabolical pride that poisons the human heart and wreaks violence and corruption on every side.  The Lamb of God is victorious! That is why, today, we can joyfully cry out: ‘Christ, my hope, has risen!’ .

The resurrection of Jesus is indeed the basis of our hope.  For in the light of this event, hope is no longer an illusion.  Thanks to Christ — crucified and risen from the dead — hope does not disappoint!  Spes non confundit!  That hope is not an evasion, but a challenge; it does not delude, but empowers us.

All those who put their hope in God place their feeble hands in his strong and mighty hand; they let themselves be raised up and set out on a journey.  Together with the risen Jesus, they become pilgrims of hope, witnesses of the victory of love and of the disarmed power of Life.

Christ is risen!  These words capture the whole meaning of our existence, for we were not made for death but for life.  Easter is the celebration of life!  God created us for life and wants the human family to rise again!  In his eyes, every life is precious!  The life of a child in the mother’s womb, as well as the lives of the elderly and the sick, who in more and more countries are looked upon as people to be discarded.

What a great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day in the many conflicts raging in different parts of our world!  How much violence we see, often even within families, directed at women and children!  How much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalised, and migrants!

On this day, I would like all of us to hope anew and to revive our trust in others, including those who are different than ourselves, or who come from distant lands, bringing unfamiliar customs, ways of life and ideas!  For all of us are children of God!

I would like us to renew our hope that peace is possible!  From the Holy Sepulchre, the Church of the Resurrection, where this year Easter is being celebrated by Catholics and Orthodox on the same day, may the light of peace radiate throughout the Holy Land and the entire world.

I express my closeness to the sufferings of Christians in Palestine and Israel, and to all the Israeli people and the Palestinian people. The growing climate of anti-Semitism throughout the world is worrisome.  Yet at the same time, I think of the people of Gaza, and its Christian community in particular, where the terrible conflict continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation.

I appeal to the warring parties: call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace!

Let us pray for the Christian communities in Lebanon and in Syria, presently experiencing a delicate transition in its history.  They aspire to stability and to participation in the life of their respective nations.  I urge the whole Church to keep the Christians of the beloved Middle East in its thoughts and prayers.

I also think in particular of the people of Yemen, who are experiencing one of the world’s most serious and prolonged humanitarian crises because of war, and I invite all to find solutions through a constructive dialogue.

May the risen Christ grant Ukraine, devastated by war, his Easter gift of peace, and encourage all parties involved to pursue efforts aimed at achieving a just and lasting peace.

On this festive day, let us remember the South Caucasus and pray that a final peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan will soon be signed and implemented, and lead to long-awaited reconciliation in the region.

May the light of Easter inspire efforts to promote harmony in the western Balkans and sustain political leaders in their efforts to allay tensions and crises, and, together with their partner countries in the region, to reject dangerous and destabilising actions.

May the risen Christ, our hope, grant peace and consolation to the African peoples who are victims of violence and conflict, especially in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Sudan and South Sudan.  May he sustain those suffering from the tensions in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region, as well as those Christians who in many places are not able freely to profess their faith.

There can be no peace without freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of expression and respect for the views of others.

Nor is peace possible without true disarmament!  The requirement that every people provide for its own defence must not turn into a race to rearmament.

The light of Easter impels us to break down the barriers that create division and are fraught with grave political and economic consequences.  It impels us to care for one another, to increase our mutual solidarity, and to work for the integral development of each human person.

During this time, let us not fail to assist the people of Myanmar, plagued by long years of armed conflict, who, with courage and patience, are dealing with the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Sagaing, which caused the death of thousands and great suffering for the many survivors, including orphans and the elderly.  We pray for the victims and their loved ones, and we heartily thank all the generous volunteers carrying out the relief operations.

The announcement of a ceasefire by various actors in the country is a sign of hope for the whole of Myanmar.

I appeal to all those in positions of political responsibility in our world not to yield to the logic of fear which only leads to isolation from others, but rather to use the resources available to help the needy, to fight hunger and to encourage initiatives that promote development.  These are the ‘weapons’ of peace: weapons that build the future, instead of sowing seeds of death!

