Day Three of the Papal Visit

I'm half asleep but I feel the need to jot down a few reactions to what was a humbling experience. For us the Greenwich deanery group, it was an early start to a packed day and on the way home their was a definite feeling of happiness and contentment. The day for us ran like clockwork and I felt honoured to share today's experience with such a lovely group of people.

The weather could not have been any better, the atmosphere was vibrant and Pope Benedict's message could not have been simpler- put Christ at the centre of everything.

As a young female black Catholic, it was also a great joy to see Paschal Uche address the Holy Father on our behalf; I think it's fair to say he was spectacular and did well to represent the Church of modern Britain: fresh, diverse and exuberant. What a role model for our young people of society.

One of the most touching aspects of the day was hearing Mr and Mrs Mizen speak of how grateful they were to the Church for their support during the grieving of their son, Jimmy Mizen. Their message of living a life of peace not anger was rightly received with a standing ovation, an indication of how relevant the issues they discussed are to life in 2010.

Liam McNally was fantastic and the Holy Father still had everyone eager for his presence- people still had the energy to chant Benedictus at 8.15 this evening.

I remember at our training day, Fr Dominic Howarth of Brentwood was concerned about boundaries between taking pictures to upload onto flickr to give those at home coverage, and people taking pictures and not paying attention to the words of the service. This evening, there was a swarm of people to greet Pope as he arrived in his pope mobile at Hyde Park. It was an enchanting sight for me as every type of phone and camera came out to immortalise His Holiness. We are a modern Church and a modern Britain and as things become easier to obtain at a much quicker pace, it was really heartwarming to see people rushing to do something that will last forever as a photograph. There is a desire, a hunger among the young people of the UK to know and love God and today some of the incredibly lucky ones got to take the technology of the 21st century to capture the representative of a Church more than 2000 years old.

I hope that those of you travelling to Cofton Park have a safe and blessed journey home, you are in my prayers.