2016-08-22 London: Feast of Mary the Queen

Today is the birthday of my daughter. We went to the Cathedral again for Latin mass. It feels different when the mass is in Latin. It sounds so elegant. I was able to spend some time in the Cathedral to pray and walk around.
I noticed several things. There is a sense of pride that they remained faithful to the Church despite the fact that their king split from the Church. There is a section in the Church which traces the Bishops of the country back to St Peter. The first bishop was installed in 44 AD under the pontificate of Pope Sylvester.

There is also a replica of the statue of Peter from St Peter's. The cathedral is unmistakeably Roman Catholic.

One of the interesting relics is the St John Southworth. He was martyred because he continued to celebrate mass during the persecution of Catholics after Henry VIII broke off from the Church in 1954. He was hanged, then his body was drawn and quartered. The Spanish ambassador at that time had to have his body stitched and smuggled to France. His relic was brought back to London in 1929. Talk about martyrdom.

We then went to the National Museum. It is huge. It had exhibits from the Assyrian period, Babylonian period, from Egypt, Greek and Roman periods. I could just imagine the people of Israel seeing these idols as they were exiled to these lands.

One sad thing is the mummies. These were powerful people during their lives who command hundreds of thousands of subjects. Yet, today, their bodies are left in a museum to be observed. This reminds me that life is fleeting and in the end, we will leave what we have here.

After the museum, we went to the Parliament buildings. We saw Big Ben and also the Westminster Abbey. The structure is impressive.

Dinner was at Jamie Oliver's. The best burger I ever tasted.