There were plenty of students at our lunchtime Mass. There always are on Ash Wednesday. "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return," I proclaimed again and again as I signed their foreheads with ash. As I did so a memory flashed through my mind of a passage in Louis de Berniere's "Captain Corelli's Mandolin": Dr Iannis reminds his beautiful young daughter Pelagia who is taken with the dashing young Italian captain that she will grow old one day. Use the present prudently, he enjoins her. These students are doing just that. Older Catholics would be deeply encouraged to see the serious cast of their features as they presented themselves at the altar. Straight after Mass we had the biannual sanctuary floor scrub. Mops, hard brushes and associated accoutrements were issued and we all set to work. By the end of half an hour, one young woman had agreed to serve at Sunday Mass and three new people had signed up for our April pilgrimage to Rome. A good start to Lent!
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