This morning's frost was sharp enough to harden the soggy turf on the football pitches across Llandaff Fields, so I was able to walk to College for Morning Prayer avoiding the noise road and without getting muddy shoes. Out in the middle, a large flock of little gulls was finding it hard to roost and feed off the grass, taking it in turns to settle, then wheel around silently. They looked like leaves eddying in gusts of wind, quite enchanting to watch.
After breakfast I attended my first senior staff team meeting, which took up the rest of the morning. Then I went to the CBS office for a couple of hours in the afternoon and returned to College for the Family Eucharist. It's one of the special collegiate occasions each week, when students, spouses and children are all together. The smallest ones love the space and freedom to run around and play, and this is fine unless they get tired and fractious. There are always plenty of familiar grown ups around to pick them up and cuddle them, however.
Communion shared in a circle around the altar is always moving and devout, with older children being absorbed by the atmosphere and younger ones being playful or nestling into someone standing waiting to receive. Would that every Parish Family Eucharist could be like this. But, it takes time and persistence to develop. Students are together day by day, children get used to being comfortable with other adults they see regularly. It'll be one of the things missing when they start work in Parishes, something to aim to recreate in an altogether different setting in their endeavours to breathe new life into an ailing church.
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