On Good Friday morning a very different kind of service was held at Our Lady of Lourdes.

Born for This, a script lending itself to varied interpretation, new to many of us but with excellent report of its use elsewhere, was prepared by a group of approximately 20 of us over the 6 weeks before Easter. Based on the 14 Stations of the Cross which describe Christ’s passion, it was refreshing how much joy was evident over that time.  We giggled about the mistakes we made and usually left laughing at the end of the practices.

This is the text of the pastoral letter from Archbishop Vincent Nichols that we heard on the Fifth Sunday of Lent.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ

The woman in today’s Gospel is hauled before the Lord by a judgemental society. She is isolated in her guilt. And therein lies the falsehood which Jesus uncovers. No one is guilty in isolation. Rather we are so bound to each other that a guilt which we might seem to be proper to one person alone almost always involves others, too.

Jesus’ silent and dramatic gesture of writing in the sand makes everyone present look into their own hearts and recognise their own failures and sins.

This same truth is at the heart of our Lenten journey. This is not a time for working out the blame to lay on others but a time for identifying our own faults, seeking forgiveness for them and trying to build a more virtuous life.

The pursuit of virtue is a key theme in a document which we Bishops of England and Wales have recently published under the title ‘Choosing the Common Good’. While the document is issued in the context of the forthcoming General Election, it is substantially about matters that can never be decided by an election. It is about the health of our society.

This is a summary of the survey carried out by the parish branch of the KSC at all masses on 7/8 November 2009.  The purpose was to ascertain possible reasons for the disappointingly low membership to date and to canvass opinion as to any unmet needs that an organisation such as the KSC could or should meet within the parish.

A one-page questionnaire was distributed to all men attending Mass over the weekend.  About 250 questionnaires were distributed before Mass and 46 (18%) were returned immediately afterwards.  There were 23 new contact details offered.  Both these figures were higher than anticipated, which is in itself encouraging.  By and large the responses were confined to the printed multiple choice options and little was offered by way of open responses under the heading "other".  This may be due to the limited time available for thinking during the Mass itself.   What does seem clear is that the men of the parish do see a positive need for an organisation such as the Knights to be active within Our Lady of Lourdes parish, and certain unmet needs were identified.  (Women parishioners also exhibited a degree of interest in such an organisation).

It is something the English haven’t witnessed on these shores for more than 500 years. The sight of long queues outside churches, convents and cathedrals to see a wooden box containing the bones of a saint – in this case St Thérèse of Lisieux, a 19th-century French nun.

As pilgrims have waited in line at some of the venues on Thérèse’s “tour”, some have been sold roses and holy candles to place near the relics. Others have been entertained by giant screens showing sugary accounts of the saint, who died young in 1897 of intestinal tuberculosis, and of her “little way” of finding spirituality through small, everyday things. The whole spectacle has given a glimpse of what Catholic England might have been like had the Reformation never happened.