Past, present and future

Afte celebrating Saturday and Sunday Mass in public, now I celebrate Thursday and Friday at St Brigid's, then my first at Christ the King on the weekend.  I am 90% very very happy to be back doing this - after all, it's a central part of what we priests are here for.  yet, at the same time, there are other emotions too. There is the whole sitation in which we find ourselves, there are the missing faces, not just those who are not yet venturing out, but also some who have gone home to the Lord. And there is some kind of apprehensiveness after a long gap, made a little more so with my arthritis.

However, over all this I am overwhelmed by the kindness and spirit of our people, who are really great, and of course, the mercy, patience and grace of our loving God. 

So much of this comes together in the Mass. So here is a talk about the Mass, why should we  go back and what's it all about anyway. It's given by Fr Matt Roche-Saunders, the youngest priest in Menevia and probably Wales. I've known him for about 15 years, great man and great sign for the future.

  

The Pearl of Great Price

Our first public Sunday Masses went well yesterday, Deo Gratias. People followed the guidelines of the stewards, but we could certainly do with more stewards (hint hint).

We are not allowed congregational singing, but that doesn't stop yours truly from having a go. As the Gospel was about the Pearl of Great Price, I was trying to think of a hymn that mentions that. Then I remembered one I heard in Canada back in the 80s, so I had a go at that. People seemed to like it, so I searched for a video version, and found this very nice one...

Day and Night

Well, we had some teething problems with our webcam - connections, as always - but we are now up and running 24/7 as planned. If you want to watch just click on the picture in the right column of this blog >>> and it will take you to the parish website. Click the enlarger on your device and the "Start arrow" and you're there.

I celebrated my first Mass with congregation this morning, and felt very happy about it. I guess there were about 15 there, and it was great to be together. Now tomorrow I'm celebrating 10.30, so I expect there will be a larger number, so we will see.

Some of you really liked my little video from 8th July of the King's Return singing "Ubi Caritas" - beautiful. So here is another of their films, this time done live, and filmed on a  phone I think. It's "Silent Night", and who doesn't like "Silent Night"?

Open and Streaming

I think we are all geared up to open for Mass tomorrow, Friday. Meetings have been held, stewards prepared, sanitisers, gloves and other stuff bought. It will be strange for priest and congregation to be together after four months. For us priests it will be strange to not celebrate Mass on our own or just gazing into a camera.

Talking of cameras, we have invested in a new camera system at St Brigid's which wil be able to stream 24/7, that is for all Masses and when the church is empty. The new camera is positioned discreetly rather than on a stand at the front of the centre aisle. Most of the cost has been met from the revenue from parish social events.  Experience shows that some people like to just pay a "virtual visit" from their home, maybe even in the dark hours of the night. The sanctuary light flicker that shows up on the camera can be a moving and reassuring witness to our faith.

 This "snip" that I just took from the trial feed is what people will be able to see on closer up mode...   Of course all these things will take time to "bed down" so we hope we will all be patient with one another. I'll try!   

Churches and reservoirs

We have made great progress in moving towards public Mass. I'm delighted to say that we will be back in St Brigid's and Christ the King (below) from this Friday, 24th July. There has been a lot of work done by some folks to get us this far, and more to do before then. We are particularly in need of stewards to assist on the days when there is Mass. We just held a meeting for them in St Brigid's this morning and will do likewise for Christ the King tomorrow evening. St Paul's are holding a meeting on Wednesday to start the ball rolling there as well. I hope that people will respond and come to Mass. We are all aware of the difficult journey over the last months, and it is by no means over. But as Christians we should be full of hope - hopeful - and step out in faith.

 On a different tack, a communication from Welsh Water dropped through my letterbox this morning outlining their plans for the reservoirs - Llanishen and Lisvane Reservoirs that is - and very ambitious the  plans are too. After years of wrangling etc they took on the site in 2016.  We, the public, are invited to make our comments in the absence of public meetings. Looks good to me, but I'll give it further thought. Meanwhile here is their video, emphasising the Visitor Centre. It's in the form of a "flythrough" a kind of virtual drone view....

Christ the King School leavers...

Yet MORE tech

I'm quite up on Zoom now, and even act as host to two groups. And just when you'e feeling a teeny weeny bit proud of yourself, along comes Teams. For the uninitiated, Teams is a kind of Microsoft version of Zoom.  Christ the King school governors met yesterday evening on Teams, so I had to install the stuff earlier. How did it go? A little easier to get onto when the meeting started, but not so great when it was running. Whereas my big computer screen can take lots of Zoom pictures, Teams only takes nine pics and the rest - another four last night - are banished to initials at the bottom of the screen. If this is wrong, perhaps someone out there can put me right. It seemed a bit more jumpy too...

Then there's Hwb. This is an official site to do with education in Wales, packed full off resources, documents etc, everything to do with schools. You get a Hwb email/ID and you're in.  Except that I can't find what I'm looking for. CK governors now put all our stuff on there in the Hwbcloud - but do you think I could find it fo the meeting?  

