Trinity + Brompton

The three musicians who played last night - a house concert for us lucky few who were invited - are all soloists in their own right, Matthew Trusler, Thomas Carroll and Ashley Wass. Though they came together 18 months ago, to date they are just known as the TCW Trio. At supper after the performance various more or less conventional names were tossed about as possibilities for the future: as we departed, being told we must come to their October performance at the Tetbury Music Festival, I tossed out the idea of "Three Line Whip". That would at least raise a few eyebrows.

But their music making speaks volumes by itself, in particular (last night) the performance of Tchaikovsky's great - almost symphonic - piano trio. Staggering. After which we set off for home, but only reached the end of the drive: one of the back tyres had picked up a nail. Hence the enforced - but very pleasant - stay for supper while, having given up the struggle to change wheels, we awaited the breakdown man: the wheel nuts were on too tight, he said.

Trio yesterday - Triple Crown day today, with England's emphatic victory in the rugby. And the welcome news this evening that our parish priest has bought his first bicycle - a Brompton. Can we call this a win for Cheltenham Christian Ecology Link?

Tim Britten RIP

I knew Tim from church, but not his name. Then we saw each other at Longborough and elsewhere, and more recently sitting in the front row at Cineworld for the Met opera relays, which he loved. He told me he was going into hospital to have his back straightened: I could see he was apprehensive about it. Sadly, he never returned home.

At his funeral mass this morning, a friend recited The Burren Prayer by John O’Donohue, a new one to me and very beautiful: it contains the lines, "May the light that turns the limestone white remind us that our solitude is bright." Perfect for someone "who didn't always carry the world lightly" - and for Charles, his grieving partner of four decades.

Altogether, it was very proper occasion. Not many of those present were Catholic (Tim was a convert), but Fr. Bosco welcomed all comers most warmly and openly. Noone should have been mystified - unlike yesterday evening: Caroline and I went to hear Professor Rich Pancost talking about the chemistry of past and future global warming. I felt well out of my depth, though the message was clear: our politicians need to do something urgently!

Argument rages meanwhile about whether or not Typhoon Haiyan was a symptom of man-made climate change. Does it matter? Agnes thinks not, and has undertaken to write 100 poems in a day next Wednesday, if people will sponsor her in aid of the Phillippines' victims. Brilliant!

Under starter's orders

Ten days or so ago, as hinted at the time, I walked past Cheltenham Racecourse, where preparations were at an advanced stage for this week's invasion: the population of Cheltenham temporarily doubles. Tonight, at Mass, we were bidden to take home one of 115 slips of paper lying in a basket, each with the name of one of the Cardinals who will enter the Sistine Chapel on Cheltenham's opening day. However, "This isn't a sweepstake," our parish priest emphasised: "we should just pray especially for the Holy Spirit to guide the particular Cardinal whose name we pick out."

Mine was Cláudio Hummes, a 78-year-old Brazilian: quite a good egg, it seems from Wikipedia. Probably too old to be a strong candidate himself, he will surely back someone willing to lead the fight for social justice. I'm praying so anyway.

Half a million others have signed up on the Adopt-a-Cardinal website. Might all this prayer mean that the Catholic Church is not entirely a stranger to democracy?!

St Gregory's

I have mentioned before our church's rather fine Hardman windows, displaying scenes from the life of our patron: St Gregory is taking choir practice (the Gregorian chant, don't you know). I was disappointed - a while back - to hear that the Cheltenham Festival of Music had turned us down as a venue, as it's a fine place for a concert.

Fifteen parish-based organisations submitted reports at our annual meeting last night, including our present music group, containing plenty of Youth. At the other extreme, the SVP rep. said they were looking for young blood - that is, anyone under the age of 70.

Our much-loved priest, Canon Bosco spoke of an "explosion of lay involvement in this parish, a family of faith, a school drawing out a prayful response to God's love." But he was, he admitted, missing his youthful assistant, Fr. Tom - given his own parish elsewhere last Autumn - and never more so than in Race Week, when he would go off, eager as a newborn lamb, only to return crestfallen, his bets misplaced. Loss, though, is "an essential part of the mystery of our faith."

"Catholics"

Thursday nights are TV rich just at present. Dennis Potter's masterpiece, The Singing Detective is in full swing, while as hors d'oeuvre we now have Richard Alwyn’s 3-part series on Catholicism today. The first one, "Priests" was last week - still available on iPlayer till 15th March. Its fly on the wall approach may try the patience of some, but on the whole it paints a fair picture, I guess. Not one, however, which I like totally, for reasons which Philip Endean SJ sets out very fairly in his Thinking Faith review. The giveaway was one of the candidates for ordination receiving communion on the tongue, not something our gentle, wise, post-Vatican 2 priest would go out of his way to encourage, I make bold to say. (He is rarely to be seen in a stiff dog collar either.)

Contrapuntal carols

Our parish carol service - held yesterday evening - attracted an enormous crowd! The church glowed in the candlelight. The choir excelled itself, which was just as well as the congregational singing - in traditional English Catholic style - barely exceeded forte. Fr. Bosco, succinctly distinguishing the Nativity from the incarnation, gave one of his uniformly good sermons.

It all contrasted nicely with the evening before: unlike last night, the champagne flowed, and our generous South Gloucestershire friends' Christmas party may serve as their sole involvement with the Nativity narrative for some of the regular suspects rounded up on this invariably jolly occasion. Having two pianos perhaps made the backsliders sing up a bit more willingly than usual. Florence, a precocious nine-year-old, led off Once in royal... Our host as ever took the part of Wenceslas. One half of the assembly sang The First Nowell against the other's Holly and the ivy.

