Easter 2025

 

The Tablet Catholic weekly reports as to the above image:

A centuries-old Russian Orthodox icon depicts the early morning of the Resurrection with the Angel sitting on the stone and seven myrrh-bearing women with their names on their haloes: Martha of Bethany, the Mother of God, Martha’s sister Mary, Salome, another Mary, Susanna and Anna

I met with two old HCPT pilgrim friends Bernie and Paul,  on Wednesday for mass at Westminster  Cathedral and afterwards a Lenten lunch together in underground cafe there. 

I decided to go to confession for Easter so arrived at the Cathedral thirty five minutes or so early at c.11:55 am.  The length of the queue for confession, these days called the Sacrament of Reconciliation, was the longest I had seen so whether I would reach the front before mass commenced at 12:30pm was open to question. 

At 12 noon the bell for the Angelus rang and everyone in the cathedral rose for that prayer. I recalled most of the responses from old Beaumont College days c. 60 years ago but have hardly heard it since.

My own reconciliation was completed just as the bell for the mass rang. It was pleasantly surprising to find the Cathedral so packed with mass attenders thus tending to confirm reports that Catholicism in England especially among the young, is increasing rapidly.

After mass Bernie Paul and I met in the crowded underground cafe. We managed to find a table and enjoyed our Lenten repas which in my case was a vegetarian risotto.

Much conversation then flowed including recollections of travels together to Lourdes.