Sunday busyness

I began the morning celebrating the Parish Solemn Mass for St Saviour's congregation in Splott, almost a year since I was last there. Then it was a matter of popping less than a mile down the road to St German's for their Parish Solemn Mass, followed by a baptism - my twelfth during the interregnum - and at the end of the afternoon, Solemn Evensong and Benediction as usual. By the end of the day, my hair and clothes reeked of incense.

When Father Dean takes over at St German's in January, this will be his Sunday routine, with all the pastoral activity that inevitably accompanies it. Fine, as long as everything runs smoothly and there's no traffic congestion on the short trip. Fine as long as Ministry of the Word and sermon don't exceed a certain total length. It's manageable, ironically, as long as the St Saviour's congregation doesn't double in size - distribution of communion no matter how efficiently stage managed has a way of eating up time and eating into schedules. 

I had an equally busy Sunday morning for many years of working on my own: eight o'clock, followed by nine thirty and eleven o'clock services in different churches, then Evensong. It left me drained, always feeling I wasn't giving core community supporters enough attention and interest. But that's how the job makes you feel - a sense of pastoral obligation that goes with the freedom and privilege of priestly life in a parish. The pattern may just about be sustainable, but does it nourish people and priest? The danger is that it keeps us all busy and talkative, less good at being together and communing.

Being retired, and only less frequently doing the kind of Sunday duties which used to be routine all year round gives me a different perspective. I'm happy to help in sharing the burden, and I want what I do to be more than just terminal care. I wonder where and how I can take any kind of creative initiative that can help change things for the better, but I don't see it at the moment.