Oh, and for We three kings, I was promoted from second to first this year!

Easter

Do you know about the Kenyan Stations of the Cross? They contain an additional 15th Station, Jesus rises from the dead. Simple, and expressive illustrations too! (Thank you, Barbara, for introducing me to them.)

We have been celebrating Easter at home this year, and in a quiet way. Agnes and Ida have been in Lisbon (with Thomas); Edmund and Claire at their home are seeing the boys through chicken pox, leaving Leo and Mini to spend yesterday with us here. We all went to St Gregory's for a joyful Easter morning mass. Arriving just before it began, the only room - as so often - was right at the front, which gave Mini a vivid experience of what went on: her first Christian Easter.

Fr. Bosco spoke about the descent into hell: this may sound unpromising, but wasn't at all in the context he set - his friend's daughter, locked in a depression which led to her suicide. Where we gather in His name, He is there in the midst of us - not needing to knock to seek admission.

At teatime it was warm enough to be in the garden under our magnolia tree, which looks particularly good this year (though difficult to photograph adequately).

Induction whoop

Well, perhaps not a full-blown Whoop!, but even a round of applause is rare enough in St Gregory's church! At the Induction this evening of Fr. Bosco as our new parish priest there were no less than two outbursts of clapping led by the presiding Bishop Declan of Clifton.

The Bishop spoke about human beings as latecomers to Planet Earth; and Christians as a very young people in Earth terms. So we can identify with St Paul talking about us giving birth to something new, by producing the fruits of God within our lives. We are not a settled people, the Bishop said, but a pilgrim people, on the way to perfection - which was entirely appropriate for today's feast of St Teresa of Avila.

More photographs here.

Four firsts

I have been out every night this week - a sign that the Summer holiday period is well and truly over.

Monday saw the first meeting of our church finance committee with the new parish priest: a refreshingly different sort of get-together from any we have ever had before. I feel it's going to be a pleasure to work with Fr. Bosco, given the ambitious ideas he has for the two parishes to which he's been appointed.

On Tuesday, the Cheltenham Film Society had its first showing of the new season: Xavier Giannoli's film Quand j'étais chanteur with the beautiful Cécile de France alongside a mountainous Gérard Depardieu: it was a boring story. The Chairman's welcome speech and the wine and cheese afterwards were the best bits of the evening!

The Cheltenham Music Society's opening recital was on Wednesday, an altogether higher definition performance, by the Carducci Quartet. The evening had a World War II feel to it. Britten's first quartet was followed by a very accessible quartet by a pre-war refugee from Vienna, Joseph Horowitz. The Quartet (with the brilliant Nicola Eimer) finished with Shostakovich's wartime Piano Quintet.

This was chamber music playing of the hightest standard - good enough almost to distract me from the draught which was blowing under the rear doors of the Pittville Pump Room. It was a pleasure afterwards to be introduced by Jane Blunden to the "middle" of the Quartet, Michelle Fleming and Eoin Schmidt-Martin, word of which reached Ireland before I could even get round to typing this!

Churches can also be draughty places at this time of year, but not last night: there was a packed audience for the opening Tetbury Festival recital by Radu Lupu. Not having heard him for decades, I had forgotten quite what a distinctive virtuoso he is. His playing isn't to everyone's taste, particularly those put off by unprepossessing platform behaviour; but the Beethoven in the first half was, for me magical, especially the Andante of Op 14, no 2.

The Schumann Fantasie on the other hand seemed erratic; but then I have grown used to listening to the incomparable performance by Marc-André Hamelin on Hyperion. Perhaps my restlessness was to some extent to blame: when sitting in Tetbury church, "no matter where; of comfort no man speak."

Interesting to contrast Lupu with Gérard Depardieu: both gone to seed rather.

Heritage Open Days

I have been stewarding at St Gregory's today: it is open under the Civic Trust's Heritage Open Days scheme, as it was also last year. We didn't get many visitors, but those who did come along seemed to be seriously interested. Hugh Greenhalf had put up a most informative display illustrating the history of the church and of the Cheltenham Catholic community: I loved the contemporary newspaper's description of the incredibly grand opening ceremony, with Cardinal Wiseman in all his pomp. This of course is what the Latin Mass Society's adherents want us to return to! (God forbid!)

One of our "visitors" - as I at first took him to be - was none other than our new parish priest, Fr. Bosco MacDonald: I took this photograph of him, for the rogues' gallery in the church porch, but I haven't the patience to remove the evidence of rain from his coat, in Photoshop; so I shall have to take another one in due course.

Farewell to Fr. John

Last night, there was a great gathering in St Gregory's School here in Cheltenham, to say goodbye to our Catholic parish priest Fr. John Blacker. He is moving on Wednesday next week to Marlborough, and we have a new parish priest arriving (from Bristol), Fr. Bosco MacDonald.

Fr. John will be specially missed for the kindness he always showed to the children of the parish - in this photograph, he was reassuring those just about to process in to their First Holy Communion mass, in June this year.

Fr. Bosco has a heavy workload facing him: St Gregory's priests are taking over responsibility for the adjoining St Thomas More's parish, as their priest, Fr. Mark Moran is also leaving Cheltenham for a new parish, Amesbury: such is the shortage of priests that the Bishop can't replace him.