A Sunday treat

Today, the Nerja and Almunecar Anglican congregations combined for a joint act of worship in the small  chapel of Our Lady of Carmen in Almunecar.

It used to be the ground floor chapel of a convent, accessible to the public straight from the street, probably sisters doing missionary pastoral work in the parish, living in the two storeys above. There are no more nuns, but the local Catholic Parish mission still continues using the buildings for pastoral purposes, and one of the Sunday Parish Masses is celebrated there on a Saturday evening.

Combined Anglican services have been held hitherto in Almunecar throughout May, as the Parish Church of San Miguel in Nerja has been otherwise occupied with additional celebrations relating to first communion and confirmation. This year, these have been switched to Saturdays, removing the need to change the routine of two Anglican services a Sunday. However, there was best possible reason for a combined service, in the form of a visiting preacher from Britain, the Reverend John Bell of the Iona Community and well known to listeners of BBC Radio Four's 'Thought for the Day'. He'd come over to lead a Celtic Spirituality workshop at a retreat centre in the Sierra Nevada, which Fr Geoff and his wife Carol were fortunate enough to attend.

John Bell is a story telling craftsman and he did us proud, getting the sixty strong congregation (95% aged +55) to reflect on the opportunity of older people to do new things and leave a positively memorable legacy to succeeding generations. Apart from 'Thought for the Day', the last time I caught John Bell live in action was in 1985, when I attended a convention in Edinburgh marking the 75th anniversary of  the first inter-church conference on world mission which eventually led to the foundation of the World Council of Churches. I think John was there for the centenary event also. I certainly wasn't, and was saddened to see how little it was reported upon, in the church press, as well as the rest of the mass media.

After church, we went to a nearby restaurant and socialised over coffee for an hour before returning home for lunch and a siesta. This gave us an opportunity to meet members of the congregation. Clare found and chatted to a  Welsh speaking lady from Aberystwyth who'd  moved to Spain with her husband who had since died. I conversed with a retired funeral director from the West Midlands and another man who was familiar with the mission of the church in Latin America. Then we drove home for lunch and a siesta, with a quiet evening to follow while Fr Geoff and Carol readied themselves for their holiday journey back to the U.K.