May the principle of humanity never fail to be the hallmark of our daily actions.  In the face of the cruelty of conflicts that involve defenceless civilians and attack schools, hospitals and humanitarian workers, we cannot allow ourselves to forget that it is not targets that are struck, but persons, each possessed of a soul and human dignity.

In this Jubilee year, may Easter also be a fitting occasion for the liberation of prisoners of war and political prisoners!

Dear brothers and sisters,

In the Lord’s Paschal Mystery, death and life contended in a stupendous struggle, but the Lord now lives forever.  He fills us with the certainty that we too are called to share in the life that knows no end, when the clash of arms and the rumble of death will be heard no more.  Let us entrust ourselves to him, for he alone can make all things new!

Happy Easter to everyone!

An ‘Easter banger’ (to coin a phrase!) from OLEM, Our Lady of the English Martyrs in Cambridge, Easter Vigil, 24th April, 2025: Peter Latona’s setting of the antiphon for the Rite of Sprinkling: ‘I saw water flowing from the right side of the Temple’ (‘Vidi aquam’).

Et Crucifixus Est

From the East Window of Worcester Cathedral

‘I thirst’ from the setting by Sir James MacMillan (b. 1959) of the Seven Last Words from the Cross.  

An Ambush of Hope on Maundy Thursday

There was I preparing my usual Maundy Thursday jeremiad on the crises of our time, the evaporation of meaning from our language and culture — all the usual things — when, all of a sudden, from various different sources, I was ambushed by a fusillade of extraordinary statistics.  In London’s largest Catholic diocese of Westminster, there has been a twenty-five per cent increase in adult baptisms in a single year; taking neighbouring Southwark into account, nearly a thousand adult Londoners will be baptised.  Across all churches in Britain there has been a fifty-five per cent increase in numbers since 2018.  Moreover, the growth is among young people: whereas in 2018 only 4% of 18–24-year-olds were regular church goers, that proportion has now risen to 16%, and of this number, 41% are Catholic.  Meanwhile, in France, there has been a record number (17,800) of adult baptisms, a growth of forty-five per cent in a single year.  Again, young people seem to be the driving force: an extraordinary 42% of those baptised are aged between 18–25.

Living in London, I have long had a sense of the vitality of the Church here, and it is remarkable to see now this hard evidence of a revival, of a New Evangelisation under way.  It is my privilege to count several of these recent converts among my friends, and I can attest to their dedication and energy; also to their level-headedness and prudence.  From them I draw the same conclusion as the statistics suggest: this is is no fad or emotional spasm, but the sum total of many careful decisions made after long thought and prayer, and a serious and genuine trend.  ‘Something is happening out there,’ as the American social commentator Mary Eberstadt has said, and it is as true on this side of the pond as it is on hers.

Screenshot from Catherine Pepinster’s article in the Telegraph, 13 April 2025: ‘The extraordinary resurgence of the Catholic faith in Britain’.

The situation has even piqued the interest of (largely secular) colleagues at (very secular) work, and on more than one occasion I have found myself fielding questions in, it seemed, an impromptu press conference.  They were intrigued enough to hazard their own explanations, many I think accurate: the crises of our time, both visible and invisible (in the first category, pandemic, war, climate change and the economy; in the second, of meaning, relationships and of the human body).  The degradation of our culture, the damage to the environment, the chaos of the online continent, the philosophical challenges posed by political upheavals and by the rise of the smartphone and by artificial intelligence… these are the crises that we all know about.  And also playing their part are the crises that the Church has, however unfashionably,  long been predicting, and which now even the secular world cannot avoid noticing: the collapse of trust and happiness between the sexes, the unsustainably low numbers of births, the decline of marriage and the prevalence of family breakdown.  (Another astonishing statistic from Versailles diocese was that 80% of catechumens in their twenties come from broken homes).

