Saturday 23 August 2008

The Church Universal

You don't need to go the Vatican to get a flavour of the Universal Church. Take my parish here in Hackney. This afternoon I baptized two children from Angola and said prayers with a refugee from Rwanda. We've also had a number of house guests this last week - including a Czech seminarian from the Archdiocese of Olomouc and a priest of the Apostolic Vicariate of Arabia (which I visited in January).

And five minutes ago, as I was finishing my Sunday homily, the Archbishop of Ibaden (currently President of the Nigerian Bishops' Conference) walked into my room! He's been in London celebrating his 70th birthday with his family and was popping in to see my next-door neighbour, the National Nigerian Chaplain.

Just another typical parochial day!

I'm away for a few days next week, so let me wish you all a pleasant Bank Holiday weekend.

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2 Comments:

Blogger William Newton said...

London of course is a very special place to be a Catholic for that reason. Here in Washington the situation is similar. At our parish Young Adults evening on Thursday, we had 20 and 30-something young professionals from all over the United States, as well as Korea, Austria, Sicily, the Philippines, Ireland, etc. Hope you have a very enjoyable bank holiday - ours is the following Monday!

4:42 pm  
Blogger Vernon said...

I trust you greeted the Archbishop properly by kissing his ring.

11:05 pm  

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