A Feast Day and a Fun Day . . .

I'm firmly of the opinion that Feast Days should be celebrated - and I don't just mean at Mass and in church.

Today's Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a beautiful feast and to celebrate we had a beautiful Mass in the parish with choir and organ too, which is unusual during August but very appropriate and much appreciated.

I still think of myself as a 'new Catholic' even though I was received into the Church over 20 years ago. I'm learning all the time about my faith and every now and again, another piece of the jigsaw falls into place and a little more of the picture is revealed.

I find Feast Days help very much with this process, and gradually I'm beginning to understand more of the dogma and doctrine of the faith. Like other ways of learning, repetition of the same story and explanations from different sources all combine to add my understanding.

I'm learning; not just by listening to the homily at Mass but also by reading, and that reading includes the blogosphere, I am beginning to 'get' the Feast of the Assumption.

I'd always tended to think of Feast Days in isolation but I'm also beginning to realise that sometimes they're connected. Like today's feast and that of the Immaculate Conception. Now I see that of course they're related. It's because Our Lady was conceived without sin that she couldn't possible suffer the corruption of death that the rest of us with our original sin, and ongoing sin, have to undergo.

Ah, well, I've a lot yet to learn and understand, I know . . .

“Blessed is she who trusted that the Lord’s words to her would be fulfilled.”

For Christians, death is not extinction, though, unlike Mary, all ordinary mortals, even the most faithful Christians, the saints, must await the Second Coming of Christ and the general Resurrection to receive our “glorified bodies”.

‘May we see heaven as our goal and come to share her glory’.

Read more at Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary

After Mass we continued the celebration by going out for lunch and we decided to visit Chartwell in Kent and sample the fare in their excellent restaurant.

The Pater Familias and I hadn't visited for over a year and 'Our Eldest' has never been and I had a feeling it would be 'right up his street'. (I was right, but then Mum's usually are!)

A larger-than-life statue of Sir Winston and Lady Clementine Churchill. Churchill in his famous 'siren suit'.

The studio in the grounds where Sir Winston Churchill did a lot of his painting. His paintings are also very much in evidence in the main house.