But the reason for the conversions is not necessarily, and certainly should not be, entirely negative.  It is not solely out of fear and uncertainty that we ‘turn to religion’ as my colleagues put it.  The explanation might be far simpler: that our spirits crave more than the sugary junk of the moral and cultural menu that secular progressivism has been serving up for the last six decades, and that we long for more — that we hunger for beauty, truth and goodness — that we seek the face of God.

What is also inspiring is that many of these converts have found their way to the faith from quite a remote position: raised without a connection to the Church, they have set out and found their way home, in the face of all fashion, against all trends, and indeed, risking outright disapproval from all directions.  And in their search for meaning and clarity they have fallen for none of the insane ideologies waiting to scam their souls — or at least have not fallen for them permanently.  They have come to the Church that so many wrote off, mocked, dismissed, sought to smother.

But, this being Maundy Thursday, are we getting ahead of ourselves?  Statistics are only statistics: after all, in the early 1960s the seminaries were full, and few foresaw the decline that is still the general trend.  Professor Stephen Bullivant has said that, numerically, the Catholic Church is only doing the least badly of the Christian Churches; in 2023 Mass attendance in England and Wales was only 555,000, compared to pre-pandemic figure of 702,000.  And if in bleaker years we have remembered rightly that the Church does not depend on numbers, that ‘Truth draws strength from itself, not from the number of votes in its favour’, or that ‘where two or three gather in my name, there am I among them’, then increased numbers now do not in themselves make the faith any more or less true.  The disciples, arrived in Jerusalem for Passover, might have reckoned they had done a decent job over the previous three years, but events were imminently to render any performance appraisal utterly irrelevant, to leave their competencies as against agreed objectives quite beside the point.

Likewise we in the Church, soon to be blessed at the Easter Vigil with so many new brothers and sisters, know that this remarkable gift is not just the measure of mission statements and strategies — true though it is that a great deal of hard work and courage lies behind this new growth.  It is again a sign that God’s ways are not our ways, that we are His instruments in the New Evangelisation, not He ours.  And certainly, seeing things in this way, there is never a dull moment: it is at times like these that we see how dramatic the results can be.  

And speaking of drama, now we follow the disciples into the Upper Room, as evening falls, and the lamps are lit, and the shadows play around the walls…

The setting by Maurice Duruflé (1902–1986) of the Tantum ergo, sung by the French ensemble La Cité de la Voix in the Basilica of Sainte-Madeleine de Vézelay, Yonne.  ‘Therefore, so great a Sacrament / Let us venerate with heads bowed, / And let the old practice / Give way to the new rite; / Let faith provide a supplement / For the failure of the senses.’

Rondel for Ash Wednesday

Reposted according to tradition… 

All friends of Christ, hold fast, hold fast;
Fear not these desert days of Lent. 
All grunged-up souls, all people pent 
In pleasure’s prison, bravely cast 
Your senseless sin aside at last: 
Believe the Gospel and repent. 
All friends of Christ, hold fast, hold fast;
Fear not these desert days of Lent.
The thirst and hunger will not last, 
For by God’s Son, who underwent 
The Cross, we know that we are meant 
For Heaven’s home when pain is past — 
All friends of Christ, hold fast, hold fast.

Brancaster Bay, north Norfolk, August 2024

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!

‘Here is my stone-ribbed nest…’  St. David’s Cathedral, 6th March 2024.

Wishing a very happy feast of St. David to all who have reason to celebrate!

[…]  I am David.

I am the Dovebearer.

I speak of peace.

I counsel joy.

    In a fold of the furthest west,

    Here is my stone-ribbed nest.

I am David.  

Under my feet

The rock of Dyfed

Has raised me up

    To tower in time’s March gales.

    I am David.  I am Wales.

Raymond Garlick (1926–2011)

A Double Treat for Ruth Gipps’ Birthday

This year there is even more reason than usual to celebrate the birthday of the British composer Ruth Gipps (1921–1999).  Two new records — a third and fourth volume of her orchestral music — are coming out in quick succession, both issued by Chandos Records.  Volume III, which was released last month, includes her First Symphony, which remained unperformed and unrecorded from 1942 until a BBC Radio 3 broadcast on 22nd February last year.  There is also her delightfully optimistic Horn Concerto and a triple helping of orchestral pieces: the Coronation Procession, Ambervalia and Cringlemire Garden.  Volume IV, due for release on April 11th this year, will include her elusive Fifth Symphony, along with her Violin Concerto and Leviathan for double-bassoon.   In both cases we once again have conductor Rumon Gamba and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra to thank for their musicianship.

