Yesterday's meeting with Pere Marchand; letter to the Holy Father on St Joseph's day..

There is not time for the full report on the meeting, which I promised last night. I will however bring you up to date with the most important development as regards St. Romain and the Blessed Sacrament. I'll do this by quoting from a letter I wrote last night to a dear and revered spiritual mentor. I know he will not mind.

"Last week the correspondent of the local newspaper, who happens to be a personal friend of some year's standing, but not a believer, came to supper and announced during the evening that she had arranged an interview with Pere Marchand for the paper. I said that if she would like me to come with her I would be more than happy to do so. I will tell you more about the interview later, but during it, I asked him how many churches in his area of responsibility had the Blessed Sacrament reserved. (Naturally that won't go in the paper, or at least I shouldn't think so), but he named three out of the 24. He already knew that I do not drive and I asked him if it would be possible to have Our Lord here in St. Romain. His reaction was immediately to say yes. It was not a facile thing. I knew we were in the right place at the right time and that Our Lord had put us there. I had made some remark about cold and Uninhabited churches. He had looked straight at me and said that when he goes into a church where Our Lord is not present, he feels a terrible 'manque' of sadness. I said I felt it too. He said he would be delighted to bring Our Lord, as long as I would take responsibility for opening up the church in the morning and closing it at night. He will bring the key, probably on Thursday afternoon, (that is on the Solemnity of the Annunciation) and instal Our Lord in the tabernacle of the church shortly afterwards. He knows we are just opposite the church and said he hoped that I would go at least every other day, I said I would go every day."

Until the arrival of Pere Marchand, the difficulties of long years, connected first of all with getting the church open, leave alone with having Our Lord permanently there, seemed insurmountable. Our Lord Himself has intervened and set aside all these difficulties. Suddenly, yesterday afternoon there were no difficulties anymore. It is amazing that I can string a sentence together! Please pray that everything goes as planned and I will keep you posted. I am incapable of saying more now, except that I wrote to the Holy Father on the feast of St. Joseph about the invocation for the Litany of Our Lady. My letter should have reached its destination by now. In the past the Holy Father's reply has come within a fortnight, but with Holy Week and Easter intervening there may be a longer wait this time. Here again I will keep you posted.

God bless all here.