A cloudy day with breaks of sunshine. The first thing I did when I got up was print off my sermon and pack my back for the drive to Grangetown to celebrate Mass at St Paul's, and went there after breakfast. It was disappointing to learn that no progress has been made on turning the church's gutted nave into much needed homes. Apparently the developers ran out of funding to support the project. Neither apartments nor the promised new church worship space in the former chancel and sanctuary have been built. Hopefully in the course of this new government something can happen to revive parishioners' hopes. At present worship continues to take place in the east end of the refurbished parish hall. There were twenty of us today.
The worship space has been kitted out with its own kit, plus internet for live streaming services. There are large screens at front and back on which hymns and liturgical texts are displayed, and a large table for the celebrant to us on lectern and altar, and it all worked well. The last time I had to celebrate Mass without any books was when I was in Estepona the summer before last. The technology is reliable enough these days, but I still don't like doing things this was as I don't feel fully in control of proceedings or content. South Cardiff Ministry Area uses liturgical some texts from the Roman rite whose new translations from the original Latin leave a lot to be desired for lovers of current English usage. It seems to be such a source of dissatisfaction among the faithful that another revision is in the course of being prepared.
The only problem for me was that I'd not checked Fr Dean's email properly and had prepared a sermon on readings for the 12th Sunday after Trinity, when the parish was observing the feast of the Assumption, transferred from Thursday last, so I had to improvise a from a different set of readings on the spur of the moment. It's just as well that I'd done a reflection around the theme of the death and life of blessed Mary for my Thursday Morning Prayer this week. If I'd thought quickly enough I could have used that reflection, as a basis for preaching, as I could access it from my phone, but didn't. As the Mass was live streamed on Facebook, I hope what I said made sense.
I was home before Clare, as St Catherine's had a cake eating extravaganza over coffee after the service in honour of the 125th anniversary of the consecration of the church. Andrew Sims, a leading lay person at St John's preached, and was met with approval by Clare. He's a candidate for ordination selection now I believe. After lunch, I slept in the chair for an hour, then went to Thompson's Park to photograph the moorhens before going for a walk with Clare in Llandaff Fields.
After supper, I spend the evening with my new Spanish novel before turning in for the night.
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