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THE
BEATIFICATION MASS FOR CARDINAL
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN AT
COFTON PARK, BIRMINGHAM
19th
September 2010
There
were twenty five people from Christ Church who travelled to Birmingham
for the Mass. We joined the others from the local parishes at St.
Paul’s Catholic College in Wythenshawe at 4 a.m. By 4.30 a.m. the
three coaches were on their way. The journey was uneventful apart from
the heavy rain most of the way there. Once
in Birmingham we had difficulty finding the ‘Blue’ Car Park, but we
did eventually. By 7.15 a.m. we were off the coach and had a long walk
to the Park. Once inside people settled down to have their breakfast. It
was still drizzling and overcast but the jubilant atmosphere took
everyone’s mind off this. By
the time the Holy Father arrived in the sky above in his helicopter,
50000 people were waving and cheering his arrival. There were 1000
priests to concelebrate with him, all the bishops were there and seven
archbishops! He
arrived in the park in his ‘Pope mobile’ and babies were blessed and
people waved and cheered. Everyone who spoke after mentioned how they
felt that the Pope had looked directly at them and waved at them! The
Mass began and there was wonderful singing led by a choir of a 1000
singers (including Fr. Paul’s daughter, Claire). There were wonderful
periods of silence when you could have heard a pin drop. When John Henry
Newman was declared Blessed by the Holy Father an image of him appeared
in the sanctuary and the crowd applauded and cheered. The
whole event was really well organised and Holy Communion distributed so
quickly among the 50000 people (one of the deacons who distributed Holy
Communion was Deacon Andrew, Fr. Paul’s son) . All the while the
security men were vigilant but people were still able to see and meet
the Holy Father. As Pope Benedict was leaving from behind the sanctuary
after Mass, Fr. Paul managed take two or three close up pictures of him.
On the coach on the way home, people were full of the experience and so pleased that they had decided to go. It wasn’t long though before nearly everyone was asleep! A
selection of photographs is shown below.
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