After my late night walk, I started writing and stayed up later than intended. Not such a good idea as I was already tired, but there was no obstacle to sleeping late, so it was nearly ten by the time we had breakfast. The church we can see from out harbour facing window is Holy Trinity Parish Church, so we joined the congregation of two dozen there for the Parish Eucharist, and received a friendly welcome. They have a curate who's going to be ordained next Sunday. The Vicar has to be there to support her, so there won't be service in the Parish - that's how short of clergy we are to fill the gaps, although there may be a reason behind this.
For the past forty years this parish has been influenced deeply by charismatic evangelical renewal, as have many other parishes in the West of St David's diocese. It's a lot less conventional in its liturgical offering of worship that we're accustomed to. Some parts of the Church in Wales modern language liturgy have been given quite a constructive makeover, I suspect above and beyond what the Bishop or the Welsh liturgical commission would approve of, but the changes are carefully thought out and aim to teach.
As with many churches pandering to modernity, digital display technology trumps aesthetics, with a huge screen obstructing the view of a beautiful Edwardian east window. As books are banished from worship as a result of covid precaution, everything is done on a carefully crafted Powerpoint presentation. Anyone asked to stand in for the Parish clergy has to be up to speed with the customary way of doing things in a church, and that can't be easy if you're unused to these innovations or extempore prayer during the set form of the liturgy.
I'm not at all averse to using choruses and ad-lib prayer in the liturgy, but when is enough enough? When there are no pregnant pauses or periods of silence to absorb the words of scripture or prayer, we risk lapsing into being 'poor little talkative Christianity'. Saying more than is needed risks hindering the action of the Spirit. I too am guilty of this - too many words when fewer would do.
I guess the problem is that we're less than certain nowadays of the shared knowledge foundation of church going audiences. No RE in schools, fewer kids going to Sunday school and confirmation classes, far too much religious twaddle propagated in print and on the internet, as if your opinion or mine is as equal to the mind of the church expressed in two millennia of evolving tradition. In some ways we over-teach and in other ways, under-teach the essentials of disciplined moral and spiritual thinking.
Back in the seventies much effort by different was put into developing approaches to catechesis, dialogical as much as didactic - Alpha courses, Cursillo, Catholic Catechumenate, Ignatian retreats etc, and these have proved effective where it has been possible to support them with suitable people and resources, but in an era of declining support it's much harder to sustain.
Internet resources may be helpful, likewise literature, but they are no substitute for person to person conversation in search of divine truth. How do we earn the right to speak of God and share the Word that leads to life with family, friends, neighbours, colleagues, strangers? After sixty odd years since I realised the importance of this, I'm still trying to find a working answer.
After lunch, we went for a long walk north along the coast path to the lovely village of Llandewi Aberarth a feast of natural beauty, with a small river descending through the village from the escarpment above into the sea. We covered five miles and were pretty tired by the time we returned, but revived after an ice cream made with. honey. I took sixty pictures today, uploaded them and started writing. Neither of us had energy to watch the third and final episode of prison drama 'Time' tonight. A therapeutic dose of unpolluted sea air and sheer beauty has such a tranquillising effect.
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