And, of course, as with everything else, it's yet another code and password to have.  Again, I don't know how many names and passwords I've got. I have a group of passwords, taking note of those warnings against using the same password. Oh, the trials of the internet!  

 

Talking of which, a quite impressive email scam came my way last week, claiming to be BT offering you a prize, so I decided to follow it to find the catch, and there it was, right at the end. They just needed a pound deposit (who asks for a pound deposit) so please, give us your bank details and a Samsung Galaxy will be yours.  ALARM!

Islands in the Stream

Things are on the move again as it seems Mass will be allowed from Monday, but with the restrictions still applying regarding spacing etc. etc.  Once more we are emailed with info from different sources, not always consistent. Ho hum...

Anyway two school events recently went well.  On Thursday evening we had a Full Governors Meeting of Corpus Christi High School (left) by Zoom. We were 19 taking part, but all went well. Mr Brunnock, headteacher, had prepared a report on how the school had coped since March - fine - and how it looks moving on - not so fine. During the day, the Welsh education minister had decreed that all pupils should be in school by September 14th, so he had to do some quick thinking.

Then on Friday the Governors of Christ the King, our primary school, appointed Mrs Sue Miles as headteacher. Sue has been "acting head" for two years, and did very well, so we were all glad. 

Meanwhile, some music... I don't think I ackniowledged the death of Kenny Rogers some while ago, so here he is singing the classic "Islands in the Stream" with Dolly Parton live. Quality is a bit old and blurry, but I like it a lot.

 

More of such beauty

Lot of bad stuff on the internet, Facebook etc, but many, many jewels too. A video landed somehow in my Facebook this morning. 

Kings Return are a quartet, looks like they may come from Arlington VA maybe - very little about them out there.  Singing in parts in a choir is hard enough, as I remember from our Cathedral choir years ago in the 60s. Singing as a quartet or small choir, where you may be the only one singing that part must be so difficult. Groups like the Sixteen (left) are magnificent - and very well known. But great to see new talent in a very difficult area of music..

So here are the Kings Return singing in Latin "Ubi Caritas" - where love and charity are, there is God.  If you like it hunt around and you will find them doing "Silent Night" and a few others.

Such beauty

Excellent first instalment of three programmes on Beethoven this evening on BBC4. It's 250 years since his birth in 1770. He's been one of my very favourites since first year university. This was nourished by the near-obesssion with Beethoven of my best friend in university, Ken.  I had quite a few LPs (remember them?) and later, even more CDs. 

A favourite in those days was the Emperor Piano Concerto. I remember coming back to my room and playing it loud when my final exams were over in 1974. I think it would still be one of my discs if stranded on that famous desert island.

So here is a version of the slow movement from the Emperor played by Lang Lang. It's a little fuzzy but played with enormous passion and love. At the first entry of the soloist if you hear a gentle noise it will be me sighing at such beauty...

Getting going II

So we are streaming Mass again tomorrow  Sunday via 3churches.org  or Youtube channel frmhj  10.30am.  Then we now have our days for opening the 2 churches for prayer -  St Brigid's Mon 10-11 and Thurs 6-7 pm, Christ the King Tues 10-11. From the following week CK will also open on Saturday. And then, as I said in the last posting, on Friday we will hopefully appoint a new headteacher at Christ the King. On the previous evening the large Full Governing Body of Corpus Christi School will by coincidence meet via Zoom, so that should be interesting with about 16 people. 

This is added to our Sunday morning Zoom Liturgy of the Word at 9.30, and Zoom virtual coffee morning at 11.20 ish and our now weekly Zoom Fraternity of Priests meeting every Wednesday at lunch-time, the last two of which I host.   Quite the Zoomer now!

So I feel a kind of awakening this weekend, what with things moving over the border in England in various ways too.  I generally like to be busy, keep the brain ticking over etc, and while it's been good to have this quieter time, I'm looking forward to slowly getting back into gear.  Several people have told me they fully expect a second wave of the virus in the autumn/winter, but I really hope not, and perhaps we should get praying against that.

Meanwhile another piece of music. My mother could play the piano "by ear" and one piece she would play was the Skye Boat Song, the wistful song about Bonnie Prince Charlie. Here is Barbara Dickson singing it beautifully.

Getting going

Things have been getting a bit busier in recent days. We're in the process of appointing a new headteacher for our primary school, Christ the King. This involved a Zoom shortlisting this afternoon - who would have thought? 

But we're also gearing up to open St Brigid's and Christ the King churches for private prayer. Permission came through from the diocese for both on Monday, and the plan is to start on this coming Monday. Individuals involved have been absolutely fantastic, and it could not be happening without them. Tape is down on the floor, signs everywhere etc etc. Now we have to organise the volunteer stewards/cleaners etc. So many etceteras, that I suspect most parishioners are nor even aware of...

It will be great to have our church doors open again. I saw a quick video of the Archbishop of Liverpool reopening the doors of the cathedral there (above) for the first time - to the sound of loud peals of bells. I can understand the feeling. These are the parish homes of parish families.

Talking of which, Christ the King has had new lighting, been rewired and the floor of the sanctuary cleaned, so here's a nice picture.