Congregations from all denominations joined in prayer across Britain yesterday for Cardinal Basil Hume, who has revealed he is dying of cancer.
Hundreds of people flocked to Westminster Cathedral, London, for the solemn sung Mass when prayers were said for the cardinal, who is leader of Catholics in England and Wales and also Archbishop of Westminster.
The 76-year-old cardinal was due to attend Mass at St Teresa's of the Child Jesus, Headstone, Middlesex, yesterday but was at home resting after temporarily cancelling his engagements.
Members of the cathedral's congregation said they were shocked and saddened by his illness and prayed during the service that "the Lord would strengthen and sustain him". A priest on the cathedral staff said: "We are all praying for him. Many people came to Mass especially to say prayers for him today. It is such sad news."
The cardinal broke the news of his illness on Saturday in a letter to the priests of the archdiocese. He wrote: "You may have heard that I have recently been in hospital for tests. The result: I have cancer, and it is not in its early stages."
He added: "I intend to carry on working as much and as long as I can. I have no intention of being an invalid until I have to submit to the illness.
"But nevertheless, I shall be a bit limited in what I can do. Above all, no fuss."
Cardinal Hume became a monk while still a teenager and has often spoken of his desire to end his days in his old monastery and be buried in a simple monk's habit.
He has been the leader of the Catholics of England and Wales as Cardinal and Archbishop of Westminster for 23 years. Faced in 1992 with the toughest test of his leadership, when thousands of Anglo-Catholics turned to Rome after the Church of England's vote for the ordination of women, Cardinal Hume accepted married Anglican clergymen into the otherwise celibate Catholic priesthood. His style of worship and leadership come from his education at the English public school Ampleforth, in North Yorkshire, which is attached to a Benedictine monastery and has acted as a hothouse for successive generations of the country's most prominent Catholics.