Hello!

So I'm kind of back to normal - whatever that may be. I've been sort of taking a break from "formal" Church/Parish stuff to get over all the politics of the past few months. I've spent lots of time talking about the 'good old days' and death (as you do) with the family.

Is it just me, or is talking about death a really Catholic thing to do? My colleagues at work are almost afraid to refer to death or old age.

I'm getting ready to leave my current job (9 working days to go) and begin my new one. I'm going to be taking a sort of gap year and work (volunteer, with expenses) with young people full time. The one thing I have learned over this past year is that I am not a 9-5 person. I need to do something a little different and I need to work out what that could be.

And onto some things I've been catching up on.

From my inbox...

We are now looking forward to the next Youth 2000 festival - Godsgift@Walsingham

It is taking place from 24th-28th August at the National Shrine of Our Lady in Walsingham, Norfolk. It is the highlight of the Youth 2000 year! All the details are available on the website: http://www.youth2000.org/events/Godsgift.html

From my RSS feeds...

Bishop Alan Hopes has set the date for the next Young Adults in the West meeting as the first Sunday in Advent, 3rd December at St Margarets RC Church in Twickenham.
The event is organised and hosted entirely by Young Adults from the deaneries of the West of London. Musicians, singers and artists all contributed to making the Mass an inspirational celebration.

St Albans Deanery Catholic Young Adults (16-30)
If you’re a young adult, or know of young adults in your parish, come and meet other young Catholics in the St. Albans Deanery area for Mass followed by a social at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Harpenden, on Sunday 20th August at 6pm.

And this - Changes to Holy Days of Obligation
Okay, so I haven't really read up on this other than what was in the Catholic Herald a couple of weeks ago. But I'm really disappointed. I'm just getting into holy days and feast days and such, and I like that we 'have to' go to Mass to celebrate different things AND not just on a Sunday. It mixes things up and keeps us from getting (too) bored and compartmentalising our Christianity.

But what really takes the biscuit for me, is that it's three of the most interesting days - Epiphany, Ascension and Corpus Christi. For a start, the music for those days is good. And they're markers for other events like the end of phase 1 Christmastime, Pentecost and easing into Ordinary Time. Plus, we're going to reduce the occurance of the the Second-Sunday-after-Christmas-Day-that's-before-Epiphany, which is always fun (and thus remove another chance to sing Christmas music at Mass, during Christmastime phase 1).

Epiphany and Ascension are proper events (i.e. these events are in the Bible. The readings of the day are stories of what happened - unlike some other holy days). Corpus Christi I find a little problematic as a holy day (not quite seeing the point). However, since the whole push toward BS processions to mark the day out, I really don't see the logic in moving it to a 'routine' Sunday Mass.

I actually think that we should have more Holy Days of Obligation. What about the feast of St Benedict (patron of Europe)?