A new year begins and another is remembered

We attended the Advent Sunday Parish Eucharist at St Catherine's today. In the afternoon Clare went to the German Lutheran Church concert with Royal Welsh College singers taking part at Conway Road Methodist Church, just around the corner from us. I hankered for a traditional Anglican start to Advent, and walked to the Cathedral at sunset for the Advent procession of Carols. Everything about it was beautiful and excellent - choice of music, much of it expected, but a few delightful modern surprises as well, with superb singing by the Cathedral choir. 

The nave of the Cathedral was full, though not the side aisles. Finding a seat with a good view meant walking right around the place. Texts were in English, with a little Latin, but no Welsh was used, sadly. I was a little disconcerted that the subdued 'vigil' lighting was just too dim for me to read from the hymn sheet. A sing of my age. I need much brighter light these days, and dared not resort to using my phone flashlight to see by. 

My eyes welled with tears during the opening responsory and hymn, sensing with heartfelt gratitude the continuity between this beginning of Advent liturgy, and worship in my student days, when my faith came fully alive and claimed me for priestly ministry. At the end of my first University term, I attended an Advent weekend silent retreat which opened my mind and heart in a way that has had a lasting effect on my life. Following this a month later with a Holy Week retreat with the Franciscans at Cerne Abbas completed what began at Advent.

Later, we watched the last episode of the dramatisation of Le Carre's 'Little Drummer Girl' on BBC One. It was a complex story of deception and betrayal, as spy stories are meant to be but I found the ever so stylish and authentic presentation just a little too disjointed to follow easily, cutting between sets of characters and scenarios without it being easy to figure out who was who, where they were and how the fitted in the story, despite occasional use of location titles. Good, but not really good enough to be gripping or persuade you care enough about the characters, all of whom seem to be in different ways, ruthless, cruel, manipulative and callous, on both sides of the Arab Israeli conflict. In the meanwhile, fifty years after this story was set, nothing really seems to have changed. The world continues to watch, seemingly helpless to effect any true justice and reconciliation on a scale which really matters.