Nunc dimittis day

Candlemass Day, last day of Christmastide - like Lent and Eastertide, another symbolic forty day season in which the church dwells on its core teachings. At best Advent, as presently constructed, is never more than twenty-eight days. In some traditions, Advent also lasted forty days. I'd value the symmetry of a return to that in our liturgical observance. The secular commercial world makes its season of preparation for winter festivities a good deal longer. There's no good reason why the church shouldn't give more time to assigning Advent counter-cultural significance to late November. Why the so called 'Kingdom' season needed to be invented to cover the latter half of the month of Holy Souls when the potential of extending Advent was already there, I'll never understand.

My day started with a meeting in College, then a visit to St Luke's Canton for the Funeral Mass of Fr Allan Jenkins, another priest who had made the Benefice his home. There were over a hundred people there, many of them clerics, plus three Bishops. Bishop David Wilbourne presided. His predecessor Bishop David Yeoman was among those assisting at Communion. Sitting in front of me was John Hind Bishop of Chichester, my diocesan Bishop when I was in Geneva. It took me a while to recognise him, as he had an overcoat on, and his episcopal garb was not visible. It's thirteen years since we last met. 

Opposite in church was another familiar face it took me a while to identify, Fr Richard Hunt, who as Curate of St Agnes welcomed me to Bristol St Paul's Area in my first incumbency as Team Rector there in the 1970's. He and his wife Jo came to visit us last summer. Seeing him in St Luke's was unexpected until I realised the Chichester connection with Fr Allan whose last job was in Fr Richard's Area Deanery under Bishop John's jurisdiction. Canon Richard Hanford, a boyhood friend, gave a homily of reminiscence and reflection on Fr Allan's ministry, somewhat less concise than the liturgy Fr Allan had devised for the occasion in his dying months, but pardonable in the face of age and grief.

After a brief re-union with Fr Richard, I headed to the office for a couple of hours, and from thence back to St Mike's for the College Candlemass Liturgy. I arrived from the bus in rush hour traffic just too late to join the candle-lit procession from Common Room to Chapel, but instead of annoyance and  disappointment, I had an exquisite moment of sitting quietly in chapel preparing, listening to the congregation as they made their way by candlelight across the cold damp dark quadrangle singing the Taize chant:

'The Lord is my light my light and salvation: In God I trust, in God I trust.'

At the end of the Eucharist, the 'Nunc Dimittis' was sung, as is customary. It had also been said earlier in the day in farewell, as Fr Allan's body was taken from the church. That's the way to go.

As it was Thursday as well as Candlemass, I had a brisk walk home, and an even quicker supper before heading out to Dinas Powis with Clare for her study group, then on to Penarth for Tai Chi, with the big challenge of setting aside a day of powerful impressions in order to focus on being in the moment and in the body for this vitalising learning session. Unusually, we finished with a period of silent meditation. After an hour and a half of conscious physical concentration, it was like swimming in deep warm water.