As I flew back from Assisi last week,all seemed to be right with the world: the sun had shone for the three days that our small group of Baldock parishioners were there, the Calendimagggio festival had been spectacular,and the spirit of St Francis had seemed alive and well.Pope Francis has been invited to celebrate Mass for the Feast of St Francis on 4th October.He hasn’t said no yet ( nor has he accepted the invitation ) but there is a strong belief that the Holy Father may agree to come. Judith and I will be back there for the Feast,along with Father Andrew Gallagher who will say Mass for our Pax group,and will be first rate company.Andrew has done really well,since he worked for us some seven years ago, and his fellow Harpenden alumnus and Pax staff-member,Mark will be ordained this June. This is what I really call ” Growing in Faith”, not rattling a tin and soliciting for money from hard-pressed families. Of course as responsible Catholics we need to make sure that there are resources to support the training of our priests and the welfare of our retired priests. But let parishioners get up in the pulpit and tell their fellow parishioners of their responsibility to do their duty,rather than allowing American fund raisers to trouser millions of pounds.There are many ways to raise funds for worthy causes such as our precious vocations and our much loved retired priests. I have just helped to raise £1300, by organising a mile of 2p coins. How about a mile of £5 notes.Can anyone enlighten me how much that would raise? Perhaps that could solve the problem of raising the money, and it would be fun !

May is of course the month of Mary,and to celebrate, we are sending pilgrims to La Salette tomorrow , some went to Ostra Brama,Vilnius yesterday, and three very happy groups of pilgrims have been to Lourdes this month.” Holy Mary,Mother of God,pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death”.

Philip Dean

This week when we are approaching the joy of Easter, albeit in the cold of March, I would like to share with you an incredible tale of a family’s triumph over adversity, during their journey to the Eternal City last week.

Three coins in the Trevi Fountain, three angels to help us get there.

You could say we’re Rome groupies. We must have been there a dozen times. We fell in love with it on our first visit in 1993, not long after I converted to be an RC. That visit was organised by Pax Travel and we tend to use Pax as a reliable specialist tour operator which organises memorable pilgrimages at relatively low cost.

But this time was different. Margaret and I were taking our daughter for the first time. No big deal for most 33-year-old women. But a bit of a tall order for Lizzie. She is not only partially sighted, sporting a white cane, but also suffers from hydrocephalus. Medical advice is that flying would endanger her life, as she isn’t equipped to handle the pressure differences unlike you or I.

So we contacted Philip Dean at Pax and he was soon on the case. Philip quickly came back with a costed itinerary giving us five days in Rome by train – Eurostar to Paris, then on to Rome after a good night’s rest near the Gare de Nord, then fast train to Rome. The return journey offered an overnight stay in Turin, which piqued our interest as we had never been there. The cost was surprisingly low. We had imagined that rail travel would be prohibitive but we were most surprised how cheap it is actually to go via rail.

Someone once said it is better to travel in hope than to arrive. That thought struck  us as we arrived at the check-in desk for Eurostar at St Pancras Station in London on the morning of March 12 to find all trains to the continent had been cancelled indefinitely because of heavy snow both sides of the Channel. I was reminded of the famous headline: “Fog in Channel: Continent isolated.”

What to do? Phoned Pax, got some quick advice about our plan to get to Dover and take a ferry. Pax were marvellous and came up with a range of emergency onward travel options. One thing Pax couldn’t do, though, was guarantee our onward journey wouldn’t be frustrated by the white stuff.

So it was that we found ourselves in a cheap hotel handy for Calais Ville station, along with other stranded travellers. The next morning I was outside said station when it opened. Bad news. All trains suprimee (cancelled). Until further notice.

So it was that we found ourselves in a taxi dash to Calais’ second railway station, Calais Frethun. In the sparse daylight we could see how bad things were, with snow piled up everywhere and vehicles abandoned at the side of the road or stuck in drifts. The station was just opening up as we arrived. We were the only ones there. Being a stubborn Yorkshireman and a Taurean to boot, I don’t often allow myself to be beaten by circumstance. But this was our lowest ebb. From this point, reader, I would have been telling you: “So we cut our losses, abandoned our trip, got back on the ferry and went home to Northamptonshire.”

O ye of little faith. For here, reader, the first angel intervened. A man appeared from the shadows. We hadn’t seen him approach. In broken English, he asked us: “Do you vant to get to Paree? There’s one train leaving from ze other Calais station in an hour, for Lille. Get to Lille and you ‘ave a chance of getting to Paree today.” We thanked him, before he melted back into the shadows.

Another taxi dash back to Calais Ville. On the train in good time, helped by our second Angel. A young Englishman. Seeing Elizabeth’s white cane and our struggling with our baggage, he helped us onto the train. Lille, here we come.

