The noise! The people! I like rock as much as the next reprobate, but not when I am on pilgrimage. Still, my companions are loving the whole Hyde Park experience and feeling great solidarity with their fellow Catholics... Perhaps I should be more tolerant.
But thank God for that beautiful Mass this morning. What a homily from the Holy Father! I am not talking about the apology but about the Eucharistic theology – and the invocation of both the Council of Trent and the Second Vatican Council. The apology is the "story", but it will not satisfy the haters. Nothing ever will.
Three things stood out for me in the Mass:
1. The use of the Credo from the Missa de Angelis. My eyes pricked. I would have been a howling cot-case if the congregation had genuflected at the words “et incarnatus est”, but alas they did not. In time perhaps.
2. The use of the Roman Canon, which is what many of us regard as the “real” canon.
3. The Pope giving Communion on the tongue to men and women who knelt before him. What a pity that priests and people do not follow this example.
Now I'd better pull myself together and get with the programme. There is little point in sitting here looking sullen for the next five hours.
