Celebrating

Great weekend at Celebrate Wales 2014 up at our local Corpus Christi High School. I particularly noticed a beautiful atmosphere - exciting yet calm. Speakers were excellent and

included Pastor Clyde Thomas (left) from the Victory Church in Cwmbran. He must have been good, because I'm going to get the CDs - which is very rare for me now, to want to listen to a talk again. I was a proud parish priest to see so many of our parishioners taking an active part in every aspect of the weekend, from making the tea to playing the cello to running the PA system to praying with people... Must be doing something right, folks!

I was asked to be main celebrant at the final Mass on Sunday afternoon, which is a great privilege. There were so many children and young people involved, it was wonderful. One of the most distinctive things about Celebrate is that it is very geared to families, with "streams" of activities for all age groups. It really shows up so many Church events where families are excluded because of time of day, lack of facilities etc. Fantastic. Loads of credit to all the organizers especially Mary and Simon on the local level, and Charles, Sue and Jenny on the national level. I nabbed Charles Whitehead - Mr Big in the charismatic world - to come and lead a Day of Renewal here at St Brigid's in November.

Well, today is Bank Holiday, and I've had a quiet day, though the phone rang all morning it

seemed, with little regard for it being a holiday. I was looking forward to a production of "Under Milk Wood" on BBC Wales this evening. This is part of the centenary celebrations of Dylan Thomas's birth in 1914. It was a radio play, so it's not easy to translate to TV. I thought they did well, with its "star-studded cast", but felt that some of the non-actors lacked a certain quality. Tom Jones can belt it out, but Captain Cat's poignant reminiscences are something different. Still, it's a great play. I visited Laugharne last year - and almost froze to death - and, rather like listening to "Myfanwy" sung by a male voice choir, if your heart isn't stirred by "Under Milk Wood" then you're not quite Welsh in my opinion.