A cold and overcast day. I wish it was warmer as my stiff muscles would relax more readily. It takes me longer and requires more effort to get mobile and active while coping with pelvis and back pain. Recently, my Fitbit app tells me that although I may walk a certain number of paces each day, I am covering slightly less distance in the same amount of time elapsed. I reckon the reason is that I walk a little slower and my average stride is slightly shorter due to the condition of my back. On my way to an old man's shuffle.
This afternoon I walked up to Llandaff Cathedral and was delighted to discover that it was open for private prayer between two and four, with a couple of stewards on duty directing visitors to the hand sanitizer station next to to the multilingual visitor pamphlets. It's the first time I've been in a church since my visit with Solvieg to Sta Agnès de Corona the church in the Ibiceno village where she lives nearly two months ago. It had just opened for private prayer the day lock-down restrictions were eased in Ibiza.
It was lovely to see the doors wide open and the 'Croeso' notice outside, along with the usual health and safety notices, all correctly in place. I'd thought about this moment during home quarantine, before it was yet possible. It marked homecoming in a very special way. Standing in prayer in the spot where I was ordained fifty years ago, the place from where I was sent, to become a missionary priest before I fully understood what that meant for life ahead of me. A moment of quiet everyday joy to cherish with gratitude.
Rufus called me for a catch-up chat this evening. It was lovely to hear him in good spirits, enjoying the normal challenges of rural team ministry with the abnormal challenge of ministering to people in this time of plague. He told me about all the preparations he had to make in order to abide by the strict guidelines laid down for public worship, which officially was allowed again last Sunday. I felt a sense of relief at not having to be on the front line of service delivery any more, happy to follow the example of others and learn best practice, should I be called upon to exercise priestly ministry at the liturgy. That's now extremely unlikely, as anyone, cleric or lay over the age of seventy with a official role in public services won't be able to resume in that ministry unless they are given special permission. To receive this they'd need to be fit and well with no vulnerability other than their age.
As a significant proportion of services are taken by retired clergy over seventy in many dioceses, this insistence will either add to the pressure on serving clerics and lay people or lead to reduction in the offering of public worship, further decline in support for parish ministry and church closures. He told me that decline was already being experienced in requests for funeral services in Hereford diocese where he now serves. Restrictions on numbers attending church funerals, especially in the case of smaller buildings is leading funeral directors to call on the services of humanist celebrants more often, as they only bound by restrictions in place at public cemeteries and crematoria. They can adapt to a bereaved family's requirements more flexibly.
Whether this is a general trend or not remains to be seen, it's too early to say. No doubt the Church's requirements will adapt to changing circumstances, for better or for worse, but will the response to quick enough to fend off even greater decline in support? Much has been made of the way in which on-line liturgies have attracted far greater numbers than attendance at public worship. I have yet to see this properly analysed, to reveal how many page view hits have led to the visitor staying for all or even some part of the service offered, and how many people downloading religious podcasts go on to listen to the whole thing.
I know that over ten years this blog has had over 300,000 page hits without any kind of promotion, but that means nothing, set against the number of actual 'followers' notified when I post anything new, with no idea of whether visitors read all or part of any post. All that can be relied upon is personal relationships with individuals and communities over a period of time and in places where we live, work and take our leisure.
Much is made of relationships established in on-line communities but their fruitfulness comes from meetings and actions produced in the real world. No point in kidding ourselves about a revival of interest in what the church has hitherto offered. Covid-19 has brutally forced Christians into creative rediscovery of what the church does best, but it also exposes weaknesses which will take time to tackle well. To my mind the greatest weakness is the withdrawal of pastoral presence from so many communities at grassroots level.
