I have had a hacked kind of life in the last 24 hours. Some nasty people have deleted all my contacts and all my emails, everything gone. Now some stuff from my past it is probably good that it has gone, as there was a lot of sadness in some emails there. However, there was also a lot of nice things there, with some lovely messages of love and support which are gone. It just does go to show that not everything does last forever. This tops off a rather bad week. My birthday the other day was Ok - had a lovely Taize prayer, but also had an unfortunate evening, which ended up with me crying down the phone to someone who has become one of my closest friends... Having cried to many a customer service adviser this morning, I am really upping my emotional nightmare tally this week!

Sometimes you do things because you know that you get a lot of enjoyment from doing it...this is what happens when I do my monthly Taize services - if nobody turns up (this is not the case) it wouldn't matter, as I would have that time in prayer (and a whole church) to myself.

However, just the other day, somebody who regularly comes to the monthly services sent me this:

"Thank you so much for your Taize ministry – the Good Friday vigil was so lovely and so meaningful"

Boom!

I dont often get feedback - this made me smile.

Lets hope this Sunday's service can also be meaningful!!

So it has been a very busy time...last time I wrote I said I still had a lot to update on, and I do...
So there was a lot of Taize activity towards the end of February. Frere Paolo was over and there was a London prayer in the Southwark Anglican Cathedral, being advertised with a 'meditation with the Southwark Anglican Bishop", so I decided to invite a Southwark Catholic Bishop - and to my joy, Bishop Paul agreed to attend - in fact in his email he said he would be delighted to attend. This was good news. The prayer was ok - a littl un-like usual Taize prayer, but I had a good opportunity to catch up with Frere Paolo, and to meet lots of other Taize friends who had travelled to the event - friends from Brighton and Birmigham came, and some other friends I met in Berlin came - good stuff. At the end, I had a chat with Bishop Paul who told me that he had really enjoyed the prayer, and was happy to have been invited. Frere Paolo thanked me for having the iniative to invite a Catholic Bishop, and the Anglican Bishop came up to me to say that they are glad that I invited him, as they should have done that themselves. A few days later I had an e-mail from both Frere Paolo and Bishop Paul saying that they had both met to discuss various things, and the Bishop (who apologised that he will be unable to come to Taize with us this year) said that he is interested about coming out with us next year...
The day after that was Rite of Election...having seen Archbishop Peter at uni two evenings before, and Bishop Paul the day before seeing Bishops was becoming a daily occurrence. Rite of Election was a beautiful service - I had never been to such a service before - but I was incredibly moved. I feel so unworthy to be sponsoring the couple that I am sponsoring, and to stand with them was humbling. After the ceremony, Archbishop Peter joked that we had to stop meeting like this and chatted with me...Father Bryan and I then went to chat to Bishop Paul about a range of things. It was agreed that we should write a joint article for the Diocesan newspaper - me about my experiences at Taize for the last 5 years, and + Paul to write about his experience of the prayer the day before...and there was even talk about holding a Taize style prayer service at the Cathedral that he would support. So a lot of prayer, a lot of knock backs and finally just taking the guts to go straight to the top and ask the people who can make things happen had paid off. Bishop Michael in 2010 spoke with me in the Taize church for a very long time one evening, time that I treasure dearly - but he asked me to get Southwark interested in Taize, to get the Bishops interested in it - and now I am doing that. and it may be working - slowly, but I said to +Micheal I would do my best, and now I am.

