This afternoon, the first wedding blessing ceremony of my stay, and a lovely day for it, clear skies and a pleasant cooling breeze. The blessing ceremony was held on the terrace of a restaurant with a wonderful open sea view. I arrived an hour early to look at the layout and get things arranged the way I wanted, and not even the bar staff had arrived, but after twenty minutes, they started work and let me in. Given the breeze my challenge was to conduct the ceremony without losing the liturgy leaflet (no longer a heavy old book), or my homily notes, or blessing certificate to the wind, whilst holding a cordless microphone.
It took a great deal of added concentration to cope with these conditions. The hardest task was getting the signed certificate into a flimsy protective plastic wallet whilst both were being buffeted in different directions by the breeze. Fortunately, by this time the ceremony was over and nobody was watching. The forty strong assembly of family and friends, most of whom had flown in from Newcastle in previous days were in a happy mood, un-bothered by the wind. They evidently enjoyed the service and a number made appreciative comments afterwards. This was a relief, in the face of my uncertain coping with conditions that weren't exactly calming.
Judith came along to give me some moral support, and took a few photos for me. She reassured me that this was the only open air service I'd have to do - rather a relief. I stopped for a while afterwards to meet and greet over a beer and some generous tapas. On my way out, a lady stopped me outside in the street below, and told me she'd overheard part of the ceremony and found it moving. He son is due to get married in El Salvador tomorrow. She asked me to pray for him. I was touched by this. It'd be a rarity for something like this to happen in Britain.
No comments:
Post a Comment