» Yesterday the Visitor, Abbot President Richard Yeo, and his assistant Abbot Luke Jolly of Worth, came to Douai to deliver the final visitation reports and bring the quadrennial visitation to a formal close.
» Also yesterday the abbey chruch received the newly-refurbished Pugin sedilia originally made for our church in Douai, France. Dating from the mid-nineteenth century, they had fallen into desuetude and disrepair after the post-conciliar re-ordering of the abbey church made them redundant. Our seemstress, Sally Fish, has re-webbed and re-upholstered them, and a colleague of hers has repaired the areas of deterioration in the woodwork. They will now be permanently sited near the main altar, to be used at Sunday Mass and other big liturgical events. We will no longer have to lug the wooden chairs from the choir for this purpose.
» Today Fr Abbot was given a farewell lunch at Wonersh seminary, having taught there for 21 years. As a parting gift the seminary community gave him the latest tome on the English Reformation, Heretics and Believers, by Professor Peter Marshall.
» This week Fr Oliver is away at a religious bursars' conference at Worth Abbey, and tonight Frs Alban and Gabriel heard the confessions of the confirmandi at Winchester College who will be confirmed by the abbot in the abbey church this Saturday.