Then the other big event that I have been to, and commented very briefly about in my last post was FLAME - the event organised by CYMFed for young people, and those involved in youth ministry at Wembley Arena. A lot of various websites and in various Catholic newspapers has been written about the event. My opinion: gathering a group of young people to witness to their faith, to pray and worship is a good thing - especially if these young people do not have mnany others in their parish to do this with...but it would have been good to have had a bit more 'Catholicism' in it. Rise drama did a brilliant piece at the beginning that had me a little emotional - the best thing about the day for me was the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. I rememnber being in Hyde Park with 80,000 people on my knees praying in that silence - feeling this is a bit extreme, but I am loving it. There was a similar feeling at FLAME...almist 9,000 young people in prayer in that arena - maybe they had not prayed like that before, maybe they had not witnessed so many people coming to prayer like that before - and if not, and even if they had, then it is very moving. There was a Glee-esque Flash-mob which was fairly amusing, and annoyingly catchy!! I was volunteering on the day - was up at 5:15 to get to Wembley Arena by 8 - but I had been given a fabulous volunteering role - I was the VIP runner...when the VIPs arrived I took them to their seat - and that was it! This meant that I was sat with the Bishops throughout the congress, and had a giggle with them. watching their faces throughout the flashmob was hilarious, and then hearing a few of them woop at the end had me in stitches. I was able to have a good few conversations with them, which I really appreciated. My friend Fr Luke from EA was also a VIP which also meant that I was able to spend a lot of the day chatting with him, and I saw quite a few of the Taize EA group, as well as Southwark people, some friends from universities and other people I have met in various other situations. I may not have been fully enriched by what was said on the day, but I was moved by some of it, had a lovely prayer experience and had a brilliant volunteering role....and had a good few drinks at the after show volunteers drinks.

I had sung Stainer's The Crucifixion with Petts Wood Festival Chorus - a very moving piece of choral singing, and £1400 raised for Marie Curie cancer care...fitting as this week I found out that a Taize friend of mine, inly a year older then me has a cancerous tumour on his bladder. He was down in London so we met and he told me the news. I knew that something was wrong with him, and was praying that this was not going to be the case - but it is. He is taking it well - in fact -I was pretty cut up with it. On the train home after saying goodbye to him I cried. Why this horrible illness? So i am praying now that it can be just cut out, and that it has not spread - prayers for him would be much appreciated.

Then we have had Easter... In our church, I as a Confirmation cathechist, had made the Triduum part of the Confirmation course. The week before Easter was the 'community action' session - 25 out of the 30 young people came to clean the church and tidy the church garden. And throughout the Easter services, the young children did all of the readings, welcoming, a good proportion of them served, 12 had their feet washed, some helped with the collections, and some then helped to tidy the church after the servers. I was immensely proud of them. They are growing and developing every week, and I had some people of the parish come to tell me how wonderful it was to see the young people participate. What was more exciting was the number of people we had coming to church with them. The Confirmation candidates came with their families, and so we had a full church - beautiful to see. In my session on Monday we are learning about the gifts of the Spirit - in my Bible study I am doing with them, I have written a thank you to them for using their gifts in the last few weeks in the church community, and what a pleasure it is to be working with them. Have also managed to get some of the Pope's Hyde Park homily into it...we shall see how it goes down! After my last Bible study with them I got a spontaneous round of applause. I am really enjoying this catechist lark...maybe Hamish is right - having been screaming "Go into church youth work" at me for the last 3 years, he may be right...

Over Easter I sat down for all of 30 minutes...that was enough for the immune system to shut down and a nasty lurgy attacked. This has made writing the PhD this week harder then it should be. Having said that I have had a tough week all round, panic at the beginning, followed by apathy, followed by I am just not good enough for this...to now..I just have to get it done.

My brother gets married in two weeks, so today i had my 6 monthly hair cut so that I can get used to my new hair for the wedding. I am 'best girl' for the wedding, and tried on about 100 dresses for the thing...we finally found one on wednesday...but when showing it to my nan today we noticed a snag in the material, so I need to get the receipt off the bride and go and exchange it. I will hopefully be singing at the wedding (if my voice is better by then)...some Ave Maria (Schubert-style) and Songbird have been requested when signing the register, so will see what happens!!

And that is about it...I think that is everything of note/interest.

I am slipping into a but of moppage at the moment - need to kick myself out of it quickly as I know that it is not particularly healthy, and I am trying. But stuff keeps on hitting me back in the face!