Orthodoxy in pictures

We went to St Mary's this morning for the deferred Mass of Corpus (at Sanguinis Christi), concluding with Benediction and Angelus. It reminds me of celebrations at St Gregory's Small Heath, and St Agnes in the St Paul's area of Bristol, where sharing worship with a multi racial congregation became one of the defining norms of my life in ministry. We popped in for a cuppa and a chat with Eleri and Sr Winifred their house guest from the All Hallows community in Norfolk. Just as we were leaving, Fr Graham arrived, having fitted in a baptism after his second solemn Mass and procession of the morning. We arranged to meet up soon, so that I can help him review his ICT needs and train him in updating the Parish website regularly. He's so busy, its understandable that he doesn't readily retain the minutiae of web management and trouble shooting.

In the evening he phoned me apologetically with a problem he was stuck with. He'd been commissioned to write an article for 'Croeso' the diocesan newspaper about the Romanian Orthodox community which worships in St Dyfrig and St Samson's church on Sundays, following their own Parish Mass. One of their congregation had promised him photographs of a recent episcopal visit for their congregation's patronal festival of All Saints, which falls, not in November but early Trinity-tide. He'd received an email with an embedded link to a web server, and had been able to view them and forward the link to the editor of Croeso, who had been unable to access any of the pictures. Could I help sort this out?

He sent me the link, to a Yahoo photo server with several dozen photographs. The problem was instantly clear - the photographer had taken large pictures, 10-12 megapixels a piece, each weighing in at 6-7 megabytes each, big enough to print a high resolution photograph bigger than a bath towel. The entire collection was over 200 mb, and any attempt to download all at once would have stalled the stoutest domestic computer system. Downloading each one in turn of a selection of half of the pictures was a half hour job. Then it was a question of re-sizing them to dimensions a publishing editor could both receive and work on without any grief. Those I returned to Fr Graham were all a sixth of the size of the original, and quite fit  for purpose. I enjoyed the exercise as the photographs were shot by someone who understood the Orthodox liturgy, so I could add helpful captions to the downsized photos from my own experience of assisting at Orthodox services since before I was ordained. 

I promised myself that I'd visit the Greek Church for the liturgy when I retired. Now I could add the Romanian Church to the do do list, once my liturgical lethargy has lifted. At the moment, now I have time, I'm re-discovering the pleasure of writing a daily reflection on a passage of scripture read during the offices and studying a commentary if needs be, when I get stuck. Doing so, not driven by the demands of work, but by the freedom to enjoy. Watering the dry places of the soul ....