It is the prospect of the two symphonies that I find most exciting.  Of the five neglected symphonies of this hitherto-neglected composer, so little seemed to be said of Gipps’ First Symphony that I had imagined it would simply never be heard.  Symphony No. 5 I knew, but only from a scratchy recording of its 1982 première which, shockingly, had been its only performance until, in April 2023, Gipps Revival veterans Adam Stern and the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra stepped up to the plate with the American première.  At the second British performance a month later, I marvelled, for the hundredth time, that such wonderful music could have been so completely sidelined.  I have been waiting for years for a recording.  Now, however, with these new discs, which I have every reason to believe will match the standard of their forerunners, the putting right of a great injustice in British music will, I dare say, be more or less accomplished.  There is now every reason to hope for continued and frequent appearances of Gipps’ music on the radio, which in turn will bring her music to new ears, and hopefully encourage the programming of her music in live concerts.

As I have said before, the Ruth Gipps saga shows us how entirely and visibly an artist holding to his or her integrity may be vindicated in the end — however unlikely it may have seemed, however implacable the prejudices of fashion may have been — and it ought to give heart to all artists, writers and poets who are tempted to despair in the face of disdain or indifference.

Ten years of ‘Some Definite Service’

The village of Deeping St. Nicholas, Lincolnshire, seen from the Peterborough–Lincoln train, 20th March, 2014.

‘We read to know that we are not alone,’ it turns out C. S. Lewis didn’t say — I have almost been the latest to misattribute to the man himself a line spoken by him only in a fictionalised form, in the 1993 biographical film Shadowlands.  Still, the words ring quite as true as if he really had said them.  It was to know that I was not alone, for instance, that I started following Catholic blogs in early 2010.  I read for some alternative to the media hostility against the forthcoming visit to Britain of Pope Benedict XVI; I read in search of ripostes to  the media mischaracterisation of Catholics and the Christian faith and the personal attacks on Benedict himself; I read, in that heyday of the New Atheists, for witty rejoinders to the mockery of believers that was then still fashionably edgy.  I read, and kept reading, for intelligent and thoughtful writing on what the Church actually believes and why, and on living out our faith in the present age.

And what a relief it was to find those blogs.  Many were pseudonymous, such as the ‘Countercultural Father’ and now-defunct ‘Reluctant Sinner’, but others were written under their authors’ real names: Joanna Bogle’s was a particular favourite, as well as the various contributors to the Catholic Voices blog.  Either way, they seldom overstepped the mark in tone or content, to my mind at least, and whether vigorous or sober in style, in substance they were generally well-informed and intellectual.  They always gave plenty to think about — though I never dared comment!  I also enjoyed other writers beyond the so-called ‘Catholic blogosphere’, such as Peter Hitchens’ lyrical long-form essays and Eleanor Parker’s insights into Anglo-Saxon culture in ‘A Clerk of Oxford’.

Then, some years later, I happened upon the blog of Maolsheachlann Ó Ceallaigh (the ‘Irish Papist’), with its poetry, its unpretentious musings and memoirs, the occasional spice of more polemic pieces, and the quiet courtesy with which he diligently responded to every single blog-comment short of, though occasionally even including, actual spam.  It was probably in corresponding with him that a creative idea already glowing like a small fierce flame within me gathered strength until I could resist it no longer, and published the first post on this blog, ten years ago today.

The title came from a meditation of the great — now Saint — John Henry Newman, from which Pope Benedict quoted in his address in London’s Hyde Park on 18th September 2010, and which seems as sound as ever:

God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.

He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work.  I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.  Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him.  If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.  He does nothing in vain.  He knows what He is about.  He may take away my friends.  He may throw me among strangers.  He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me.  Still, He knows what He is about.

