Surprise announcement

A slow start to the day with a trip across town to St German's to celebrate Mass at eleven. David and Susie were welcoming a visitor from David's home community in Nigeria, his local clan chief, a small moment of delight for us in a church perpetually open to the world. It was half past one by the time I reached home for lunch.

At St Catherine's this morning,  Clare told me that Mother Frances announced that she's resigning her post and moving to the island of Lindisfarne to run the Marygate House retreat centre. I looked at the website, and see it's one of those challenging front line places to go for anyone who takes Christian spirituality seriously. The last few years as Ministry Area leader cannot been anything other than a nightmare for her with colleagues not being replaced, to the point where normal parochial ministry is unsustainable, not least under the burden of added bureaucracy and media management laid upon grass roots pastors. The question is always where to put your creativity to best use for God's service? 

It's a brave decision she's made, to redirect her energies to a front line position which will make good use of her gifts in the spiritual struggle against the spirit of this age. Two ministerial vacancies out of a full time team of four are left behind when she departs at the end of August. There'll be difficulty in providing pastoral cover for four of six parishes in the Ministry Area ad interim, but we coped with covid so we'll get through this. 

After a siesta, we went for a walk into Bute Park. At Blackweir Bridge, a mink crossed our path. It's the first time I've seen one around here. This may or may not be a new occurrence, but I think I should report it, as mink are an invasive species with a damaging impact on existing wildlife.

In the evening we watched a Sky Arts documentary about the musical evolution of jazz trumpeter Miles Davis in the 1970s and eighties, with interviews from his many musical collaborators. It was amazing in so many ways but hard going after an hour and a half, so we switched off and I watched another current episode of Swedish crimmie 'Beck' instead.

When I went upstairs to bed, I took my work rucksack containing my alb, to unpack and hand it up. When I took it out of the bag, the aroma of incense from the morning's Mass greeted me. A blessed reminder of worship on the Lord's Day to end another Sunday.