Rarely manage to get any time off in Holy Week, but today Ed and I are going to the theatre to see Ian McKellern and Patrick Stewart (yes, none other than Jean-Luc Picard from the Star Ship Enterprise) in ‘Waiting for Godot’. Our Easter treat.
Tomorrow I’m at a big Maundy Thursday service in the Cathedral, where all the clergy from the diocese renew their ordination vows for another year and oil is blessed for the year. We then collect oil in our own containers and take it back to our parishes for healing, baptisms and the like.
In the afternoon and evening I’m singing with the choir. The afternoon is a rehearsal (and don’t we need it!) and the evening is the first performance – Passiontide music and readings followed by Faure’s requiem. The other performance is on Good Friday evening at a church twenty miles away – our choirs join together for both occasions.
Other than that on Good Friday, it’s a Procession of Witness in the morning (three mile walk carrying a cross – well, somebody will carry it. Hopefully not me!) followed by a short open-air service and with a bit of luck and a prevailing wind, hot cross buns and coffee.
On Good Friday afternoon Nigel the Curate and I and one or two others are presenting a dramatic dialogue of the trial and crucifixion.
So it’s all go – see you all next week!
Have a great Easter.
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Palm Sunday passed off OK, except that one church didn’t have enough palm crosses to give out.
Here in the UK, we give crosses made out of woven palm leaves (well, I think it’s leaves. Could be bark or stem for all I know. But you get the idea) to everyone in church and like to have a few extra to take to the housebound or those who are ill.
On the previous Sunday – being a fifth Sunday – we all met together for the service, so I asked churchwardens to take with them sufficient crosses for their congregation for Palm Sunday. This particular churchwarden counted out thirty crosses and put the remaining ten down, but then her attention was grabbed elsewhere and she inadvertently picked up the ten instead of the thirty. So there were twenty or so disappointed people in that church. Still, they can always mosey around the benefice and grab a spare palm cross from one of the other churches. After all, one church must have had twenty left over.
Sadly, we’ve had another sudden death and the family were in church on Sunday. Concentrates the mind when delivering a sermon to be confronted by the newly bereaved sitting in front of you. Have to think very quickly as whether what you have planned to say is suitable. Not the time to be increasing their pain but to be offering comfort and support, so need to temper down any challenging aspects. (And I do like to challenge. I spent so many years sitting in the pews absorbing garbage from preachers, that I vowed to spend my sermons raising difficult issues which are usually avoided. Makes for an interesting time.)
This week is arguably the busiest week of the year, so not the best time to be dealing with funerals and bereavements. Always happens, though. Sod’s law is alive and kicking.
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The school Communion went surprisingly well. Kids really seemed interested and there were quite a lot of questions afterwards. Only two staff and one other governor turned up, but that’s par for the course these days.
Took all the Communion vessels back to the church then went on into town to collect my new lenses. Decided to keep the same frames ‘cos I like them (well, they’re bendy, highly desirable for those of us with lopsided ears) but the lenses alone cost me £255! Have I been ripped off? The day after I’d ordered and paid for them, someone told me I could get varifocals in designer frames, built to prescription, for £30 in Singapore. Guess where I’m going in May? Too late for these, but I’ll take the prescription with me and perhaps get another pair if they’re really that cheap. Believe it when I see it (which I can now do, having got the new lenses.)
Found a great blogging site called Technorati. Has all sorts of blogs, not just technical ones. Want to link it this blog (or even my blog at my own website (same blog as this one) but abject failure. Can’t get the link to work.
Just have to stick with Blogit.
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Just finished preparing tomorrow’s simplified Communion service for the primary school. Once a year at Easter, the top class (10-11 year-olds) experience a Communion. Probably the only Communion some of them will ever see. Any children who are confirmed receive the bread and wine, as do any school governors, staff and random visitors.
This year there are no confirmed children, so I’ll give them all a wafer but they don’t get to taste the wine, much to their disgust.
This little service has changed so much in the ten years I’ve been here. Ten years ago, the children had a Passover on the previous afternoon, then I went in the following morning to show them the links between Passover and Communion. There were always some confirmed children and plenty of staff and governors attended.
Now there are rarely any confirmed children, there’s no Passover and very few staff or governors turn up. Those staff that are present have little idea of what’s going on.
I talk the children through the service and try to explain the links with Passover as well as the symbolism of the Communion, but it’s become harder and harder over the years. There’s not much clue about any of it these days – and this is a Church of England school.
Oh well. It’ll be interesting to see what transpires tomorrow. According to today’s paper, the businesses of tomorrow will be ‘spiritual’ (by which they mean will be concerned about workers’ well being) so maybe there’s still hope!
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