A day retreat at Ealing Abbey

For our community outing day on Saturday, we went on a day retreat to Ealing Abbey. The day was based on a series of talks given by the director of Maryvale, Fr Paul Watson. He spoke about the Trinity and also Faith in an age of disbelief. During the day, we had time for silent personal prayer and benediction at the end of the day.

Ealing Abbey are having two more Lenten talks before Easter, by Fr Tim Finigan, and also Jennifer Smith & Alina Lubinska - check out Fr Tim's blog for more details: http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com/2008/01/lenten-talks-at-ealing-abbey.html

A day out in the country

Every saturday, we have a community outing day where we can visit anywhere from churches and monastries, to ice rinks and parks. Yesterday, we went to visit two great friends of the school in Ascot. Anne and Dan Hill are a married couple originally from America. Their house is right in the middle of the countryside with a beautifully big garden! We took with us Fr Alexander's new puppy, Ambrose, who couldn't believe his luck when he found himself surrounded with so much grass!

Anne showed us true hospitality, and demonstrated the importance of how the table should be layed; making sure no one is left alone at the end of the table. Edna and Allen also made homemade choc chip cookies for everyone - the true American way which were very delicious!

Dan told us some amazing stories about his encounters with Mother Teresa in Calcutta. Since he met her in 1992, he has built a number of orphanages for the Missionaries of Charity. Anne and Dan have a deep trust in the power of the Holy Spirit and it has clearly affected their whole lives. They are a truly inspirational couple to meet.

English Culture Night

Last Saturday we had our second culture night of the school year. Anthony and I "prepared" (or bought!) traditional fish and chips from the chip shop. We also made a steak and ale pie, apple pie and trifle - which no one had had before, but I think was well liked!

It was Allen's 23rd birthday too so we made him a very british victoria sponge for his birthday cake! We were blessed to be joined by Fr Francis, Sr Elizabeth and Fr Dennis - an American priest from Maryknoll who is good friends with Allen. It was a great evening playing the detective game, Cluedo, and of course watching Fawlty Towers!

Thanksgiving Day Celebration

It has been a real eye-opener to realize how unknown this American holiday is to other countries. I guess I just never stopped to think about it, but this was a great opportunity to share a bit of my culture with my classmates. So Saturday, I prepared a traditional Thanksgiving feast to be enjoyed by my classmates, Jeanine and our special guest, Bishop Bernard Longley!

I had spent the week leading up to this dinner scavenging St. Patrick’s and the local Sainsbury store to find the closest equivalents to my mom’s American foods (I did have some help by post with my parents sending me the pumpkin pie filling and some other essentials from home). I relied on all my classmates to pitch in with a rather impressive menu consisting of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce, coslaw, and finally pumpkin and mincemeat pies served for dessert. I was amused to watch everyone try egg nog, a common American holiday drink, for the first time. In the end it was a very special meal to celebrate our gratitude to God for all that he has given us this year. I know it meant a lot to me to have this tradition carried on even while I’m so far from home.

The Centre of Time and Space

Saturdays are set aside as a day spent together as a community to take a bit of a break from the basement of St Patrick's! The other week we went to Greenwich where we visited the Royal Observatory - 'The Centre of Time and Space'. It can make this boast because it is the home of both Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian - which is the line of longitude at which longitude is defined to be 0 degrees.

We had a great time at Greenwich - the museum there was well worth seeing. However, it occurred to me that we actually encountered the true Centre of Time and Space a little bit earlier during the same day...


... as indeed we do every time that we go to Mass!