Arriving at Lille, he again helped us with our baggage. He had also been furiously downloading train info onto his mobile, on our behalf. There’s only one train going out from Lille to Paris this morning”, said our knight in shining trainers. “The bad news is it should have left half an hour ago. The good news is – it’s 40 minutes late.”

The angelic young man took us to the train and negotiated with the guard to allow us on without tickets. We made it with seconds to spare before the whistle blew.

We found out later that that was the last train to leave Lille for some hours.

Paris Gare de Nord, the Eurostar terminal. Gare de Nord to Gare de Lyon by taxi. Two hours late to make our Rome connection.

Deflated, we quickly hatched a plan. Hang the cost. In for a penny, in for a Euro. We’ll stay overnight and pay for new tickets for the first train tomorrow.

Enter stage right angel number three, taking the temporary earthly guise of a young man at the SNCF train company helpdesk. Margaret explained our predicament in French.

“You have two options”, he said, in fluent English. “You can go to Turin today and overnight. But then you’d have to pay for your hotel. Or you can stay here tonight, in Paris, and we will put you up in a hotel for free. Can you walk? It’s a long, long way.” So kind. So amenable.

So it was we found ourselves enjoying, at no cost,  in pampered luxury at the Hotel Mercure (normally 230 Euros a night), next door to the Gare de Lyon, no long way away, but a few steps  from the main concourse, with free transferred tickets for travel the next day.

“Why did this happen? “We asked ourselves. “It’s not SNCF’s fault that Eurostar, a separate company, hashad problems.” But then we decided not to look this particular gift cheval in the mouth. Who can second-guess an angel?

We firmly believe in angels. Not necessarily of the supernatural variety. All of us at some time have the chance, the opportunity, the gift of being an angel in someone’s life, to help them on their way, to comfort them at a time of grief or crisis, or just to be there to support them. We encountered three angels in that 24-hour period. A trinity of angels. Was it a coincidence? Or was it by God’s good grace? We know it is the latter. There is no such thing as coincidence. It is all the work of the Holy Spirit. How blessed we were.

Thus we arrived, almost a day late, in the Eternal City. In March, with the new Pope’s first Angelus, the Italy v. Ireland rugby match (avanti azzuri!) AND the Rome marathon, we found Rome v. well populated. We had the closest view possible of Pope Francesco’s first Angelus, up against the fountain in St Peter’s Square, along with an estimated other 299,997 pilgrims thronging the square and surrounding vie.

And did I tell you about the upgrade to business class when we transferred at Milan…? Or did we mention that there were many more than simply three angels? We forgot to mention the angelic host working at Pax travel, phoning ahead of us, making new arrangements, giving us moral support as well as practical assistance?. Grazie ragazzi!

It was reassuring to hear that Peter and his family had an uneventful journey home!

Philip Dean

26^th March 2013

And so its bye bye Ben. One of the greatest Popes in recent years (less charismatic than JP II but with twice the brain power), Pope Benedict will retire in 7 days to the convent in the grounds of the Vatican, where his gardener formerly lived.  What a clever move for him to leave all the pundits in the dark until he gave the news in Latin to the assembled Cardinals on his birthday, 11^th February the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. If you want some Lenten reading, how about his writings on Jesus of Nazareth? As it happens, I will be in Rome with a big Catholic group between 7^th and 14^th March. We actually have a private visit to the Sistine Chapel confirmed for one of the evenings after normal hours. I am just wondering whether when we turn up, there will be a big notice on the door saying “Meeting in progress”! So who will the next Holy Father be? During my stay in Ghana, for two years I lived next door to the residence of the Archbishop of Cape Coast, John Kodwo Amissah, whom I got to know very well. I wonder if his successor, Cardinal Peter Turkson, could be the first African Pope for over 18 centuries. I shall report from Rome when I am there. These are unusual times, and the Holy Spirit will undoubtedly surprise us all just as he did in 1978.

Philip Dean

22^nd February 2013

We are now in the third week of January, with Christmas seeming like a distant memory and New Year resolutions just about holding up! Anyway, I have good news to proclaim!

PAX TRAVEL IS 35 YEARS OLD THIS WEEK.

I was a VERY young man when I established the company in January 1978. Have I any regrets? No, of course not. Pax has survived (in no particular order) the aftermath of several earthquakes (Assisi 1997), volcanic ash (April 2010), two Gulf Wars (1991 and 2003), the uprising in the occupied territories of Palestine (2000 – 2004), the financial crises of 1981, 1989 – 1993, 2008 – 2009, and yet we are still here! We are proud to have taken over 100,000 pilgrims to all parts of the world, ranging from Walsingham to Peru and Uruguay. We have designed and organised more specialised, tailor-made pilgrimages than any other UK pilgrimage company and hope to continue to do so! This year, perhaps our most exciting pilgrimage is in June to Lebanon, for supporters of Aid to the Church in Need, but  how about to La Salette in May, or to Lourdes joining Pro-Life supporters this September. You could also join one of our 2013 pilgrimages to Rome for the Year of Faith including the visit for the Feast of SS Peter and Paul (27^th June – 1^st July) when there is the probability of an English Cardinal being appointed by Pope Benedict.

