Only one thing is never different; the Holy Mass. Every now and then, perhaps, some gesture, some trick of manner about the priest who serves your chapel there will bring back to you memories of Aldenham; you will find yourself saying, “Do you remember how old What’s-his-name always used to blow his nose during the server’s Confiteor?” And that will be something, if it helps to remind you that What’s-his-name exists, or anyhow existed. I will leave you with the request which St. Monica made, just before she died, of her son St. Augustine: “I only ask you to remember me at the altar of the Lord.”

Destiny is always jumbling up the pattern of our lives like the patterns in a kaleidoscope. You can’t avoid it, even by entering holy religion; you take a vow of stability, only to find that life is one long round of packing. The charmed circle is always being broken up; we are separated from the people we have grown accustomed to. But do let’s get it clearly in our heads that there can be no real separation, in life or in death, as long as we stick to the Holy Mass.

In Christ we are all one; the sacred Host is the focus in which all our rays meet, regardless of time and space. Only we must keep true to him; only we must all go on saying that prayer the priest says before his Communion, asking that though he is separated from everything else he may never be separated from our Blessed Lord; A te numquam, a te numquam, a te numquam separari permittas. — form The Mass in Slow Motion

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