The Death of HM Queen Elizabeth II

When news of a death is received, the natural Catholic reaction is to pray. However, when the Sovereign dies, the practical matter of lowering the Union flag to half mast must also be attended to.

Whilst the west end of the Cathedral did not resemble Green Park, the focus of prayer also attracted a good number of floral tributes.

A glimpse of the thousands who queued for miles to have their moment in Westminster Hall as an abiding memory of Queen Elizabeth.

© Mazur/CBCEW.org.uk

As people queued, so a Faith Team was made available to walk alongside and engage with people if they wished. Among those working with the Team was the Cardinal.

Homily in the presence of the Relics

Bishop Nicholas Hudson

Bernadette knew what it was like to be accompanied by great crowds. Indeed, it was the crowds she was attracting to herself that made her decide she must leave Lourdes. She had begun to be followed wherever she went. On one occasion, she heard two women walking behind her; and one say to the other, ‘If only I could cut off a bit of her dress!’ To which she issued a direct rebuke: ‘What imbeciles you are!’, she told them.

People would follow her in their thousands. If you know the streets of Lourdes, you can imagine how problematic that must have been. People were forever asking her to touch holy

The River Gave

objects. They would drop rosaries in the hope that she would pick them up. But, stubborn to the last, she would refuse, saying, ‘I’m not the one who dropped that rosary!’ People would offer money too. ‘It burns me,’ she said when someone tried to slip a gold coin into her hand. She was offered not only money but fame and fortune. A journalist offered to bring her to Paris and make her rich: ‘Oh no, no!’ she told him, ‘I want to remain poor!’ And she knew what it was to be really poor. The family lived in the town’s former gaol. They had almost nothing to eat: the children were so hungry that someone found her brother one day in the church eating candle-wax.

‘Who can describe what is in the heavens?’ asks the Psalmist. It is a perennial desire: to hear from anyone who has had a glimpse of heaven. So it was that people never ceased asking Bernadette what this messenger from heaven looked like. Bernadette tried to describe it; but seemed to have failed when, every time she was shown a statue or a painting of what she had described, she had to say, ‘The Lady looked nothing like that!’ It was a Religious priest who had the idea of showing Bernadette a book full of pictures of Our Lady from all over the world; and asked her which image came closest to what she’d seen. And she knew immediately, when she sets eyes on the