I wonder if you read Judith’s inspiring essay on pilgrimage in the Christmas edition of the Catholic Herald. I will leave you with some of her reflections:

Holidays can often bring surprises (good and bad) but a pilgrimage can lead to revelations and reach  the depths of our being which we never knew existed because what we have come for whether we are really aware of it or not, is God and God never fails to deliver! A pilgrimage itinerary can read much like that of a cultural tour but we do not just stand and stare at the Holy sites like works of art or architecture but we enter into them. Our knowledge that we bring with us of our faith, however flimsy or superficial it may be is the gateway for us to discover more of what we are and what we wish to become and like Chaucer’s pilgrims we are in good company, if at times our group of companions seems rather like a motley crew!

Philip Dean

Managing Director

23^rd January 2013

Whilst wishing all my readers a Very Blessed Christmas, I would like to use this opportunity to write an open letter of hope and goodwill to two human beings named Benjamin by their parents.

Firstly, Benjamin Netanyahu. I haven’t met you, Ben, but your reputation is well-known as a stolid and stubborn defender of the State of Israel. Most people of goodwill agree with you that Israel has a right to exist, but, you see, the problem is that they also firmly believe that Palestine too deserves statehood, which is a swiftly receding possibility if you build a new settlement for tax exiles from Belair and Belarus, that will cut off the little town of Bethlehem from East Jerusalem. You say that Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel for over 2,000 years. Hold on, Benjamin, didn’t you study History at school? You seem to have airbrushed out two millennia, when Jerusalem, for one reason or the other was NOT the capital of Israel! Please, Benjamin, don’t do it. Become a great statesman and hold out an olive branch to the Palestinians. Israel has so much to offer its neighbours: world leaders in electronics, software development, renewable energy, irrigation, agriculture, and many other great gifts and talents you possess. Don’t listen to your ultra-right minority partners. Show your true worth and astound us in 2013 for all the right reasons. Secondly, to an amazing young man of 19, Benjamin Morrell, born and bred in South London, now organ scholar at an Oxford College, and together with his twin brother, Peter, organising a group of 30+ young people to go to Rio, Brazil, next July for World Youth Day, which will culminate with an open air Mass for 1,000,000+ young people in a peaceful spot 40 miles from Rio. Well done, Ben. Pax Travel will take good care of all of you, from the moment you set out from Heathrow on July 19th, until we bring you back to blighty at the end of July.

Thank you for entrusting us with your pilgrimage (YES, it IS a pilgrimage!!).

Finally, to both Benjamin’s and all my readers, listen to the last verse of the carol:

O holy child of Bethlehem

Descend to us we pray.

Cast out our sin

And enter in,

Be born in us today.

Philip Dean

21st December 2012

This was Benjamin Britten’s analysis of his iconic War Requiem. A day after my return from the Holy Land, it was fitting to witness an emotionally- charged performance of this great work at London’s Royal Festival Hall. As the final chords of Let Us Sleep Now turned from discord to sublime harmony, I felt that it somehow mirrored my week in Palestine and Israel, which had started with the threat of rockets from Gaza, followed by a heavy response from the Israelis. My Catholic parish pilgrimage, augmented by three delightful ladies from Singapore and a contingent from the Emerald Isle had set off on Monday morning minus five pilgrims who had been pressurised by their families not to go. I took the final decision that the pilgrimage could go ahead, and so 36 of us set off by air. The Israeli air traffic controllers directed our airbus through a narrow corridor to avoid one of the Persian-made long range rockets, so the pilot told us. But we landed safely and there followed a memorable week, in Bethlehem, Jerusalem and the Galilee. Thank you for coming said the Palestinian and Israeli Arab Christians we met. Even the blonde Israeli female security officer who questioned me about our group when we were departing thanked us for coming, and asked me how I was so polite when most Israelis were not!! Our Catholic guide, Louis, from Bethlehem even served some of our Masses, the most memorable of which was an open- air Mass in the Garden of Gethsemane. Nothing in the Holy Land is black and white, and local Christians are threatened as much by Islamist aggression as by Israeli pigheadedness over confiscating Palestinian tax revenues. So the threat of war and the pity of war still hovers over the region like the Sword of Damocles. But we have to show resolve and keep visiting and praying that we can avert Armageddon.

