Living Church

Wow... something must be wrong - it's a lovely sunny Bank Holiday!! Obviously God forgot the holiday in organizing the weather :)  Anyway, I'm a little tired today after a very busy day yesterday, so I am, as my mother used to say, "lying low". 

Yesterday started with 9 o'clock Mass at St Paul's, but I had to move quickly to get back to St Brigid's for First Holy Communions at the 10.30 Mass. Aaaaah... only three children but what angels. It was a lovely celebration, and continued with cups of tea etc over in the Hall, complete with unbelievably sweet cake. Then it was a dash up to Corpus Christi, our High School, which was hosting "Celebrate Wales". If you've visited this blog before, I hope you will have checked out Celebrate from the right hand column >>> These are Catholic faith-filled wonderful weekends that happen all over the country. Organized jointly by local people and central Celebrate resources, they grew out of an annual Celebrate Week at Ilfracombe. So this is the third Celebrate Wales weekend, and it's of particular pleasure to me that each year a few more parishioners attend. So I spotted Haydn, Barbara, Dan, Max and Ceri among others. 

I arrived in the middle of Eucharistic Adoration, during which there is also personal ministry. Then after a relaxed lunch and time to catch up with some of my many, many friends in Charismatic Renewal, I had to prepare for Mass at 2.45 where I was principal celebrant. These Masses are great, I love them. So joyful, with loads of participation in so many different ways - little children, older children, youth etc etc.  But very demanding too, if you're going to give as much as everybody else does. So, after getting back home at 5 o'clock I just had time for a quick cuppa and sit in my favourite chair before evening parish Mass at 6. And after that, to put it simply, I flopped. But what a beautiful, priestly and fulfilling day!

So I'm just relaxing today, recharging the batteries for the week ahead, and with one eye on the four weeks beginning a week today when I'll be on my own - but that's another story... This morning Max and Ceri were in Mass so I invited them in for a coffee and we spent most of the morning the joys of "Celebrate"!

Meanwhile, it's time for a fun video that I spotted somewhere. What happens to a soaking cloth up in the space station? Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield shows you the amazing effect of weightlessness. Take a look here.

 Pic shows Chris Hadfield walking in space