Bl. John Henry Newman: Meditations on Christian Doctrine, Meditations and Devotions, March 7, 1848.

And here is the excerpt from Pope Benedict’s address in which he reflects on the above passage:

One of the Cardinal’s best-loved meditations includes the words, “God has created me to do him some definite service.  He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another.”  Here we see Newman’s fine Christian realism, the point at which faith and life inevitably intersect.  Faith is meant to bear fruit in the transformation of our world through the power of the Holy Spirit at work in the lives and activity of believers.  No one who looks realistically at our world today could think that Christians can afford to go on with business as usual, ignoring the profound crisis of faith which has overtaken our society, or simply trusting that the patrimony of values handed down by the Christian centuries will continue to inspire and shape the future of our society.  We know that in times of crisis and upheaval God has raised up great saints and prophets for the renewal of the Church and Christian society; we trust in his providence and we pray for his continued guidance.  But each of us, in accordance with his or her state of life, is called to work for the advancement of God’s Kingdom by imbuing temporal life with the values of the Gospel.  Each of us has a mission, each of us is called to change the world, to work for a culture of life, a culture forged by love and respect for the dignity of each human person.  As our Lord tells us in the Gospel we have just heard, our light must shine in the sight of all, so that, seeing our good works, they may give praise to our heavenly Father.

The heyday of the ‘Catholic blogosphere’ now seems some way past.  There are still plenty of good magazines and newsletters with engaging articles, but fewer individual blogs than there used to be, and those less lively.  (That said, there is a good deal of activity to be found via Malcolm Mann’s list of extant Catholic blogs at the British Catholic Blogs directory).  Perhaps it was mostly a ‘Benedict moment’, a phenomenon with a particular context, but like all such things it may have sown the seeds of a quiet harvest.

As for this particular blog, I wrote, and write, however sporadically, much as I have read — to know that I am not alone — and to try to convey similar reassurance to others of like mind.  I know how encouraged I was in my faith, temperament and conviction by these other writers, and I have always felt that in making my own contribution I might help to do for someone else what these others did for me.

For in today’s Britain it can, and often does, feel like a lonely business being a Catholic Christian, never mind an Englishman of homely and nostalgic temperament.  This sense of isolation may seem unlikely, given that I have millions of fellow believers around the world, to say nothing of the companionship we find in the canon of the saints and in the pages of old books.  And indeed, it has been my astonishing blessing over the last ten years to get to know more friends of like mind than I once could ever have hoped for.  Even so, it can feel lonely.  So much is no longer what it used to be: old traditions, cherished institutions, principles, morals and manners… none seem able to withstand the caustic solvent of liquid modernity, and only in certain niches like family homes, rare schools, or particularly vital parishes, does the old culture thrive.  In such moments I have found it helpful to seek the company, even the virtual company, of others who think and feel along the same lines.

Having said this, the blog is not just supposed to be a balm for gloom.  I try to write in both major and minor keys, hoping to produce as much a positive celebration of poetry, music, churches, landscapes and traditions, and other oddments, as a record of what has passed.  Indeed, one regret about the blog is that it doesn’t seem to leave me much room for humour.  Exposed to the windswept steppes of the Internet, which lack the context and shared experience which are so essential to a shared sense of humour and in which misunderstanding seems so easy, and perhaps amid the kind of virtual stage-fright that results, I find it much harder to crack jokes — no doubt to the benefit of all.

Thank you to everyone who has read, or commented on, or been sent to sleep by this blog over the past decade.  I don’t know how much longer Some Definite Service will last, but as long as it seems worthwhile, I will try to offer, as far as I can manage, the kind of refuge that I myself seek in other blogs, and a candle of witness to the many good and gentle things I see in the world.  For, ultimately, those are the things that will endure, or, if not, the eternal verities they betoken.  Hope, that slow-burning thing, may have to wait ten, or a hundred, or two thousand years, but it will outlast all opposition — and even all blogs!  — until its final and wondrous vindication.

John Everett Millais’ portrait of John Henry Newman on display at Arundel Castle (W. Sussex), 13th September 2019.