Philip Dean

Managing Director

3rd December 2012

Managing Directors Blog – 3^rd October 2012

Apologies for my absence over the last couple of months, absence that is from writing this blog rather than from running Pax Travel! The fact is that we have been busy moving office, to smaller, more modern quarters just down the road from our old offices in Kentish Town. We are now installed in Rochester Place, so any of our friends are welcome to drop in and visit us at no. 57. We will have the kettle on ready for your visit!

I am always struck by some of the very kind letters and comments we get from our regular pilgrims. Only yesterday I received a letter from a delightful lady who has travelled with us several times over the past 15 years but has been unable to do so over the past year or two due to personal reasons. We had been sending her our brochures for the last few years, and she said in her letter “Since brochures of the quality you produce are not cheap and I am very aware that you have kindly expended resources without return for several years, I am enclosing a cheque for £10 as a small contribution, and hope that you might send me your brochure for 2013 when it is published”. I was very humbled by her letter, and was reminded that we are here to provide a service for others which we pray and hope will come up to their expectations. The lady ended up by saying that she remembered us and thanked everyone who had given her a profound and spiritual experience through the pilgrimages we had organised.

As a footnote, we have nearly finished our copy for our 2013 brochure; it will be online by the end of October and in paper form by early to mid November. We are devoting quite a section to The Year of Faith pronounced by Pope Benedict which starts in the middle of this month. Several pilgrimages to Rome are being organised to enable pilgrims to play their part in the Year of Faith. More about this in the next when I write next.

Philip Dean

Returning to Assisi last week made me realise why I am drawn to it so, and felt a great sense of joy in seeing all the places I love so much: evening mass in the Basilica of St. Clare, Maria, Fausto and Nicolo welcoming us at the San Giacomo Hotel, and sitting in the Upper Basilica of St. Francis listening to Judith’s explanation of the fresco depicting the death of St. Francis. I asked her if she thought it was by Cimabue or was it by an artist from the Roman school? On to Rome by train and the late July heat of this fascinating city. The Pope had gone Castel Gandolfo, and as if by magic his voice appeared in St. Peter’s Square for the Sunday Angelus. In the evening, we enjoyed watching the spectacular Opening Ceremony of the Olympics on Italian TV, together with an analysis from a panel of Italian pundits. Then, back to London and embarrassed explanations to our French and Italian friends as to why Team GB kept winning so many events! Andy Murray even prevented Roger Federer standing on the podium to hear the Swiss National Anthem (Money, Money, Money by ABBA)! The one sour note was the moronic outburst by Twit Romney, the aspiring US President. Make no mistake, I personally, as do all of us at Pax Travel, have many US friends, but why does this moron first of all come to London and tell us that we don’t know how to organise the Olympics, and then head off to Israel to toady up to the right-wing bigot Netanyahu, advising him on a course of action against Iran, which even the Chief of Israeli Defence Staff does not advocate. I have no quarrel with the fact that Romney is a Mormon, even if I do not understand the ramblings of their founder Joseph Smith! I have on many occasions done business with Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and have several Mormon friends as a result. But to wander into such a sensitive political minefield, and to claim that Israeli’s comparative economic prosperity over Palestinians is a result of cultural differences, represent the actions and thoughts of possibly a very stupid man. Maybe I’ll be proved wrong, but to my American friends, I say that in a democracy you can elect who you want (and I am no particular fan of Obama either), but always think of the consequences. Chickens tend to come home to roost! On this note, I leave you for two weeks to go off to the peace and quiet of North Norfolk.

Philip Dean

Flaming June has come and gone, and we are now in freezing July! Our American friends have come and gone, and the concert at Westminster Central Hall on 30^th June by the American and British youth orchestras and choirs was a great success, and raised over £500 for the admirable Charity, ‘The Passage.’ Our 36 pilgrims are now in Dresden, having journeyed in the steps of St Boniface. Once they come back, London will become a different city for a few weeks during the Olympics and Paralympics.

For nearly two weeks, we at Pax Travel have been hosting two bright 4^th formers from the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School. How is it that the Vaughan 4^th formers are almost invariably much brighter than 6^th form work experience students that Pax Travel host from other Catholic schools in London? The boys are polite, helpful and have been taught to spell!! Long may this wonderful school prosper. Many thanks to Andrew and José who have been helping us to plan for our busy season of autumn and winter pilgrimages.

We are also preparing an exciting programme for 2013 with a pilgrimage to Lebanon for Aid to the Church in Need, and a pilgrimage to the shrines of Our Lady of Europe in Gibraltar and Our Lady of Africa in Ceuta. Further details and brochures for both of these pilgrimages will be out very soon.

Finally, can I share a very humbling comment from a returning pilgrim who took part in one of our pilgrimages to Assisi in June: “It is has been probably the best week I have ever spent. I have longed to visit Assisi since I was a child.” Many, many thanks to the good lady who let us have her thoughts. It makes our job seem very, very worthwhile.

                                                                                                                   Philip Dean 16/07/12