ragon
THE
P RTAL
December 2011
Page 8
Protesters
What a to do at St Paul’s!
What a
to do at St Paul’s! So much has been written ( I liked the brief letter that read
“St Paul was a tent maker. Yours etc.) that what to add?
The three resignations are
puzzling, for, like the crowd
encamped, it is not entirely clear
what it is they are telling us by
what they do. It does seem odd
to resign because the homeless
are outside your church.
I remember once giving a bed - no, a glory
hole in the church cellar - to a homeless person
called Rosie, who was being kept alive on a
winter’s night with the heat from the boiler and
a dubious liquid in a bottle.” What would Jesus
do?” I thought pretty obvious. Not so sure after a
week when the Playgroup all came out in flea bites after
the supervisor had been down to the cellar to put the
heat on. Should I have resigned over the subsequent
eviction?
The trouble with being a parish priest is the difficult
task of going on when you have made an error of
judgment and there is a mess to sort out. Usually
once or twice a month on average. It hardly warrants
throwing in the towel, and much of parish life would
come to a halt if practised. Maybe it’s different for
cathedrals where Deans and Chapters hardly ever err!!
Notice from a parish mag
First Communion Group 2012. The group had their
first get-together last Saturday afternoon and took part
in the 10.30 Mass on the following morning. Take note
of these children!
and the only difficult moment was the “tribute”. True
to many clergy’s experience, the family member called
upon for this duty managed only a sentence or so
before breaking down. What then to do? Wait until
some composure had returned? Give the script to
another? Step in as the clerical professional and read
it?
Oh for the day when the funeral office was said as
a liturgical act offered to the Good Lord without
sentimentality. But the soaps rule the day, and
you must have a tribute, usually followed not by
Resurrection preaching, but by the c.v. of the deceased,
whose virtues might include even playing a good game
of tennis.
Leonardo exhibition
“The most amazing show I have ever seen” and other
plaudits such as “this is a show that you have to see”. The
Their presence at Sunday Mass is a gift, to help us chance to see 9 of his 15 surviving works is omissible,
appreciate the word of Jesus “unless you become like (what should this be – unmissable, or am I missing the
little children you shall not enter the kingdom of point?)wrote the Times arts correspondent. Among
the paintings gathered from foreign collections are the
heaven”.
paintings of Christ as Salvador Mundi, and the Virgin
Funerals
and Child with St Anne and John the Baptist.
A country funeral in November in the deep rural
Although the Last Supper could not be brought,
environment has a softness all its own. We laid the
departed priest to rest in the soil of a grave near the nevertheless all the surviving drawings that relate to it,
south porch, and remembered his thirty years or so of a photograph of the original fresco and a period scale
copy are on display. It is at The National gallery from
ministry in that area.
the 9th November to 5th February. Visit the National
We sang the hymns and said the prayers beforehand, Gallery website or call 0844 248 5097.