There are interesting signs of hope however. Tina Beattie a Catholic writer and theologian, speaking yesterday on 'Thought for the Day' reflected on how during lock-down, Italian Christian women, often regular frequent Mass attenders, deprived of their main spiritual resource, had been driven to discover afresh 'the church in the home', household spirituality, prayer and devotion in the family circle. Very much a return to Judaeo-Christian roots. I wonder if this is a widespread phenomenon among the steadfast minority of faithful believers across secular Europe? Statistics cannot be relied upon. I think it will be quite a while before the fruit of a renewed spirituality appropriate for our times bears noticeable fruit. All I can do is watch and pray, think and write.
It was lovely to see the doors wide open and the 'Croeso' notice outside, along with the usual health and safety notices, all correctly in place. I'd thought about this moment during home quarantine, before it was yet possible. It marked homecoming in a very special way. Standing in prayer in the spot where I was ordained fifty years ago, the place from where I was sent, to become a missionary priest before I fully understood what that meant for life ahead of me. A moment of quiet everyday joy to cherish with gratitude.
Rufus called me for a catch-up chat this evening. It was lovely to hear him in good spirits, enjoying the normal challenges of rural team ministry with the abnormal challenge of ministering to people in this time of plague. He told me about all the preparations he had to make in order to abide by the strict guidelines laid down for public worship, which officially was allowed again last Sunday. I felt a sense of relief at not having to be on the front line of service delivery any more, happy to follow the example of others and learn best practice, should I be called upon to exercise priestly ministry at the liturgy. That's now extremely unlikely, as anyone, cleric or lay over the age of seventy with a official role in public services won't be able to resume in that ministry unless they are given special permission. To receive this they'd need to be fit and well with no vulnerability other than their age.
As a significant proportion of services are taken by retired clergy over seventy in many dioceses, this insistence will either add to the pressure on serving clerics and lay people or lead to reduction in the offering of public worship, further decline in support for parish ministry and church closures. He told me that decline was already being experienced in requests for funeral services in Hereford diocese where he now serves. Restrictions on numbers attending church funerals, especially in the case of smaller buildings is leading funeral directors to call on the services of humanist celebrants more often, as they only bound by restrictions in place at public cemeteries and crematoria. They can adapt to a bereaved family's requirements more flexibly.
Whether this is a general trend or not remains to be seen, it's too early to say. No doubt the Church's requirements will adapt to changing circumstances, for better or for worse, but will the response to quick enough to fend off even greater decline in support? Much has been made of the way in which on-line liturgies have attracted far greater numbers than attendance at public worship. I have yet to see this properly analysed, to reveal how many page view hits have led to the visitor staying for all or even some part of the service offered, and how many people downloading religious podcasts go on to listen to the whole thing.
I know that over ten years this blog has had over 300,000 page hits without any kind of promotion, but that means nothing, set against the number of actual 'followers' notified when I post anything new, with no idea of whether visitors read all or part of any post. All that can be relied upon is personal relationships with individuals and communities over a period of time and in places where we live, work and take our leisure.
Much is made of relationships established in on-line communities but their fruitfulness comes from meetings and actions produced in the real world. No point in kidding ourselves about a revival of interest in what the church has hitherto offered. Covid-19 has brutally forced Christians into creative rediscovery of what the church does best, but it also exposes weaknesses which will take time to tackle well. To my mind the greatest weakness is the withdrawal of pastoral presence from so many communities at grassroots level.
There are interesting signs of hope however. Tina Beattie a Catholic writer and theologian, speaking yesterday on 'Thought for the Day' reflected on how during lock-down, Italian Christian women, often regular frequent Mass attenders, deprived of their main spiritual resource, had been driven to discover afresh 'the church in the home', household spirituality, prayer and devotion in the family circle. Very much a return to Judaeo-Christian roots. I wonder if this is a widespread phenomenon among the steadfast minority of faithful believers across secular Europe? Statistics cannot be relied upon. I think it will be quite a while before the fruit of a renewed spirituality appropriate for our times bears noticeable fruit. All I can do is watch and pray, think and write.
No comments:
Post a Comment