Day Five

This morning things were a little different, because after breakfast we were due to have catechesis with Fr Phil, rather than heading out to do something straight away. I was due to help set the music up and got sidetracked so was a little late to help...oops. Zaf went through a song that we were going to sing that I didn't know and then Fr Phil kicked off his catechesis on 'the Life'.

Fr Phil spoke beautifully as usual, and after he had finished his catechesis he handed over to the dance group who danced to Alive Again, which Amelia had choreographed. It was beautiful and Fr Phil likened it to Perichoresis, the relationship between the three persons of the Trinity.

After catechesis we walked to the English College where we were given a tour of the college by Bishop Terry. He told us the story of Our Lady of Vulnerata and pointed out the paintings in the rafters showing stage by stage the story of the statue. Bishop Terry told us that for the 200 year anniversary of the statue being in the college, they took the statue to the Cathedral, and people came in droves to venerate the statue. Then they had a procession back to the college from there and a 5 minute walk took 4 hours! People even came out of the bars and toasted the statue... Amazing.

He also told us of the myth that there was a secret staircase up to the grills for the seminarians to remain anonymous during Mass because it was too dangerous for them to be out in the open. However, he dispelled this myth and we were told that the Chapel was constructed after this so it couldn't be true, and the grills were just there so people could go and say their private devotions.

We then moved into the sacristy where Bishop Terry told us about the window in there and how it lists all the martyrs of the college, it depicts the rivers of life and also the blood of the martyrs. The men who came to seminary in Valladolid had to sign a contract to say that they would go back to England after they finished their training because they knew they would be going back to die and so they probably would have preferred to stay in Spain.

After a brief stop in the refectory, seeing a painting that was in Seville seminary, then Ushaw and now here, we continued through the corridors seeing pictures of the rectors of the college, the beatified martyrs of the college, and then the canonised martyrs of the college. I was surprised to find a picture of St John Lloyd there, though it was good to see a Welsh link, and made my praying at the relics in the chapel even more special.

We had a quick look in the pig skin library which contained an original copy of the Nuremburg Chronicles! I got very excited at the prospect of all these books, and it really reminded me of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith's library. We then headed up to the other library upstairs and Bishop Terry told us about how the inquisition would take the books, read them, and anything they didn't agree with they would scribble out. He showed us John Speed's History of Great Britain which had a dedication to the King and the inquisitor (or as they now believe the rector of the college) scribbled out 'Defender of the Faith' and changed 'lowly' to 'cowly'. Whoever the person was they certainly had a sense of humour!

We then began the walk back to the hotel, and Fr Phil, Trish, Amelia and I took a little detour via the church opposite the Cathedral. It was very dark but beautiful none-the-less and as we went in we stumbled upon a baptism. That was a really special moment.

On arriving back to the hotel some of us decided to go to the Plaza Mayor to find a supermarket. We then met some Tanzanians, and Mary, Me and JP had a photo with one of them. The others had found some French people who I gave some badges to. We then went and got an ice cream and I got a lolly that had a water pistol in. On the way back to the hotel I filled it up and shot Hannah in the back. She thought a bird had pooed on her. It was so funny. When we got back to the hotel we found Fr Phil and some of the others sat outside and Fr Phil shot John right in the face. Hannah then took the water pistol and got Fr Phil in the face. It is rather powerful!

After lunch, I went to sit in the cool for a while before going to explore, but everything was shut. Though I did see some other English Dioceses around. At 4:30 we met in our small groups and headed to a bar near the Cathedral, where Darren filled us in on what would be happening when we get to Madrid. As he was doing this there was a mic check going on for the concert that was going to be taking place later on.

We then went to get some food and ended up getting a nutella croissant, that took a long time for us to get but it was hot and beautiful when we got it. We then met the rest of the group and headed to the Cathedral where we met people from Canada, one of whom gave me a Canada sticker for my lanyard. I also met some people from Thailand and Max (I think he said) swapped me a bracelet for a badge. I then swapped a badge with Sami from Wyoming and had a good chat with her and a girl from Laura. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting all these people and the concert was awesome. There was a Spanish priest singing at one point and we did a dance to his song. It was so much fun.

We then went to an extremely long Mass in the Cathedral. The homily was in Spanish which was a shame because I think I only caught little bits of it and it did go on for quite a while. Ste ended up doing a little reading at the end which was really cool to see him, doing that. After Mass, we got given a picnic tea, ate it there and then headed back to the hotel.