A trip to Cambridge

Last Saturday evening and Sunday morning I celebrated the Masses and preached at the Cambridge University Catholic Chaplaincy. Fr Alban McCoy, the Chaplain, greeted me very warmly. Fisher House is very evidently a vital Catholic community under his stewardship: there were students everywhere, as well as a good number of senior members of the university. Fr Alban has just overseen a major rebuilding project on the site. There is now a new church, the Church of St John Fisher, within the shell of what was formerly Fisher Hall, which used to be a multi-purpose room in which Mass was celebrated when I was an undergraduate at Selwyn College, thirty years ago. There is a beautiful specially commissioned replica of Cimabue's thirteenth century crucifix in the sanctuary and a new choir loft. The first of the Sunday morning Masses is a sung Latin one. I manfully offered to sing the Preface. After listening to me in the sacristy the student who is the choirmaster suggested that it might be better for everybody if I said it. I had a couple of congenial meals at Fr Alban's kitchen table where I met some of the people who help him and some of the students. I have come away greatly encouraged. Here I am after one of the Masses with Sister Ann Swailes, the Chaplaincy Assistant, and two men from Leeds Diocese, James Lawson, beside me, and Callum Wood, second from the left.